Kiddie Lit: A Saga of Love

I have had a place in my heart for children's literature for a long time. I think it probably began when I was a child, since I read an inordinate amount. I distinctly remember one time when we were planning to be away from home for two weeks at a cabin somewhere when I was about 12, we had to make sure I got at least 15 books from the library. I remember being worried I wouldn't be able to take enough out.

I have maintained that love throughout my adulthood. I mostly keep up with what's new out there for kids. (Not in an academic way; in a pop culture kind of way.) I took a Children's Lit class one semester at Glendale Community College when I lived in LA. That was great, because we studied some of my favorites, including Harriet the Spy, my all time favorite book of any type and some new ones I'd not read before, such as Hatchet. I used to go to this amazing children's book store in LA called Storyopolis when I lived there. I bought a few picture books that came out around that time, too. One called No David! by David Shannon (I actually went to a book signing for that one.) I also began reading all the Series of Unfortunate Events -- Lemony Snicket books as well. One of my aunts bought me each book and sent them along as they came out. I love hanging out with friends' kids because it means I get to read to them. I went to the Eric Carle (of the Very Hungry Caterpillar fame) Museum in Western Mass. I know about Olivia, Maisy, Walter the Farting Dog, Eleanor, and others. I remember Ping and Mike Mulligan and Richard Scarry. I read Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants when it first came out and I was up on the Harry Potter way before most people. I love YA lit as much as picture books.

I have scared the ex (who, remember, has a two-year old) with my knowledge of children's books. It began the first week I met his daughter, when I sat on the floor and read to her, saying "Oooh, look! Sandra Boynton!" or "Yay, Eric Carle!" like a dork. He was amazed and a little scared. He is still a little scared. Just yesterday, he read me the list of books he'd just bought her, and I recognized one or two. He's one of the reasons this post is up, because he's switched from disturbed that I know this stuff to intrigued and convinced it's a message I should listen to.

I have kept some of my original copies of some books from when I was a child, including Harriet, which is a godsend because they have changed all the covers from the 60s, 70s and 80s and updated them. I guess that is a good idea, if we want kids today to be drawn to them, but it still makes me sad.

I love E.B. White, Judy Blume, Maurice Sendak (Little Bear was the first book I remember really being able to read myself), Louise Fitzhugh, Roald Dahl (oh Dahl!), Beverly Cleary, The Chocolate War, the Heidi books, Shel Silverstein, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (which I've been known to give to students when they are having a sucky time and has managed to maintain the cover I remember) and Oliver Butterworth. What? You've never heard of Butterworth?

This is worth a digression. I read The Enormous Egg in about the 5th grade. It was about this kid who finds and egg and hatches it and it's a dinosaur. I loved it. Loved it! I found out this author had written another book called The Trouble With Jenny's Ear, but the library didn't have it. Neither did the bookstore. (This was about 1985, so there wasn't an enormous bookstore on every corner and there was no Amazon and such.) I found out it was out of print. Somehow, my aunt and my mom managed to get me a copy. It was amazing. Jenny ends up with damage to her ear which leads to her ability to hear others' thoughts. (A quick search just found that it is available again in reprint from Amazon. I have my original hardcover copy (like the top photo) sans dust jacket (also like the top photo).

**UPDATE NOTE: 8/7/08 I just re-read Jenny's Ear this week. I still love it. And I forgot it's set in Massachusetts and they take a big trip into Boston and there's mention of all kinds of landmarks. As a Boston-area kid, I must have loved that! That's also one of the reasons I loved The Trumpet of the Swan.

Okay, back to the story. This obsession. Or passion. Or interest. Or whatever you want to call it.

I recently received info from Simmons, my alma mater, about a new dual degree program -- a combo master's program where you end up with a M.A. in Children's Literature and a M.S. in Library and Information Science. Simmons has the oldest Children's Lit master's program in the U.S. It also has the US News and World Report number 13 ranked Library and Info Science program in the country. This program was so intriguing to me when I read about it, I called for more info. Then I attended an information session in June about it. Then I set the whole notion aside since it's a 58 credit program with a price tag of $48,000.

Now I'm back to obsessed again. I talked to admissions today, and I could do up to 2 Children's Lit classes and 2 GSLIS classes before matriculating. They are called nondegree. They don't guarantee admission to the program after taking them, but they allow me to try it out and have time to do the application for fall 2009. No financial aid for these nondegree classes ($3500 each). I have a call into GSLIS to get all the info on their end.

I spoke directly with the director of the Children's Lit program as well (who is also an Associate Dean of the college and who totally took my call and spent 10 minutes with me only 2 days before she's leaving for 2 weeks on vacation). I gave her a 30 second summary of my story and asked which class I should take this fall as a first one. She asked if I had ever taken a survey course before. I didn't know what that meant. She asked if I'd taken Children's Lit before. I said I had, but only at a community college in Cali. She said, "When I say 'Where's Papa going with that ax?' does it mean anything to you?" And I quickly said "Sure, Charlotte's Web." And she said, "Okay. You're fine." She told me what class to take. Then she told me that if I take my vacation to Nova Scotia as planned in September for 2 weeks, I will probably fail the class by missing two sessions. She said to check with the professor teaching the course to confirm this. I thanked her and hung up. (I am awaiting response back from the professor teaching the course.)

So. Here I am. A list, if you will allow it.

- I think I would really like to pursue this degree.
- I think $48,000 for a grad degree is crazy.
- I am not entirely sure what I would do with this degree. I would love to run a children's library. I would love to be the children's buyer for an entire library system. I would love to do anything with school libraries, curriculum and teacher support for literature. I wouldn't mind working in children's publishing. The list goes on.
- I would love to be a student again.
- I am scared to work full time and go to school even part time.
- I do not have $3500 budgeted for this fall for a grad class, even with the ability to pay in 3 installments.
- When I think about learning deeply about children's literature, I get all excited.

So. I'm waiting to hear back from GSLIS Admissions. I'll talk with them about options, think about this some more, and perhaps enroll in CHL 414 with a thirty five hundred dollar price tag this fall. I'll forget about Nova Scotia and plan two shorter trips instead - to god knows where. I'll embark on a new adventure. I'll get two more master's degrees in 3 years. I'll combine my master's in education with its focus on counseling and development with these two new degrees, mix in my experience with events planning, organizational development, department management, resource management, human resource management, supervision, and perhaps come up with some amazing new career I haven't even figured out yet.

Holy crap. Am I as beserk as the hippos?

Veg-tastic!

This summer, I have a CSA share in Stillman's Farm. They are located in Lunenburg and New Braintree, MA. They participate in a bunch of the farmer's markets in Boston and they are the farmer's market in JP.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and by people buying a share, it means the farm has money for the season to help supplement what else they'll harvest and sell. To shareholders, it means we get a box of veggies every week.

I bought a 1/2 share with my neighbor-friends, Katie and Chris. So they get 2/3 of each week's take and I get 1/3. I paid $100 for my section. We started on June 26 and it runs through September sometime.

This week, I picked up the box, which I hadn't done before, because Katie and Chris are in Vermont. This is what we got today:

-- 4 red potatoes
-- 4 ears of corn
-- one bunch of arugula
-- a big handful of peas in the pod of some sort
-- 4 cucumbers
-- 2 tomatoes
-- about a 1/2 pound of green beans
-- a 1/2 pint of blueberries (but she filled it to the brim for me)
-- 5 very small apples
-- one gorgeous green pepper

It was a pretty good take. Early on, we got lots of greens. Red lettuce, romaine, kale in three colors. This was the first week for tomatoes and potatoes. Very exciting. My 1/3 of this gig is worth far more than $100. It's pretty amazing.

I've been eating almost no meat during the week, because I just make piles of veggies and throw in some black beans for protein. There's nothing like a local cucumber. It reminds me how rubbery the grocery store cucumbers are, especially in January. Eating in season can be tough in the winter, but right now, it's just a treat!

