May Day! May Day!

Somehow, it seems we have not discussed morris dancing here much.

Morris dancing is a form of English folk dancing blah blah hankies, sticks, swords, etc., yadda yadda Langstaff something bells something go read Wikipedia.

I first learned of morris dancing through my cousins, who dance or have danced with teams in the D.C. area (Foggy Bottom Morris Men) (Rock Creek Morris Women). One of my early exposures was through their annual May Day dance, which happens at dawn, and which I have dragooned a few other people into attending with me over the years. It's a neat tradition.

Now, the last time I attempted to write much about morris dancing, particularly in my current area, I sort of started an incident. The internet was younger and I was more foolish in 1998.

I will attempt not to start any incidents this time, but I will say, one of my good friends up in these northern parts is also a morris dancer, and so I saw her team and one other dance this morning at dawn (which necessitated me getting up before 4, I'll have you know) on a mountaintop, and it was lovely. Great dancing, great company, stunning weather. Here are my (I hope) noncontroversial observations, based on years of morris spectating, followed by some pictures.

• Drinking 32 ounces of Pepsi on an empty stomach at 4:15 in the morning may keep you awake for your drive and subsequent hike, but is it worth it? Really?
• Nothing ensures that you will not need a flashlight on a sunrise hike like having a flashlight on a sunrise hike.
• A group of people outside and up earlier than should be true are often in pretty good spirits.
• Putney may be the Takoma Park of the north, or vice versa.
• Morris dancing is one of those things that makes a slow shutter response really infuriating. Whatever fun morris thing you are trying to get a picture of, the thing you will get a picture of happened after it.
• I may go to mountaintop or National Mall, to the rural reaches of New Englande or the bustling Parke of Takoma, to the north or the mid-Atlantic, and no matter how often or deliberately I move, wherever there be dancers with funny costumes and songs of whimsy, there will be someone prepared to stand directly between me and these dancers.

Putney Mountain Morris Women dance in very little light.

It worked! The sun's coming up.

Now there is cake, impaled on a sword. 

Really good cake, that I accept from a stranger and eat without even thinking about it.

Putney Morris Men dance in somewhat more light.

...and so do PMMW.

Ask me

Sometimes, I wish people would ask me more questions.

Like, personal questions.

Like, invasively, intrusively, blatantly personal questions.

So... trying a version of an old game here.

Here are the ground rules, understanding that I reserve the right to change the ground rules at any point.

Ask me a question (or a bunch, whatever).

If I choose to answer, I'll answer honestly, in one of two ways:

• If I feel like I can answer publicly, I will, either in the comments here or in a post.
• If I feel like I can't, but can answer privately, and I can identify the asker, I'll answer privately via e-mail or Facebook inbox.

You may ask anonymously, but that slightly reduces your chances of getting an answer, obviously.

I reserve the right to choose not to answer questions at all, but I will be as brave as I possibly can about answering as many as I can.

Maybe, depending how it goes, we'll revive the Anonymous Comment Experiment. Aren't you all waiting to be asked invasively, intrusively, blatantly personal questions?

This route has tolls

I was sick earlier this week, and home for two days. On top of that, there was an interruption in my internet service on the second day. It came back, but meanwhile, I didn't feel up to even getting up off the couch, so I read. A whole book. In one sitting. Which is a thing I used to do all the time (I read Gone with the Wind, which was 1,024 pages long, when I was sick for four days in middle school), but not so much anymore.

Two things about that:

• The book was Nevada, by Imogen Binnie, and both Nevada and Imogen Binnie are pretty terrific. If you're looking for your next book, I recommend it. The honesty of all the characters — not just the main one — is sort of breathtaking. (One of my favorite poets blogged about it, too.)
• In it, the main character, Maria, talks very briefly a couple of times about feeling self-pity in lieu of other emotions. It is a very minor piece of the overall book, but I'd been sick on the couch for two days, and it resonated. I totally do that, though I am not sure I'd have identified it that way. Like, I start feeling something powerful, and very quickly it spirals into a big wah wah wah I'm worthless fest, which cannot be remedied by actual awareness that I am in no way worthless, or even by being told by others how terrific (or unworthless) I am (which, in general, I like a whole lot). I think maybe it only gets remedied by:
  • falling asleep, or
  • actually feeling whatever else I'm trying to avoid.

So, that's where my head is. Just me? What's your Thursday look like?

Sentence of the day, citrusy obituary edition

"They were accessible to most, but really wearable only by the few who were so rich that they could afford to have bad taste. A minidress of green peacocks dancing with merry seashells is not for just anyone."

Sentence of the day, unlisted bucket edition

"Ad libbing mock bible verse prior to getting tackled by a nun in a nightclub: check. It's the crap you DON'T realize that's on your bucket list that makes it worth it."

-My friend XN from high school (find him also here and here and here and here, because he likes it like that.)

I see your FB comments, even when you are not my friend

Is that title too creepy? Probably. Oh, well. The sooner the newcomers learn that I'm creepy, the better prepared we'll all be, right?

Someone somewhere asked what I meant by "if we live in a culture that privileges certain relationships (and we do), people need equal access to those privileges."

I think that's a fair question, so I'm going to answer it right up here, in public, and hope that the person (who is a stranger to me) sees it.

I do not mean this as anti-marriage. I for sure do not mean it as anti-marriage-equality. I hope it reads that way; if it does not, I hope people will feel comfortable expressing their concerns.

People who fight for marriage equality talk a lot about the hundreds (1,100 is the number I see a lot) of protections and benefits marriage affords couples under the law. Couples of all orientations deserve to share in those benefits and protections. I agree that if anyone gets those benefits and protections, everyone should have them.

