for Grace, who’s been asking me for months to get the beacons lit…

One of my dearest friends, Grace, and I were FA-NAT-ICS about the LOTR movies.  Still are, actually.

My old work digs, Masterworks (where Grace still works) boasts a LOVELY view of the Olympics, especially on clear days.  A year or two ago, Grace, upon seeing this loveliness, said something to the effect of “It looks like the beacons are lit,” thus confusing her co-workers and forever proving her nerd-dom.

It’s the kind of nerd-dom I can appreciate, though, and so I decided finally fulfill her request of me: that I finally light the beacons.

our neighbor!

 

Saw this guy overlooking our pond as I turned on the road just before our apartment complex — ran up the apartment — grabbed the camera — drove back down the road — made an impromptu parking place — snapped a few shots before he decided he was sick of having an audience and took off.  Can’t wait to get a decent zoom lens!!

ha! my bajillion credits DO count for something!…

…other than helping me get first crack at classes each quarter (also helpful).

One teensy weensy class will get me a psychology minor.  One!

A couple more classes will net me a history minor, but I’m not sure I’m willing to stay in school longer/kill myself on my few remaining quarters.

I don’t know though… I really heart history…

Still, even one actual minor out of all that “searching for what I really want to study”… I’m pumped.  Plus — I dig me some psych and history classes.  They make me happy in my heart.  Not as happy as my creative writing classes (I’m so glad to have finally found the right major), but still, pretty happy.

Tomorrow is my one-day-weekend, so I’m going to live it up big time (translation: Studying Medieval Lit!  16th/17th Century Lit!  Par-teee!!!) before starting the week bright at early at 5 am Monday.  Sweet.

(Sorry for the ramble.  At this point I can’t figure out if I am under-rested or over-caffeinated.  It’s been a bit of a running theme this week).

a word of caution

I meant to mention this a few days ago:

If, by chance, you ever happen to be playing 2 Truths and a Lie (or, its lesser-known cousin, 2 Lies and a Truth), and one of a person’s statements happens to be that they have webbed toes — DO NOT LAUGH.

The webbed toes statement will turn out to be the true one and you will feel like English 354’s Official Jerkface.

(I didn’t mean to laugh.  It was a gut reaction.  I can only hope no one noticed).   

head-on

We’ll be doing some exercises in my class regarding memory, so I’ll probably post some of them here.  If nothing else, this quarter won’t turn into one where my last post is months ago.  Which helps me feel better. 

What kills me about my earliest vivid memory is that I was unconscious for so much of it. I would rail against the idea of sharing this memory in favor of sharing something more complete from my childhood, something a little more coherent, perhaps… but then again, when trying to remember significant moments and events from my early days, I realize that I was unconscious for lots of other long stretches, ones without as valid an excuse. This memory, in its tattered and piecemeal state, will do just as well as anything else.

Here’s what I do remember: I was five years old, and riding my lavender bike without training wheels was the pinnacle of childish achievement – so far. What a thrill – autonomous mobility and sparkly handlebar tassels! This skill conquered, I quickly became dissatisfied with merely riding my bike in circles around La Mesa Court. That, quite frankly, was boring. Completely unimpressive. Any old kid can ride a bike in circles all day.

What I needed was a little finesse.

I attempted a new trick: riding my bike head-on into the curb to get up onto the sidewalk, just like I’d watched all the older and cooler Big Kids do. What my five-year-old, soon-to-be-damaged little brain failed to realize was the significant weight difference between my somewhat spindly self and the Big Kids, god-like in their vast knowledge and mysterious powers and superior size.

When the big moment came and I revealed my new talent to the world, my bike hit the curb and jerked to a sudden halt. I did not. I feel it worth mentioning here that the year was 1985, and bike helmets weren’t exactly all the rage. Not yet, anyway.