The Wedding Date

The Wedding Date was a movie with Debra Messing (Grace, from Will & Grace) that came out in 2005 and was generally sucky. Of course, I saw it. That was the year that I was writing down every movie I saw in the theatre. (NB: I just pulled out that list and can't find the first two pages containing January - May, and since The Wedding Date was released in February, I can't confirm I saw it in the theatre, but I bet I did. I'm lame like that.)

Anyway, the premise is that this woman has to go to her sister's wedding and hires a dude to pose as her boyfriend and go with her. Of course, in the film, hilarity ensues, everyone's best intentions are effed up, and while I can't remember for sure, I'm certain that she falls in love with him, and he with her, all in the course of 48 hours. That's Hollywood for you.

I have 4 weddings this year. Four. That is the most I've had in one year, ever. How I got to be 35 without having a heavier year of weddings is a marvel, really. Perhaps it's a commentary on the fact that I don't have enough friends. Or perhaps I just don't have enough friends who manage to get married. Whatever. Facts are, there are 4.

I have few issues going alone, as usual. I've never actually been to a wedding with a date. Ever. (That's weird, actually, and probably another comment about me, but I digress.)

The rundown:

1. (This one is over and is therefore out of the mix, more or less, for the purposes of this post.) Was in Ohio and required a lot of expensive travel, so I wouldn't have really asked someone to do that with me anyway, even if I was dating someone. It was fine. I was seated at the "student-affairs-and-ex-student-affairs" table and we had a great time.

The three remaining are up-coming weddings, and are presented below in the order they will happen:
2. My brother's wedding at a swanky resort in N.H. for a whole weekend with every family member and friend of our family invited.

3. Old family friends (like siblings really) Andrew and Jillian's wedding. Party van hired by Butch, whole family riding together, no overnight stay required.

4. Cousin Micaela in N.Y. Have to drive to Buffalo, my whole family invited, won't know anyone else there.

Which of these three are the problem? Easy. My brother's. It is paining me severely that I may have to attend this shindig alone. My brother's friends and my almost-sister-in-law's friends are all 7 or more years younger than I and more than half of them are married or partnered. This is my only remaining sibling to get married and both of them are younger than I. I have a big, fancy, paid-for-by-someone-else hotel room for two nights that will only host me. I will have nobody to dish with after the wedding because my sister has a baby now and will need to go to bed and let's face it, doing that with my parents is just sad at this point. I want someone to dance with at that wedding who isn't my dad. The list goes on. Need I?

I have exhausted the possibilities. I am not dating anyone. Those who I've been on dates with recently don't make sense to bring with me to this event. I've asked my ex to come with me and while he's still considering it and trying to figure out if his crazy schedule will allow him to make the trip to NH, I am 90% sure it isn't going to happen. I considered, for half a second, to take a friend with me, but then decided that was just so imposing on the two friends that would even be possible (and one just had a baby, so she's really impossible) that I couldn't do it.

So, here I am. Choices at this point? Buy a date? Become Debra Messing? Post an ad on CL and offer someone sexual favors for coming with me? Or, hold off on the sexual favors and assume that, as in Hollywood, if I'm cute and awkward enough, he'll fall in love with me by Sunday? Jesus.

My brother and almost-sister-in-law are being champs. They have put me at a table with 8 other people with the ability to add a chair at any point. They have to give an number to the hotel peeps on Tuesday, so by Monday, I have to either have a date, not have a date, or not know and pay them $46 to hold the spot for me (this is because I'm obviously not asking my almost-sister-in-law's father to pay for a 10% chance that I might have a date). I am one of the cheapest people on earth. Am I really going to pay $46 for something that there's a 10% chance of? Or is it time to just let go?

I don't know the answer yet, and since it's Thursday, and I have 4 days to figure it out, I'm going to take all 96 hours of that time. I'll let you know.

A bite of a Vegemite sandwich

Everyone knows the song Down Under by Men at Work, but apparently not everyone knows the words or what they mean. Who knew?

I'm at the Fourth of July party that I've been to for the past 20 years or so. This year, though, the usual couple who throws it is in Alaska on a cruise, so their kids are in charge. These are people I've grown up with my whole life who are like siblings to me. They are much younger (I'm the oldest of this second generation by far) but are being responsible and good hosts. There's lots of differences in this party, such as the fact that drinking games abound and until everyone gets a little drunk, it's sort of boring.

My brother and his fiance get a hold of the beerpong table (called Beirut by the kiddies, but I'm rolling old school) and proceed to trounce everyone who challenges them. They have been the reigning champs for about 2 hours when Jillian insists that I become her partner. I try to tell her that's a bad idea - that I suck at beer pong - that I don't even know the rules. She's having none of it. So we go. We go and we kick some serious ass.

In the middle of the game, Down Under by Men at Work comes on. We are all sort of singing along and then my brother, who is known to sing at the top of his lungs in social settings occasionally, begins to sing loudly. This verse is on:

Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Instead of "...and gave me a vegemite sandwich" he sings "...and gave me a bite of his sandwich" at the top of his lungs. He's just gotten done mocking me for missing a shot, so I said, "No! Vegemite sandwich!" He looked at me in confusion and said, "What? Vegemite? No! Bite of his sandwich!" Those on the sidelines start chiming in "I'm with you, S!" "What the hell is vegemite?"

I, of course, say, "Vegemite is this gross shit they eat in Australia" since at that moment, I can't remember what it is made of. No wonder I can't remember, since it's the leftover yeast after they make beer. Vegemite has added veggies to it, while marmite is the straight up yeast. It's disgusting. All my peeps in Thailand ate it. Their parents and friends would mail them jars of the stuff so they wouldn't have to go without. For some reason, the Brits like marmite and the Aussies like vegemite. (I've heard from a good source that Salacious B. Crumb is not picky and likes both equally.)

In this moment, though, nobody's buying it. My brother, at this point, stops listening to me and begins to sing, to the tune of Down Under, "I got a turkey, lettuce sandwich with no mayo." He hates mayo. Jillian turns to me at the other end of the table and says, "He hates mayo?" and I explain that my sister and brother both have, but my sister eats it now, he never would. "Weird," she says.

We finish the game, which was close, with him threatening us and getting increasingly play-annoyed that we are going to oust them. When we win, Jillian turns her back on the table, shakes her booty in his face and yells "Eat my mayo! Have some mayo!" That was pretty hilarious.

The next day, I dutifully look up the lyrics, paste them into an email, find the Wikipedia entry for vegemite, and send it all along to my brother, his fiance, Jillian, and one or two of those sitting on the sidelines. Everyone responds back that they'd been singing it his way for years, and he just emails "Vegemite is made up." Which is his way of admitting he had no clue.

Wonder if any of them know what "chunder" means. Don't think I'll ask.

And Trip Three is Over

To round out the most flights I've ever taken in one month, I travelled to Ohio/Kentucky for Todd and Kate's wedding. It was an easy trip (much easier than I thought it would be) and the wedding was lovely.

I flew from Boston to Columbus ($200 cheaper than flying to Cincinnati)then rented a car and drove the 2 hours down. Crossed the river, and thus the border, into Kentucky, and checked into the hotel with 2 hours to spare before the wedding shuttle would take me to the church. The reception was at the Taft Art Museum back in Ohio. The museum is akin to the ISGM here in Boston. Very cool.

After brunch the next morning, I headed back to Columbus after a quick visit with my maternal grandfather, who happened to be in the hospital in Cincinnati (he lives about 40 minutes outside the city). Thirty-five bucks for the rental car (beat that!) and 40 minutes of circling Boston later, and I was happily at home in JP. Exactly 37.5 hours gone from my house. Crazy. This must be what business travel is like, flying to LA for a meeting, and back in time for breakfast the next morning.

I went straight to a BBQ at my neighbor-friends' house, in order to celebrate their engagement, which I'd been alerted to earlier in the day via phone call, somewhere on Route 71 between cities in Ohio. They are doing it soon, doing it small, and are very happy about it. I'm excited for them, considering they are an amazing couple who I think will be very happy for a long time.