People who are opposed to marriage equality occasionally talk about whether this means we're going to suddenly let people marry two, or four, or 100 people. Even people who have no problem with people sharing that much love in theory will often agree that it gets complicated in the legal execution. If Alice is married to Brian and Callie, and Callie is married to Alice and Dennis, what is the legal relationship between Brian and Callie? Brian and Dennis? What if there are kids involved? Do we need to determine parentage, and if so, is it limited to two people? What if the kid has always grown up with three parents who are in an equal and loving relationship? What if a bunch of kids have been raised in some kind of commune-type situation where specific parentage is not acknowledged; all the kids belong to all the grownups? How relevant is who's sleeping with whom, or who's in love with whom? Legally, the taxes and permission slips and stuff are just way too hard to figure out, so many (including, once, me) will say, quickly, that of course marriage equality for same-sex couples does not and should not open doors to polygamy.*

So, as an intellectual exercise, what if we take away those 1,100 protections completely? What if we stop privileging marriage? What if couples (or triads, or bigger) have to negotiate their relationships (and their finances, and their children) without benefit (?) of a bunch of built-in contracts? What if all the assumptions that we have about what marriage "must be" or what marriage is "for" evaporate?

I do not know if a marriage-type relationship is or ever will be for me, though I am open to it as a possibility. I'm 41 and never been in one, though I have certainly loved very deeply, in a few different forms of relationship. I know people of many ages and orientations and arrangements in many seemingly happy seemingly lifelong partnerships, some of which come with a bunch of protections and some of which do not.

And I get that exploring this stuff intellectually is easier for me than for people actually in marriages who, as the world currently works, need those benefits in order to make ends meet, or to gain recognition for the equivalence of their relationships, or for access to their loved ones in the hospital, or for access to shared property...

But what if they didn't? Need those benefits for those reasons, I mean?

To sum up: All I meant back there was that giving everyone some more people access to the advantages that come with federally-recognized marriage is not the only path to equality.





*Plus, many of us think of systemic polygyny — one man, many wives — as icky and sexist and creating abusive situations for women and children**. This may be true, but then, shouldn't we be dealing with the sexism and abuse?

**Plus, some people would suggest two-person heterosexual marriage does the same thing.

How not to make the sale

I was at queer bowling tonight, you know, like I do on Monday nights. The spring Rainbow League wraps up next week, and summer Rainbow League will start in early May, so that's fun.

And Pete the bartender*, who I've known for literally well over a year, who knows many of my friends and has served me drinks and gives me a hard time when I just drink water and used to work with my friend who I used to visit at work all the time, came up to our team and said, "If you think you're going to do summer league, could you sign up through me? The  employees are having a contest."

And I thought I'd joke around with him a little, so I said, "What do you have to offer us that [other employee] and [other other employee] don't?"

And he said, "Actually, [other employee] said you were a bitch. And I stood up for you. I said, 'no, she isn't.'"

And I laughed, because it's funny, and then I said, "Hey, Pete, what's my name?"

"I know your name," he said.

"Mhm. What is it?"

And there was silence, and then I realized he was actually reading our team list, which was on the table in front of me — and still did not know my name.

No foolin'.

Also, I think I will sign up for summer league with any other employee of this bowling alley.

*I usually don't use names here. I think we can all agree that he deserves it.

Sentence of the day, damp Easter edition

I went to church last night and this morning, as I do, and we sang "Come, ye faithful, raise the strain," which contains one of my favorite phrases: "led them with unmoistened foot..."

It tickles me every year.

This year, though? Not the phrase that tickled me most. Oh, it tickled me, as it always does.

But then, a few hours later, my extended family and I were sitting at the table, eating a wonderful Easter feast of lamb and asparagus and rice and salad and lemon crumb cake. And my sister spoke to her son, my beautiful not-quite-two-year-old nephew, and a new, not unrelated, favorite phrase for the day was born.

"Don't lick your sock."

It tickles me still.

>

Y'know what's driving me bananas? Those equal signs.

And there are a few reasons for it, some of which are summarized nicely here, and some of which are also summarized nicely here. HRC is not without its flaws.

And one of which, the one that really caught me off guard, is this: When I have seen brave queer (often trans) friends try to address the problems with HRC* on Facebook in the last day and a half or so, they have, with only one exception, been basically told to lighten up. And they have been told that by people who would like to think they are allies.

When people you are trying to help say they feel hurt by your actions, you have more or less three choices:

• Listen and change your behavior (obviously valid), 
• disagree to yourself and don't change your behavior (definitely valid in some cases but maybe less than people are inclined to do it), 
• disagree out loud that the people who feel hurt have any reason to feel that way (rarely helpful to anyone). 

I feel lucky not to know most of the folks I've seen behave in the third way, but the main reason I am that "lucky" is that I am a big coward who got off Facebook for a bit rather than address it, because I did not want to be jumped on in the ways I saw my friends jumped on. And I want people to like me, to not think of me as judging their attempts at sweet gestures.

By the way, in case you were wondering how I feel about marriage equality, it's like this: I think equality generally is critical. I think if we live in a culture that privileges certain relationships (and we do), people need equal access to those privileges. I think marriage equality is, in fact, critical for some people, and I do not always think you know whether you're one of those people until the problems start. I think marriage equality is a weird but true benchmark of the acceptability of certain kinds of queer relationships, and I think one of the many reasons one of my past relationships failed is that my partner was convinced no one would ever accept us because marriage equality seemed so unlikely.

I also think we have bigger social justice fish to fry — like, way bigger. And that marriage equality, while critical for some folks (though quite possibly not, say, me), is not going to solve all our problems. And I think it might behoove us all, particularly those saying "one step at a time," to think a little about our end game.

One step toward what?

Regardless of your identities, what is the biggest dream you can dream, social-justice-wise? Is it affording middle-class LGB types the exact same things our middle-class straight friends aspire to? Is it opening the doors to privileging a way wider spectrum of relationships and arrangements, or none of them? Health care for everyone? Is it some perfect anarchy? Some perfect libertarian ideal? A view of a more involved state, a less involved state? An unstate? An end to poverty? Or violence? Or slavery? Or families?

I don't know all of what I'm going for, but I bet it's more radical than some of you would guess, and I will for sure be thinking about how to frame it here.

