A Drivel Runs Through It
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sunday night --
The reunion was great.
Seeing people I hadn't seen in 20-some years was a bit -- no, a lot -- like doing the Time Warp. "It's astounding ... time is fleeting ... madness takes its toll ...." Some people had changed a lot, some a little, some in ways more noticeable than others. With several, I felt such an easy familiarity it was as if we'd hardly been apart at all. With others, I had such a hard time reconciling my image of them then with them now that I felt I was talking to an entirely different person.
I was right about one thing: I was highly aware of my own areas of growth and stuckness, but didn't particularly feel anyone else was judging me for them. My feelings on the drive home today and right now are a weird stew of joy and pride and shame and regret. I am trying to believe I am where I'm meant to be.
~
I've been wanting to ride a wave runner since forever, and yesterday I finally got the chance. It was AWESOME. I loved it. Apparently I was a natural, because I got a standing ovation when I rode back into the dock. I think I flatlined my adrenalin, and today my whole body aches, but the memory of flying across the water and waves will stay with me for a long time.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
The hugs. I forgot about the hugs.
That was one of the most valuable things I learned at Spring Creek -- how to hug, and be hugged, and mean it. And consistently, everyone I've reconnected with here has given the best hugs. The best.
There are about a dozen of us in attendance, plus or minus various family members. It's a smaller gathering than we'd hoped for, but it's also quite lovely, in that we're able to connect intimately and hear each others' stories. Last night we gathered around dusty albums and stacks of photographs and reminisced until after midnight.
This morning, after breakfast, we had group out on the deck here over the lake. "Group" is a term laden with meaning for us -- 20 years ago, it meant intensive gatherings in Lyward House, discussing serious practical and emotional issues, calling each other out, sharing and plenty of tears. Today's group was much easier. We went around the circle and each person spent a few minutes sharing the highlights of what we've been up to for the past 20-some years, and where we are now. Everyone has a wonderful story.
We've also decided we are the planning committee for the next reunion, to be held July 10-12, 2009. (That's two years from now, the weekend after the Fourth of July.) We've already reserved this place again, and this time we're going to make a comprehensive, organized effort to track everyone down.
Save the date!
Friday, August 24, 2007
Thursday night -- I'm headed to my 22-year high school reunion tomorrow. Spring Creek Community, the therapeutic boarding school I graduated from in 1985, was located about 17 miles from Thompson Falls, Montana. A different school is there now, so we're having our all-class reunion at a camp on Flathead Lake. From what I've heard, about 25 of us will be in attendance. Our former headmasters will be there, and at least two staff members.
It's everyone's worst nightmare, isn't it, to show up at their high school reunion weighing approximately double what they did when they graduated? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but I have to say, it doesn't really bother me as much as you might think. Our school wasn't that kind of school.
There were only 40 or so of us at any given time, and we were more family than social contenders. We saw each other at our best and our worst. We knew each others' secrets. We knew that although some might be better-looking or wealthier than us, inside they were just as vulnerable as we were.
So I'm not very worried about what others will think of me. (Although I am a little worried they won't recognize me.) I'm more concerned with myself, with my progress since I was sent to Spring Creek in 1983. Have I become all that I'd hoped? I'm here -- that's an accomplishment in itself. Still kicking, still fighting the good fight. I never dreamed I'd get a master's degree, let alone a bachelor's degree. I never imagined myself becoming a competent professional. I never thought I'd gain so much self-knowledge and understanding.
But I also never imagined I'd still be single at age 39. I always thought I'd be married and have a child by the time I was 28 or so. Now I wonder if I ever will. I didn't think I'd still be struggling with so many of the same issues that sent me to Spring Creek. In that time of turmoil and dawning awareness, I committed myself to personal growth -- to life, lived consciously -- but I never thought change would be so slow in coming.
When you are a teenager, you think your real life will happen one day -- you will turn 18 or 21 or 30 and you'll finally have it all figured out. Now I know that life isn't like that. Now I know that life is a process, a constant transformation, like a butterfly, until the very end.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Like arugula, quinoa is kind of fun to say. Quinoa. Keen-wah. Keeeen-waahhh.