Thus ends my month of domestic trips. Whew. And imagine, all that travel, all that time, all that money (in some cases) and none of the three are cities I even have a shred of appreciation for. Oh sure, Houston is home to my niece, and Cincinnati was pretty enough (I'm partial to cities with huge rivers in them.), but given my choice of major U.S. cities to visit, Atlanta, Houston or Cincinnati would rank somewhere below number 100...

Now is time to breathe and enjoy my favorite holiday and then gear up for two more trips (Western Mass and NYC) in July followed by wedding craziness in August. I love summer (except the heat, of course).

Houston

This is my month of U.S. travel. I've not been this many places in this short a time in a long time. Atlanta, Houston, and Ohio all in one month.

Houston is where my sister, her husband, and my new niece live now. I've been there twice now. I'm not a fan. But I don't hate it either. It reminds me of any other U.S. city. Lots of highway, lots of buildings, lots of strip malls, and a park here and there. But I like a city with a little more character.

I was there for the 4 days that it was 97 degrees here in Boston. I missed that awful heat wave completely. And, being in Houston, you'd think I would've still suffered, since there, it was 88 by 7:30 a.m. on a cool day. The major difference is two-fold. One, everything and everywhere in Houston is air conditioned. Everyone's house, the schools, every shop, restaurant, everything. Second, nobody walks anywhere. In going from the car to the house or whatever building you are going to, you barely notice it's hot, because you're only outside for 45 seconds.

While I definitely appreciated that, and was able to wear my jeans in the 90 degree heat, I would hate to live like that. I love to walk. I love that Bostonians don't need cars and even those of us who have them are able to stretch a tank of gas out over three weeks or more if we work it right. My car allows me to be lazy if I want to be, but mostly it just sits there.

I also love the outdoors. I can't imagine 5 months of the year where I can't go outside. Now, I realize that those in the South think that we up here can't go outdoors 5 months of the year because it's too cold, but we just don't think like that. We spend as much time outside in the winter as we do in the summer.

The real fact is that I want to live somewhere where it never gets over 65 and when it does people complain of the heat. Northern Scandinavia? Not sure. It's not going to happen, of course, but one can dream. I wouldn't even mind 8 months of winter as long as it was sunny most of the time. Like Denver, only perpetually. (Denver gets mofo hot in the summer.)

Dreams. I know.

Atlanta

Here I am in Atlanta. I'm here for a conference. I wasn't looking forward to coming down here because I hate the heat and feel like 4 amazing spring Boston days have been stolen from me. (I'm a little crazy, I know.) The last time I was here was in August last year for a training when it was so hot I thought I would melt. I am also finding that when I travel in the U.S., I am increasingly snobby. I actually think to myself, "Why would anyone live here?" Am I serious? Am I that in love with Boston? It was only 4 years ago that I was still bouncing all around the U.S. living anywhere but Boston. Age changes us, I think.

First night here, two of my young colleagues and I went out to get food. We walked about 15 minutes through downtown Atlanta to get to Varsity, a place that was recommended to me. The walk was interesting. I don't think it was all that safe. First of all, it was dark. Secondly, it was through some sort of dodgy-looking areas. Third, my college roommate, who just moved here for work and who I had dinner with the next night said white women should not be walking alone downtown at night. Okay.

We were approached by a significant number of homeless men on the street. They were all friendly. They all said hello first. Some were leering, others were just saying hello. I never felt unsafe, but I was sure annoyed. I am such a Bostonian. I want my homeless people to be as rude as regular Bostonians, and not try to make friends with me while asking me for a dollar. These folks didn't even ask for money. They just chatted with us. Is it because we're in the South and people are just friendly here? I don't really get it.

Shirley Franklin, the mayor here, is working on ending homelessness in Atlanta in the next 10 years. They are apparently tearing down the housing developments and building significant section 8 housing to re-place folks in homes. She is also personally meeting with every graduating senior from the Atlanta public school system. Personally. To discuss their future plans and where they are headed. Wow. She spoke to us yesterday and I was impressed. (And she could actually articulate her words, which is a trait you don't get in a mayor in Boston, at least in the last decade and a half.)

So back to the Varsity. It was established in 1928 and when you walk in, you wonder how the hell to get to the food. It's enormous. We had a debate about how many people could fit inside it. I just looked it up and it can have over 800 people inside and over 600 cars pulled up at any time. (It's a drive-in diner, too.) Holy crap.

We were barraged by the staff at the registers yelling "What'll ya have?" over and over again. It's their tag line. Finally, after wondering what a heavy dog was, I asked. It's a hot dog with extra chili on it. Extra chili? Jeez. I ended up with two cheese dogs (regular hot dogs with cheese sauce on them), fries and a peach pie that I shared with my colleagues. One of them had a burger and the other had chili fries, which were conveniently served with the chili and cheese sauce in separate little dipping cups. The food was fine. Diner food.

Apparently, two miles of hot dogs, a ton of onions, 2500 pounds of potatoes, 5000 fried pies and 300 gallons of chili are made from scratch daily, according to their website. Gross? Delicious? You decide.

It's on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus, and they have 5 other locations. I got a Varsity hat, you know those paper ones that the old-time diner-workers wore? They still wear them and you can take one home.

Not sure there'll be anything else of note to write about Atlanta, but if there is, I'll update.

Disaster!

I am obsessed with books about disasters. This began in college when I first read Holocaust! The shocking story of the Boston Cocoanut Grove fire. It's out of print now, but one can get it at the library. Here's a nice summary of the fire.

Here is where I give my very good friend Robin the credit for my love of disaster narratives. She introed me to the Cocoanut Grove book in 1993 or thereabouts. She just recently loaned me her copy of Holocaust so I could re-read it. It was great the second time too. There are fire codes and laws that were changed nation-wide because of that fire.

Then there's Dark Tide, which I became obsessed with when it came out in paperback in 2004. I read it in only a couple of days. I had heard my whole life about the great molasses flood in Boston, believing the rumors when I was small that on hot days, you could still smell molasses on the streets in the North End. The book read like a novel and again, building and engineering codes and laws changed nation-wide because of this disaster.

I met the author of Dark Tide, Stephen Puleo at a book signing and then convinced my workplace to use it as the text for an ethics class. I have passed it on to more people than perhaps any other book I've ever read.

When I was travelling in Belize last September, I read Anita Shreve's A Wedding in December, which has a story-within-a-story set during the Halifax Explosion. I was fascinated, but didn't really take the time to look up info about that disaster. Then, I visited Robin a couple weeks ago, and told her I was headed to Nova Scotia for vacation this fall. She had been recently, and of course, has a Halifax Explosion book. This one is called Too Many to Mourn, and uses one family to tell the story of the explosion. There were 66 members of the Jackson family living in the Richmond area of Halifax at the time of the explosion, and 46 of them were killed. The son of one of the surviving women wrote the book. It was excellent. This disaster is the reason that Halifax has such a great relationship with Boston and Massachusetts since we sent so many doctors, nurses and supplies to their rescue. That giant Christmas tree we get every year for the Pru comes from the people of Halifax to the people of Boston. Pretty cool tradition, considering we're coming up on almost 100 years.

All of these disasters took place in the first half of the 20th century. The impact they had on history is clear. The books were written in a narrative form that takes the reader back to meet those who were there during the disaster, which I love.

I also read Boston on Fire not too long ago, which is a compilation of most of the major Boston fires, each getting a shorter writing. Boston has had more major fires than any other U.S. city (probably because we've been around longer). Stephanie Schorow does a nice job with this book too.

Of course, I've read the requisite Into Thin Air, Alive, and Into the Wild. But those aren't really disasters. They are human endeavors gone wrong. Well, okay, Alive was just a plane crash, but it's more of a survival story.

I have to be really careful after I read one of these books to not go on and on about the details of the event to friends, family and strangers, even. I'm a massive dork, and I have to try to remember to keep it in check. Mostly, I fail, thinking, "Who wouldn't want to know about this? It's amazing!" The answer is: most people. Most people just don't care about this kind of stuff.

I'm sad for them, actually.