And really, I want to know what you are going for, as you fight the good fight with your dollars and your words — and your Facebook profile pictures. Comment anonymously if you must, but pleeeeeeeeease comment? Please?


*Do those of you using the equal sign all know you're using essentially a corporate logo? If so, that's fine; people wear corporate logos all the time. But if not, I thought you'd want to know.

Giving Up: Third Sunday of Lent

I fell down on the job a lot this week, I hate to say.

Day 11: Call an old friend. I posted to Facebook:

[bzzzzgrrrl] has been instructed to call an old friend today. If you would like to be that old friend, private message me your phone number. Priority given to those who can receive a call between 5:30 and 6:30 this evening, or between 9 and 10 tonight.

Two people requested calls, and they were two of only a tiny handful of "old friends" with whom I am in very regular contact already. I called one between 5:30 and 6:30 and the other between 9 and 10, and tried to call a couple of others but got no answers. It was nice, though, to connect, to hear voices to love and be loved by people who have known me since I was a much younger adult.

Day 12: Pray the Paper (pray for people and situations in today’s news). I sort of forgot to do this and so did it on Day 16 instead. Here's some of what was in the news that day:

• The sequester
• Bonnie Franklin's passing
• The sinkhole in Florida
• Feeding antibiotics to livestock is a bad idea
• Someone's been charged in Marco McMillan's murder
• Kenyans are voting for a new president
• People support marriage equality
• China (almost) executes people on TV
• Marshmallow eggs don't turn out to have salmonella
• Ralph Macchio is now the same age Pat Morita was in the first Karate Kid

OK, to be fair, I didn't actually pray over that last one, but it was interesting to think about, right?

Day 13: Read Psalm 139. I did, and shared it with a friend, too, a day later. Those of you who also did, or who are following along now, that one ends sort of weird, right? What do you make of it?

Day 14: Pay a few sincere compliments. I did this, and tried to focus on accomplishment, rather than appearance. It seemed to go over well. People like that stuff. Who knew? (I also attempted to go to Goodwill again, and failed, again.) I did it some more the next day, too, because it worked so well. On that next day, I also encountered this article in Forbes on "7 Ways You're Hurting Your Daughter's Future,"* which claims doing so will also make my niece richer, which I am all for, because someone needs to care for Auntie Bzzzzgrrrl in her old age.

Day 15: Bring your own mug. I don't really use mugs except at home, so maybe I'm missing the point of this one. Do they mean bring my own mug to a coffee shop where they think I'd buy coffee, so I wouldn't waste a paper cup? I guess that's probably what they mean. I don't drink coffee. I did go to friends' house for dinner, and was pretty sure I'd be offered tea or coffee after dinner, so brought my own mug for just that purpose. Then I was able to explain to my friends, who are a minister and a seminarian, and we all amused ourselves for a while. Maybe the idea of this is to do something amusing. Probably not.

Day 16: Educate yourself about human trafficking. Boy howdy, did I. I read a 30-page report on human trafficking in my state. There's a lot to know. Coincidentally, one of my favorite feminist bloggers came out of semi-retirement to talk about her shifting views on sex work. There is, unsurprisingly, a lot more cussing in that post, but it's interesting reading.



This week, a colleague I don't know well asked about the whole giving things up for Lent thing, and suggested that taking Sundays off from that practice was basically cheating. He was mostly asking a Catholic mutual friend of ours about her opinion, which did not stop me from chiming right in. I explained that Lent is actually 46 days long, so that we can take Sundays off and still do 40 days of whatever Lenten observance we're doing.

"Seriously?" he said. "Canon law?"

"It's not so much canon law as it is basic math," I said.**



*... which title I take exception with, because I am pretty sure it's the patriarchy that's hurting your daughter's future, and the fact that there may be small things parents mothers (seriously; see #5. This future-daughter-harming is ALL MOM) can do to mitigate the damage does not, I'm pretty sure, make it their fault.

**The rest of this interaction actually did happen, but I did not actually crack out the basic math line, because I only thought of it moments later, and I'm pretty glad about that, because while it's both true and funny, it also would have been rude in the moment, a little, I think.

Giving up: Second Sunday of Lent

Day 5: Take 5 minutes of silence at noon. The challenge of this one was in distinguishing it from the rest of my day.

I live alone, work largely in solitude, have an office door I can and sometimes do close. I am often silent, and the people and things around me are not so noisy.

But at noon, I made sure my office door was closed, and I turned my back on both door and computer, and closed my eyes. I blocked out not only the literal noise, but some of the figurative noise: the fluorescent lights and the temptation to type or read, even the snowy view out my office window.

I thought about lots of things — about who, if anyone, was likely to come to my door anyway, about how my thumbs felt rubbing against each other, about romantic prospects and what the longest commute I've had feels like — and on and on.

A meditation teacher I had once told me not to worry about actually quieting your mind, but to observe what thoughts intrude on your observation of the moment. All the thoughts intruded this time, aside, I suppose, from the thumb thing.

Day 6: Look out the window until you find something of beauty you had not noticed before. Without my glasses on, the green sign for the drive-through window at the bank across the street from my chiropractor's office is almost magical.

Day 7: Give 5 items of clothing to Goodwill. OMG I tried.

So, here's the thing. There's no Goodwill anywhere near me. There is a Salvation Army, which is anti-gay, so I don't support them. There are some of those yellow Planet Aid boxes, but Planet Aid is shady and also arguably a cult. There are some worthy-cause thrift stores, but they are open inconvenient hours (while I'm at work).

And there is a Goodwill about an hour from where I live. So a friend and I drove down there with a big bag of clothes to donate. We checked the hours first, of course, and the Goodwill site claimed Goodwill was open until 9. It was not. It was in fact open until 6, as we discovered when we arrived at 8:30.

So we got a drink instead, which felt a little less Lent-y. I'll get the clothes to the St. James thrift shop at lunchtime one day this week.

