'Tis the season for high cholesterol, eating cake for breakfast (not that I did that today or anything...oh wait, I still have some whipped cream on my lip. busted.), and outlandish onslaughts of annoying holiday deliveries from the USPS. This year it seems that corporate America has infiltrated my life even more than usual by "sharing with me" via email holiday sales/last-minute Christmas gift ideas/last day for free shipping/ORDER TODAY FOR CHRISTMAS DELIVERY/40% off - OUR BEST OFFER EVERRRRRRRR!!!/the super easy click me-click on 'show images'-click the link to open the coupon-download the coupon-open the coupon in Adobe Reader-wait for Adobe Reader to say it's a corrupt file-reopen in Preview-print-cut out-take to the store-give the checkout lady your name, email address, date of birth, last four digits of your social security number, and your mother's maiden name- AND RECEIVE 10% OFF YOUR HIGHEST PRICED ITEM (Item must be an original price of $250 or more. This offer does not apply to sale or clearance items, nor can it be used with any other offer. Limit one coupon per household per visit. Walking out of the store and then walking right back in to buy another is not allowed. Honestly, if you attempt to use this coupon, your name will be added to our 'Do not Sell' list posted next to each cash register, so good luck coming back in the future. When you open this email, your name, likeness, contact information, and the future of your small children will all be sold to corporate hacks who will continue to infiltrate your lives with GREAT OFFERS LIKE THIS ONE!!!!!!!). Gee, thanks for that.

But the only thing worse than the cards and the "sales" ads are the Christmas letters. You know what I'm talking about - the impersonal letters printed out on somebody's home InkJet outlining the major events of their family members' lives for that year. These letters are typically printed on cheap scrapbooking paper purchased at your local Kinko's with smiling snowmen or a series of reindeer prancing around the margins. Actually, while I do really love hearing what my friends and family are up to, I secretly believe that these letters are systematically designed to make you feel like shi*. This is why I went for the typical Christmas card this year - no letter, no personal message, just a smart-ass holiday-themed joke with the politically correct statement on the inside referring to the "Holidays" for all of my Jewish and Muslim friends (of which only one Jewish one got a card this year, and no Muslims, but I figured it best to play it safe). For anyone who didn't get one, here it is:


My favorite holiday letters are the ones that are sent out by young twenty-somethings that feature a happy-go-lucky photo of the couple posed in front of the Christmas tree. How quaint. You know, the ones that make everyone say, "I give it two months. Tops." Here's a tip: assuming that position is lethal unless you've either got a ring on your finger or a bun in the oven. Or the ones that are conspicuously screened for any less-than-par imagery. "Stephen and I have been loving every minute of our new empty nest, and we're looking forward to turning young Johnny's old bedroom into a sitting room or office. We haven't quite decided yet, but, you know Stephen - when he gets an idea in his mind, it'll be done in two weeks! Watch out!" But wait a second... why did little Johnny leave the house? Oh yeah! That's because he was kicked out when his folks found him pawning grandad's pocketwatch for crack money. Isn't he in juvie now? Huh.

Ruth sent me an email-based Christmas letter the other day, and, if you're reading this Ruth, I appreciate your honesty. She listed out her major achievements of the year, but she also played it real. She ran for an elected office. She didn't get it, but she enjoyed the process. (You easily could have slid in some curse words towards the second primary voting population in the tiny type here.) I appreciate that. So, in keeping with the honest and real take, I give you my quick-and-dirty Christmas letter:


To my Dearest and not-so-dear-but-I'm-required-to-write-this-to-you-anyway Friends,

The year of 2008 was a roller coaster of emotions, successes and failures for me. I rang in the new year playing Peanut on the living room floor with my mom. Soon after, I was asked to move in with someone post-graduation, to which I eventually teetered towards no. I spent the next few months dating a random list of not--so-quality guys, which landed me in continued counseling and sex therapy sessions (and, yes, the sex therapist's office at Iowa State has a two-way mirror inside it - talk about awkward). I somehow ended up in the only architecture studio that not only did not include an overseas trip, but in fact made it a point that you had to gather all of your information from your desk. After designing an orphanage for a crack-infested town in Nicaragua, I discovered that the head librarian of the Design Reading Room was from there and was in for a big surprise when she attended my final presentation. Whee! In May, I said goodbye to my rockstar roommate and graduated with Honors and triple degrees from Iowa State and became the first student in the school's history to do, well, a number of things. After much deliberation, I decided to turn down the offer to return to my old firm in Minneapolis (which turned out to be a good thing, b/c they're hurting bad right now), and instead moved to Austin, Texas, to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts of Design and to work at a family firm that does mostly work for the University of Texas. At work, I became a "professional shopper" (but yet they refuse to write that on my business cards). I spend most of my days researching products, colors, and prices to make things pretty. Over the summer, I threw a Five Year High School Reunion (go Falcons!) back home, had some reconstructive surgery on the chestules, and donned a bridesmaid dress in my friend Kari's wedding. School has, so far, turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I'm loving every minute of it. I've thrown my declared thesis topic - architectural graphics - out the window and have since turned to challenging that time tested, gay medium of cross-stitch. My final project was a huge success with the critics, and as soon as I get it photographed, I'm sending it off to the United Colors of Benetton's magazine "Colors" and hopefully parading it around some local museums. This fall, I also declared two minors - History and Business (both of which will be complete in May), and worked with a group of lawyers/engineers/MBA candidates to develop a business plan for a line of diabetic footwear that prevents ulceration (on which we landed an unprecedented perfect score!!). (See photo below to toss your cookies.) I traveled out to DC to visit my friend Stephen, and jumped out of a perfectly good airplane when my folks visited this fall. In my mind, my relationships have been improving steadily, however I have also been alerted that they're sometimes just that - only existing in my mind. I got to go to LA and home for Christmas, which reminded me yet again that living in a place where you don't know anyone kinda blows...big time. I'm now in a new and vastly-improved apartment and am working diligently on putting together a life here as a southern belle.

All in all, 2008 was a 'meh' year. It's probably safe to say that it was my worst, at least January-May. So there's only room for improvement from here! Best of luck to all in the New Year, and stay away from Sally Hansen's Lavender Spa Home Waxing Kit (yet another lesson learned in '08)!!

xxoo,
Lisa


I wonder if Kinko's has a holiday paper that would coordinate with foot puss...

I was home mosaic-ing some broken tile on Christmas Eve, and I started thinking about Christmas wishes. At the time, the best I could come up with was, "stop cutting my fingers on this f*&$ing glass!" (Can you tell who it is?)


I figured I needed a reality check, so I sent out texts of "If you had to pick one Christmas wish, what would it be?" to a random list of people. It was really interesting to hear their answers:

"To be healthy" (my friend who has Crohn's disease)
"To ease all of my cousin's pain and suffering"
"Who is this?"
"That everyone in the world could learn to accept one another and get along"
"That my family would all be happy and healthy." "That's retarded and unoriginal." "I'm a mom. It's what I do."
"To make a smooth transition to my new city. I'm worried that I'll get there and find out that there's no place for me."
"200 million dollars" "Yeah, money is nice, but you know there are a lot of things you can do for free that don't cost a thing ;)" "Yeah no"

The great thing about Christmas wishes is that, whatever your wish, you get to put it into action by outlining your plans in your New Years resolutions. So far, I've heard, "To sell the bar", "That you would be happy", "To start taking care of all of the medical things that I've been putting off", "I want to drink more and think less", and "To lose about twenty pounds." Here's my list so far:

-Embrace my cynicism
-Take more chances ("Do something that scares you everyday")
-Make my new home a place of comfort and tranquility where others always feel welcome and hopefully inspired
-Continue to push myself in the handicrafts and find new ways to introduce them to the market
-Travel to at least four new countries
-Slowly but surely work on building my confidence back up
-Be better about writing letters to my grandparents
-Make more. Buy less.
-Be content.
-Figure out what the hell "girlfriend material" really means. (No, nobody said this to me, it's just a phrase that I've never been able to pin down.)
-To be the best me that I possibly can

In light of some news I received on Friday, I'd like to add another one to the list too. One of my very best friends recently found out that she has contracted HPV, the human papillomavirus. Now, if you're been reading this blog the whole way through, you've probably heard me mention it a time or two. You see, I was one of five gals on a research team at Iowa State that studied people's awareness of HPV and its causes, methods of preventative treatment, consequences, etc. Some people would really shock you. In our trial surveys, I actually had a professor in her fifties answer that she thought hugging was one way someone could lose their virginity. Yikes. Most people, if they've even heard of it, know only what information has been portrayed on the Gradasil commercials, and that, my friends, is wrong or misleading about 80% of the time. I made it my own personal mission to educate my friends and family on HPV factoids, and annoyed the hell out of them in the process. But somehow, and I don't know how, I must've missed my very, very good friend. She might have already had it before I learned, and even if I had said something, she might not have sought treatment in time, but, regardless, I feel an immense amount of guilt for what she has to deal with now. No 24 year old should have to have doctors digging around in her vijayjay looking for lumps and bumps that could lead to a whole lot more than genital warts. Not cool at all. So my addition to my list is: Find something that you are passionate about and GET THE WORD OUT. It doesn't matter how annoying you are, never stop if you think it's something that people should know.

If I had to pick one thing that I'd want the public to know at this very moment, it's this: calling me/texting me/emailing me out of the blue without even knowing if I'm dating anyone and asking for sex is really not going to work. I'm serious. This has happened twice in the last week. I honestly don't know how I got a reputation that that was ok, but I've never done it in the past, and it's HIGHLY unlikely it's ever going to work in the future. Besides, asking for sex without even a date or a drink isn't cool, cheap asses. So don't. Please. The end.

Even though it's not New Year's yet, I've already started my work on my resolutions. I figure that "girlfriend material" likely has something to do with cooking and cleaning and all that other wife-ly crap, and I'm guessing that providing a comforting home also requires there to be food for your guests, so I took a stab at cooking. I cook occasionally, but generally not when it's just moi. They say that everyone should have a 'signature dish' - something that you make really well. Mine is toast. And Coconut Orange Angel Food Cake. (Let me know if you want the recipe - it's amaaaaazing...) But I've noticed that when I cook a meal, I generally plan, plan, plan and then when it comes time to put it together, I get all flustered, screw things up, and get really cranky because the longer it takes me to get it right, the hungrier I get... It's a downward spiral.

Santa brought me a cookbook for Christmas this year, and I set out to make Sandra Lee's "Lemon Chicken" - chicken strips fried in lemon-flavored breading and drizzled with a light lemon glaze. Mmm, tasty!