UPDATE: How could I forget Endurance, the story of Shackleford and Antartica? A bunch of explorer dudes all got stuck in the ice floes on a ship. The ship ends up torn to pieces and they have to walk out of there. Amazing book. And Ship of Gold? How could I forget that? I passed that book out to all my diver friends in Thailand. One copy ended up more ratty and dogeared than any book I've ever owned. A ship full of gold was sailing from San Fran around the bottom of South America (pre-Panama Canal) to NYC and sank off the coast of North Carolina in the 1850s during the gold rush. They found her in the 1980s. More here. Anyway, thanks again to Robin who remembered that I passed these both to her.

Oh, yeah

Saw this today on the bumper of the car in front of me. Practically got killed taking the photo.

The Great Pedometer Challenge

Last year sometime, I picked up a freebie pedometer as part of the JP Walks program in my 'hood. (Yet another reason to love where I live.) I used it for a few weeks, just to see if I was really walking as much as I think I do or claim I do. No such luck. Even with a 8-minute walk to the T on each end and with the regular trips for lunch and an added walk to my next appointment rather than using the T, I was still usually below the recommended 10,000 steps a day. (Which, by the way, is about 5 miles.) I can't even begin to imagine how few steps the average car-driving, desk-sitting commuter takes each day.

Anyway, using it motivated me for a bit and I had a little competition going with myself for a while. This wore off rather quickly.

Just last week, neighbor-friend Katie said, "I've been using my pedometer. I love it." She's a teacher, so she does quite well in the steps department. And, she's a teacher without a regular classroom, so she moves even more than the average teacher does. I found my pedometer that night and challenged her to a three day cumulative total competition.

It was a stupid week for me to do such a thing, considering I had to drive to work twice in those three days due to needing the car for work events. When all was said and done, I had somewhere between 22,000 and 23,000 and she righteously kicked my ass with somewhere around the 32,500 mark. I was amazed.

So, when I saw her Sunday night, after she and her partner Chris fed me an amazing black bean veggie burger, I asked for a rematch. Five days, Monday - Friday this week. She accepted. I was determined to win this time.

I got up at 6:15 on Monday morning and walked from my house to the JP Pond, around the Pond once and back to my house. Total trip? About 7500 steps, almost 4 miles. I repeated this Wednesday and Thursday morning, with different routes each day to keep things fresh. Not only did it score me a total of 22,500 steps or so, but can I just say how amazing JP is at 6:15 in the morning in May? It's quiet and fresh and everything smells delicious. The houses look shiny and the noise of the T doesn't even get annoying.

I've been making sure to walk at lunch. I went to Fanueil Hall for lunch one day and Tuesday I had an event down by Copley and I walked there from work. Extra 5000 steps!

I got an email from Katie on Wednesday lamenting the fact that she had left her pedometer at home that day. For a split second, I considered saying that we could just forget Wednesday, but then I realized I didn't want to give up my hard work. Instead I replied and said that maybe I'd actually beat her this time!

Right now it's Thursday night and I have a total of 56,443 with another whole day to go. Tomorrow, I'll definitely drag myself out of bed at 6:15 a.m. again because believe it or not, I'm looking at an apartment down the street at 6:30. That's when the dude was available and since I figured I'd be walking by anyway, why the hell not?

My original goal for myself for the 5 days was 50,000. I revised that this morning to 65,000. That means only 8600 to go tomorrow. I think I'll break that. Perhaps I'll even hit 70,000. That'd be cool. Maybe I don't even need Katie. Maybe I just need to keep up with myself this summer.

Side note: on Wednesday morning when I got up at 6:15 to leave, my roommate was already in the shower. Early for him, I think. I decided to just leave and figure out some way to pee along the way. I quickly figured out there wasn't anywhere open till 7 and that I was uncomfortable as hell. So I copped a squat behind a bush on the Southwest Corridor Park alongside the T and hoped a cop or a dog didn't come by at just that moment. They didn't, and I went along my merry way much happier afterwards. Some things never change. You can take the girl 13 years out of college, but you can't take the college pee-where-you-need-to out of the girl.

Get out and walk! Get to know your neighborhood. Look into people's back yards while they aren't looking. Smile at the cute guy who's leaving early for work in a suit. Tie your house key to your sneaker, stick your license in your pocket (or your bra) and jam to "Gin and Juice". I dare ya.

UPDATE: The final tally on Friday night was 70,545. WOO HOO!

What a difference a day makes.

Sometimes, things really do turn around. On their asses. 180 degrees. In only a moment.

I had one of those on Wednesday night, of the painful and horrifying variety. When I woke up Thursday morning, I realized the significance of it. In order to let it really sink in, and make sure I didn't miss the importance, I took the day off from work on Thursday and spent it as a day of wisdom and reflection. I let it wash over me, really felt it, and made sure I recognized its meaning. I came out the other side of Thursday's self-imposed retreat a better woman, a stronger person, and clear about where I'm standing in the world.

If I ever question the space I'm in now, I only need to remember where I was and what I was feeling and saying at noon in Salem. But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to question it. Some things just aren't in doubt.

Crying

"It is clear that crying is a primary way for the body to eliminate harmful stress hormones. Thus, crying is a natural and essential biological function that results in the elimination of stress hormones connected to every imaginable stress related health problem. The 21st century has started by removing any doubt about the positive health effects of crying." - Dr. Kevin Keough, Helium

Well good. Because with babies being born through difficult labors and breaking up with men I really liked, I seem to do a lot of it.

Romance and Practicality

I am a pretty hopeless romantic. I try to hide it from the general public, preferring to appear as nonchalant as possible. In secret, though, I read impossible love stories, bathe in romantic comedies as often as possible, and dream silly dreams about being swept off my feet and living happily ever after.

It's amazing to me that I still have this romanticism at my age with my history. I should be bitter by now. I should have shirked this part of me a long time ago. For whatever reason, I haven't. The thing is though, as romantic as I am, as much as I want that part of me in charge, practicality always wins. Always.

As of right now, it's been 58 hours since I've talked to him. I broke it off. It was my decision. I sat in the driver's seat as he sat in the passenger's side and told him I couldn't do it. I walked away at a time when he probably needed me to stay; because I want more. I was disappointed in him for not being able to transcend the crap that is swirling around his head to at least care for me a little. I pat on the back here, a peck on the lips there, a smile for later. But he couldn't. He is just too tired, too overwhelmed, too buried in the stuff of life right now. And now I'm disappointed in myself for once again bowing to my practicality instead of believing more deeply in romanticism and sticking to see if we could make it through.

This is the right decision for me (for us) right now. It is. I'm not confused about that. But I still hate it. Because he's been away for most of our relationship's lifetime, I've not gone more than 24 hours without speaking to him on the phone for 3 and a half months. About 100 days of never missing a day. And now, nothing. Nothing for almost three days. Three days that have felt longer than those 100. By a mile.

The even worse part of this is the strength of my feelings for him. I've walked away from plenty of people before. But not one who I loved. Not one who I believed might make a good partner. Now I have. It's a horrible experience.

I am pretty sure he won't read this. Perhaps he will, though, since the post below this is about him and music. If he does, I'm not sure what he'll think. He's got a lot of pride. That's something I respect in him, because I don't have any. I also think it's a weakness, though. Pride can keep someone from getting what they really want. I think he knows how I feel and that this decision was painful for me. (The crying for the 30 minute car ride to the bus station may have tipped him off if he wasn't already clear.)

The practical side of me is already tired of being sad and is ready to move on. The romantic side of me is pathetically wishing that he'd call and tell me he needs some time, but wants to try again once he's worked through some things. Since he's completely in charge of the outcome, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. So I'm enjoying the sunshine and feeling young and reminding myself how much I learned about myself over the past 4 months of being with him.

Facts are though: I miss him.

Never Too Late

Through the Post-Idea-Man, I've discovered a number of bands/singers I've never heard of before. Now, know this isn't all that unusual of an occurance, since I've never been a music kind of chick. I'm a book and movies kind of chick.