Day 8: No bitching day. I'm writing this paragraph before this day happens, and before I write this part of the post, as a disclaimer: I have a real problem with the word "bitching" used this way. I do not think it is accidental that the word used to minimize people's complaints is a gendered one. We can have a big discussion of this in the comments if you want, but, lest I be dismissed as "bitching" on "No bitching day," I thought I should put it out there. That said, I will attempt to refrain from unnecessary complaining, and to evaluate what is unnecessary complaining. I assume that's the real spirit of this one. Yes, I see the irony of leading off with a complaint. Why do you think I wrote this paragraph in advance?

Also, in college, one of my favorite songs was Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good," largely because it contained one of my favorite lyrics: "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."

Also, a couple of Lents ago, I was given a purple wristband as a no-complaining device. The idea is that you wear it and switch wrists when you catch yourself complaining, until you can go all day without switching wrists at all. I wore it on Day 8 as an aid.

I caught myself probably complaining unnecessarily three times. The first two, I turned around quickly into a "look at the bright side" situation. The third was at almost 11 p.m., after I'd taken off the wristband, and I was in the middle of a large and inappropriate tirade regarding something that is none of my business before I caught myself, at which point I stopped, apologized to the person I was talking to (who was clearly uncomfortable), and felt icky about it. Still do, in a way I might not have if I hadn't been so focused on it.

Am I the only one who has to stop for a second to think about whether expressing any vaguely negative thought at all counts? I guess I am all for encouraging more positivity, and am glad I had to stop and think about it, but I'm a bigger fan of "It should be at least two out of three of: nice, honest, necessary," than I am of "No bitching." Was that right there "bitching"?

Day 9: Do someone else’s chore. Who is this "someone else" of whom you speak, who does chores? I did drop off a friend's electronics recycling for her, which saved her a few steps, and I made dinner for some friends. I hope that all counts.

Day 10: Buy a few $5 fast food gift cards to give to homeless people you encounter. On Day 10, I was in Portland, Maine, stage managing a play. It was fun, but busy, and I had no opportunity to go to a fast food restaurant or seek out homeless people. I'm also feeling a little morally conflicted about this one, for a couple of reasons. I'll think about it and make it up somehow.

Hail

Some of my strongest memories of going to men's professional football games in the D.C. area include going nuts trying to find something to wear that supported the team without being blatantly racist. (I also really liked Kenard Lang, for no particular reason, and have just learned that he is now a high school football coach, which I also like.)

(Don't get me started on the name of the women's team. Is "Divas" better or worse than "Liberty Belles"? Gross.)

But someone recently brought DCist's post on the subject of the men's team, which included local broadcaster Jim Vance's recent commentary. [Update: For me, the embedded video in the DCist story isn't loading today. If that's true for you, here's Vance's piece on YouTube.] And I can't imagine what it must be like for journalists who know better to write (or say) that word over and over again.

I didn't follow football much until I lived in D.C. and dated someone who loved it, and some of my closest friends are D.C. men's football fans. Heck, I'm a fan, inasmuch as someone who can't say the team's name can be.

But it sure is nice to live in a place where I don't have to see or hear that particular racist language and imagery dozens of times a day. Amazing, in fact.

So, Washington fans — what's the answer? There are those who think nothing will change until certain athletes take a stand — which ones? Who's beloved enough, who's a big enough draw? Do we need to get talking to the old guys, to Art Monk and Darrell Green? To old white guys, Joe Theismann and Riggo? Who's playing now who's Washington enough and impressive enough to get it done? Or do we need to appeal to sponsors, convince them to threaten to terminate those relationships?

Or do we just have to wait for Dan Snyder to get a soul?

Thoughts?

Your turn

Hey there; it's been a little while since we acknowledged how pathetic I am when sick.

So, so pathetic.

I mean, it starts out OK. I get a little sick and I do what I understand to be the smartest thing to do: I cave, immediately and completely. A few sniffles in and I am in bed, resting (OK, maybe "in bed" sometimes means "on the couch" and "resting" sometimes means "watching terrible, terrible TV") and pushing fluids. I do believe, in my heart of hearts, that that course of action results in less overall down time, and right now, in particular, I can afford no down time.

But quickly, it degenerates into the kind of whininess that I subject only the internet to, from a safe and germ-free distance. I'm siiiiiiiiiiiick, everybody. Entertaaaaaaaaaiiin me.

No, seriously. Please send me hilarious links from the internet.

Meanwhile, I will be eating my friend Dan's foolproof nip-it-in-the-bud cure:

1 can spinach, undrained
1 can lima beans, undrained
As much freshly ground black pepper as you can stand
Combine ingredients. Heat on stove until hot. Eat.

Yes, that is exactly as tasty as it sounds. But Dan swears by it, and I have the ingredients, so I'm doing it.

Dressed up

About a week ago, Genny came to do some wardrobe consulting with me.

And we did a little less consulting than we hoped (but not none; Genny does have some great advice), but a ton of organizing. I wished at the end we'd done before-and-after pics. Instead, I did this amazing series of after-and-after-and-after:

This is my closet after we were done. The picture is small and it's blurry, so maybe you can't tell that it's a total miracle, but it is. Over all the way to the left? Shirts, sorted by sleeve length. Then cardigan sweaters, roughly ditto. Then pants, skirts, dresses, jackets, suits... and they all fit. Every single garment in that closet, I can take out, put on, and have it look nice on me.

This is the bed in my guest room after we were done. I am not sure you get a great sense of the magnitude of this pile, but it is a twin bed entirely covered and stacked high with clothes I won't wear. Some don't fit, some aren't my style, some just have bad energy (scoff all you want, if I'm not wearing it, there's no reason for keeping it). It will all find its way to consignment stores or worthy charitable causes. This does not include the smaller but not insignificant pile of stuff I just threw in the trash.

This is perhaps the least recognizable picture of the three. It's my bedroom floor after we were done. It looks that way all over. Some of my readers have known me since I was a child, and they will agree: This has never, ever happened before. Ever.