This ancient grain is kind of fun to look at, too. Cooked quinoa doesn't look a thing like rice or wheat or other ordinary grains. Each grain is round and translucent and has a pale, thread-like ring around its center. Quinoa looks like minuscule beige planets. Or teensy condoms.
Fascinating, but not necessarily appetizing.
I'm trying to get over it. Quinoa is allegedly one of the most healthful grains out there -- high protein, high fiber, blah, blah, blah. I cooked up a batch tonight as a stand-in for rice. Healthier than white rice, and much quicker-cooking than brown rice. (Bring a 2:1 ratio of water and quinoa to a boil; cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat. Fluff and let sit covered for 5 more minutes.)
Quinoa tastes OK. Sort of beige. Ordinary. The texture is light and mildly chewy. The grains -- those little Saturn condom rings -- pop very faintly in your mouth.
Keeeeeeen-waaaaahhhhh.
Interesting.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Written Sunday night --
I went to Butte Friday to do some training with a colleague who is also a friend. I spent the night, and Saturday we played tourist and took the trolley tour of Butte's historic sites, then headed uptown to the farmer's market and antique stores. I've been to Butte a dozen times now, but each visit still holds discoveries for me.
Whether due to foresight or economic depression, much of Butte remains as it was 30, 50, 100 years ago. Called "The Richest Hill on Earth," Butte was also referred to as the New York City of the West during the early 1900s, when it was home to some 100,000 people -- many of them millionaires. (Butte's population is now around 33,000.) The fancy brick mansions, hotels and theaters built during that time still stand, perhaps a little worse for the wear, but preserved in a way that few cities can boast. Butte, so rich in history and culture, is a revival waiting to happen.
This visit, I was particularly conscious of the town's mining economy and culture -- past and present. As a Utah community rallied in vain to save trapped miners a thousand feet underground, I pondered why men (it's usually men) brave this terribly risky occupation. My hosts were both children of miners, growing up in the northern Idaho mining towns of Wallace and Kellogg. I asked them: Why do miners do it? It's a good living, they said. It feeds families. And: Miners are a different breed of people. They're tough.
The first time I saw the Berkeley Pit, I was shocked, awed, outraged. I was also forced to confront my own hypocrisy, when I climbed back into my car -- made of hundreds of pounds of metal -- and admired my jewelry -- all of it mined.
My heritage includes some men who sought their fortune in mines. My paternal great-great-great-grandfather, William H. Stephens, went west during the Gold Rush. But in March 1850, he died of dysentery in a San Francisco boarding house, leaving his wife and seven children behind in Illinois. I lived and worked in San Francisco for seven years -- walking past the site of his death and burial untold hundreds of times -- before I learned that story.
Back here in Missoula, it's raining -- gloriously, blessedly, raining. The thick, nasty smoke of recent days blew out this afternoon with the winds that brought tonight's rain, and now the valley is clear under cloudy skies. It's just a light rain, but maybe enough to dampen flames. Certainly enough to lift spirits -- my own and those of the hundreds of firefighters and evacuees of the Black Cat Fire to the west of me.
I don't have anything to say, really, except this: Bless the firefighters and the miners. Bless them, and thank them, for they do the work that is dangerous and dirty and underappreciated, so that the rest of us don't have to.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.--Emily Dickinson
I'm writing this Wednesday night and will upload it tomorrow at the office. Blogging from my Treo works in a pinch, but tries my patience (and my thumbs). As I write, I'm eating homemade huckleberry-peach frozen yogurt. The fruit is from the farmer's market; I left some of the berries whole, and the way they pop in my mouth is like tiny, sour explosions of delight.I'm feeling safer tonight than last night, having realized today that the fire is farther off than I'd imagined. I've relented and let the cats out again; I'm no longer mentally packing. The reality remains, though, that this fire season is one of the worst Montana has ever seen, and far from over. The evening news reported that today was Missoula's 46th straight day of temperatures in the 90s or above. The smoke is trying everyone's patience. My friends and I have joked that Montana really only has about three good months: half of May, June, half of September, and October. If snow doesn't come early.
These hot, smoky days make it easier for me to imagine leaving this state for someplace like western Washington or Oregon. I'm putting the finishing touches on my resume and getting ready to get serious about the job search. I feel conflicted -- excited, scattered. There are so many things vying for my attention right now, I don't know where to focus my energy.