Sure, in junior high I paid attention to the Top 40 and rocked out appropriately to Belinda Carlisle, Debbie Gibson, and Whitney Houston in high school. In college I did the REM and Pearl Jam thing, along with the rest of the flannel and Doc Marten free world. Back then, though, I was always in a cohort, always around people who did care about music and who by osmosis, mostly, kept me up-to-date. I had a friend at my summer job in college, Tracy, who brought me to Santana at Holman Stadium in Nashua, NH and Phish opened for them (it was 1992). And Josh, who went to the University of Richmond and took me one spring to see Dave Matthews at a small little venue two years before anyone else even knew who they were. Oh and seeing Guns n Roses with Metallica was the highlight of freshman year. (1992 was a big year.)

I've been in the adult world for the better part of 15 years (now that's scary in and of itself), largely without anyone who really digs music as my everyday friend. I've had a few over the years, like Melissa in LA who took me to Prince in the MGM Grand Ballroom in Vegas and Ray in LA who scored free tix to Barenaked Ladies at Universal Studios, invited me and I missed it because I was sick. I saw Beck in LA too, and loved every minute of that Hollywood Bowl show. I saw Lilith Fair two years in a row at the Rose Bowl. Wait, all of those examples were from LA and involved Ray and Melissa. I think after them, I've not had another music friend. Ever. Huh.

Mostly, though, I've just gone through life not really caring. I actually skip the music section in Entertainment Weekly even though I read every other page and every other article in the whole thing. Occasionally I come across some song I really dig, like Golddigger by Kanye or Yellow by Coldplay. Then I play it over and over and maybe even buy the disk it's on. I've probably bought 10 CDs, if that, over the past 12 years.

Assembly of Dust, Michael Franti/Spearhead, and Jack Johnson are the three bands/singers who I've learned to love recently through The S.M.E. (he needs some better nickname, this one is work-based). He has been sending me lists of songs to listen to, usually based on whatever he listened to that night or morning. I look to find them either on YouTube (did you know you can find TONS of songs on there?) or on Rhapsody and listen to them. Some I like, some I love and others I could do without. He introduced me a month ago to Dear Prudence, the Grateful Dead version, which I can't seem to find anywhere. Some artists, such as Jack Johnson, have all their music available for listening (not downloading) on their websites.

The S.M.E. has very broad and deep musical taste. (And there's room in his head, since he knows almost nothing of TV or movies and reads only occasionally and then nonfiction.) He loves the hippie crunch, the classic R & B, good old Jazz, rap and hip hop, sensitive ponytail man music, and indie "adult alternative". His little girl digs her some Soul Sister. He's got a diverse background geographically, culturally, and educationally, and this makes his music knowledge even better. He owns some insane number of CDs; 5000 maybe. He knows who Lori McKenna is, but couldn't identify Patrick Dempsey by name or show if his life depended on it.

I think my favorite three songs so far that he's introed me to are See You In the Light and Never Too Late by Michael Franti/Spearhead and Sometimes by Assembly of Dust. Jack Johnson can't really do any wrong. His songs are collectively pleasing and fun. Banana Pancakes? Only a 32-year-old Hawaiian songwriter with two little kids can get away with a love song revolving around staying in bed and eating pancakes. Beauty.

And, Idea Man isn't always consistent, so sometimes the song-of-the-day is a little puzzle. Sometimes all I get is the lyrics, pasted into an email, sans song title or artist. Good thing for Google, I tell you. Most of the time, just Googling a line of a song will bring a hit for the name of the song. Sometimes a trip to a lyrics search engine is necessary, but it's never taken me more than a few minutes to find them. And sometimes, if he's worried I might think the lyrics mean something profound as a message, he'll only send part of them, as if I can't find the rest. Silly man.

One of the many profound differences between he and I is that I, being book and script minded, love lyrics. I love the poetry of a song, the meaning of it, the way the words weave into a message for the listener. I've always loved lyrics. He, on the other hand, is much more driven by the beat, the actual music and the way a song travels through the air to the listener's ears. The lyrics almost don't matter most of the time. He plays a song for the shape of it, the way it makes him want to move. He can play a song on repeat for hours because the experience is about the sound and it doesn't get boring, the way someone focused on the lyrics might grow tired of the song after only a couple of plays.

All I know is that I feel fortunate to have someone in my life again who cares about music, who might bring me back to that world for a while. It'll never be a focus of mine, but I appreciate it enough to really enjoy the ride when someone else is driving.

New Toy!

My sister bought me a full-day class through Brookline Adult Community Education called "Mindfulness: A Retreat." It was cancelled and rescheduled and the second time the instructor didn't show up. So she got her money back and I just bought myself a kick-ass Christmas-in-April present.



Why haven't I ever owned a food processor before? I've had blenders in apartments in the past, but I've never owned one. Why? What the hell is the matter with me?

I just made a carrot, celery, pear, apple, mint, ginger, pear juice smoothie and it was amazing. I've been very bad lately about getting enough fruits and veggies. It is hard when I'm out 4-5 nights a week at work events or board meetings or whatever else I'm doing. And lunch, well, I just get lazy and try to claim that the lettuce/tomato/onion on my turkey sub will suffice. So, here's to a new leaf. To going back to my days of eating plenty of what's good for me. And this time, I get to have fun doing it!

The Four Ms of Management and Leadership

Today's post aims to take a look at what I've dubbed as the Four Ms of Leadership or Management. It stars an unlikely cast of characters that runs us from fifteenth century Italy, through sixteenth century Germany with a giant leap into the 1970s and 1990s in the United States. The cast was selected as icons largely due to their styles. There was absolutely no science involved in this effort, nor do I really know what I'm talking about.

The Four Ms are presented in linear order based on severity of the impact on those they are managing or leading.

Machiavelli, author of The Prince and chancellor of Florence in the mid-1500s, has spurned a type of ruling/management/leadership which bares his name. According to some random website I found, "An ideal Machiavellian rule is in one in which the ruler is both loved and feared. Since this position is nearly impossible to attain, the wise ruler should choose to be feared rather than loved. A ruler who chooses to be feared rather than loved is usually interpreted as an evil ruler."

We've all met this person. The best example I've got in my own life is a VP at a school I once worked at who would regularly yell and bang his fist on the table in meetings, demanding actions from his subordinates (and sometimes from people who were his equals). This created an atmosphere where he sometimes decreed absolutely ridiculous things that were brought to fruition simply because nobody could tell him no. It also resulted in lots of hurt feelings, disrespect, and general hatred of him across campus. I believe he knew all this and didn't care. I think he liked it. He was a classic Machiavellian example.


Melrose Place, that iconic television show from the 1990s is our second M. It involves trickery, general messing-with, lying, cheating, rumor-creating, and some low-grade meanness that sometimes masquerades as sincerity and care. There is always a caution around those who employ the Melrose Place model of management or leadership because you can never trust the person's actions or words. They might be sarcastic. They might tell someone something about you that you told them in confidence. They might set you up to fail. You never really know what might happen.

Most people hope they've left this one back in high school, but it's never that easy. We often find this in the workplace, especially when someone is threatened by us. We also might find this when the manager/leader has no real power themselves, since they are controlled by those above them, so they have no choice but to mess with those below them. Our guest post generator self-identifies within this category because as a public servant, he often finds himself in situations where messing with someone is the only option to get them to respond to direction and within his sector, largely filled with men, this is an acceptable option. He only uses this method with those who are sort of stupid (or at least acting stupid) and/or those who just flat-out deserve to be messed with.

Maude, of 1970's sitcom fame, appears in the third slot as an M. (This, by the way, gets the "Completely Random" award in our cast of characters, but stick with us.) Maude was groundbreaking when it hit the airwaves in 1972. Maude herself had already made history when she originally appeared as Edith Bunker's cousin on All in the Family because she was, according to Wikipedia, "a middle-aged, politically liberal, married woman living in suburbia, who embraced the tenets of women's liberation, always voted for Democratic Party candidates, strongly supported legal abortion, and advocated, albeit often clumsily, for civil rights and racial and gender equality."
She was blunt, to the point, and didn't really care who she upset by telling it like it was. But she was caring and loving and didn't alienate those around her with her.