Also: This is, so far, both totally sustainable and crazy time-saving. For more than a week, I have been meticulous about my clothes. And that appears to be contagious; the whole house is generally semi-tidy — and has been for a week.

Who the hell am I?

Beaten down

A few weeks ago, I unfriended someone for posting this to Facebook:

A$$-WHUPPINGS

are what you got from your parents back in the day, when you

did something wrong. You hated them for this & said you

would never raise you [sic] kids that way.

So, while you're a successful professional, your kids are little

$hits. Wonder why?

It may not surprise you that I disagree.

Does it surprise you that I see what I consider to be advocacy of child abuse on Facebook kind of regularly?

This is not "give 'em a quick swat on a diapered butt" stuff (which, p.s., I also disagree with, but differently). This is otherwise mild-mannered people who use words like "whupping" and "beating" as descriptions of ways that it is desirable to treat children.

The folks who make these posts often suggest that they know it's not politically correct, or that they think they'll get some backlash (hm. Meditate on that word for a minute.), but they present their view nonetheless as if they have some moral obligation to tell the world about the superiority of child-hitting.

I don't always unfriend the posters. Often, they have other redeeming qualities, and I think there's something to be said for keeping a variety of perspectives around me.

This particular offender, however, is someone I hardly know and don't care a whole lot about. She did recommend my current plow guy, which was nice of her, but I don't think that's sufficient to keep her in my life. She (like me) is not a parent, though she is a passionate animal rights advocate. I can't imagine she'd stay quiet if someone advocated beating a dog. Which, also, I have never seen anyone do on Facebook.

So... does this happen to the rest of you? Do you want to burst into tears when it does?

Giving Up: First Sunday of Lent

You would not believe the number of half-baked Lenten puns I had to dismiss for the title of this post. Maybe I'll try to work 'em in as we progress through the series.

Day 1: Pray for your enemies. I literally woke up thinking about this one, about two hours before I actually needed to be awake, so I lay in bed and thought about it.

Who, exactly, are my "enemies"? I thought immediately of one person who seems to be vying for the title, so I prayed for her, and then I was sort of stumped. I drifted in and out of sleep for a while, waking periodically to pray for people who'd irritated me recently, for things I didn't like, for myself (which is either very sad or very deep, or both, and I am still unclear which). The day before Day 1 (Day 0?) was a rough one, filled with frustrations, though ended with a really nice in-person conversation with a friend, and a couple of differently nice online chats with other friends. The roughness of the day before was still very fresh in my mind in those early morning hours, and my prayers were a little jumbled and desperate. I prayed for all kinds of things. Eventually, I decided Westboro Baptist "Church" was a reasonable enemy to pray for, and I prayed that they might find some peace in their hearts.

Then I spent the rest of the day thinking about it. Who are my enemies? For whom should I still pray? Anyone who gets in my way? Anyone who gets in my way on purpose?

I did not come to clear conclusions, but I did pray for a lot of people.

Also, thinking about who your enemies are is a weird way to spend a day.

Day 2: Don’t turn on the car radio. This was actually supposed to be Day 3's task, but it was impractical to "walk, carpool, bike or bus it" this particular day, so I swapped them around. The huge advantage to this is that I spent the day without all the sap or whininess of Valentine's Day — at least on the radio (Facebook is another story).

I had more than two hours of driving on windy country roads in the dark in silence — I felt inclined to turn on the radio several times, but managed not to succumb. Hey, alone in the wild.

Day 3: Walk, carpool, bike or bus it. I walked to work this Day 3 morning, and here's the thing: sidewalks in small-town New England a few days after a major snowstorm are sometimes snowy, which is good, because, traction. This particular morning? Slick, slick ice. I walked out for lunch on slightly less slick ice, and took advantage of the opportunity to catch a ride home with a friend I have not seen enough of lately.

Day 4: Give $20 to a non-profit of your choosing. I did. I spent the weekend with dear friends, and had a conversation that decided for me between two nonprofit concerns.

Is there harm in contributing to a worthy cause partly out of spite? Does it make a difference if I was going to give to one of these two organizations anyway, and just decided which one based on someone saying something that irritated me?

Aw, criminy. Of course there is. I'm off to give $20 to the other nonprofit, too.

Smudged

[Note: Sigh. Another communication fail. I wrote this yesterday, perhaps obviously, but forgot to post until now.]

I posted this to the CMC Facebook page the other day: House for All Sinners and Saints’ 40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent.

If you are someone who observes Lent, it is well worth a read, because it contains some neat ideas. If you are someone who does not and is inclined to think of Christians as kind of a bunch of hypocrites, I hope you'll take a look so you can see that some people are trying to walk the talk. If you are in any category of observance and find yourself getting vaguely and inexplicably annoyed when you hear people talking about giving up chocolate or red meat*, it's sort of an antidote to that, too. (My friend the Rev. Emily C. Heath wrote another great antidote, too.)

I liked the House for All Sinners and Saints idea enough that I'm going to do it, modifying as necessary, and I'll write about how it's going on Sundays. So that's coming up.

Communication's been hard for me lately, I think, which is to say, my computer at work is broken and also I keep having these complicated conversations. I owe several people very important notes or conversations. I also have four half-written blog posts in the drafts folder. I'm also not attempting to explain Lent or Ash Wednesday for those who might like or need explanations, because I feel confident you can find something on the internet that'll do better than I would.

But for a sec, let's talk. Whether you do Lent or not, when do you feel alone in the wilderness, and what are the connotations of that for you? When you need to refocus on what's important, how do you do that?



* I am in this category for no good reason whatever. If giving up chocolate works for you, you should do it. My reaction is as irrelevant as it is nonsensical.

The Moviewatcher's Guide to My Weekend

Sometimes, when I don't post for a while, it's because there's too little going on.

And sometimes, it's because there's too much.

This time, both. Sorry 'bout that.