This poor little guy's brothers and sisters all got doused with a layer of disgusting-ness. I figured it was an acquired taste, but, after downing six pieces,  I never did acquire it. Instead, I ended up laying on the couch the rest of the night wondering if it was worth it to run to the bathroom or if I should just throw up right there. The chicken was just way too acidic with all of that lemon juice on it. But, silly me, I thought, "Ketchup! Everything's better with ketchup!" Um...yeah. Ketchup's acidic too. Bad combo. As I lay there on the couch writhing in pain watching "Intervention" (and thinking 'You whiners don't have shi*! Try eating some of this chicken and then tell me how bad meth withdrawal hurts!"), I came to the realization that more lemon juice or ketchup would only make the chicken more acidic. But...what if I had used kosher lemon juice instead? Would that still be too acidic? Or would it just be Hasidic?


I am happy to report that I had the gumption to try cooking again tonight, fish tacos this time (with guacamole, cabbage, red onion, sour cream, whipping cream and taco seasoning no less), and it was absolutely edible and almost tasty. Like I said, there's nowhere to go but up, right?

Well, I suppose that's enough corny jokes and pessimistic sarcasm to last you for a day or two. I'm headed off to San Antonio tomorrow after work to ring in the new year with that crazy Puerto Freakin' Rican and her folks. Then it's back to work for a day and then we're headed up north for Steven and Rebecca's nuptials in Wichita! Karen's not going to be able to make it, so we both snagged her spot in the hotel room. Unfortunately, I drool, so I've been relegated to floor duty. Oh well. If I drink enough champagne at the wedding, I won't even care where I sleep. It's gonna be a good weekend, and a great start to the new year. :) Chins up, ladies and gents! Let's get this year a-goin'!!

On the radio this morning, the deejays asked one of their young interns, "Bri, can you name the seven natural wonders of the world?" After a long and thoughtful pause, she answered, "Umm, Hawaii?" Close. Very close... Or not.

My geography was rattled last weekend as well. In case you didn't know, somewhere between the Los Angeles International Airport and "Walkin' in Memphis with my feet 10 feet off the floor", lies Purgatory. Hell. The Netherworld of domestic flight travel. Let me explain.

I had gone to LA that weekend to chill with my brother and sister-in-law - a little Christmas trade-up if you will. They're trying desperately to save up enough money to buy a house, so instead of them flying home for Christmas, we decided to split the fare of flying me out to LA in leiu of exchanging presents. I guess we decided it was more important to be together around the holidays than to express our love via presents...or some mushy crap like that.

Anyway, on Monday night, my last night in LA, Heather and I stayed up until the wee hours - me frantically trying to discern how the battle between Kennedy and Khrushchev over the Berlin Wall was more a fight for public approval by the West Berliners than it was a territory or arms race, and her just being her genuinely kind self and trying to help me piece it all together. [Fun Kennedy factoids located at the end of this entry.] I ended up getting 1, count 'em - 1, hour of sleep that night, figuring I'd just sleep on the plane the next day.

Ooh, if only...

The flight path was supposed to be LA --> Memphis --> Austin. Two long flights. Two long naps.

On the first flight, however, I drew the short straw. The lady sitting behind me was traveling with her entire chihauhau family, for whom she had purchased their very own seat, mind you. Every time somebody got up to go to the bathroom or walked past her seat on a pleasure stroll, they just HAD to chat it up with her and those "adorable little doggies!" Rats. They're rats. Get it right.  And every time she would explain to them, in her revolting Southern accent akin to what you'd hear from "The Golden Girls" Blanche Deboreaux when she's reminiscing about her days on daddy's plantation, that they're not just little doggies. Oh no. "They're a whole little family! This is mommy, and this is daddy, and this is the little baby right here. You can see how he's got his mama's sweet eyes? He's got his nose from his daddy though. Yes you do! Yes you doooo!!!"

Gag.

I thought I had gotten lucky when I discovered that I got a window seat. Rock on. The lineup in our row was me, a middle-aged Hispanic woman, and a preppy-looking girl about my age in the aisle. The girl says, "Just so you know, on my last flight, I spent all six hours talking to my seat mates. I have a feeling we're all going to be great friends by the time this flight is over!"

Don't count on it.

Not surprisingly, the other lady promptly started scouring for an open seat and was gone in a flash, off to some non-Chatty Kathy or diamond-collar-studded-rat-dog-haven. I lunged from my seat and grabbed for her ankles as she slipped away. "Noooooooooooooo!!! You were my buffer zone!!!!!!!!!"

It was now every girl for herself. I figured that if I didn't speak or make eye contact, maybe I could pass as a deaf or a mute, or... better yet, you guessed it, a DEAF MUTE! Would it help if I wore my notebook around my neck? Helen Keller still has my chalkboard. If it weren't for this damn Texas hat and boots I'm wearing, I might've been able to pass for a foreigner. Scandinavian maybe? Nah, without the hat, nobody'd believe a European could have bedhead this bad. And so I fretted. And slept. And awoke repeatedly to high-pitched yips in my ear. Repeat pattern. Want to die.

Please remember that, unless you cage up your animals and stick 'em in with the cargo, you have to buy them a seat on the plane. Granted those piddly thimbles for butts don't weigh anything compared to, well, my much larger thimble of a butt, but in the eyes of the airlines, a seat is a seat. And that seat is surrounded by other seats full of human-sized butts. Butts that don't want to hear about, or hear directly, your retarded dogs when they're going on little to no sleep.

Once we got close to Memphis, the pilot got on the intercom and announced that we were being directed to go closer to a storm around the airport than he would've liked and to brace ourselves for the ride. As long as it kept those dogs and their pea-brained owner silent, I really could care less. I'd sleep through a train wreck at that point. (Why there would be a train plowing into us at 30,000 feet is beyond me, but you know where I'm going with this.) But again, no. The storm turned out to be a hail storm, and our plane was pelted with these golfball-sized pellets of ice that made it sound like we were under attack. I thought we were flying into Memphis, not Normandy!

My flight to Austin was canceled on account of the storm. On the upside, this meant that I got to munch on some Tennessee BBQ for dinner. On the downside, it meant that I would be stuck at another airport for an additional two hours, only to be then directed to Atlanta, and then, with any luck, to Austin. The flight to Atlanta was uber-short, and I don't even like the prefix 'uber'. But that's how short it was. I got to sleep, about forty-five minutes, bringing the total up to about 2 hours in the past 48 or so.

On the flight to Austin, I sleepwalked back to my seat at the rear of the plane. I was probably in about the fifth-to-last row or so. Ahh, silence, I thought. I'll be lulled to sleep by the noise of the engine and it'll be sweet dreams for me until we get home. Ohh...but then. A lady walked down the aisle, carrying her infant baby girl, followed in tow by three other youngins, all under eight years old. Well ain't that just fabulous? The last thing I needed at that point was a bunch of kids crying through my precious sleep time.

As it turned out, the kids didn't make a peep. The group of 15 15-year olds traveling to some YMCA swim team competition, however, were up snapping pictures and watching movies on their laptops and throwing food and hootin' and hollerin' the whole ride. When we exited the plane, the lady with four kids and I exchanged a knowing glance. The bags under our eyes said it all.

In Austin, they lost my luggage. I then went to the Walgreens by my new place to buy some incidentals (hairbrush, makeup, toothpaste, etc.) so that I could go to work the next day and look at least half-way as a member of the living. It was raining outside, and when I went up to the counter at Walgreens to pay for my purchases, the girl said, "So how're you liking our snowstorm?" "Oh, I just flew in. I must've missed it." Then she got really confused and said, "Um...It's going on right now."

Believe it or not, by morning, there was snow on the ground. Real snow. About 1/16" of it. And that's when I realized that the inevitable had finally happened. Hell had frozen over.




Kennedy Factoids:
1. Kennedy suffered from serious back problems. When planning the parade procession through West Berlin on his 1963 trip, it was assumed that he would stand in the center of the three men in the back of the convertible. Unfortunately, Kennedy's back wouldn't allow him to stand up unbraced for that long, and instead he was relegated to a side seat where he could hold onto the car door for support.

2. Kennedy was fascinated by death, having been traumatized by the deaths of several family members while he was still a young boy. He would frequently ask party-goers and public officials how they would like to die. If they said that they would like to be shot so that they wouldn't suffer, he would generally ask them if they'd prefer to be shot by someone they knew or by an assassin. One of his favorite movies was a foreign film about a prime minister that receives notice that he is to be killed by an assassin by midnight that night. So he bunkers down in his headquarters and surrounds the building with armed guards. Once the clock strikes midnight, they all breathe a huge sigh of relief that nothing had happened. The guards retreat into the building and they all celebrate their success. Just then, the phone rings. The prime minister picks up the receiver...and is electrocuted.

3. Before he married Jackie O., Kennedy took a trip to meet Queen Elizabeth while his dad was stationed in London. After meeting her, he wrote a letter to his brother saying, "I met the Queen and Princess Anne today. I plan on returning to the palace tomorrow and wearing my smart new tweed pants. They fit tightly around my crotch and make me appear very becoming. I hope that they have the same effect on Anne. Will keep you posted."

4. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech given in Berlin was a totally last-minute add-in. His planning staff had been organizing the event for the previous three months, but Kennedy decided to scribble some notes into the margins of his index cards before going onstage. Once there, he spoke in front of the largest audience of his career, in the first major television presentation given in real time and in full color. For the first time ever, Berliners had the option of either going out to see the President's speech in person or watching it on their television sets at home at the same time it was going on. Ironically, many were vocally frustrated that they had to choose one or the other. Many translators poked fun at the President, saying that he mispronounced "Berliner" and it more closely resembled the German word for "jelly doughnut", meaning that he had really proclaimed "I am a jelly doughnut!" rather than "I am a Berliner!". Further analysis has proven this translation to be incorrect. While the Presidents' German can still fairly be described as crappy at best, at least he knew the difference between a human and a breakfast pastry.

There comes a time in everyone's life when you realize you've been putting up with a crappy situation for far too long, and it's up to you to decide if you want to stick it out anymore or if you want to do something to change it. Some of these such situations end in divorces, some end when you send your brats off to boarding school (aka boot camp), but, for me, my situation revamp has led to:


Read it again. Everrrrrrrr. Á laThe Sandlot. Speaking of which, here's a classic clip from that classic movie, and every little boy or lonely middle-aged man's dream.


So, any ideas what the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT ever is? If you're my 14-year old cousin, it'd be a life-size poster of a scantily-clad Eva Longoria (I say poster because if he was to actually meet her in the flesh, he'd explode / spontaneously combust / be reduced to an atom-bomb-like conglomeration of 'excited' atoms. Chernobyl would seem like a sparkler in comparison to this one.)
  