This is my favorite type of management/leadership because it's the one I use. It fits my personality, gets results in the workplace, and earns me respect (more often than not). It has also resulted in misunderstandings and hurt feelings (of those who I've been too blunt with). It has led to my asking an employee who I was exasperated with "Do you think I'm magic? No. I got the information because I asked the right questions!" (That was a lowpoint in my career.) This style has allowed me to get to the bottom of problems quickly without alienating others. Our post generator sees this style as the compliment to his Melrose Placianism. He is blunt to a fault sometimes, even having recently asked a subordinate "Are you retarded?" (Granted, his workplace is the rare one that allows this type of question to be acceptable.) His use of this style allows him to call another subordinate recently and ask point blank for an answer for an unacceptable behavior, and when no satisfactory answer was provided, he said something along the lines of "You don't just do Behavior A. That sets both of us up to look like asses. It's unacceptable that you did it." And for the receiver of that information to have nothing to say.

Martin Luther had a distinct, moral belief system that required him to do what he believed right. He led with actions and written word in order to make the world around him a better place. After authoring the 95 Theses amongst other writings, he was brought forth to the general assembly of the Holy Roman Empire. After being asked if he was the author of the writings in question, which were inciting others to revolt against empire/church rule and whether he still stood by the content, he said, "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear reason ... I neither can nor will make any retraction, since it is neither safe nor honourable to act against conscience." After a period of exile, he snuck back to continuing leading the Reformation. Again according to Wikipedia (which I'm allowed to use since this isn't a paper for class or my thesis), "For eight days in Lent, Luther preached eight sermons, which became known as the "Invocavit Sermons." In these sermons, he hammered home the primacy of core Christian values such as love, patience, charity, and freedom, and reminded the citizens to trust God's word rather than violence to bring about necessary change. The effect of Luther’s intervention was instantaneous. After the sixth sermon, Jerome Schurf wrote to the elector: 'Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin’s return spread among us! His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day misguided people into the way of the truth.'"

It is rare, these days, to find these leaders. But they are out there. These are the people who are thoughtful, and lead/manage with what's right and people's feelings equally in check. They are the ones who may appear weak to those who prescribe to one of the other three Ms, but who probably, albeit slowly and over time, make a real difference in a company, an organization or a school. They rule from love and care. I wish sometimes that I could employ more of this style in my work. Eisenhower once said: “You don't lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership.” These people live by this.

There you have it. The Four Ms of leadership/management. I have a very strong feeling that this isn't making it into the mainstream leadership theory books anytime soon, but it was fun to think about and research. Which style are you?

She's from Boston

There is apparently a song, by Kenny Chesney, released way back in 2006 entitled "She's From Boston."

Here's a sampling of the lyrics:

She comes from Boston
Works at the jewelry store
Down in the harbor
Where the ferries come to shore
She never really knew how good it would feel
To finally find herself in a place so warm and real

She wears a Red Sox cap
To hide her baby dreads
The girl she was in New England
is different now and then
In all the local bars
She flirts and tells the boys while they're talkin'
She's from Boston

Click here for the whole song.

The question is (as posed by our new post-idea-developer) why we in Boston don't play this song. Couldn't it cross over? Isn't it sort of reggae-ish? Why haven't we heard of it? I, who am obsessed with all things Boston and who actually lived the beach-living, boy-flirtin', talkin' about Boston on the beach, barefoot life? The Idea-Man, who owns more music than anyone I've ever met, is obsessed with Sirius and has generally heard of everything musical?

How did this happen? Now, I can see that this song, which I've finally found online for free and am listening to right now, isn't played in your average bar in Boston, because it is sort of country-ish, and we like to be very clear that we don't like the country music here in merry old New England. But, the Barking Crab on a hot July afternoon after work? This song is ripe for that. Any bar in Fanueil Hall on a Saturday night around closing time? Come on! It sounds a lot like Jimmy Buffett!

How is it that I can sing every word to Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" when it's on the radio? We allowed that to cross over and not this? Blasphemy!

Of course, I of the self-proclaimed pop culture knowledge said today, "Kenny Chesney is the one that started the fight with the Dixie Chicks back when they said that thing about Texas!" thus ruining this song for Mr. Idea Developer. (Personally, I think he was overreacting, but who am I?) Come to find out, tonight, it was NOT Kenny Chesney who fought with the Dixie Kick-Ass Chicks, it was Toby Keith. (Well, sorry that I can't keep my white, middle-America 30/40something country singers straight. I personally think this is a point of pride.) So the song is not ruined. For the record, I did know that Kenny was the one who was married to Renee Zellweger for about a minute and a half.

Now that I've listened to it about 5 times straight while writing this, I have to say it's making my feet itch. My feet itch regularly, but this line in particular is doing it to me: She tries to explain to them / That education and occupation will have to wait for now / She loves the Rasta, reggae rhythms, her dreams have changed somehow. Man, I remember that. I felt that. I lived it. I still think it. I still think about chucking it all in and heading down to St. Thomas or Kitts or wherever and just living the life.

I highly recommend a listen. It's downloadable for free here, only took a sec to download the Rhapsody player.

Scrub a dub dub

(this post idea comes from our new guest "post developer", who has declared himself perfect for this position, not that there was an opening.)

Public laundry rooms. Laundry rooms in the basement of your triple-decker house in the city. The laundromat. Everyone's had one or more of these in their lives at some point or another.

Thoughts about laundry rooms/laundromats: (in no particular order)

1. Laundry Cards: Some are equipped with these very convienent cards, allowing you to put money on an account and swipe the card in place of having quarters on hand. I've never had that luxury, having gone to college long before the introduction of such technology and having never lived in a swank building. I imagine it's great, as I spent 20 minutes Friday night on my way home stopping into stores and coffee shops begging for a couple dollars in change so I could do laundry when I got home.

2. Lint: Why don't people clean out the damn lint trap? Laziness? Lack of education? (My brother reached the ripe old age of about 25 before he even knew there was any such a thing in a dryer, so this is possible.) Whatever causes this breakdown, it means that the rest of us have to come along and clean your lint out of the trap before we can even begin, lest we start a fire or end up with wet clothes after spending a buck seventy-five in hard begged quarters. Now granted, it's clean lint, but the amount of hair trapped in there with it is extremely disconcerting.

2. Detergent: In shared laundry rooms in smaller houses, people generally leave their detergent on the table or the floor or wherever. This is convienent for people like me, who come along and steal some, since I keep forgetting to buy my own. In those situations where you have to bring it with you, this limits your choices, since the most economical version tends to be that giant tub with the little cup you place under the push button. No hauling that thing around. The suggester of this post is a proud supporter of Mrs. Meyers products, which are natural and expensive and don't leave an unnatural smell and come in convienently small bottles, perfect for hauling around. That's a good thing, because for $11.99 a bottle, you wouldn't want some lowlife thief like me helping themselves.

3. Touching other people's clothes: The rules are definitely not clear on this front. In college, everyone did it. You arrive to a full washer and want to use it? Pull out her clothes, leave them on top of the dryer and carry on. Does this rule apply in a public laundromat where the owner might be right there, but is just lost in the Telemundo soap on the 12 inch TV? Does this rule apply in the house laundry room where there's only 5 occupants total in the house and you can probably figure out who owns the skanky royal blue lace thongs?

4. Claiming the carts: This one applies to laundromats. You know those cart things with the rack on top for hanging stuff? Do you get to claim those and hang on to them for 2 hours until your clothes are ready? I think not. Tell that to those living in rural Gettysburg. They didn't know that.

5. Children: Keep them under control. This is not a playroom. And on a busy Saturday, 15 children running amongst the 20 adults, 30 machines and cars in the parking lot is not cool. It's a hazard.

6. Timing: Are there rules about times that it is appropriate to do laundry? If so, adhere to them. In K & C's house, nobody is supposed to do laundry before 9 a.m. or after 9 p.m. I personally think that's a little tight reigned, and would advocate for before 7 or after 10, but whatever the rules, follow them. It's so the poor bastids on the first floor don't get rocked out of sleep at 2 a.m. by a spin cycle or your 22 cents in the agitator.