But you may have heard there was a huge snowstorm up here. I have been mostly (though not entirely) homebound since Friday afternoon, and have taken advantage of the opportunity to do a little cleaning up and a lot of catching up on my Netflix queue. In lieu of a real post, then, some thoughts on the movies I've seen in the last few days.

Movies I do not recommend, especially if you're a woman in your 30s or 40s who lives alone and has an overactive imagination:

• Dreams of a Life (2011)

Movies I do recommend, especially if you are a queer woman who has suffered through a lot of horrible lesbian movies and just wants one sweet story that is not so terrible:

• Leading Ladies (2010)

Movies that I also watched, with a few words about each:

• Swimming with Sharks (1994) (People are complicated, and bosses are awful.)
• Heartburn (1986) (Wonderful cast. Virtually no plot.)
• The Man in the Net (1959)* (Kids help a fugitive, who is wanted for killing Morticia Addams.)
• Come Blow Your Horn (1963) (Womanizing never pays, except when it does.)
• Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)** (The title — and year — pretty much say it all.)
• Walking and Talking (1996) (Catherine Keener is pretty, but she and Anne Heche are both boring.)

Movie I will likely watch next, because when Netflix recommends something Korean, I tend to take it seriously:

• I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK (2006)

Movies I wanted to watch because someone mentioned it yesterday, but couldn't legally without paying Amazon for the privilege, and I didn't want to watch it that much:

• Overboard (1987)

Questions? Comments? What are you watching that I should add to the list?

* This one came closest of the also-rans to getting a recommendation from me. There was something just a little weird about both Alan Ladd and Morticia Jones — and maybe all the adult actors.

** Observe that this one did not make that first category. That is how awful-feeling Dreams of a Life was. It's not a bad documentary, I just wish I hadn't watched it. It's actually pretty good.

Meter? I hardly know 'er!

When I came home from D.C., I had a notice in my mailbox that the water department had left me multiple notices regarding replacing my water meter, and if I didn't call within ten days, they'd cut my water off.

That seemed a little harsh and rude, as I had received exactly no notices, but I called yesterday afternoon and scheduled an appointment to have the water-meter-replacers come this morning at 8.

Which I then promptly forgot.

So then when I was lounging around at 7:50 and the doorbell rang, I panicked, because, not dressed yet.

The moral of the story is, if you're not capable of actually functioning as an adult, it's good to have left your clean laundry basket in the living room where you fell asleep, so you can throw on some jeans and a tank top quickly before you answer the door.

Or, I suppose, to sleep in your bedroom where the rest of your clothes are. But what are the odds of that?

Travel tips: Amtrak

I wrote this last Friday, but think it's wiser not to tell the whole world you're out of town right at the beginning of your trip, so I'm waiting until I'm home to post it.

I was talking the night before I left about the relative security of taking a train vs. an airplane, and also the relative amounts of damage you could do with a train vs. a plane. For those of you who have not traveled by rail before, I'll just say this: not secure. People get off and on all the time, and there's not scanning of any kind. I think of it every time some new, entirely cosmetic "security measure" gets enacted at an airport.

Then the next morning, I had to get on a train. I'd switched my reservation late the night before so I was getting onto the same train at a more convenient stop. The new station, Windsor Locks, CT, was an unfamiliar one to me, so I got there good and early (which is to say, half an hour early) to be sure I'd have time to deal with whatever the parking situation is and print off my new ticket and whatnot.

Parking situation? As it turns out, it's just a medium-sized, unpaid, unattended parking lot, mostly empty at 5:45 on a Thursday morning.  No problem.

But also... no station. It's essentially a bus shelter by some tracks. Which is fine, except there's nowhere to print a new ticket. That worried me a little, but I had 30 minutes to figure it out. I called Amtrak from my car, and burned many of those 30 minutes growing increasingly panicky on hold. It was very dramatic. 

Except, as it turns out, according to the nice lady on the phone, I could just show the conductor my eTicket on my phone,* and that'd be sufficient.

So i was relieved. 

And then I got on the train, and the conductor said, "How far are you going?" 

And I said, "Washington." 

And he said, "[my real last name]?" 

And I said, "yes." 

There was no ticket showing of any kind even asked of me.

In New York, there was an announcement that there was a new team of conductors, and so they'd need to see our tickets again. I had another moment of panic when I couldn't find my phone briefly, because I'd been asleep most of the trip with my phone in my coat pocket (I thought) and my coat just on the seat next to me, and with people getting on and off the train or whatever, anyone could easily just have swiped it. More of that famous train security. But I found my phone, and a few stops later, the conductor got to me.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Washington," I said.

"Did they already scan your ticket?" he asked.

"Sort of," I said.

...and then he moved on.

I have always understood the appeal of the hobo life, train-hopping and whatnot, but have always thought it was not for me, with the discomfort and the athleticism. Little did I know I could be living the hobo life just by getting onto random passenger trains and hunkering down with a good book. 

It is possible that I get less scrutiny because I am a middle-aged white lady and do not look like a hobo, but I made it from Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to Washington, D.C., without anyone seeing a ticket or any identification whatever. They haven't even asked me for my name; they've told me what my name should be.

*At what point did it become OK to just call it a "phone" and know that everyone would understand from context that you did not mean some form of landline? Remember when you used to have to say "cell phone" all the time? And some of us still do say that, but also, we all get it when I say I showed someone an e-mail on my phone.

Sentence(s) of the day, e-mail edition

"Tuesday I sent in some new class notes.

Please delete the information on the death of [person].  He is alive.  Fortunately we found out."

Introducing: Sentence of the Day

Sometimes, I see a sentence that is so glorious in its gloriousness I just want to share it. For example, some of you may remember the wonder that is "I love you Pinky Ganesh."

I think we need a new series here. When I see a sentence that just dazzles me, we'll call it the sentence of the day, and in the future, it won't get this big introduction. I'll also present without context, because a real gem of a sentence should do OK without it, but if the context is hilarious or current eventsy, there'll be a link for your value-added entertainment.