Nope. This present is even better than that. Give up? I moved out. Yep. My perfect December 1st marked my glorious move into a new apartment allllllll to myself. :D :D :D :D

Ever since I've moved away from home, I've lived by myself more often than not. Of the traditional random-placement roommates, I've had one stellar one (Meggo), and one that continues to creep me out to this day just via the memories. She was my roommate when I moved to Iowa State my freshman year, selected only based on the proximity of our apellidos in the alphabet. From the letters we exchanged that summer, she seemed pretty cool. Once we got there, however, I soon found out that this girl was the biggest slob in the world with creepy habits to boot. When she did her laundry, she would hang her thongs from my bedposts to dry. If you were to open my fridge (note that was MY fridge), you'd find her collection of tube socks (this one came with the explanation that cool socks helped her feet not to sweat. Make sense...I guess...but come on...). And of course we can't forget about the deep bass, gravely smoker's voice waking you up every morning with a "Good morning, Lisa," that made me wake up in a panic and wonder what 50 year-old leather-clad biker dude I had brought back to my bunk the night before. It was either that or one of Marge's sisters, from The Simpsons, but I don't swing that way.

I could've put up with the roommate situation, of course. It wasn't a life-or-death catastrophe, but what was the point of grinning and bearing it when I could start flirting with the betrothed CA and get a new super single to open up by the end of the week? You have options, my friends! Use them!

It was the same deal with this most recent roommate arrangement. Sure, I could've stayed there and started hoarding razor blades in my growing rage and desire to slit my wrists, but it was doable. But WHY? I  put up with a lot of crap on a daily basis, more than my fair share if you ask me, but this was one situation that I could change. I discovered that it's not until you're to the point where you're spending your holidays doing homework and taking catnaps in your car in the parking lot of Boston Market (which does a killing on Thanksgiving meal deals, by the way) or pricing out local hotel rates just so that you don't have to go home for another second, that you really understand the value of relaxing enough to be able to, oh I dunno, sit on your own couch? (If you have a roommate, even if the couch is yours, this is most likely going to be located in 'shared territory' and therefore off-limits if you don't want to even see your roommate, let alone let her catch you off guard as you're in a relaxed state.) Or to leave the house in the morning and be 99.9999% certain that the place will look the same when you get home at the end of the day. No messes. Nothing broken. No unexpected visitors. But the best part by FAR is...






It's really pretty amazing how fast you can move when you want something done badly enough. In a nutshell, here's how my moving itinerary panned out:

Day 1: Feel like prisoner in your own home, even though you own the prison and all the goodies the guards are partaking in. Send ridiculously long and whiny emails to friends. Be told that I'm not alone and that "just be thankful you don't get your roommate's pubes on your soap like I do." True dat. 1 point for person X.

Day 1 to Day 2: Lock yourself in your room for around 20 hours to avoid others in house.

Day 2: Decide enough is enough and meet with apartment locator and your own apartment complex to discuss options.

Day 3 to Day 4: Shop online for apartments.

Day 5: Tell roommate moving out and witness the realization of the shallowness in its finest form.

Day 6 to Day 7: Focus on work and school and schedule appointments to visit apartments.

Day 7: Pack up kitchen supplies after roommate and guest make huge meal using all of your supplies.

Day 8: Meet with realtors and tour apartments. Pack remainder of items. Paint over kitchen, living room, entry, dining, and bathroom.

Day 9: Meet with two more apartment locators and put down payment on backup apartment.

Day 10: Sign release forms at current apartment, purchase new apartment, move carload of boxes to new place.

Day 11: Switch off all utilities at current apartment, have movers come to carry furniture away, move rest of smaller items in car, unload everything at new place, and sigh a huge contented sigh of bliss.

[Note also that the above events took place in between working 30 hours a week at my firm, school classes, finals week, and the erratic schedules of businesses being closed for Thanksgiving.]

So there you have it. A week and a half and not only do I have a new address, but I have freedom. Not to mention wood floors and built-ins. :) Without further ado,... I would love to show you my new place. But I can't. I made a movie of the new apartment, but unfortunately iMovie's on crack and doesn't want to import the sound. This is probably a lucky thing because I made it after my Diabetic Footwear Solutions team presented our kick-ass business plan for our new product Soccasins to a group of venture capitalists, and, well, we basically ruled. And then we went down to the bar in the basement of the AT&T Conference Center, and we celebrated. And I discovered that if you haven't had an alcoholic beverage in about two months that a single glass of wine can pack some serious punch. As we were leaving the bar, I told my teammate Seth that I almost felt like I should drink a glass of water before we left. He was like, "Are you serious? I feel like I need to order a beer for the road!" Long story short, we've decided that our next business venture will be to create some sort of sippy cup/to-go cup for alcoholic beverages. I have a feeling we're onto something... Maybe not something legal, but something nevertheless.

If I can only show you one picture, however, here's my favorite: the kitchen (This is from the demo apartment. Mine's still full of boxes of dishes to put away.)

 

On Tuesday, I returned from my much-anticipated visit to Washington, D.C. to visit my friend Stephen. I’d wanted to go back there to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum ever since I took Kris Van Der Lugt’s fabulous Holocaust course last fall at Iowa State. And now that I knew somebody living there, it gave me every reason to finally make the trek.

Visiting the Holocaust Museum was just one of many things that I’ve got on my list of things to accomplish before I die. A couple of weeks ago, I ticked another one off the list. I finally, FINALLY went to see Martin Sexton in concert. If you’re not familiar with his music, Martin Sexton does this sort of folksy, Americana type music with a really funky beat and awesome lyrics. And goodness knows I do love the lyrics. This is exactly why I intend of having Jason Mraz’s linguistically genius children.

Now we all know how awkward I am, and me going to that concert was nothing new in that department. Since my newly acclaimed hermit status means that I hardly go out anymore, going to a bar on a Sunday night felt pretty strange. And I can guarantee you with 99.9% certainty that I was the only gal there that night that had packed a book on the Haitian Occupation (love how that rhymes!) in her clutch handbag. But once the music started, I forgot all about my book or even how much my feet hurt, and I got completely lost in the music.

First up was an opener, an unknown guy with the most perfect teeth you have ever seen. His music was very similar to Martin Sexton’s style, but all I kept thinking about was how much I would give to be that microphone. Sigh…


Then the real act arrived. And I realized that, for all of the years that I had been listening to his music, I don’t think I had ever seen a photo of him. In fact, I had always pictured him as a tall, slender black man playing his guitar on the back porch of some Arkansas plantation. Boy was I in for a surprise when Jack Black’s stunt double showed up wearing a guitar!

(Yeah, I still have no idea how to rotate an image on here. Anybody know?)

I had gotten there early enough to secure a spot in the VERY FRONT ROW. Literally, if I had wanted to, I could’ve reached out and hugged him by the ankles. Granted, that would be extremely creepy, but I still thought about it. But then I imagined him falling into his amp and getting wrapped up in the cords and there would be sparks flying everywhere and one of them might fly up and catch the shirt of the lady next to me’s on fire and, if that burned up, well nobody wanted to see what she was like underneath…. So I decided against it.

A wise person once told me that good music isn’t about what it sounds like, but what it makes you feel. Deeeeeep. So I tried it out. Here’re the thoughts I thunked during Martin Sexton’s performance (in no particular order):

Why is there a random grape on the stage? Do they even sell grapes here? Do they even sell food at all? It could be an olive from somebody’s martini… No, no, that’s definitely a green grape. Bizarre. --- K, Martin’s starting to get a little sweaty now. Wouldn’t you want to double up on the Speedstick if you knew you were going to be on stage? --- What’s up with this lady standing next to me? Not only did she make a pass at the stage manager before Martin started and while her husband was at the bar getting her a drink, but now she’s making googly eyes at Martin and singing EVERY single word to his songs. How is that possible? Most of these words I’m sure he’s making up on the spot! Wait. Maybe she’s not even singing. It kinda looks more like a cross between having a heart attack or an orgasm. I feel sorry for her husband. --- Hmm, what’s next on the playlist? Oh man. Please don’t play that song. I love all of his music, but I’m not prepared to hear that one tonight. I know, I used to have that song as the only song on a CD, and I’d listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, but I took that one out of my car for a reason. Please don’t play it. --- He always wondered why some of the trees would lose all of their leaves in the winter but others were able to hang on. He was just standing by the window, watching the snow come down. I asked him what he was doing, and he silently took me by the hand and led me outside. The last leaf had finally fallen. He had hung on through the end. Then everything was still…

You asked. I answered. Now don’t ask questions, k? Cool.

So seeing Martin Sexton was one thing on my to-do list. Another was going to the museum in D.C. In retrospect, the museum visit was just a mere mention on the list of the many, many cool things that I got to do and experience while I was in the land of our forefathers though, so let me just hit the highlights.

I flew in on Saturday and we headed to Stephen’s house to drop my things off:


Aight, so that’s actually a photo of the Smithsonian museum headquarters, but it’s very similar. ☺ Saturday night, we headed out to Chinatown (where, as I was informed, there aren’t actually any Chinese - just a handful of signs with Mandarin writing on them underneath the English names of the establishments). We went to this fabulous restaurant for dinner and then meandered our way through the National Mall. The Mall looks especially dramatic in the nighttime. There was some sort of grade school peace demonstration going on where different school groups had decorated tents that were set up on the Mall. But not very well – many of them had collapsed in the wind, and it looked more like a war zone than a peace demonstration. Kinda makes the point hit home even harder…


The next day, we rolled out of the house at the crack of 11 and hit the museum. I was giddy with anticipation – Stephen was pissed that he had forgotten to leave his pocket knife at home and it was confiscated by the security peeps at the entrance. I guess they were afraid he was going to slice and dice some informative display plaques or something? Still not sure on that one.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum, it’s divided into a handful of different stages. You begin with the pre-war descriptions of how things came to be. It’s difficult to understand in retrospect of why the Germans would go along with the whacked-out ideas of Aryan superiority and the need for increased “Living Space” if you don’t learn that it all happened in baby steps. The Holocaust didn’t happen overnight; it was a strategically designed long-term experiment that was nestled in centuries of anti-Semitic feelings and the German desperation at that time to have a fresh beginning after their embarrassing loss in the previous war. From there you go through the concentration camp phase and eventually into the aftermath of the war.


(Seriously, why is LiveJournal so gay??)

The museum is largely text-based, with only a handful of relics, most of which are on loan from other museums or are cast reproductions of the originals. The stage that takes you through the concentration camp phase houses the most interactive variety of installations. You can walk through a rail car that would have been crammed with hundreds of bodies on the devastating journeys between camps. Some of those bodies would have been dead and rotting, and others would be alive, but barely – wishing upon wishing for food or water, reaching their hands out the side of the car to gather snow or icicles  - anything for a taste of sustenance.