Got any laundry pet-peeves? Let me know!

I'm an addict

It's official. I'm a Netflix addict.

I've had a movie problem for quite a while now, and I've admitted that freely. I love films, I love going to the theatre, and I keep up with all the news. Entertainment Weekly continues to be my bible (or one of them, anyway).

For my birthday, I received a 2-at-a-time 12-month subscription to Netflix. What a gift! (Major points go out to the giver, he knows who he is.) For those of you still really far behind, the way it works is this: you set up your queue and put movies in it. You place them in the order you wish to receive them. Netflix sends you the top film. When you are done watching it, you put it in the freebie return mailer and put it in the mail. They get it the next day and send you the next one on your list, which you receive the day after that. With a 2-at-a-time subscription, you have two of these little cycles running, so you usually have a movie at your house. It couldn't be easier. You can switch around your queue anytime, too, so if you were supposed to get something all serious and decided that afternoon that you'd had a shitty day and want Borat instead, go ahead it and put it on the top! Easy!

My subscription also comes with unlimited "Instant" watching. This includes some films that I can download instantly to my PC and watch them on demand. There are about 7000 options for this. New stuff isn't usually available in this option, but so far, I've always been able to find something that looks interesting. Girl 27, a documentary I never heard of about a girl who sued MGM Studios in the 30s, was really cool. I never would've otherwise watched that.

I've been off TV more or less for the better part of a year. Besides Amazing Race, Grey's and Lost, I never turn it on. Now I have even less reason to, since I can just jump into bed, click on the computer and watch either the DVD that arrived in my mailbox that day or download! It's seriously addicting. And since it was a gift, it feels like it's free, which psychologically is pretty damn cool.

Since February 6 when I got my first film in the mail, I've watched 12 movies on disc. I've also watched 7 "Instantly". In 4 weeks! Holy cow. I just looked that up on my Netflix account since they keep track of it all, and that's crazy. 19 movies in 28 days. I think by the end of this 12-month subscription, I'll either need a 12-step program to give it up or I'll have to start paying for it. I think I already know the answer to that one.

required flexibility

flex·i·ble [flek-suh-buhl]
–adjective
1. capable of being bent, usually without breaking; easily bent.
2. susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable.
3. willing or disposed to yield; pliable: a flexible personality.
–noun
4. a flexible substance or material, as rubber or leather.
-alternate definition
5. not a word to describe Karen.

re·quire·ment [ri-kwahyuhr-muhnt]
–noun
1. that which is required; a thing demanded or obligatory.
2. an act or instance of requiring.
3. a need or necessity.
alternate definition
4. a source of incredible frustration to Karen.

Required flexibility. Not my forte. Not even close. Ick.

Bird's Eye View of New England is the current exhibit at the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library, Copley. It's free and very very cool.

And everything is, in fact, bigger....

...in Texas.

I knew there was a reason I'd avoided this state. I've never seen so many chain restaurants, chain stores, giant buildings, giant highways, or huge trucks in my life. I guess it's all sweetened by being called ma'am every 5 seconds. (am I a ma'am? what happened to miss? did that leave me right around the time my grey hair became noticeable?)

He* took me to the Bass Pro Shop. I was thinking, "Whatever. Why are we going to a fishing store?" but the girl in me won and kept me quiet while I indulged him in his boy-ness. The giant "OUTDOOR WORLD" sign outside the door interested me, though, being an outdoors-girl, so even I was excited by the time we parked the car in the massive parking lot about a quarter-mile away from the door. (This, by the way, was after he made me drive all along the ginormous "mall" with the biggest Lowe's I've ever seen just to make me understand how big it all was.) We stopped outside for a moment to admire the boats and the windows framed completely in antlers (which I, in my overwhelmed state accidentally called "horns", thus looking like a complete idiot).

Once inside, we walked through the entry way, complete with a living room and fireplace for those not interested in partaking in the magic, I guess. About 30 seconds later, he turned to me and said "Close your mouth." I laughed outloud and the fun began.

First question? "So, at least 100 feet, right?" he said, looking up. I looked up too. Yes. The room was so cavernous, the roof had to be at least 100 feet high.

We checked out the fish under the waterfall. I love fish, being a diver, even freshwater ones. We stared up and looked at the stuffed lions, tigers, bears (oh my!) and every other creature imaginable. I took a photo of the raccoons playing poker inside the tent displayed on the floor. We went to the hunting section to see the guns and found the indoor achery range and indoor gun range (complete with a one day concealed-weapon course -- welcome to not-Massachusetts).

I sat on an ATV for a while. We found a Lazyboy chair upholstered in camoflage which vibrated and recylined and sat in it (he made a dirty comment about the vibration which in the end, I couldn't argue with). I texted a photo of the giant Big Deer Hunter game to my brother and my almost sister-in-law because everywhere they go they play each other on that insipid thing (she usually wins). I fed the amusement parkesque shooting gallery quarters so he, gun shooting expert that he is, could amuse me with the results of direct hits. (You know, like at Canobie Lake when we were kids. Hit the dude in the ass and he plays piano, hit the frying pan and it spins on it's burner.)

We looked over the balcony at the boats and realized that almost every one was more expensive than my car. We wondered about the two dudes pushing a shopping cart, clearly on a mission and what they were going to buy.

I tried to take photos with my phone, but nothing would do this place justice. On the way out, we stopped and asked the very friendly Texan working in this crazy place how many square feet it encompasses. He radioed out to the South 40 and got back this answer: 325,000 sq. feet. (325,000! Seriously!) (For reference, the Fleet Center/TD Banknorth Garden, whatever the hell it's called today, is 755,000 square feet. So this retail store is almost half that.)

After the glory of that, we drove through the rest of this huge complex, which we found out is called The Rim, and saw the rendering for the rest of it, which is under construction. There is already the biggest TJ Maxx, the biggest HomeGoods, the biggest DSW, the biggest I-can't-even-remember-what-else. What the hell else could they be building? You already have to pack a lunch to go to the TJ Maxx, it's so far out in the distance when you enter this place.

And so, I will leave San Antonio finally understading what everyone's been talking about all these years when they say "Everything is bigger in Texas." I am visiting Houston sometime this spring to see my sister and my new neice, and I wonder: could it be any different?

The Alamo was cool, though. And it's confirmed, there's no basement.

*"He?, you're calling me 'he' on your blog? You can't come up with anything more creative than that?"

My ensuing mid-thirties crisis

I'm 35 on Saturday. Not thrilled.

Here's some info about 35. Who knew?
(My two favs? The number of Miracles Jesus performed and 35 is the highest number one can count to on one's fingers using base 6.)

I'm old now. It's official. Gonna party in Vermont this weekend like I'm 19 again, though, so that oughta make up for some of the grey hairs.

Oh, and I can be President of the United States now. That's cool.

New Jersey and Texas Shouldn't Feature So Prominently in My Life

I'm not a fan of Texas. I cheered when Natalie Maines made her famous comment. I hate George Bush.

I'm not really a fan of New Jersey, either. I drove the Turnpike over and over when I lived in Maryland and I hated every minute of it. I know a lot of people from New Jersey, and most of them are cool, but they're the ones who escaped.

My sister has lived in New Jersey since she got married in May 2006. She just left and moved to Texas. My niece will be born and bred there and although she'll have a Yankee mom and an entire Yankee side of her family, she'll be Texan, just like her dad, who for a Texan, is pretty normal.

And now, the new man in my life has been swept off to Jersey first and Texas for the next 45 days -- moblilized in the Army Reserve. He'll wind back up in Jersey in mid- to late-February for the year. I suppose it's a good thing that I learned the way to Northern New Jersey, complete with the Merritt Parkway trickery when my sister lived there, and am so very familiar with the Turnpike because it seems I might soon be making trips that-a-way again.

I find it odd that my sister made her way from Jersey to Texas at the exact moment that he (let's just settle on calling him "he", shall we?) made his way from Boston to Jersey and now, one week later, will follow on to Texas.