Without further ado:

"Because nothing says "voice of her generation" like eponymous cosmetics." -A friend of a friend, on Facebook

Another productive day

About an hour ago, I went out to the parking lot behind my workplace and gave some rough-looking 20-ish-year-old man with a lip ring some cash.

It was just the first chance I'd had to catch up with my plow guy since he plowed my driveway.

But I assume/hope my coworkers thought it was a drug deal. Or maybe something prostitution-based, though working through the specifics of that get a little more complicated.

Just trying to keep things interesting at the ol' place of employment.

In with the new

In a very short span of time, a few things happened:

• I got a gift card for new running shoes for Christmas
• I got a gift card for a 60-minute massage for Christmas
• A college friend who is a much more, er, renowned writer than I posted this to Facebook: "Creative work takes energy so writers: pamper yourselves a bit. Do something fun. Eat ice cream. Go for a walk. See a wacky movie. Serious work demands serious play. The two, in fact, are one." 
• I was invited to exactly two New Year's Eve gatherings: "Self-Care in the New Year for the Surly Hearted" and a latenight guided meditation followed by yoga followed by breath work. (I went to the former. Obviously.)

So, OK, got it. I do not know whether it's the people in my life or God or the universe (or some combination) trying to tell me something, but the message is clear. And apt.

So, here's what I've done in 2013 so far:

• enjoyed the company of lovely people
• set some intentions
• drunk mead and whiskey (both in moderation)
• watched movies
• played games
• asked questions
• answered questions
• snuggled with a very sweet puppy
• cooked up, shared, and eaten a bunch of hoppin' john with greens for both luck and deliciousness
• read a little Francesca Lia Block
• hiked in the snow
• said some stuff that needed to be said
• eaten some long noodles, also for both luck and deliciousness
• reconnected with a couple of far-off loved ones
• prayed

Oh, and then I fell asleep at 6-something this evening and woke up several times expecting it to be the wee hours, except it wasn't and still isn't, so then I changed out of the clothes I crashed in and stayed up a little and wrote a blog post.

Still, not a bad beginning to the year. What restorative things are you doing?

Also: Since when are "joyous strains" "brave delights"?

Christmas was mostly lovely. I hope yours was as lovely as could reasonably be expected — I know this is not an easy time for many folks.

I had one moment of feminist/churchy/musical embarrassment, about which exactly one of you will care, but I'll share it anyway, because, you know, funny stories at my expense, that's what we specialize in around here.

I went to church both late Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning with my dad.

There's so much great music that we only sing for these twelve or thirteen days of the year. My dad has a beautiful singing voice, and likes to show off, and it's just really great fun to sing next to him in church. I also happen to like Christmas morning church, for lots of reasons both religious and sentimental.

So this morning, we get to the final hymn of the service, known to many as "Good Christian Men, Rejoice!" In the "new" version of the hymnal, the lyrics have actually been changed to "Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!" (An old family friend, now also a priest, used to tell me that the hymn was originally addressed to men because thy're the ones who need reminding.) Anyway, for whatever reason, some part of me, so familiar with that hymn, forgot about the change and just belted out (joyfully) "Good Christian men, rejoy-hoy-hoice" — and I was appropriately horrified to hear myself sing it as I heard everyone around me sing the gender-neutral version and looked down at my hymnal. I feel like I owe every feminist Christian, including my mother and godmother, plus the committee that put together the improved hymnal, plus my redeemer and savior, an apology.

Afterward, I asked my father if he'd noticed my error. He had not, presumably having been enjoying his own singing too much to be listening overly much to mine.

"Well, the new hymnal's only been around for 30 years; I can't be expected to remember every improvement," I said. "Seriously, in that moment, I just completely forgot that it had ever been fixed."

"As one would a dog," said my dad.

Not bad for operating on about 5 hours' sleep, I thought.

Sending hope for peace on earth

I had hoped to spend this solstice morning on a sunrise hike, as I did at the summer solstice (note: winter solstice sunrise is WAY LATER than summer solstice sunrise). However, the weather was not interested in cooperating with me.

I did get up early on this shortest day of the year, which meant I got to see the beautiful blanket of snow that had fallen overnight before it turned to rain and washed away.

Now I'll go shopping and chuck the ingredients I'll buy into the Crock-Pot to prepare for the solstice pot luck I'll attend tonight. Before I leave for work today, I'll have done about as much solstice preparation as Advent/Christmas preparation, despite being a Christian.

That preparation included helping the friends hosting tonight's pot luck string popcorn for their solstice tree, and appreciating watching their young son place a Charles Darwin puppet atop the tree. I was reminded at the time of Dar Williams's "The Christians and the Pagans," and at least one of you was, too, when I posted about it on Facebook.

And yeah, I've shared this one before, but it seemed like time to share it again.

Fitness

My 11-year-old self was a quirky kid. She firmly believed lots of things I do not hold so firmly anymore.

• She believed the world would end in a nuclear war before she'd lived out her natural life. (She was less clear on what that meant, whether that the physical planet would be destroyed or that the human population would be, but something like that.)
• She believed it was likely that there'd be flying cars by the year 2000.
• She believed she was fat. Hopelessly so.
• She believed fat was bad.
• She believed fitness was absolutely beyond her, and sports more so, and team sports worst of all, because team sports are just a way to make fat, unfit kids feel crappy.