The museum is set up very wisely in that each of the television screens that show the more graphic footage are lowered behind four-foot walls so that small children can’t happen upon them unsupervised. However, while I was entranced in one of these that was showing still shots of the medical experiments (extreme air pressure, extraction of certain organs, the reaction of the human body to consumption of large quantities of salt water, etc.), I noticed a small boy of no more than 7 years standing next to me, also watching the screen. He was on his tip-toes and grasping the wall to hold himself up high enough to see over the top. I was just ready to tell him that he probably shouldn’t be watching this without a parent when I realized that his dad was standing just on the other side of him! Not a care in the world, as he let his son watch naked women and mutilated organs and brains displayed on cutting boards with the doctor flashing the camera a proud smile of accomplishment. What kind of a message is that sending? Stephen and I talked about this later, and we decided that there’s a certain age at which, younger than that, the kids aren’t going to have a clue what they’re looking at, but at and above that age, they need to be eased into that sort of imagery. It needs to come with in-depth, child-level explanations and take-home messages. This kid, in my opinion, was far too young to be seeing what he was seeing, and he was old enough to know exactly what he was looking at.

Unfortunately, the museum cannot control for all age-appropriate disseminations of information, however. Stephen and I watched a short movie at the museum that was introducing Adolf Hitler and explaining how he won over even the wisest of the German population into following his devilish schemes. The movie said that he was a charismatic leader who used his powerful capabilities of public relations to exchange ideas of pure evil to his public. At that, the lady sitting next to me leaned over to her young boy and said, “Just like Obama.”

We had eaten breakfast that morning, but by the time we had made it through the museum (it took us about five hours), we were depressed and dejected and tired and starving. In fact, we felt exactly (okay, so maybe we had an miniscule inclination of) how those prisoners must have felt. Also, since the museum is set up so that you start at the top of the building and wind your way down to the bottom, it feels like it’s getting progressively colder and colder (and more hopeless) as you go. Once you grab your coat and step outside into the cold November air, you kind of just want to cry.

Personally, I don’t see what the big deal was. The so-called prisoners got to take an extended vacation from their jobs to the countryside where they were provided with the essentials of life and given glamorous jobs like being tailors and cooks and shoemakers and professional landscapers. Those jobs sound like fun! Alright, I give. It was just plain depressing. Educational and enlightening, but depressing.  My aunt works with, for lack of a better term, “juvenile delinquents”, and one of them visited this museum on a recent trip to D.C. She said that the kids rarely get psyched up about anything, but this kid was raving up and down about the museum. Now that’s a sign of a successful educational venture.

The next day, Stephen had to go into work, so I was left to my own devices. First mission – master the bus system and the subway system. Success! I took the mass transit down to the Foggy Bottom stop to visit the historic Georgetown area. But when I came out of the subway station, I had no friggin’ clue where I was. It sure didn’t look like the Georgetown images I had seen online. Online there were photos of these quaint little brick rowhouses and a waterway lined with shops and restaurants. Here, I saw the university and lots of tall office buildings. And so, I meandered. And found some of the cutest houses ever, all decked out in their east-cost glory. But the best part was the leaves – leaves, everywhere! Sigh… I miss living in a place where the concept of “fall” actually exists.


I eventually found the area I was looking for and happened into a jewelry store. Hey, I figured I needed a souvenir of my visit. That idea was thrown out the window when I looked at the first price tag I came across - $5000…and that was for a pinkie ring. The lady asked if she could help me find something, but I said, “No, thanks. I’m just looking.” (And I promise I won’t touch a thing, lady. I swear. Do you need to see my driver’s license before I look around? Or should I just show myself out?)
There was a set of shelves there that caught my eye because all of the pieces on it were in the shape of diamond crowns – crown pins, brooches, crowns on necklaces, and chokers, and even, set atop a mannequin head, a full-sized diamond crowd. Down the shelf from the crown: a framed photo of the Miss America pageant wearing that exact same crown. Turns out that this store supplies all the contestants with their bling.

Looking around, there were also photos of Mrs. Bush wearing the crystal choker that was displayed next to the photo, photos of Mrs. Reagan, secretaries of state, vice presidential wives, and, my favorite, a framed photo at the door of what looked like Bill Clinton flashing a gang sign. He was actually showing off his diamond-studded cufflinks. ☺

For lunch that day, I took up a table at Nathan’s, a small pub in Georgetown where they had waitresses with thick, unplaceable accents and CNN blasting on the flatscreens over the bar. The news was reporting that Obama and his wife were to visit the White House that day to see Mr. and Mrs. Bush, and, I figured, most likely to arrange their new decorating scheme for when they move in January 20th. So, I did what any dedicated designer would do. I finished my meal and high-tailed it down Pennsylvania Avenue to go offer my insight. After all, the news showed that Mrs. Bush was wearing an orange dress and Obama’s wife an red one. They totally clashed. It was clear that they had no insights on color coordination. I was a little worried about my level of perceived professionalism – after all, I didn’t even have my paint cards or fabric swatches with me – but I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And hopefully one with a handsome monetary reward…or at least a tax break.


When I got to the White House, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be going inside anytime soon. At least not until those pesky gargoyle-looking Secret Service men on the roof with their sniper rifles came down. The place was hopping with camera crews and tourists, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the president and president-elect as they came out of the house. Have you ever been in a situation where you’re surrounded by police and you have to bite your tongue from screaming, “BOMB!!!!” at the top of your lungs? I just wanted to see what they would do. Sure, they look all domineering and in-control now, but how would they react in a crisis? I decided that if they figured out it was me that had called out the false alarm, all I’d need to do is say that they had misunderstood me. I hadn’t said “Bomb!” I had said, “O-BOMB-A!” Silly Secret Service men.

I gotta tell ya though, the Obamas are in for a disappointment when they move into the White House. Little did I know, but the White House is the crappiest house on the block. Total crapshoot real estate. Sure, it occupies half of the block, but the other house there, the Eisenhower Administration Building, is wayyyyy nicer. The White House may have a yard, but the Eisenhower is probably 8 times as big, and has a much nicer color palette than white, white, and white. C’mon, Prez, let’s jazz it up a little, eh? You think that the Obamas will paint some of the outside of the White House brown? After all, it’s a little racist to call it the “White” House…

That night Stephen and I reunited and went to a church where he tutors kids once a week. Say it with me now, “Awwwwww…” Kinda makes me want to pinch his cheeks. ☺ Anyway, I got teamed up with Mercedes, an 11th grader, and I got owned on World History and Biology. Our outing to the church was completely unplanned, but, all-in-all, it was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

If I had to name what the absolute best part was, though, I think it would have to be more vague than just one singular event. Yes, I got to go to a museum that I’d been wanting to see for a long time. Yes, I got to visit the behind-the-scenes workshops at Goddard where they build the kick-ass vessels that go up into space. Yes, I got to see…well, everything. But the best part, BY FAR, was getting to see someone in their element. I’ve known Stephen for several years through school and clubs at Iowa State, but to really walk in the shoes of another, even if only for a few days, I feel like I know so much more about his world now. And, in my opinion, he is exactly where he needs to be to succeed. I wonder sometimes whether Texas really can offer me what I need to go where I want to go, and often my answer is “no.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place, but I don’t know if my future really lies in a state where they sit around and eat deep-fried pig’s ears. God I hope not. But, for Stephen, I can see him truly thriving in D.C., for as long as he chooses to stay there.


It’s kind of like when you’re in eighth grade, and you have to go on Job Shadow Day. Anybody remember that? At my school, they actually called it Take Your Daugher to Work Day, but then they got in trouble for promoting sexism, so they changed it. Before you went, you had to take a test that would select your ideal future profession based on your interests and skills. At the time that I took the test, I was still trying to choose between being an animator for Disney, being a teacher, illustrating children’s books, or running for President. None of those were my result. Nope, the test told me my ideal career would be to “install fence posts” for a living. All of my friends got jobs like “doctor”, “lawyer”… I got fence posts.

Of course that’s not the future I ended up choosing for myself, but, who knows, maybe I’ll hang onto it as a backup career. All I know is that I got to see someone first hand who knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and moreover, he was doing it. Now that's commendable.

The more I think about this trip, the happier I am that I went. I got to see some amazing things, and I hope that I don’t forget them anytime soon. Thank you, Stephen, for a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Hopefully one day I can return the favor.


P.S. I also found out that I'm one inch taller than Martha Washington - SCORE!

You know, what they say about 'if you don't use it, you lose it' is really true. My Spanish, despite having spoken it/studied it for the past 13 years, is really going down the pooper. But, thanks to my handy dandy www.spanishdict.com, I know that the actual title I was going for for this entry was "Actualizaciones" - or "Updates". Good to know...

So, after my last gut-wrenching entry, I feel it necessary to give you an update on how the whole gumball-in-the-boob turned out, as well as to follow up on a couple of other happenings that were mentioned in here in earlier entries. First off, let me just get this off my chest (ahh...so punny) - the breast cancer scare turned out to be nothing more than that. Just a scare. WHEEEEE!!!!!!!! I never did have to get an ultrasound, just got a phone call from my surgeon on Monday saying that it wouldn't be necessary b/c she maintains that it's more than likely just scar tissue. Granted, there is still the chance that she doesn't know a cancerous lump from a doughnut hole, but for this case, I'm going to claim that ignorance is bliss and just accept her explanation with a really, really big smile. Like this: :-D. Furthermore, I found out that if you massage the scar tissue every day, then it will break down (maybe not completely, but at least some), and mine is now more akin to a spherical quarter than to the boulder I originally felt. Gotta love any health regimen that requires you to intimately touch yourself, eh? Or I guess you could use it as an excuse to have somebody else touch you. (Any takers?) Either way, I'll take this over leg lifts or cough syrup any day.

Secondly, and this one's mostly for my mom since I think she's about the only person interested, the sewing project is cruising along...if you consider the average speed of a tortoise with arthritis 'cruising'. Yesterday, for example, I woke up at 5 am and worked on it until bedtime. On the upside, it's giving me an opportunity to watch a lot of really great movies while my butt slowly welds itself to the bed. This weekend, I watched Cool Hand Luke (meh), The DaVinci Code, and American History X. These are all selections from my "Must-See Movie List". So far, I've got the following on the list - can  you think of any I should add?