I updated my Facebook status to, "Patia is ... trying to figure out how to be what I want to be when I'm grown up, which is now." And one of my (fabulous and brilliant) professors wrote in response: "Damn it, the universe owes someone as grown up and wonderful as you a living. May it happen soon."
I agree, damn it! In fact, that's one of the affirmations I work with most often: "The riches of the universe come to me effortlessly."
And yet, another part of me thinks the universe owes me nothing. I'm lucky just to be here, to be alive and to have most of my needs met. I try to remember to be grateful for all that I do have -- food, shelter, a job I mostly enjoy. But sometimes I feel such despair. The gap between my life now and the life I've dreamed of for so long seems ever-present. I've worked steadily toward my goals -- a career doing what I love, working from a peaceful, beautiful home of my own -- but two decades and three degrees later, those dreams seem as nebulous as ever.
What I really want to do, of course, is write. I didn't get that creative writing degree for nothing. But writing seems a silly little fantasy when there are bills to pay, doesn't it? And I knew the odds, knew I was taking a chance by going deeper into debt for a degree that would not really make me more employable.
I have to laugh at myself -- it's not as if I'm unique. I know there are millions of us out there, living our lives, working, dreaming, striving for something that seems always just out of reach.
I guess that's just -- life.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Posting from my Treo tonight. (Still the 650, although I'm anxiously awaiting the imminent release of the 755p. I'll be able to use that one as a modem for my laptop, hallelujah.)
The fire is too close for comfort tonight. We're probably just fine here, but I'm keeping the cats inside just in case. I have my clothes laid out. I'll sleep with a light on to be sure the sheriff can find me. Just in case. Highly unlikely.
The valley is oddly clear tonight, city lights twinkling brilliantly. Stars are out, too, though partially obscured by smoke and haze. The air smells odd, as though things are burning that shouldn't be. My heart goes out to those already evacuated.
The last time the fire came too close, I stood with the deputy and my landlord and watched the bombers fly overhead, so close I could see the rivets on their bellies. After that, I made a list, ordered by priority, of what to take. That list is close at hand tonight. Just in case.
On these occasions, I look around and realize how little really is precious or even necessary. The 80/20 rule certainly seems to apply here. Only 20 percent of my things seem to matter. And when it comes right down to it, it's not really things that matter at all.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Neva put this on my MySpace page. Rock on, sista!
(Actually, I try not to discriminate against skinny girls, but in situations like this, I just can't resist.)
Oops, I forgot the most important part of the meme -- tagging others. So:
Why do you blog?
Friday, August 10, 2007
Neva tagged me with this meme several months ago, when I was in the midst of graduation-countdown craziness. I'm finally making good on my promise to answer it.
I started blogging before it was called blogging. In the summer of 1998, halfway through a journalism degree, I went to Florida for an internship at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. I had taken a few web design classes and built a couple of very basic HTML sites, and I decided to create a travelogue for friends and family. If I remember correctly, that incarnation of my site, hosted on Geocities, was titled "Cowgrrrl's Home, Home on the Web."
That summer, I shared my adventures -- driving from Montana to South Florida, adjusting to previously inconceivable heat and humidity, dealing with vertigo while working on the 19th floor of a glass skyscraper, going to Coconut Grove and Miami Beach and Key West, swimming with dolphins, learning to produce online news and entertainment -- via semi-regular updates of text and photos. I emailed my friends whenever I updated.
I didn't continue the personal updates after I returned home, but in January 2000, I started a site called Big Times, dedicated to "Fat-friendly news, information and resources." I was very involved in the fat-acceptance movement at the time, and it seemed to me there was a need for this kind of site.Big Times' main section was called "All the News that's FAT to Print," which was a link round-up of fat-related news, separated by category. Two other prominent sections were titled "Hot Links" and "Roses and Raspberries." I updated weekly at first, but eventually fell to monthly. The site took too much time to manage, and although I tried to solicit advertising, I was earning nothing for my efforts. After not quite a year, I threw in the towel.
Now, of course, there are dozens of body-acceptance and fat-positive related sites, such as Big Fat Blog. (Meanwhile, my lapsed Big Times domain has become a porn site.) Big Times was simply ahead of its time. There was no blogging software back then to make things easier, and no advertising networks to sign up with.