There are some things I'd like to tell her and her 16-year-old counterpart. Neither of those two gorgeous young women would have any interest in listening to me, but still, they should have the chance to hear it:

• You are not fat. I've seen pictures. I don't know who put that idea in your head, but you're totally normal. Actually, I guess I do know, and screw that kid, and that other kid. 
• You will be fat eventually, and you will not always be comfortable with it, but it's important that you do what you can to get over that discomfort, for reasons that are physical and emotional and sociological. Another kid will call you fat when you actually are fat, and it will still sting, but it will not haunt you. The sooner you can get to the letting-go part, the better.
• Some of what has made you fat is all that dieting you're doing when you're 11 and 16. Seriously, start with the letting go.
• It's fine that you would rather do conditioning than team sports. That will be true for at least the next 30 years of your life.
• It's not just you. It is weirdly suburban that among all the fitness choices you have in P.E., you are required to take tennis (and only tennis), because that is a life skill. Some things that seem weird or outrageous when you're an adolescent seem less so when you're an adult. This is not one of them.
• Team sports are not just a way to make you feel left out. They are also a way to make some other kids who need it feel that they belong. You'll find other ways.
• You will, some day, start a team in a team sport, and stick with it for years. You will be the worst one on your team — sometimes, you will be the worst one in your league. The sense of belonging will still make you really, really happy.
• You will, some day, go to a gym you are not being required to go to, regularly. You will work out around people who are skinnier and stronger and fitter than you are, and you'll like it. You'll pay money for the privilege.
• You will love fitness assessments. You will, even while fat, be above average on everything they test you on, fitness-wise. You will score "excellent" on push-ups and you will max out the chart on sit-ups; your lung capacity and flexibility will both be just great. You'll be able to run a stupid mile without anyone yelling at you. You will be arguably more pleased than you should be to be above average. Have fun with it.
• Also, sit-ups will be out of fashion when you're an adult. They'll have been replaced with something called crunches, which are both easier and better for you. See? It does get better. 
• There will be flying-car technology, but people will mostly not be using it. Heck, there'll be electric car technology, which is cheaper and more useful, and people will mostly not be using that, either.

About Newtown

I have lots of thoughts, and most of them have been said by other people, and not all of them are cohesive — some of them outright conflict.

Here are some of the ones I haven't seen expressed as much other places, or that relate more directly to me and my perspective, right now. This will not be the cleverest post I've ever written. Like many of you, I'm just overwhelmed.

• "Mentally ill" and "violent" are not synonyms. Seriously. Also, "autistic" and "violent" are for real not synonyms.
• Nancy Lanza's mother, Adam Lanza's grandmother, was my school nurse when I was a kid. Connections are funny things, and they are everywhere. Adam was born in the town I grew up in.
• The Westboro Baptist "Church" plans to protest the memorial service today and the funerals this week. I plan to try to be part of the human barricade that shields mourners from those protests. 
• Remember when Fred Phelps was a good-guy civil rights lawyer? I don't, but I'm told that was a thing. People are sure complicated. 
• No good comes of blaming a victim for legally owning firearms, any more than would come of blaming her for wearing a short skirt or walking alone at night.
• "Access to mental health services" may be part of the discussion going forward, but it is not the only discussion. I have availed myself of an assortment of mental health services over 30 years, and I am lucky not to (yet) be someone who has been actively made worse by what that particular industry has to offer. Many people do not get off so easy. 
• If you can, check information before you share it. There is so much weird rumor and speculation out there, and some of it is the fault of major media outlets, and a lot of it is because of the ease of sharing through social media outlets. 
• In a mass murder with unconnected victims, after the initial shock, the victims' families and friends continue to mourn singly. In a mass murder at a school, there will be constant reminders going forward: In planning class sizes and hiring teachers, in graduations, in safety badges for scout troops, in the ways that whole groups of children will process through their whole school careers, and their lives in that town beyond school.
• I am not sure being generally kinder to the people around us, both those we love and those we don't, will prevent bad things from happening. But I have to believe in my heart that it will help us all cope when bad things do happen.
• I am not sure of that, either.
• There has to be some point of balance between talking about something this overwhelming and not talking about it. I have no idea what that point is, or how to find it. Let me know if you fare better.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts and feelings here and come back to engage the discussion. Disagreement with me or others is permitted and encouraged. Incivility will be deleted.

Argh,

So, sometimes, in my work as an editor, however much I may enjoy my job, I may find that it is time for me to apply for a new job, in the same office I've been working in, in hopes of gaining some new kinds of experience and growth, and maybe also some more money. It might be a seemingly perfect job, for which I am seemingly perfectly qualified. I might work very hard on crafting a perfect résumé and cover letter in hopes of having a shot. I might ask several folks to read it over for me.

And sometimes, three months after I've applied for that job, I still haven't heard anything — not so much as a whiff of the possibility of a phone interview — and might find that somewhat frustrating.

And sometimes, I may go back and look at the résumé I submitted, after more than three months have passed, and I may notice, in this résumé applying for an editorial job, a typo. I might, at that point, observe that I have ended a line with a comma that needed to be ended with a period.

And then, at that point, I might think of how I would respond to observing said typo in an editor's résumé if I had the hiring power in that case.

And then I might close the door to my office, lest my colleagues observe the sheer amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth that might result.

Damn.

What are the odds I can convince my boss that it's a UCC thing?

The end

I'm not going to lie to you people: This month of gratitude has been long and difficult, and maybe it showed.

It's not that I am not experiencing gratitude, it's just that this is my 90th of these posts in three years, and so much of what I am grateful for is perpetual or semi-perpetual. How many ways can I say I like my friends and family?

Some actual rejected topics for recent month of gratitude posts:

• Cuban sandwiches
• Meetings that start on time
• Not actually knowing Manila from "RuPaul's Drag Race" Season 3 in real life
• Corrective lenses
• Not owning a dog
• Broccoli
• The wisdom of cowardice
• A short driveway
• Frank Oz
• Really great phrases (I actually like this one, but then I couldn't think of any. Aside from, "Her eyes flashed," which I love and which reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara.)
• The optimism of Powerball

They're not all bad topics; I just don't necessarily have a lot to say about them all. OK, and some of them are bad topics.

Day 30 of my month of gratitude: I'm glad for the end of the month of gratitude, thankful to be able to just be grateful rather than telling you how grateful I am. I don't think this'll be the last incarnation of this project, but it may be the last time I do it quite this way. Thoughts?