The Shining
The Graduate
The Last Emperor
Citizen Kane
Passion of the Christ (to those of you who have seen it, am I going to understand ANY of this movie??)
Everything is Illuminated
Stranger than Fiction
City of God
12 Angry Men
Dr. Strangelove
Wall-E (yes, Ryan, I got it on there)
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
Reservoir Dogs
No Country for Old Men
Fargo
The Last King of Scotland
Donnie Darko
Monster
Judgment at Nuremburg
Snatch
Trainspotting
Letters from Iwo Jima
Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels
Rosemary's Baby
Mystic River
Nightmare Before Christmas

Also, has anyone seen any of those movies and know that they suck? At 5 dollars a pop, thanks to Blockbuster's upped prices, I rather not waste my time on the crappy ones. But, anyhoo, after working my tail off on this thing for about three weeks, here's what I've got so far. $2 if you can tell me what it's supposed to be (WITHOUT looking back at the base photo that was posted earlier).


In other news, remember the "Get ready for Apple Dipping!!" card that I sent the family friend with cancer? Wasn't quite sure how that one was going to go over, but I finally got a wonderful Thank-You card back. It was clear that the inside was written by his wife, but he wrote on the back of the envelope "GREAT CARD! It made me laugh." And that made my day. :)

I have a stellar addition to add to our collection "Photos of People who are Stupider than I Are". This summer, I designed a total renovation of the first floor of the Perry Castañeda Library, the central library for the University of Texas. One of the stipulations of the project was that we had to accommodate two incoming sculptures that would be housed in the lobby of this floor, but nobody had seen them until they were installed. When they came in, we received an elated email from the deans of the Library saying that the artwork was on loan from MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), and would consequently serve as a major highlight to their space and to help them gain funding support from art lovers. Well, as it turns out, the two pieces that were installed in that space were only two in a large collection of pieces that were installed on campus. There ended up being five inside the library in all, two went to the LBJ Presidential Library, and a smattering of others ended up at various strategic points around campus.

Now as I understand it, these are just part of a traveling exhibit, on an extended loan from the Museum to the University. So they were not created with site-specific intentions, as they will ultimately move around to several different locations. HOWEVER, that being said, it is always necessary to take into consideration the location where these pieces will be installed, even if it is only temporary. When it came to the piece "Landmines", the committee that approves the public arts on campus had the brain-zinger that it should take a place of prime importance in front of the campus's signature tower. Kind of like Iowa State's campanile (which is only about a tenth the size of the tower - guess everything  really IS bigger in Texas), UT is centered around a tall belltower, and its image takes a forefront in much of the advertising for the university. So, with that in mind, here's a photo of the "Landmines" installed in front of the revered tower:



Its name has now been changed from "Landmines" an example of public art to "Pubic Art". Here's to taking the campus's pride and joy and turning it into a huge phallus. This has now become my new favorite spot on campus. Ahh...a little to the left...yeah, that's the spot... (By the way, those balls are made out of ionized steel - I dare you to try to bust those balls. Personally, I wouldn't touch 'em. They're all covered in little bumps. Must be some sort of an STD or something. Yikes.) So maybe it would be my good deed for the day to go out there and rub some ointment on "Pubic Art" sometime. See if we can't get those bumps to go away. Gotta be painful - they're starting to rust already!

Speaking of good deeds, there's something I wanted to share with y'all. Maybe you can help me out. I got this excellent letter from my mom a while back, and I think it's so great that it's worth sharing with anyone and everyone. Grab some tissues, 'cuz here we go:

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This is to all of my children: Matt, Scott, Lisa, Tara, and Heather

Dear Kids,

I would like to make a request. At this point in my life I feel that I have been blessed. I have food on the table, clothes on my back, a roof over my head, and love from those I care about. You are all always so generous at Christmas. This year I would like to do something a little different. If you are willing to play my game, here it is. Do not buy me a gift this year. Instead, I would like each of you to spend this time before Christmas doing random acts of kindness. I know you have all heard of this before and know that it does not need to include money or lots of time. All I ask is that you write down what it is you do and give it to me at Christmas time. I will not give them to anyone else to see, unless of course that is something that you wish to do. It is for my eyes and heart.

If you are still unsure of what I mean, some ideas may include: baking someone cookies or dinner if they are stressed, perhaps it is only a kind word or an ear when they need to talk, maybe you would pay the next guy in line's toll at the toll bridge, maybe give someone gloves or a hat when it is cold, help an elderly person carry their groceries, the ideas are endless. If you want, there are lots of websites with ideas galore. The idea is to do something to make someone's life happier, if only for a moment.

What you give to me can be as plain or fancy as you want. That part does not matter. I don't care if I get scribbles on a napkin. The idea is that you did it.

I hope that you chose to play. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Love, Mom and Mom-in-law

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After getting this letter in the mail, I too sent out a letter to all of my family members. It simply said, 

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Dear Family,

Wasn't that a lovely letter we got from Mom? Just so that there's no confusion, I wanted to clarify that I am not nearly as warm-hearted as she and will still be expecting oodles and oodles of expensive gifts. If you have any questions, I would also be happy to supply a list of ideas.

Love, Me

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Nah, not really. But I thought about it. My mom's pretty cool though, huh? So here's what I'm thinking. I've been "playing her game" for awhile now, but there's absolutely no reason why this needs to just be something within our family. Let her "game" be an inspiration for all of us to get our butts moving and to think about ways to help other people. If you follow through with anything and you want to be a part of the "game", feel free to send your list of completed random acts of kindness on to me, and I'll be happy to pass them onto my mom. She'd be tickled pink to know that you helped. Well, more like a blotchy red than pink, actually, 'cuz I can guarantee you that she'll be balling her eyes out. :) 

Happy pre-Holidays, everyone!

On October 22, someone (let me know if you want to be identified - I wasn't sure) wrote this entry in their live journal:

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This is a discussion question I wrote today for class...maybe some of you will ponder this:

Are more and more women made to feel like ticking time bombs? Anyone who pays any attention to the media knows that breast cancer awareness has seen a huge rise in media coverage. The idea of performing radical surgeries like mastectomies to prevent breast cancer or passing it on to future generations is gaining media attention as well. This idea attracts women who don’t have or may never get breast cancer. Breast cancer treatments are getting better…and more profitable. Are radical procedures like mastectomies just another way to broaden the market for those who make huge profits from breast cancer treatment? Is it another way to make women more dependent on medicine? Are the awareness and the advent of preventative surgeries truly genuine?

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I read it the other day and tried to post a reply. Maybe the system was down or just the system inside my blonde head, but I couldn't get it to work. I asked them why their journal was being so lame; they responded that it was probably because my comment was too lame; and then I told them that they'd be too lame to understand it anyways. So I refused to post it out of protest. Now I think I know why I wasn't able to post that day. It's been a long day. Let me tell you about it...

Having read this entry on Monday, my experience in volunteering at the Race for the Cure of Austin on Sunday was fresh in my mind. So that's what I was going to write about. This was the first year that I've ever not run in the race. I've done it several times in Moline, once in a small town outside of Denver, and then last year I had to do the Bix since the Minneapolis race was held before I moved there. Okay, so I guess that makes twice that I haven't run it.

The first time I did it was with my mom and my grandma, and we walked it. Bless her heart, but my grandma was so slow that even the ladies carrying the quilt that was supposed to mark the end of the race asked if they could pass us. By the time we got to the end, they were already picking up the traffic cones. No matter. We did it, and we had a blast.

The next couple of times that I did it were with Rae, and we ran in memory of her grandmother. We covered our "In memory of..." signs in happy stories about her. (Once I started volunteering at Gilda's Club, my signs became lists of single names - no stories - that would fill one or two of these papers.) Rae and I always ran the 5k, and the first year, I beat her. The second year, I made it to the finish slightly ahead and waited for her at the gates so that we could run through together. But no. As she came barreling through the last leg, she saw me and just kept on going full force. Her finish time of like .5 seconds ahead of me is something she'll never let me forget. Doesn't matter what actually happened, I suppose, she's got the paper proof on her side. Damn her anyway.

The next year, we got separated at some point during the race, and I found myself trotting along with a stray dog running along with me. Aww..., I thought. How cute is that? He was trucking right along too, a little weiner dog with those corks-for-legs just pounding the pavement. Then, he started to pull ahead. I tried to catch up with him, but he was too fast for me, and I had consumed too many twinkies prior to the race. I just got beat by a dog, I thought. Oh, but it was much worse. As he pulled ahead, I finally saw the other side of his body for the first time. And I realized that he was missing his right hind leg. Yeah, not only did I get beaten by a dog...I got beaten by a three-legged dog.

So maybe it was out of fear of a possible repeat humiliation, but this year, I decided to volunteer at the event instead. You don't have to pay an entrance fee, you get a free shirt,...it all sounded like a great idea until I learned that my shift would start at 5-freaking-30 in the morning. Seriously, why are volunteer events always held at ungodly hours? Don't they know I'm far more charitable after 10? (FYI - it's 6pm if you're hoping for money.)

Do you ever find yourself wondering what the South Austin shores of the Colorado River look like at 5:30 am? Why, yes, yes you do? Great! Allow me to illustrate:


Exciting, huh?

My official command at the race was "Finish Line Crowd Control." I guess they took one look at me and immediately noticed my bouncer-like physique and thought that I would be a great addition to a team in charge of holding back big burly men covered in sweat. Actually, it sound kinda sexy when you put it that way...but it wasn't. I did, however, have the grimacing look that helped scare people away. It comes naturally before 8am. I was in a pretty 'ugh' mood at having to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to pretend to push back crowds (when, ironically, all the statuesque, muscular volunteers were given the job of refilling the water troughs). Ooh, lemme help you with that big heavy water bottle there, Chuck. Don't want to pull a muscle... Gee, thanks for the hand, Larry. Couldn't have done it without ya, pal.

Things were dead until 7:45 or so (the race started at 8:30). Then the crowds started pouring in. I think they said there were something like 25,000 people in the race, plus all of the spectators and families that came to cheer their loved ones on. As I stood there guarding my vital fence and blocking any and all spectators from crossing the sacred ground of the finish line, I people watched. And I found myself looking at the families. The little girls with their mothers, still wearing bandanas to cover their bald heads. I saw the girls running with three or four signs on their backs, all names with the same last name. Relatives, each and every one of them. If you were one of these girls, how many people do you have to see die before you wonder when it's going to be your turn? Not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but when you least expect it, you too could find that lump that would change the rest of your life.

The blog entry that started all of this talk was in reference to a research project that the author is working on about the new test that's available to screen young women who are at a family risk for developing breast and/or cervical cancer. The test searches for a mutation of the BRCA gene that can give a fairly firm prediction of whether you will have trouble down the road. Based on the findings of this test, many women are choosing a preemptive approach by either having their breasts or ovaries removed before the cancer develops. The tricky part is that there's no guarantee, just because this test says that you're likely to develop a cancer, that you actually will. So some women are removing body parts when they don't have to, and others are faced with the decision of what to do with this god-like knowledge they've been given.