I am quite serious in my declaration that I would pay money to have been my neighbor watching through her window when I launched myself over the handlebars of my bike and landed in a head-first heap on the cement. I’d like to think the sight of some kid Superman-ing over the handlebars amused someone, at least. Whether she laughed for a split second or not before realizing I was hurt, I’ll never know, but the kind lady promptly ran out to me, scooped me up, and carried me home. I don’t remember my neighbor, but I remember the sensation of being scooped into her arms and lifted from the warm cement, being carried to my front door. I remember the relief that a Grown Up was near, soon to be joined by my mother.

The last thing I remember is lying on the couch with an ice pack and reminding Mom for the thousandth time that my head hurt. It’s not that she was unfeeling – but my brother and I were more than a little accident-prone and if we went to the doctor’s office for every goose-egg and bloodied knee, we’d never leave the place. A requisite waiting period always needed to be fulfilled before bringing in the professionals.

It turns out that I was actually hurt, knocked-unconscious hurt, and the best parts of this story remain ones I can’t remember – although I was filled in later on all the pertinent details. My mother told me later of her terror, driving to the pediatrician, with me moaning and rambling on in complete gibberish from the backseat, alternately snatching at invisible airborne objects and trying to unlock my door while the car was moving. I was told that as soon as my mom carried me into the doctor’s office, I promptly puked everywhere (or at least I’d like to believe it was everywhere – I might as well enjoy making a big scene here). Gentle Dr. Kramer, the world’s noblest pediatrician, scooped me up herself and carried me back out to the car, with instructions to take me straight to the emergency room. I remember hearing of my mother’s red-headed fury when a hurried and unfeeling young doctor roughly ripped some tape from my forehead after running some tests on my malfunctioning cranium. I have no idea why, but in my mind’s eye the tape in question has always been a thick duct tape. I laugh to myself now, realizing this idea is ridiculous. Duct tape has many uses – but as far as I know the medical field is not one of them.

The next thing I remember is a deeply comforting glimpse of a moment, a still picture that remains fairly clear, even 22 years later: waking up in the hospital bed around ten o’clock the next morning, with Mom and Dad – exhausted and relieved – by my bedside. There was a little television in the corner of the small room, and we watched Gumby. It is strange to me that the thought of the three of us watching a weird cartoon in a hospital room evokes such feelings of warmth and coziness – but it does.

For the moment, all was well. I was content to let Big Kid-hood and all its corresponding coolness wait — at least until I’d been conscious a full 24 hours and definitely not before I had a helmet. 

Probably not before I had a helmet.  I really don’t remember.

stomach-churnyness

Hello, dear friends and strangers.

Never thought I’d say this — but I’m thrilled to be back in school!  Thrilled, and slightly terrified, though I’ve learned to welcome this stomach-churnyness.  It’s always a sign that growth is near.

I’m taking Intro to Creative Non-Fiction this quarter, and while I think it will be a genuine stretch, it will also be such an opportunity to grow.  I’m reminded once again of what a strange person I am.  I got ridiculously nervous attempting to come up with good lies for our classroom icebreaker, 2 Lies and a Truth.  (My friends, The Neck-Splotches, returned in full force to welcome me back to a new quarter and my perennial self-consciousness.  Justin didn’t exactly help when leaned over and said, “Hey, buddy, you’re turning all red again,” but I deferred strangling him til a later date).  I’m doing my best to avoid thinking about the fact that coming up with 2 lies makes me nervous — and trying to bravely embrace the thought of in-class writes and small-group critique.

It took me til this very moment to appreciate an exercise we had to do in my last class that wrangled me into a better writer.  We were instructed to divide our paper into a 2 x 8 column.  Column One: What I Think This Poem Means.  Column Two: Why I Think This.  Michael put a poem up on an overhead (yeah, he’s old-fashioned like that), but placed a piece of paper over it and only revealed a line or two at a time.  In fact, our first writing about the poem was before he had shown us any of it.

Let me start by saying, Poetry isn’t really my friend.  I don’t think this is because we wouldn’t have grown to like each other had we met on our own terms – but I was given a negative impression of Poetry early on by someone else, and it has forever poisoned our relationship.  Whoever introduced us intimated that Poetry had a secret that she would never ever divulge, at least not to a person like me.  I’d ask her questions.  I’d listen closely to her words.  But it would all be a big huge tease and I’d never understand in any kind of meaningful sense what the hell she was referring to.  She’d share the secret with others who were much smarter and deeper than I was.  She’d merely mock my efforts, however, and I would be left to feel like — well, like an ass, basically.