But by late 2002, I had started up a personal journal again. (See it on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.) I was still using basic HTML and WYSIWYG software ((FrontPage, then Dreamweaver), and manually editing my photos down into thumbnails.
In August 2003, I finally made the leap to this newfangled blogging software I'd been hearing about. Joining the Salon.com community of bloggers, I installed Radio Userland on my iMac and spent the next year in a love-hate relationship with it. In September 2004 I switched to the much-easier Blogger, and began using Flickr to host my photos. The rest is history.
But the question remains: Why do I blog?
It started out as a way to stay connected with family and friends, although to this day, few of my friends IRL read my blog very often. They forget, or they're intimidated by the technology ("Comment? I can't figure that out."), or they just have other priorities.
With Big Times, I'd hoped to provide a service I was passionate about, and maybe even make it pay for itself.
I didn't find any of the things I was looking for, but I did discover other rewards, such as a community of like-minded bloggers that I enjoyed sharing thoughts and experiences with. I found a way of expressing myself that was immediate and gratifying.
I found a way to connect with people on the level of ideas and thoughts and feelings, rather than first impressions and small-talk and all the tiny judgments we make when we are face to face.
I found an outlet for all the creativity and concern and joy and rage that I couldn't find anywhere else to put.
And that -- that is why I blog.
Monday, August 06, 2007
People I Met
Andy Sernovitz
Jenny Lauck Has Things To Say
You Will Give A Damn
Laurie Toby Edison at Body Impolitic
Deb Halldorson at Tired Mummy
MJ Tam at I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl
Stacey Kannenberg at Cedar Valley Publishing and Mom Central Consulting
Corinna Makris at This Lush Life
Green Geezer
Arieanna Schweber at Blogaholics Consulting
Media Forum
Lizarita at Oops Did I Say That Out Loud
Cynthia D'Amour at People Power Unlimited
Anne-Marie Nichols at The Write Spot
Jennifer McGuiggan at The Word Cellar
Laurie White at Laurie Writes
Jennifer Satterwhite
Jessica Okon at Wise Bread
Farah Silver at MomFinds.com
Kelli Fox at KT, The Astrologer
Kate Daniels at The Women's International Perspective
Jody DeVere and Breanne Boyle at AskPatty.com
Sarah at Sarah and the Goon Squad
Melina K. at Ellinetha
Jenny Rough
Mary at The Fish Pond
Candace Nast at Femilicious
Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann at The Motherhood
Jennifer Tai at The Imperfect Mom
Carey Tse at Holtzbrinck Publishers
Josh Hallet at hyku
Valerie Brown at Disorderly Conduct
Heroine Content
Cherri Moore at Occasional Mutterings
As We Are Magazine
Living The Dream
White Apricot
Interesting Vendors
BlogHer Ads
Min-der-mast
AOL Body
Sewnsational
Feedburner
The Experience Project
Lulu.com
Associated Content
Scrapblog
Topix
PayPerPost
Babble Blogs
Five Moms
Tax Girl
The Find
Care.com
Hakia search
Edelman Public Relations
Sunday, August 05, 2007
If you have any interest in cooking, diets or weird '70s stuff, get this book! It is screamingly funny. The Weight Watchers recipe cards are simultaneously revolting and hilarious, but Wendy McClure's commentary sends it over the top. The first time I saw this collection on her website, I laughed till tears ran down my face. Second time, same thing. I bought the book last week and it just keeps happening. Funny, funny, funny."The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s" by Wendy McClure
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Every writer's difficult journey is a movement from silence to speech. We must be intensely private and interior in order to find a voice and a vision -- and we must bring our work to an outside world where the market, or public outrage, or even government censorship can destroy our voice.-- From "Writing in an Age of Silence" by Sara Paretsky
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The past 11 days were fun, wonderful, exciting and exhilarating, but I am so glad they are over. Despite my festive blogging persona, I am actually a rather solitary person. I do enjoy visiting with friends and the excitement of travel, but as an introvert, I am drained by socializing and recharged by time alone.
My cousin and I accidentally overlapped our summer travel plans (my fault), so I had no break between playing hostess and flying to Chicago to hang out with 800 people. I'm not complaining. I had a great visit with Kat and an excellent time at BlogHer. But I'm incredibly happy to be back in my own home and my regular routine.