How would you live differently if you could see the future? Would these girls in the race with their entire family trees wilting to cancer undergo the test? If they tested positive, what would they do? Hold onto their organs until they finish having children? What if that comes too late? Should they even have children if they're prone to passing the gene along? What about those who have already had children? What are the consequences for their kids? Is it too early to have them tested? What if we find out that every female in our family is likely to develop the disease? The list of questions is endless...and heartbreaking. And I have no idea where one even begins in answering them.

On Tuesday night, I found myself wandering mindlessly through my apartment with my thoughts far, far away. I started to fantasize about being with someone (no names). We were making out outside of his door, kissing passionately, and then fumbled to open the door and squeeze inside, with our lips never separating. He shut the door, and pushed me up against it... It was hot, it was erotic, and it was steamy. And before I knew it, I was getting the ol' goosebumps. I tried to shake it off, but I couldn't. I reached my hand up and felt my chest, lightly at first, and then harder. And then...

WHAT THE FUCK.

On my right breast, I felt something hard. Now I know I got implants during my surgery this summer, but those are filled with saline. This felt more like the last time I attempted to make meatloaf and ended up with some sort of rubber the quality of a shoe sole. Minus the shoe tread, it was dead on. So this is what it feels like, I thought. I started shaking, and I felt around to find out how big it was. By my best guess, it was about 2 or 3 inches in diameter. It felt enormous. I didn't know what to do. It was too late to call anyone, so I put it out of my mind. I couldn't deal with that right then.

The next day, I did what any level-headed, clear-thinking adult would do: I bawled on my way to school, and then I called my mommy. I knew I would be able to call the surgeon's office right after my 8:30 standing meeting with my advisor, but I really wasn't so sure I wanted to hear what they would say. I made it through the meeting and pretended to care about thread color and composition, but I couldn't even figure out how to plug in my computer. I was retarded...and scared.

My mom told me that I had to call them, if nothing else just to give me some peace of mind. So I finally did. Do you have any idea how hard it is to have a private conversation about finding a lump in your breast on a college campus? I slinked around to an abandoned side of the Art building outside, and dialed the number. She was in with a patient. I left a message… And waited…

She called me back pretty quickly actually and, after asking a few questions, she said she was 90% sure that it was probably just scar tissue. But since I already had an appointment booked with the school gyno to give me the last of the HPV shots that Friday (BIG supporter of HPV prevention – inquire inside for details), she said to have them feel it just to make sure.

Whew. Relief. So I got through to Friday, and reported to the gyno office for my shot. “Miss, we don’t have any appointments booked for you today. What did you say you were here for?” “Huh? I’m supposed to get my third Gardasil shot today.” “Oh, you must be confused. You get that in the allergy department. Second floor.” “But… I thought I would be seeing a gynecologist today. I had another question for her.” “Well, you’ll just have to make another appointment then.” I may have been reassured when I talked to the surgeon, but that was only temporary, it was a Get out of Jail Free card until I heard it come from the lips of a real live doctor who had actually touched it. My reassurance was scheduled only to last until 11:00 that Friday afternoon – I wasn’t prepared to wait another two weeks until my next appointment could be scheduled!

Regretfully, and fretfully, I trudged down the escalator to get my shot. It was all over in about five minutes. I could’ve left then, but, at the same time, I couldn’t. I needed answers. I needed peace of mind. So I went back upstairs…and begged…and pleaded…and promised the delivery of three-fudge brownies. They let me in to see a nurse. VICTORY!

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not licensed to do breast exams. You can only do those with a nurse practitioner or a doctor. And all of them are busy right now. Would you like to make an appointment?” My god. The poor woman did not understand where I was coming from. She was sitting just two feet away, and all I wanted her to do was to lift that little arm up and slap her palm onto my breast and squeeze. Although I was tempted to grab her arm and do it myself, I thought better of it and cried instead. She got the hint. I needed to talk to somebody, and I wasn’t going to be making an appointment. She pulled some strings, and sent me back out to the waiting room while the doctor finished up with her other patient.

And so I sat. In my little upholstered chair – I wondered if they were from Rockford? Steelcase maybe? – and let my eyes wander around the room. Nothing really penetrated my brain. I saw the clock, but I couldn’t tell the time. I saw the tacky fall decorations. And I saw the covers of the magazines in the rack on the wall. But I couldn’t focus enough to even read the headlines. Another girl in the room was talking on her cell phone, and I marveled at her ability to be so calm when my organs were doing a Mexican hat dance behind my ribs.

Word must’ve spread inside the office, because the receptionist area just on the other side of the glass was slowly filling with nurses and assistants gathering around to send me forlorn, knowing glances. It felt as if they already knew my fate, but for some reason they weren’t authorized to tell me. But how could they? I thought. Nobody’s even touched it yet. Don’t give up on me yet!

Half an hour later, I was admitted into the room and told to put a gown on. The doctor would be in shortly. “Shortly” extended into another forty-five minute wait. No joke – I was counting the clicks of the clock at this point. I started to relax a little. In a little while, I’d have my answer and there wasn’t much I could do about it at that point. I read all of the articles on the bulletin board and learned that a woman only has about one 24-hour period each month that she is likely to conceive. I admired the tattered Longhorn socks stretched over the stirrups on the examining table and wondered if the bookstore that sold them ever imagined they’d end up in such a setting. Oh, if those socks could talk… When I spotted the box of free condoms each wrapped up in their individual Longhorn packaging, I decided that this was a classy joint. After all, ISU just passed ‘em out in their original wrapping. Not that I ever took them or anything…mom.

Finally, FINALLY the doctor came in. First words out of her mouth, “so what’re you so worried about”? Don’t toy with me now, lady, ‘cuz you’re gonna be eating those words if this turns out to be what I fear it might. She felt me up good and proper and said, “Yep. There it is.” That’s it? There it is?? There’s what? A cancerous lump? A gumball that I consumed whole and somehow lodged itself in my chest cavity? What?!?

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. My god, if it weren’t for fear of further tearing those adorable Longhorn stirrup socks, I would’ve lunged for her and demanded that she take that sigh back – or, at the very least, explain it. “Well, there’s definitely a lump.” No shit, Sherlock. “But I wouldn’t be worried that it’s cancerous. You’re too young for that. Old folks like me, we have to be worried about that. But it’s extremely rare in someone your age.” I thought back to all of the girls I had seen that weekend and the gals I had known from Gilda’s Club. Don’t tell me that cancer practices age discrimination. Part of me wishes that it did. But we all know that’s a load of shishkabobs. Cancer can strike no matter how old you are.

“My guess is that it’s either scar tissue, like you said, or a benign tumor. Either way, it wouldn’t be hazardous or a time-sensitive issue. Of course there’s always a chance that it could be cancer, but I really can’t tell that just through feeling it.” Was this lady for real? Did I truly just wait an hour and a half just to hear her say that she couldn’t give me any answers? “My recommendation would be to have you go back to the surgeon and let them feel it. They have a better idea of where they cut and where it would be reasonable to see scar tissue conglomerate. But in order for them to help you, I think that you should have an ultrasound before you go. That way, you can go over the results with them and see if it truly is cancerous or not.”

I was still shaking. She told me to stop. Sorry, but when you tell me that there’s a chance, even if it’s minute, that I may have something deadly growing just inches away from my heart, I’m bound to get a little freaked. Call me a pansy if you will, but I never said I was fearless. Just be glad the bed I was sitting on was still dry, lady. “Don’t be worried. You can be pissed that this has happened to you, but don’t be worried.”

So her plan of attack sounds logical, right? Until you realize that this would mean that I would STILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOME GODDAMN ANSWERS. She put a call into my surgeon to have them formally request the ultrasound, the surgeon said that she would look into it and call back on Monday, and I quietly thanked her and left. As I walked back through the reception area, the lowered eyes and sympathetic weak smiles of the other nurses followed me every step. I felt like I was leaving a vet’s office where I had just had my dog put to sleep. Only this time, it was me up on the cutting block.

So that’s where things are at right now. I’m liking the scar tissue theory, but I really won’t know for sure until I have the ultrasound next week. For now, I’m getting ready to go visit my friend Stephen in Washington, D.C. for the weekend, and I am seriously looking forward to a glorious break from this boob nonsense. I’m exhausted, and I need to be thinking about happy, uplifting things (no pun intended). Like the mounds of corpses we’ll be seeing at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, for example. Even seeing footage of small children ripped from their parents’ arms as they marched on to the gas chambers would be a welcome change from the thoughts that are running through my head right now.

Just as long as the displays at the museum don’t show any boobs, I’ll be okay through Monday. And, Stephen, if you cop a feel, don’t expect me to be alarmed. This ticking time bomb will just be not-so-patiently waiting for you to give her a diagnosis.

My first semester of graduate school ends on December 5th. Thus the countdown clock tells me I have but 32 days, 790 hours. Yikes.
Time's a-wastin', and I'm still not 100% sure what I'm doing for my final project. But I hear this journaling crap is supposed to be a good way to work out ideas, right? Meh, let's give it a shot...

One of the first assignments that we had for my design courses was to prepare a short, 10-minute presentation of work that we had done recently to introduce our classmates to the questions that we've been struggling with and where we were at in terms of skill-level. Well, I fessed up and showed this photo, among many others, with the disclaimer that I normally don't tell anyone about this secret hobby until I know them really, really well.

Once the dress was complete, the next phase was to throw a mini photoshoot and take some shots of my model (aka my classmate who graciously volunteered to the gig) wearing it. We ended up taking the majority of the shots inside the fabulous new AT&T Conference Center on the UT campus. Never in my life have I seen such beautiful hand-laid carpet, and it's EVERYWHERE!

After the dress project, I tooled around with some material studies in crocheting for awhile. Ever crocheted a coffee filter? I have. That and a piece of caution tape, ethernet cable, bubble wrap, sand, a belt, a measuring tape, toilet paper... the list goes on an on. I think I ended up crocheting around 50 items. Anyhoo, after that I returned to the medium that started this whole crazy quest into handicrafts - cross-stitch. I'll spare you the complicated details, but my next intention was to develop a technology that could reproduce photographic images into cross-stitch patterns while maintaining the same level of color definition and vibrancy as in the original.