In short… this wasn’t my favorite exercise.  Responses ran a little like so, as he showed us more and more of the poem:

What this poem is about:

I don’t know.

Why I think this:

Because Michael hasn’t even shown us the title yet.

What this poem is about:

Um… someone’s grandfather.

Why I think this:

Seemed like a good guess.

What this poem is about:

(blank)

Why I think this:

(blank) 

What this poem is about:

This poem is about aliens.

Why I think this:

No idea.

I’m sure I wrote something down in at least a few more of the 16 boxes, but many of them were along the lines of how screwed I was.  Once the poem was fully uncovered, I understood the basic gist of the thing, but I was too furious with my well-meaning prof for conspiring with Poetry to care.  I glared at the poor guy out of my tear-filled eyes and yearned for class to be over.  Had I looked around at the other students around me, I’d have realized that I wasn’t alone, but I was too immersed in my own embarrassment to notice.

A month or two later, I was able to laugh about it with some of those other students and appreciate what the exercise did for me.  1)  It made me horribly uncomfortable.  2)  It forced one more piece of me that needs to be certain of the right answer to die.  Painfully.

As I go into this new class, one I desperately want to perform well in (this particular area of creative writing is the one I came back to school for, and I really don’t want to discover that I totally suck at it) – I’m trying to remember to give myself permission to be really bad at this at first.  To not know what I’m doing.  To be totally afraid of messing up, yet have enough courage to throw my stuff out there anyway in hopes that I’ll be even a tiny bit better at this once I come out the other side.

For me, it’s usually the fear of not doing something well that prevents me from doing it at all, so I’m trying to move forward anyway, splotches and nervous guts and all, and see what happens.  I think back to being in school nine years ago, and being paralyzed, unable to write a single word on that white screen.  From here, even a crappy paragraph seems quite a bit like victory.

So.  To being scared!  To growing anyway!  (Cheers). 

resolutions: day 6

Hello, all.  Hope the new year is treating you well!

It occurs to me that this past New Year’s Eve marks the second for us where we went to bed around 9 o’clock (our early-morning wakings demand an old-people bedtime).  Since we’ve only been together on two NYE’s, this means we have yet to count down to midnight together.  Oh, well.  One of these years we’ll make it to midnight, I suppose.  As it is, we wake up the next morning, some of the world’s only well-rested people, and wish each other a happy new year. 

I’m not real good at resolutions, but this year I have already been making good on my vow to get more quality time in with friends.  New Year’s Day, I had coffee with Amber, a friend from work who I’d long been wanting to share conversation and hot beverages with.  (Her first child is due in March, and I’m completely unbiased in thinking that their name choice of “Justin” is a good one).  She is deeply fun to work with (and extremely funny), so it was a joy to get to know her better. 

Justin and I had my favorite professor from last quarter, Michael, over for dinner on Friday night, which was a total blast, all nervousness about my cooking abilities aside.  It made me so happy to have Justin meet someone who made such a difference in my first quarter back to school.  They share a bit of common ground in that they’re huge gamers, so it was truly amusing watching the conversation travel to a place where I was completely lost.  So funny.

In the above kinds of situations, where it involves taking a friendship from one sphere into another (i.e., from work to a coffee shop, from the classroom to our living room), it always feels like a bit of a leap to me.  What if it feels awkward or uncomfortable?  I always think.  The reality is that it’s never all that awkward, and it always ends up being so worth the leap to share conversation and laughter together, and get to know another person better.  So worth it.