And the irony is not lost on me that I have avoided Texas like the plague, only driving through the panhandle in 1997 because it's tough to drive from Maryland to L.A. without doing so. Now I'm trying to figure out how in the world to finance three (yes, THREE) trips to Texas this winter.

Found this the other day: "If I owned Texas and hell, I'd rent out Texas and live in hell." Hah! That's what I say to that. Texas stole my sister and my neice and now it's kidnapped him for 45 days. Strong forcefield we're dealing with here.

I jest, of course. My sister has my full support in her choice to become a poser-Texan and to raise true-Texans. It'll give me something interesting to do as an aunt: teach my neice and her subsequent siblings about their heritage as Bostonians by parentage and make sure they stay in the Red Sox Nation. It'll be a tough job, but I'll take it on with the sincerity and seriousness of a Puritan.

That dude is Cotton Mather, for those of you who might not know, whose name was the first that sprang to the mind of my very supportive boss when I said I needed a photo of a Puritan for a blog post.

So there you go. I've lived in 6 states and visited around 35 and somehow managed to avoid a serious relationship with New Jersey or Texas until now. The universe is in charge -- don't you forget it.

Pow-Pow-Pow

This photo is not of my neice, it's some baby off the internet. My neice is apparently not this calm in the womb, as her mother, my sister, has begun describing her antics as "pow-pow-powing."

She kicks and punches all at once. She does this at appropriate times, such as during Christmas mass while everyone singing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" or whatever that song is named. (Oddly, she didn't dig any other song, remaining relatively chill throughout the rest of mass.) She also kicks and punches at inappropriate times, like when my poor sister gets up in the middle of the night to pee and the little one is like "ooh, cool! time to get up!" and then she has to relax so fully back in bed to trick the baby into going back to sleep.

She also has a move called "the wave" wherein she puts a hand (or foot or head, we don't really know) pushed up against the front of my sister's belly and then she drags it along, pushing out all the while.

One morning this past weekend, I was lying in the stupid twin bed in my mother's guest room and my sister snuck in and climbed in with me. "Feel now," she said. "She's kicking a lot." So I lay there for 20 minutes or so with my hand on my sister's bare belly and felt my neice going crazy. I got to name yet another move, which I dubbed "Pilates" where she stretches way out and part of her just sticks straight out making a bump on my sister's bump! So after she finishes her aerobic routine (pow-pow-pow!) she flows right into pilates. Quite the energetic baby we got here.

I think that this baby is already brilliant and is having these thoughts: "Wait a minute. I keep getting bigger, and this place seems pretty small. That means that soon I'm gonna be really squished in here. I better really stretch out and push around while I can!" Thus all the craziness.

In other baby news, she has a name and she hates beef. Everytime my sister eats it, she is very sick and full of gas for hours afterwards. So she's off the red meat for a while. On Christmas Eve, after getting all swollen in church, we realized she hadn't drunk any water all day. The baby apparently needs water or she gets her revenge by making my sister swell up.

My almost-sister-in-law showed up with a gift for "Baby Chili" a nickname derived from my sister's husband's last name. Hilarious and while I'm not sure it will stick, we appreciate the creativity required to have come up with it.

At only 23 weeks, with 17 left to go, my sister's belly button is almost gone and she is starting to look really pregnant, which is super exciting. She is struggling with the weight gain, having never gained more than a couple of pounds ever in her life before (unlike me, who could probably carry a baby and not even notice the weight gain since I've been so up and down my whole life!). From the back, she doesn't look pregnant at all, which is an amazing skinny-woman-ninja-trick that makes me jealous.

Although my sister, her husband, their Pomeranian, cat, 4 cars and my unborn neice are moving to Texas this week, I will see her again in late January and in February too. And I'm going there in March before she's born and again in early May after she's here. So I won't miss too much of this amazing first pregnancy in my family. Thank god. I'm not sure I could deal if I missed this. It's amazing and beautiful and a little bit weird that my neice is growing inside my sister.

Only 17 weeks till I get to meet her and then do what all good aunts do -- feed her cookies, take her on adventures, and listen when she bitches about her mom. I can't wait!

Social Capital

What is it? This site has a lot say, including: "the central thesis of social capital theory is that 'relationships matter'. The central idea is that 'social networks are a valuable asset'. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. A sense of belonging and the concrete experience of social networks (and the relationships of trust and tolerance that can be involved) can, it is argued, bring great benefits to people."

Yup. I've been talking for a few years now about this idea and how I've often felt a lack of "social capital" in my life. In the past 10 months, though, since I moved back to Jamaica Plain, I've purposely focused on building up my account -- so while I'm saving dollars each month and building a savings account, I'm also building my social capital. It's a pretty amazing feeling.

I became a part of JP's Neighbors for Neighbors, first attending events and then working with the founder on recruiting volunteers. I joined the Women's Book Club and tried to revitalize the Spanish Dinner Group. I have attended major events in JP such as the World's Fair and the Latern Parade and I've met people while doing it.

I attended my street's Labor Day Block Party and met even more people. I helped keep the connection we had made and included another set of roommate-friends from down the street who I'd met at an NfN event into that group. I hosted a get together at my house one night. That has led to a Progressive Dinner on Columbus Day and that flowed into a Pumpkin Carving party and a Thanksgiving Potluck (which, to be fair, was a tradition of Ana and Tom's when they lived in NC and they just carried on here, but we thank them for it!) and then, just this week, a Gingerbread Village Making Party which quickly, due to our creative (and sick) minds, turned into the creation of the "Ginga'hood".

In the interim, there's been random nights of "want to come for dinner?" or going out for a beer or two or the night that Katie met me outside my house when I drove up with a butcher block in my car and helped me carry it up the 5 stories to my apartment. That's friendship right there.

This morning, Chris, Katie's partner, met me out front at 7 and together we dug out my car and then I helped a bit with theirs. He offered and I took him up on it, because the idea of actually having support and not having to do everything on my own is just so unbelievably huge. It's at the center of social capital. Knowing that you have people to call on.

It's tempting, for a lot of people, to just hunker down in their lives. Go to work, be cordial with the people they work with but don't reveal too much personal information, go home, make dinner, see a friend maybe or talk to their mom on the phone or go on a date, go to bed and do it all again the next day. Others, in relationships, do this same thing, but with one other person involved. Okay. That's fine. If people don't want to know their neighbors, nobody should make them. But the idea of the guy across the street snowplowing your driveway for you because you happened to make cookies last weekend and brought some over is tempting too. Or knowing that you can let your kids out on the street to play because you know all 10 families/people that live in either direction from your house is also tempting.

All I know is that with a little effort on my part this fall, I have 6 new friends, all of whom live within 5 minutes walking distance of my house. I believe that all 6 would wake up and get out of bed and arrive at my house at 3 a.m. if there was an emergency, as I would do for any of them. I know that yesterday, in the first major snowstorm of the season, instead of going home to my house alone at 4 p.m., I instead knocked on Chris and Katie's door and had a couple of beers and made dinner with them.

Social Capital is not easy to build. It requires putting yourself out there, being a joiner, and caring about your community. But so far, it seems completely worth it!

An Ode to Chick Lit

When I am tired,
(not, "oh, what a rough day!" tired,
but "this month, i just cannot think" tired),
you are there.

You lure me with your bright covers,
your high heeled shoe motifs,
your titles ending in "-aholic",
your heroines who are strong and oh-so-stupid
(stupider than I am, which is the key, really).

A special thank you to the publishers,
who keep producing enough to fill an entire section
of the bookstore-
and to provide an occasional "Chick Lit 101" sidebar box
in my Entertainment Weekly.

Meg Cabot, thank you for the Queen of Babble.
Jen Weiner, you may have risen above, but you still walk In Her Shoes.
Helen Fielding, did you start it all with the Bridget's Diary?
I don't care. Just keep it coming.

Because when I'm tired,
I still want to read.
Because when I'm 34 and single,
I still want to believe I could fall in love with the hardware store owner's son on my block who I thought was dating my subletter but was really her brother all along.
Because I may only listen to NPR,
but I'm not above carrying a pink book
with an engagment ring on the cover and
unabashedly reading it on the T.

Amen.