This phase was inspired by my dream man, name unknown, but the guy who works at the Volant Embroidery Art Studio (the only one of its kind), In San Antonio. I've actually said probably less than 50 words to the guy, but any 20-something, latino, attractive, and seemingly heterosexual man who knows more about thread dyes than I do has got to be a one-in-a-million catch. At Volant, they recreate a wide variety of art pieces using this big honking machine that can create patterns that duplicate your original color within 7 shades. He explained to me that embroidery thread is made in every 15 shades on the color spectrum - that's the minimum difference required to be visible by the human eye. So to achieve a medium shade, they will sometimes combine one of the 15-shade colors on either side of the desired color to create the blending that matches the original color. Make sense? Didn't think so... That's why I'm sparing you the even more complicated stuff. It's just a bunch of graphs with numbers and RGB and CMYK and RYB values - nothing pretty. (The reason this photo's taken from outside is because when I returned to the museum on my most recent visit to San Antonio they were closed. And I was sad.) :(


So I got cranking on developing a pattern for an image that I found through Flickr, that of a brightly colored duck standing in the water. The test was to see if I could stitch something that would be able to differentiate between the original duck and the reflected duck so that it wouldn't seem like he was merely doubled on the page. Four hundred thread colors, 8 pixelated image variations, and countless attempts to code his colors, and all I was left with was a headache - and a big one at that. Did you realize that when you purchase 400 different colors of thread that you have to hand-code and hand-select each individual one at the craft store? Did you realize that you then have to take them up to the cash register where the clerk has to ring each one up individually? How about how you then have to go home and catalog each one and put them onto individual cards with their name and DMC registration number (as they correspond to the RGB color charts that others have hacked by purchasing DMC cards and doing a color match using a painter's tool)? Yeah, neither did I. My receipt is literally about 20 feet long. My advisor about had a heart attack when I plopped that one on his desk. Thinking about just framing it as is, saying it's "art", and calling it a day.


But enough about the duck (yes, it's making my head hurt just thinking about it again). Besides, what in the world was I going to do with a giant embroidered duck? Hang it in my house? I'd have to redo my decorating scheme just to incorporate this ginormous feathered friend. Besides...it's a duck! So my advisor wisely advised (he's an advisor, that's what he does) that I select a different image. At first, I said, "Ugh." thinking that this meant I had to start over from square one.

Instead, I did as a good student is supposed to, and I started my ardent search to re-select an image. I began by looking for an image that somehow represented color theory. Nada. I looked for something revolving around pixelization. Nope. I looked for something that showed dillution in color intensity. Not a thing. Well, I found stuff, but it didn't "grab" me. I like my projects to goose me and really get my engines revving.

And that's exactly what happened. Remember at the beginning of this elongated rant how I told you that I was embarrassed to do cross-stitch because everyone thinks that it's just a bunch of hulla-baloo about samplers and Native American eagle feathers and wolves howling at the moon? (I never understood that connection either. Aren't Native Americans supposed to be making pottery and dream catchers and weaving blankets? I have yet to see an Indian lady cross-stitching something out of a package she bought at Michael's Arts & Crafts.) Really, what's the difference between cross-stitch and any other medium that's used to reproduce an image - like painting or drawing? Nothing really. So why are we confined to these hokey images? The way I see it, there's absolutely no reason we should be.

Therefore, I present to you my selected image:


It's gruesome. It's horrific. And there's absolutely no reason why it can't be recreated in cross-stitch. Next, I purchased a Mac-based program called Stitches that can upload your photo and allows you to specify the number of colors to be used, the number of stitches per inch, etc., and then it spits out a pattern for you. This original photo has 277 colors in it, some just single specks. When I turned the color number down to 125, here's the pattern that was produced (note that this is less than half the size it would've been if we had stayed at true size):



Yeah, take a close look at that. That's the size of an extra-wide conference table. Remember that William Morris piece I showed you above that was only 2'x3.5'? That one took me two years to finish. So you better believe that the thought of me having to finish this one in the next five weeks is enough to start sweating bullets. (I gotta step up from this Dove deodorant crap...) Enter the wide world of cropping. Next mission was to find a way to crop this image in a way that still maintained the message intended for the photograph's audience. It needed to convey that there was a woman in anguish, desperately asking for handouts to support her two small children. This was the final choice:


Alright, I admit. I just didn't want to cross-stitch a young boy's penis. Just something about that that doesn't sit right, you know?

So this image is going to be stitched (and already has been started) onto burlap to reflect the textural quality of the clothing worn by the photograph subjects, as well as the harshness of their situation. While all you cool kids were out trick-or-treating or bobbing for apples in your sexy cop outfits, I was covered in these burlap threads, conjuring up the itchiness factor of the one summer I spent reorganizing boxes of insulation in my parents' warehouse. It's pleasant , lemme tell ya.

But I'm still freaking that I won't be able to get it all sewn. My next thought is to complete the arm/hand that I've already started and then figure out a way to transfer the rest of the image onto the burlap. I'd love to see it all displayed in a series of cropped images. The first might show a photograph of the cross-stitched arm sticking out with no context. I imagine it looking like a religious image of some sort. Next, we can show the rest of this image, the hand with the little boy. Now the viewer will realize what the woman is asking for money for. And, lastly, I'd like to reveal the entire image, displaying the horror in her face as well as the second unclothed child.

I hope that the color gradation that I have chosen does an adequate job of representing the photo-quality look I'm going for. I hope that the audience is challenged in their thinking of what cross-stitch is and how it can be used to communicate an image. And I also feel like this horrific photograph is something that needs to be seen. This sight is common in so much of the world, and yet so few of us ever actually see it if we're too hesitant to leave the country or to even pick up a copy of National Geographic. The photographer who took this shot probably congratulated himself on capturing an emotional moment on film. And that's exactly what the medium of photography is excellent for - capturing single moments. For this picture, I'm going to make it in a medium that shows it's worth taking the time to consider it for the long term. This lady and her sons will never know about our discussion here or whatever art piece is created from their terror, but we will know their story. And I can only hope that it stays ingrained in our minds for a long time to come.

[This is where I'm at right now. If you've got any feedback or ideas, please lemme know. I'm all ears!]

[D, this entry's for you. :) ]

Last weekend, a truly amazing thing happened to me. Are you ready for this? I made friends!! Well, in all actuality, I finally met friends that I had heard about (and, scarily enough, had heard plenty about me) over the last five years. I had planned on making a trip to San Antonio to visit some friends and former Honors peeps in town for the annual National Collegiate Honors Council Conference. What I didn't expect was my friend Nalena's news that her parents, who live in San Antonio, wanted to invite us all over for dinner. Let me set the scene here. I've been collecting dirt on Nalena (err, I've been friends with Nalena) ever since we first lived together in Freeman Hall, in exile while Barton was being renovated. She moved to the states a year after her parents did, all from Puerto Rico. Which is why I do, and always will, refer to her as "my favorite Puerto-freakin'-Rican." But despite the dozens of Spanglish phone calls I had eavesdropped on between Nalena and her mom, I had never met her folks. One of the other girls making the trip with me has a class with Nalena this semester, but she was a stranger to the other two. But to the big-hearted and open-doored Santiagos, that didn't make a lick of difference.

We slurped up some piña coladas, we chowed on plantain cups (tostones) filled with jumbo shrimp in stew sauce, we looked through baby pictures of Nalena, we even watched some home videos of the family on their vacations through geographical hotspots in Venezuela. I learned how the State Department works. I learned about Nalena's mamá's dream to open up her own restaurant (a venture I would whole-heartedly support). We drank mojitos. And we chit-chatted the night away. The next day, after the girls had flown home in the wee hours of the morning, a little hung-over and extremely sleepy, I went back to the Santiagos', and they took me on an outing to see a local lifestyle center that had just opened up. Then we had leftovers and more delightful chit-chat. I finally, and regretfully, went home the next day around 4pm.


Why am I reciting the details of our weekend together? Because it just felt so damn good to be around a family again. To be in a house. To hear their history and to expand my social circle with such wonderful people. We could've talked about boogers for all I cared (and we actually did at one point), and I would've still been a happy camper.

The adoption papers are in the mail. Sorry, Nalena, but you've been replaced. :)

So all of this has got me thinking about starting over, in the social realm. The beauty of being a lifetime student (alright, 5 years, but it still felt like I was ready to apply for my AARP card upon graduation) at Iowa State was that I got to watch so many of my fellow classmates trudge through the adjustment of college-kegger-and-ultimate-frisbee-club-life to  oh-my-god-I'm-a-yuppy-at-this-huge-corporation-and-all-of-my-coworkers-are-asking-me-to-babysit-their-kids. The complaint I heard more than anything else from these whiny babies was that they were never in contact with other people their own age. Generally, my conscientious advice to these titty babies (it's my mom's term) was to "suck it up / grow some balls and stop feeling sorry for yourself." (Hey, I'll tell you right now that if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on, these bony shoulders are gonna poke you in the eye, and you'll be lucky if I give you a used napkin to snot on.)

Anyway, at the risk of admitting I was wrong (NEVER!), I've found myself standing in those very same shoes, and I'm looking back at some of the "suck it up" advice I dolled out. Now the vast majority of the people I heard making these claims hadn't even moved out of the zip code, so they really didn't have anything to complain about, but when you're moving to a city/state/country where you could count the number of people you know on a foot with webbed toes, you truly do have to start over. This can be both a great opportunity to reinvent yourself - "Did I tell you that I used to be a bikini model? Yeah, this lackluster appearance is simply the result of that fire incident a few years ago. What incident? Oh you know, when I ran into that orphanage and managed to valiantly balance 20 small children in my arms (with three sitting on my head) and somehow, somehow, they all survived. You should've seen it - it was a miracle in the making. I'm just glad I was in the right place at the right time." Sigh... It can also be pretty tricky though. I mean, one day, you can be a former bikini model and another a former geneticist right on the brink of a cancer cure when you got called into active duty for your Red Cross service, and, before you know it, the well of alter-egos has run dry.

A good friend from college graduated recently and moved back home to BF Small Town, Nowhere. She took it as a bad sign that everyone between high school graduation age and those ready to move back by the parents so that they could help babysit their kids had skipped town. She felt lonely and severely lacking in peer companionship. I gave her some ideas - tap into the hubbub of the nearby college town scene, take classes at a community college, ask around her work to see if she could tag along to social functions where pre-stretch-marked folks would be in attendance, etc. And from what I've heard, she's starting to establish herself pretty dang well. Two points!

The truth is that it doesn't matter if you move to a town of population -8 or if you now reside in a bustling metropolis of only those young enough to still be carded when the order a white russian (the drink, not a racist remark about our friends in the Soviet Union). It really comes down to your level of effort and just sheer dumb luck. For example, take the tale of me and my all-time childhood best friend Rae. As I tell the story (ask her and you'll get a different version), we met when we were four when my mom had the bright idea to dump me and one of my brothers off at a Sunday School one day. I got put next to Rae during craft time and decided that I just plain didn't want to decorate my milk carton like a church like we were supposed to. Instead, I decided to make mine into a Showbiz Pizza (predecessor to the Chuck E. Cheese), and Rae and I met when she helped me write "Pizza" in the neon lights in the windows. When my mom came back at the end of the day, the lady asked her not to bring us back.