Yesterday, I met Tracie, one of my bridesmaids, for lunch and shopping in downtown Seattle.  I am ashamed to say that I haven’t seen her since my wedding (how did that happen?), but we made up for lost time, and it was lovely to pick right back up where we last left off.  Not all friendships are able to do that, and I find myself incredibly grateful for the ones that do — lifelong friendships almost always have to play out this way if they are to survive and grow.  Incidentally, Tracie is one of my favorite shopping buddies, so this was fun on several levels.  We must have looked a little mad, stopping and standing in the middle of Old Navy for ten minutes at a time, fully engrossed in conversation, trying to catch up with each other’s lives and happenings as fast as we could.  It was a lovely afternoon.

Some of Justin’s friends Levi and Dave (also dudes from our wedding) came up to watch the Seahawks playoff game and crash at our place, and although I missed the game on TV, I was able to join in on both the celebrations and the moans and groans since I was listening to the game on the radio on my drive back up from Seattle.  It was actually really fun to share the game that way, calling back and forth for ten seconds or so after big plays.  Now I know why Justin and Chris watch games this way (Chris lives in California).

The challenge here is to keep this up once our lives get crazy again with school and work – we know we’re heading right back into some long days.  All I know is that my heart feels so full when we’re spending time with good friends and sharing good words about good things together.  There’s nothing like it, so we’re working to make a solid place for it in our schedule and in our home (which is also a good thing because it motivates us to keep our place clean — also a challenge when school is in full force).

Anyway, I’m going to go back to spending quality time with my sickie hubby, who is sniffling on the couch.  Be well and blessed, all.     

2007: The Rundown

By the numbers: 

Moves: 1 — hopefully our last for a while

Boxes of books our dear friends lugged upstairs for us: 10 or 15

Flights of stairs they had to climb: 3

Jobs: 2 — Starbucks Barista and Biolife Medical Historian

Fingers poked: oh, thousands

Times tardy to work: 0!!!!  For once in my life, I’m punctual! 

Times a bridesmaid: 1 (5 total)

Weddings: 1

Times we skipped a wedding to go to a Mariner’s Game: 1 

Number of candles on my birthday cake in May: 27 

Races run: 0 (sigh)

Pounds gained: 15 -20, depending on the day.  (double sigh)

Quarters of school attended: 1

Fraction I missed a 4.0 by: 0.10

Fraction Justin missed a 4.0 by: 0.10

Times Justin groaned to have only “tied”: 1

Times we got stranded on the side of the road by The Green Judas before I finally decided to junk it: 2 or 3

New(er) cars: 1

Hours we spent at the dealership before we drove away with a good deal: 5

Times I’ve seen deer in our backyard: 3 

Days I’ve been grateful to have married the man I did: 365

Highlights:

Learning how to be a better wife/roommate/buddy to Justin

Learning to trust in Justin’s patience and understanding and humor 

Celebrating our first anniversary in Leavenworth

My first fantasy football team

Febr-you-palooza

May-you-palooza

Making pals at work 

Learning that I sleep better (translate: sleep, period) if we keep a fan going

Discovering Bham’s used bookstore glory

Finding an apartment that I really and truly love and feel comfortable in

Being fortunate enough to have a schedule that allows me to hang out with my hubby, even though we’re working students 

Carving pumpkins/Getting a Xmas tree together 

Whatcom Falls 

Figuring out that even though school’s hard — I can do it.

My Writing about Lit class 

Learning how to make Chicken Marsala/Peanut Sauce/Good Snickerdoodles

Our legendary drive to Mt. Baker

Our White Christmas

Things I’m looking forward to in 2008:

More adventures with Justin!  More silly stories!

Justin graduating in the Spring

Getting really close (only a quarter away) to graduating, myself

No longer being tied to my Verizon contract and taking advantage of my husband’s employee discount at That Other Big Company He Works For 

Visiting our buddy Chris, if all goes according to plan

Investing more time in friendships as we get used to our crazy schedules

Investing in a closer relationship with the treadmill 

Finally having all the car accident stuff wrapped up and no longer having to deal with lawyers 

Learning how to play Chess

Taking lots of photos

Figuring out how to beat Justin at Carcossonne 

Devoting more hours to photoshop in order to amuse myself and friends (mostly myself), a-like so:

Happy New Year, everyone.  May you be more aware of your blessings than ever.