Much as I'm grateful, I return to work with an uneasy sense of limbo. Having graduated from the MFA program in May, striving to achieve my next goal of buying a house, I feel as if my future is shrouded in mystery. Will I continue to work for UM? Will I stay in Montana? Where will I be in six months?
I'm writing these posts at home Wednesday night after a day of unpacking and rest. I'll upload them tomorrow when I have Internet access. Going without Internet at home this past month or so has been a hassle, but it is one more thing spurring me to make change happen in my life. I've loved my 10 years in this cabin, but I am ready for a home of my own -- one with more space, a washer and dryer and a garden. And no mice! I already have 10 boxes packed and stacked, as well as all my winter clothes and linens stowed in plastic vacuum bags. I'm ready to get this show on the road.
Flying west from Denver to Missoula last night, I had a spectacular view of the Rock Creek Fire from my window seat. In the vast, dark expanse of Montana at night, the wildfire looked eerie, huge, volcanic. Another, smaller fire burned far to the north, reminding me of the gates of Mordor. I tried to reach my camera, but we had begun our descent and I could not find it fast enough at the bottom of my bag, which was supposed to be stowed. I settled for watching the big blaze, tracking its tendrils up tree-lined ridges, looking for landmarks among the sparsely populated areas that line I-90.
People ask me where I'm from and I don't know what to say. I'm not really from Montana, but I'm not really from California, either. I'm a seventh-generation Californian who's spent almost half her life in Montana. It is in Montana where I first began to find myself, and in Montana where I feel most at peace. But I miss the ocean, too. With no family ties here and few elsewhere, I don't really know where I belong.
I suppose I belong wherever I am. Home is where the heart is, they say, and my heart is right here in my chest.
5 Things You Might Not Know About Birdie
Things I learned while rooming and hanging out with Birdie at BlogHer:
- She puts chili peppers or chili sauce on everything.
- She has a killer laugh.
- She walks fast.
- Her hair is hennaed a wonderful dark purple-y maroon shade.
- She is an international woman of mystery.
5 Swag Items I Got
I've been to a lot of conferences, but I have never carted home this much swag*. In fact, I left a bunch of it behind -- things that were too heavy or that I would never use -- but still managed to fill a sports duffel.
- The above-mentioned sports duffel, along with two tote bags. (I know, that's three items, but let's pretend.)
- Three music CDs: Christine Kane's "Right Outta Nowhere," Hakia's "Sound of Web Search" and Job-A-Matic's "Beats for Bloggers." (We're pretending, remember?)
- A Blogger.com T-shirt, an AOL flash drive and a Topix ethernet cable.
- Terralina body lotion, Clean Well natural hand sanitizer and Origins lip tint.
- Yahoo Jelly Bellys, Sk*rt mints and a Butterball pot holder.
*According to the illustrious Wendy McClure of Pound, "swag" is an acronym for "Stuff We All Get" -- and is pronounced "Schwag.
5 Books I Bought
- "The Amazing Mackerel Pudding Plan: Classic Diet Recipe Cards from the 1970s," by Wendy McClure.
- "Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day," by Gina Trapani.
- "Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes," by Laurie Toby Edison.
- "Familiar Men: Images of Nudes," by Laurie Toby Edison.
- "Georgia O'Keeffe: American and Modern," by Charles C. Eldredge.
5 Favorite Things
- Georgia O'Keeffe's "Black Cross, New Mexico" painting at the Art Institute. (So beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.)
- The deep-dish Chicago pizza at Pizzeria Uno. (Thanks for the recommendation, Big Mike!)
- The El train -- how it looks exactly like it does on ER, how riding it feels slightly like an amusement park ride through the middle of the city, and how old and historic it seems (crusty iron supports, wooden plank walkways).
- The vibrant joy and diversity of children playing in the fountains at Millennium Park.
- The spray mist of a nighttime speedboat ride on Lake Michigan.
5 Least Favorite Things
- Too many people.
- The heat and humidity.
- People who don't know how to walk or get out of the way in crowded areas. (It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.)
- The hassle of trying to buy a poster tube for the O'Keeffe "Red Hills with Flowers" print I bought at the Art Institute.
- My aching feet. Oy.