[Sidenote: This basic pattern would be repeated several years later when I went to a Sunday School session at a Quaker church with Rachel. They asked me why we celebrated Easter. I of course had no clue, so I guessed that it was Jesus's birthday. They asked me not to come back... And then Casey Jones stole my Keebler cookies. Since then, I've also been unofficially banned from a Presbyterian church in Ames (not that I really wanted to be there in the first place), a Jehova's Witness meeting hall in Colorado (by sheer association), and a Catholic church (also in Ames). I complained that the confirmation gowns reminded me of the costumes from "Bride of Chucky." My life goal is to hit the rest of the big ones: Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, Episcopalian, etc. Let me know if you've got one up for grabs.]

It's been the same way with most of my really good friends. I met Meggo while I was wearing a towel and her bed was covered in beer cases. I met Cass when she stole my beloved red chair on picture day in Kindergarten. When I first met Darin, I was surprised that she was a girl (hey, you would too if you had only heard the name). Those are just a few examples. The rest are just as random. So my question is, is this the only way friendships, true friendships, can be founded? Like Rae's and mine - through sheer dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time with the right desire to recreate a pizza joint? Is it a prerequisite to have a little fairy dust or special sauce to make a friendship work? Can planned methods, like ice-breakers or speed dating, work? What about online services?

One night last year, Meggo and I decided we desperately needed to escape the oppressiveness of the Concentration Camp Barton and interact with people. She was dating and so was I, but she astutely (and rightfully so) had realized that my boyfriend was acting like a turd and that I should expand my social circle to include people who, well, weren't him. So we donned our cutesy duds and headed to the nightlife of Des Moines. We made it as far as Ankeny when we realized we had no plan for where we were headed. So we ended up eating dinner at Chili's right there next to the interstate, and, by the time we had polished off our plates, realized we still hadn't formulated a plan for the rest of the evening. She was too young to go to a bar or dance club, there weren't any movies playing that we wanted to see, the mall was already closed for the night, and she refused to help me flamingo my teacher's house who had given me a crappy grade on a paper that day. So, lacking for a better idea, we headed back home. As she changed her clothes, she convinced me to sign up for eHarmony and match.com, just to see what it was like. So I did and promptly found out that you have to pay like $60 to see anything. ("Review your matches for free" my ass.) So that didn't pan out, but the automatic emails I get sent on "10 Things That are Never Appropriate to Ask on a First Date" never cease to entertain. Meggo eventually went upstairs to hang out with friends, and I vacuumed...in my dress, thinking that maybe I should shell out the $60 and take a photo of me vacuuming in my heels as my profile picture.


But a few weeks ago, I was reintroduced to the concept of planned friendships. The JB and Sandy show, a radio station that I listen to religiously, was hosting their annual BFF Party. Inspired by their wives who said they had "outgrown" their friends (as in one moved/got married/became a crack addict/etc.). The party was to be an opportunity for girls to meet up at this rooftop lounge (very swanky) and meet new friends. ¡Perfecto!

One girl called into the show and won a ticket to the BFF Party. Then she says, "Can I bring a friend with me?"
JB: "Woah. A friend? That's contrary to the whole point of the party..."
Girl: "Well, it's not really a 'friend'..."
Sandy: "Oh... Mother-in-law?"
Girl: "Yeah."
Sandy: "And she's bugging the shit out of you, isn't she?"
Girl: "Yeah."
JB: "Bring her along."

I too secured my entrada to the fiesta. That morning, I tried to pretty myself up to appeal to my new friends' keenness to high style. Unfortunately, I got tied up working on a video editing project at school. So instead of tipping back a hot toddy in my stilettos with my new Austin-based BFF, I spent the night with a bunch of red-eyed film editors in a computer lab with a projection screen showing "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Chainsaws...budding friendships...meh, that's a fair trade-off.

It's not like I don't have friends. According to the all-knowing Facebook, I've got 609 of 'em. And I've certainly got people I can call and pester as I please, but I'm finding that, at heart, I pretty much prefer to be a loner. Or, better said, I prefer to be a selective people person. My mom (aka my preschool teacher) says that I would commonly go off into a corner to get some peace and quiet to do my own thing. Other, pure innocent kids would come over and sit next to me. That'd be fine. But if they'd start asking me questions about what I was doing, they'd be hard-pressed to get an answer. And if they dared to "borrow" one of my crayons, ooh, buddy... Watch out, kid. Try it again, and I'll bite your f-ing finger off.

I can meet people when I want to and need to, but you've got to realize that there are risks to interacting with people you don't know, and you don't know if they can be trusted. I met a guy the other day, actually, and he even gave me his business card and told me to give him a call. Sweet, right? HA. All you jealous suitors out there, don't get too worked up. Read on...

That day, I went out to lunch with my coworkers. While there, I received the following forwarded email (delivered around 12:30):

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Fwd: Fw: FW: frightening/Read these words]

Share with your sisters, daughters, nieces, mothers, and female friends. This Incident has been confirmed. In Katy , TX, a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a female putting gas in her car and left his card. She said no, but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car. The man then got into a car driven by another gentleman. As the lady left the service station, she saw the men following her out of the station at the same time. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realized that the odor was on her hand; the same hand which accepted the card from the gentleman at the gas station. She then noticed the men were immediately behind her and she felt she needed to do something at that moment. She drove into the first driveway and began to honk her horn repeatedly to ask for help. The men drove away but the lady still felt pretty bad for several minutes after she could finally catch her breath. Apparently, there was a substance on the card that could have seriously injured her. This drug is called 'BURUNDANGA' and it is used by people who wish to incapacitate a victim in order to steal from or take advantage of them. This drug is four times more dangerous than the date rape drug and is transferable on simple cards. So take heed and make sure you don't accept cards at any given time alone or from someone on the streets. This applies to those making house calls and slipping you a card when they offer their services.

PLEASE SEND THIS E-MAIL ALERT TO EVERY FEMALE YOU KNOW

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Now, who knows if this is actually true, right? As far as I know, it's only for entertainment value, just like those emails that Tara sends me outlining her ambitions to go from upper middle-class to white trash, trading in her Lexus for a riding lawnmower suped up with a cupholder and umbrella (for inclimate weather). But check out what happened next...

We returned from lunch around 1:30, and as I had class at 2, I gathered up my things and took off for school. Realizing I was practically driving on fumes, I pulled into a gas station at 10th and Lamar (the one across from the Tavern). The station's a tight little bugger, so when I was filling up my tank and a big work truck pulled in the drive and looked like he was going to try to squeeze past my car, I gave him the stink eye. Instead, he parked in front of my car and got out. "Can you still get out?" he asked. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just thought you were going to try to pass my car, and I don't think there's enough room for both of us." "Oh, no, no. Have a nice day then." "Yeah, you too." The guy started walking towards the station. Then he stopped, turned around, and looked at me. "Oh yeah," he said. "I've got a business card in my truck." Ok..., I thought. He retrieved and handed me his card and said that he does interior and exterior house painting. I told him I'm an architect, so maybe I'll give him a call sometime. "That'd be great," he said with a wink. Then he went inside.


Now I ask you - HOW FREAKY IS THAT? Not an hour after receiving that email, I too found myself at a gas station in Texas where I randomly was approached by a guy who claimed to be a painter who, without request, gave me his business card. And another thing, which I didn't realize until after the incident, the guy's clothes were SPOTLESS. Now I've known quite a few painters in my day, and I have never ever seen one without at least a little paint splatter on their gear. Maybe if it was his first day of work or something, but come on. How likely is that? I took the card and drove to school with the windows down, just in case. He didn't follow me. So I suppose it had to have just been a coincidence, but, seriously, what're the chances???

One of the first things I did when I moved here was to make my house visitor-ready. I've got the 800 thread-count sheet set, the $25 guest towels, and the cupboards are stocked with wine glasses. The 'Voice' from "Field of Dreams" told me that if I built it, they would come. Fat load of good that advice turned out to be. So what's the problem? Well, for example, the last person I begged to come visit me is afraid of heights, so for him it's a 19-hour car trip or nothing. It'd be lovely, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Give him some sleeping pills and some scotch and stick him on an airplane unconscious, perhaps. But I think that might be against the law. I dunno. I'll check and get back to you.

I even tried reinventing myself a little. My former coworker Chris noted that I'm blonde. He's very observant.  But this got me thinking - maybe all of my potential friends see the blonde and think I'm a total airhead. And maybe they're right, but that's beside the point. This is about first impressions. So, much to Ryan's chagrin, I went brunette. Which, despite its $100+ pricetag at the Aveda salon has pretty much bleached out already. I just can't escape my blondeness. It's here to stay.


So that's half of it - it's just tricky to make sense of the logistical nightmare. And the other half is that maybe all this fuss is really all for naught. Maybe you can't plan who your next friend will be any better than you can predetermine the doctor's prognosis of that mysterious rash you've developed. All I know is that one of my classmates is from China, and she had a friend over to her house the other day that speaks Korean. So if a Chinese girl who doesn't speak much English managed to befriend a Korean girl who also doesn't speak much English, then there's got to be hope for a slightly entertaining girl who at least speaks the national language...right? If all else fails, I think I'll give that painter a call and ask him if he's got any extra tainted business cards lying around. Friends have got to be much more manageable when they're unconscious...

Le Corbusier's Furniture Designer Denied Exhibition
   
THE PARISIAN PRESS
PARIS, L. W., October 10 - (AP) ~ The proposed exhibition for Le Corbusier's former furniture designer has been revoked.

Charlotte Perriand was employed by the great Corbusier in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition was planned to show images of her steel and glass furniture to the Parisian public, many of whom purchased the items for their homes and workplaces in recent decades.

The issue arose last Saturday, museum director Chehalis says, when the exhibit was discussed with a group of frequent museum patrons. "They did not recognize her name nor her work until I explained she was employed by Le Corbusier," Chehalis explained. "There are far too many talented artists out there who the public would rally behind having an exhibition to spend our wall space on an unknown female past her prime."

The exhibition has been remarketed as a showing of "Le Corbusier's Furniture Designer", and so far has proven to be a much greater success.

Warning: This entry contains more four-letter words than the average human brain can modestly absorb. This entry is not suited for small children. But, then again, most of them aren't. If you are afraid of heights and begin to feel squeamish at any time, just take a deep breath, look around, and realize that you're still sitting at your desk...and that you're a moron. Enjoy.


"Why would you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" my mom asked.

"To make use of a perfectly good parachute."

But as it turns out, not all airplanes are "perfectly good". Case in point, the one at the entrance to Skydive San Marcos, where my dad and I took the plunge last weekend: