come and rest your bones with me

2007-10-07T21:58:00.000-06:00

It's not fair for you to make me hurt this bad, especially when you don't even care as much as I do. It's not fair for you not to understand that when I'm upset you can't always get defensive and angry, that all I want is for you to hug me until the hurt goes away. I want you to comfort me and tell me everything's going to be ok. I want you to be as sleepless as me tonight. I want you to realize you're not perfect. Why can't you just listen to me without taking everything as a personal affront on you??

I just want to go to sleep. Stop haunting my mind so I can sleep. Leave me alone so I can get better! (but come back in the morning because I still want you.

I wonder if I'm ever going to be able to be in a normal relationship, one in which the other person cares about me as much as I do about them. I wonder if I'm ever going to be ok with giving my heart to someone. I wonder if I'm ever going to find someone with big enough arms to hold it and be gentle with it. Cause right now it just hurts too much.

Everyday, a new opening
a new swatch cut into the otherwise gently sparkling fabric
does it ever mend?
Or, irreparable until the seamstress finally puts down her needles.

2007-08-13T20:49:00.000-06:00

I think that I love you. I just want to throw that out there, that I might love you. Ok, there's really no "might" about this. My heart is screaming that there's no two ways around it; I love you. My biggest fear right now is that I'll blurt it out, unknowing and unwilling, at the most inappropriate time, terrifying both you and me with the force of my emotional conviction.

This newfound emotional attachment (fine! maybe it's not so "newfound") has me playing chicken with myself, an emotional basket case trapped in a larger bubble of unease. (The bubble is, by the way, floating through a pinprick-riddled atmosphere of nerves)

At the same time, I worry that I'm not assertive enough with my wants. Maybe because I don't know what I want? Or I assume without giving you the chance for input what your opinion's going to be, and save myself the rejection? Or because I belittle my own desires, shooing them away like pesky taunts from the back of my mind? What do I tell you? What do you care about? What do I hide in my shell? I know I'm not as emotionally incompetent as I give myself credit for, and I can't continually internalize this idea of being emotionally crippled or crutched -- or eventually I'll make it true. When is sharing too much, and when does it become greedy of your ears, your time, your feedback?

When your face passes through my mind, I smile in warmth.
When your laugh crosses my ears, I grin and want to say anything that would make you laugh again.
When you smile into me, I melt and my mind goes blank.

I love you?

2007-06-05T16:20:00.000-06:00

Do you know what it feels like for your heart to fly? For it to almost be unbearable how your heart is going to forcefully dislodge itself from within the confines of your chest cavity, tear free of the vein- and artery-imposed shackles of the flesh, and run rampant through the streets with your happiness? I looked up from A Thousand Splendid Suns just now, with me splayed across my un-made bed the afternoon gently falling around me as I force time to take its slow turns slower, slower, to realize that this pounding in my chest -- this STRENGTH from within me -- was my own cheer. My own self-induced. Happiness. Whimsical, fanciful happiness: I am reading an amazing book in the middle of a beautiful afternoon in a house that is truly my own, that makes me comforted and warm, a house I've molded into a reflection of what I choose to see myself as, with no work clinging to my back, unanswered and ignored, with friends a few miles away, with the tangible history of the past two years of my Adult Life surrounding me. Physically, on the walls, and in the rhythmic whirs of memory the ceiling fan sweeps up in time with my mind's eye.

I'm happy!

Sad. To be leaving, to do this all over again. The realization that my afternoons of swirling whimsy and romanticized book reading are numbered within these walls. Soon, these will be the walls of someone else's storybook, the canvass on to which someone else's patterns of life will be splashed, having forgotten mine. Mine will always be the first, the backbones to the grim and grit that life will wash over these walls. Mine will always cling hardest to the virgin surface.

My life will go on, much the same as it has for the past five or six, waking in the morning, resting in the evening, and plotting my heart's dreams in between. But there will be some sorrow, some wondering about how and why life chooses to trod the tumbling paths it does. But still, the sun rises and I'll think of the NE corner of Bullwinkle where the glowing ball would glisten off the rust on the hydrocyclones before a roughened, much older friend with barbed, bushy skin and a soft heart surprises me by the valve I always stopped to check, and give me a genuine smile that said "I'm glad you're here." And then seemingly-countless hours later, the sun will set and I'll think of the SW corner on Brutus, where the rotating radar bar scanned, in incessant watch over the firewater pump below, making me notice the sun's proximity to my mind's version of the equator and whether the horizon was fluffy or sharp. And I'll wonder if I'll ever again see some of these people who have shaped my life with such rigid values of work and life and family and my role and place in all of it; in the same breath of hope and longing with which my joyful heart seems to leap from my chest, so does it sink within when it feels the hope and longing of sorrow for being able to witness the concrete edge of one phase of your life ending and a new, unknown yet less unknowable, segment about to begin. As hard as we try to meld these seeds of experiences into some broken-in, softly-worked, tilled field of life, it seems they'll always segregate themselves into orderly rows of peas here, and carrots there, with the rye in the corner.

Still, my heart pulses in and out to the machinations of its own doing. So for now I'm trying to just enjoy the cliched ride.

2007-05-29T21:19:00.001-06:00

I am amazing. That's not just a general service announcement, but a quantitative evaluation of my handidness (handy-ness?). My AC started sucking - as opposed to blowing, ha - and gave me a house filled with warm, moist air that picked up all the bad smells from the depths of my room corners, various pleasant trash can odors reminiscent of dorm hallways, and gently tossed them across all my better-smelling areas. I didn't pay much mind since I was leaving for H-town last week anyway, and last night I didn't care since I was leaving for offshore this morning (the joys of rain delaying last flight until tomorrow!), but when I got home from the heliport this afternoon I decided the time for action was upon 1432 Orpheum.

I narrowed the problem down to outside; my air handler was fine, thermostat - check! -, and I figured out my compressor wasn't coming on outside. So after a quick call to Dad, I pulled out the ol' multimeter to check the fuses for the compressor. Sure enough, one was bad. A simple trip to Home Depot for two new 30A fuses, and I felt on top of the world: Look at me, World! I'm Handy! I'm fixing something all by myself! And a real something too, not just some silly towel rack or CD player!

Then came the fuse installation. Then came the hand-wrenching, towel-tearing, near-tears (ugh, I hate that Handy-ness could even bring me near tears. Reason #409 why I'm still a woman) part. See, there are these end caps on the fuses, which must be removed from the old fuses to be put on the new fuses to put them in their little plastic Happy Fuse Holder. But, the end caps are evil and have a tighter grip on the old fuses than Communism does on Cuba. I'll spare you the bloody details, and suffice it to say that the new fuses are happily residing in their holders outside, and my AC is briskly cool and fresh now. And I'm proud of myself, even a little bit of my roughed-up hands.

Know how when you hear something frequently you don't fully absorb its meaning? This morning on the drive to the heliport I noticed for the first time that the tag line for the pop music radio station here is "The all new B-97." How long can something be "all new"?? Because it's been the same ol' B-97 to me for the past two years. I don't think it's all that new anymore, especially when the playlist is about as long as Santa's list of presents for the Naughty and the music is recycled more than old episodes of Friends. I'd like to suggest, "The all trite B-97. To keep you listening again and again!"

I feel much more normal and whole today, having hung out with two of my favorite people and talking to a third. I like when life is satisfying and the emotional outliers stay outlying, undistracting, and unconcerning. They're still there, though, it's just easier to refuse credence when I'm distracted by better things.

Goodnight world!

2007-05-28T21:11:00.000-06:00

It's alright if you don't love me. It's ok if you don't think you'll ever be able love me. But, do you like me? Because though I can relish the smiles, the little joys, the meant-just-for-me jokes, I don't think I could walk away whole if it was all a farce. So, make sure to tell me you like me. I deserve that much.

For me, though, I love when you look at me unabashedly, like the heavily draped curtain over your guarded thoughts has been lifted for the short soliloquy delivered just for me. When your eyes take me in. When the look of fierce independence that typically shrouds your face is temporarily gone, almost as if you don't realize you're letting me in.

Do you know when I let you in? Do you know when I'm telling you something I don't tell anyone else? Do you know how much I'm holding back from falling into you? Do you know how much I want to let go, but can't unless you let me? Do you know how worried I am that I am letting go, without realizing it, without telling you? But maybe you do know - you're very perceptive.

Do you know how much I think that you're going to tell me that it's just not worth it for you, that I just wasn't good enough, didn't capture you enough, that you're moving on.

Why do you like me now? Amidst all the sarcasm, what do you really mean? What do you intend for me to come away thinking? How do I reconcile your hypothetical answers to hypothetical questions with reality? Do you get the meanings I want you to from my barbed sarcasm?

When am I ever going to be ok relying on someone else? Not feeling like I'm intruding? Please understand how much I care, and don't make me regret it. Please accept the consequences to my heart of your words and actions. Please be gentle. I need you to tell me when your absence means something. I need you to understand how I need your words every so often to reassure me that you care. I need you to tell me that it's ok to expect some things, that I'm not out of line.

Because there's nothing like your arms around me.

We can lie here and talk for hours in my bed
Secondhand Serenade

When you're not here, I feel a little less full. I little less serene. A little worried that I know what's happening when it's not supposed to, not yet. I'm supposed to control it happening, and I can't.

Fists and fingers, tongues and teeth.
I want to see you, I'm tired of my dreams;
nights of wishing, I could open my mouth
and when I finally did speak, you were nowhere to be found.
...
Did I scare you off, by being honest?
how come we never see the end, 'til it's right there upon us?
Dog's Eye View

2007-05-16T10:40:00.000-06:00

Sorry, Tommers. That makes me laugh, though, because I promise I almost said on IM yesterday morning, "gotta go give my arms a workout!" That's gotta be one of my favorite offshore jokes. Well, "Who's buyin' lunch today, guys?" is up there too. It's a tough call.

Watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee on ESPN yesterday reminded me scarily of Science Fair: the same generic plastic name badges with the flimsy, sateen ribbon hanging limply off, as if the gravitational pull of the earth is somehow stronger between the core and our ribbons. It's also stronger between the earth's core and our glasses, which seem to forever be slipping down our noses, requiring us to hastily, with energetic nerves, jam our over-sized spectacles back up to where our eyebrows meet in that space above our eyes. Our shirts are over-sized, too, and puff out in awkward angles from our pants. Our pants are too short (there might be a flood at the awards ceremony), and too big, and too yellow-brown. Our belts are pinched too tight (to hold up the too-big pants), and our shoes tap nervously on the floor, giving away the fear we all try to shroud with big words, big laughs, and camaraderie-filled smiles over sharing this experience.

Everyone stares intently at everyone else, when they're looking away: they aren't really that good. They're scared, too. They can't beat me (can they?). They just can't. They couldn't have worked as hard as me (could they have?). I just have to win, I just have to! And then the doubt seeps in: Well, there were those few days I should have taken a couple extra readings. And I really should have done my measurements with more specific digits. And - Oh God! - remember when I ran that regression and took the outliers out, what if that was WRONG?! And in those moments, the value of our little, fifteen-year-long lives is in complete question, and we don't know whether our parents will ever say "I love you" again or if that cute boy in class will ever look our way again (Oh God! Jimmy!). OR IF WE'LL GET B's FROM HERE ON OUT!!!

So we clap politely when we hear our competitor's names called out, (in the distance) "In third place, Jane Dough!" because that's the grace our Moms drilled into us for these types of occasions, but inside we're gloating with trembling nerves since it means we're both still in the running and eliminated from the possibility of getting one more prize up for grabs. In the Bee, that dinging! bell is the demarcation of the later rounds; in the Fair, that Name! is the continued defining of young pupil's science dreams.

My emotions haven't reveled in that sort of non-boy-induced tumult since. I kind of miss it, and maybe that's why I identify with the sport of the Bee, and why I like watching it with a sadistic inner glee in seeing each kid fall.

It didn't used to be like this

2007-05-07T21:01:00.001-06:00

It used to be exciting, fun, exhilerating to go offshore. It gave my
life a sense of purpose and routine that I craved when I wasn't there.
It made me feel responsible to many someone elses. People would notice
when I wasn't there and I liked that. When I was home it wan't always
the same.

But now it's different. Is it because my friends are different? Or is
the job different? Or have my interests changed so dramatically, my
priorities have gotten all rearranged and what once made me happy is
now only passing time. I wish I could pinpoint what changed so I could
reinvigorate my enthusiasm, but I'm so close to being done anyway I
don't know that it matters. Or maybe I'm actually just scared of what
I think deep down the reason might be.

2007-05-06T09:08:00.000-06:00

I am a woman. Nature makes me so, and it feels good to be reminded. It's empowering to feel the physics of what makes me.

Do you feel an exaggerated happiness like I do when I think about the next time we're going to hang out? I get excited, all big-smiled, when my mind hurriedly jumps from one memory we'll make to the next, envisioning the location, the timing, the old jokes we'll pull out to tease each other, the history-laden songs we'll put on in the car to reminisce. We'll rehash old stories, share new ones, and talk about how this time it won't be so long in between our conversations. It always feels like there was never a break, but when you leave it seems like we won't get to hang out again for a year. And at 23, a year is an eternity moving with the urgency of an incontinent octagenarian. D, H, K, 207...I want to share smiles in person again. That's all. I was reminded tonight as you all flited through my mind.

I'm hyper conscience of my stress level. I keep expecting it to spike, wondering if it is right now and I just won't realize it until I'm less stressed, questioning what's wrong if I don't feel stressed moreso than normal right now. I have to sell my house, find a new one (but where? what area of town? what if I can't find one right away, what do I do with my stuff? do I lease for a while?), finish an assignment, start a new position, entertain visiting family members, try to take vacation, pack, say my goodbyes and make them meaningful, send that email I've been meaning to the past 2 months that was going to tell everyone at the Moose how much the experience, and them, meant to me. Oh, and I'd like to sleep in, run outside, go swimming, and continue improving my health in general in the midst of all that. But I don't feel appreciably more stressed right now. I should, though, right?

A parents visit always throws my mind into a bit of reeling confusion about the emotions they illicit. I resent them for not being able to do anything fun like I see my friend's parents do, but then I feel guilty for feeling that way. I feel bad that we don't do much exciting, but feel helpless for not knowing what they want to do. I feel frustrated that they don't voice their opinions more and expect me to just entertain them. I'm still their daughter, I still expect them to take care of me. Maybe that's why it's so weird when they visit my house.

What's up with the prevelance of friends hooking up lately? And why, as a general rule, do girls always want to immediately be in a relationship with whoever they hook up with? Why are we so weak as a subset?

I think that's all for now. Oh, I love my car. A few days of not driving her always gives me that rush when I finally get back to her. She's just so pretty.

2007-04-29T17:56:00.000-06:00

You make me happier when you're near than anytime you're not.

When you leave, my thoughts immediately turn to the next time you'll be close.

While you're gone I wonder if you miss me like I miss you. I miss the way you tease me. I miss how you make me laugh. I miss the way you make me think that the future can't be that lonely.

Do you know how much I like you? Do you know how you infect my mind and make me happier just being with you no matter what we're doing and make my heart squeeze a little when you leave? Because I'm scared to tell you, scared to scare you since it scares me.

Do I let you know how great I think you are? Through the belittling and sarcasm, can you tell how much you mean to me? Is it wrong for me to assume how you feel about me based on your gentle barbs?

I thought it was enough: the way you look at me, the way your smiles tell me everything I assume you're trying to say, the way you sometimes let your fingers linger on mine when they don't have to. But my heart wants more. I tell it not to, I tell it to be happy with what it gets, that it's not allowed to expect anymore because it doesn't deserve to, that it needs to let reality in as much as it does whimisical dreams of happily-ever-after. But my assumptions of how you feel about me don't seem to be enough for my heart anymore. I lowered my emotion-guarding walls and let you in, and now I need more to bolster my heart. I need more to know it's ok to let you in. I need more to know it's ok to trust you to have an effect on me. I need more to know you aren't going to hurt me, scarring one more spot from being able to feel next time. Please don't make me think about next time, not yet.

Now you make me cry because I feel too much. I worry that you don't care like I do. That I've jumped too quickly in letting you in. That you're going to turn around one time on your way out the door and crush me, "Jen, I'm done with this - with you - now. It was fun, but I'm done now."

Do you know you make me cry? I cry in that free, snot-run-down-my-face-in-rivulets sort of way. I cry silently, each choked sob expressed in the individual tears that plop from my eyes, each less reluctant to leave my ducts than the one before it.

It feels so good to finally cry, to finally admit the effect you're having on me, to finally succumb to the emotions trapped inside. I'm smiling, laughing in my tears, at the fact that it's really happened again, that I actually care about someone again in a way I didn't think would ever happen, ever. I really, honestly, genuinely, didn't think I'd ever meet another person I liked enough to make me want to let them make me cry. But I'm ok with you being the person who makes me cry. I just hope I won't regret it later. Maybe that's the beauty of being able to cry, feeling human again knowing that I'm able to be effected by another person, confirming my inclusion in this human society. It's no longer just another person's suffering in some faraway country that can make me cry; finally my own sorrow can force tears from my eyes. It's refreshing. Terrifying, but refreshing nonetheless.

I don't know what to do with myself now. How do I deal with all these feelings always around me? I've opened my heart to you to feel this way, but now I wish I could stuff it all back in a box, lodge it in the back of my heart, and go back to controlling my emotions so that when you leave I'm not left with an empty spot of sad. Do you still control your emotions towards me? Have you let me in yet? Tell me you're affected by me the way I am by you. Tell me this is going to be worth it.

Oh, and I love that you want to go for walks outside.

I leave so many questions unvoiced, left in my mind to ruminate and ask next time. I take what you say at face value, assuming that you don't have hidden meaning behind your stories, assuming you're telling me whatever it is you mean to. Why do I wimp out asking my questions? Maybe I'm not ready for the answers yet. I don't want to be the one who feels more first. It needs to be you. It just does.

My current emotional buoys, courtesy Rascal Flatts:
"Saying you've been waiting all your life for a break like this
It's your chance of a lifetime you just know it is
You gotta go find those dreams
Was the last thing that you said
And then I did

But you were wrong
Love was what I wanted all along
And now you're gone"

"I'm gonna stop lookin' back and start movin' on
And learn how to face my fears
Love with all of my heart, make my mark
I wanna leave something here

Go out on a ledge, with out any net
That's what I'm gonna be about
Yeah I wanna be runnin'
When the sand runs out"

"I don't want to see you anymore
I'm just not that strong
I love it when you're here,
But I'm better when you're gone"

2007-04-27T18:33:00.000-06:00

Ah, I know what this emotion is called: Depression. It doesn't come around very often, so it takes a while to figure out what this conflicted, helpless, raging sea is. Only, inside it feels more like what a tissue looks like when dropped from height - kind of swishing back and forth along whatever breezes happens through the room.

Everyone has someone, it seems. Does that magnify my isolation? But I know, in the reality part of my mind, that I'm not isolated, alone, or abandoned. But maybe I feel that way a little because I don't have someone asking me if I'm ok. Maybe because no one knows they need to ask me if I'm ok, because I don't feel comfortable with someone needing to know to ask me if I'm ok.

Or maybe that exacerbates my sadness, realizing how selfish we all are and how we really only think to ask "are you ok" to the people we genuinly, really care about, and there's no one like that here? That's where everyone's someone else comes in, because they're there to be asked if they're ok.

Maybe it's because I feel guilty for not being a good friend, for not always knowing when to ask if you're ok, or not knowing what to say when you tell me why you're not. I feel inept at having non-serious conversations nowadays. Everything is massive-life scale - relationships, physical interactions, moving, mortgages, growing up and emotions. I've forgotten what it's like to talk about nothing and really enjoy that. Or, I have since Tuesday. What?

Anyway. I tell myself I'm happy: "Look at the way the light gently slants yellow through the blinds, the way it plays on the softness of pillows; listen to the soothing bass of NPR's evening classical selection. Revel in making your own choices and following them, whatever you want to do, even when it's just sit in your favorite chair and play with the computer."

So I should be, right? Why is the seemingly-perfect environment just not doing it for me tonight? I hate not knowing what would. So instead, I'll try to distract myself. And then I'll sleep because that makes tomorrow come faster.

The Human element

2007-04-27T18:13:00.001-06:00

Whenever my mood and interpersonal interactions seem to change, i find myself questioning my every emotion, why am i like this why do i feel this? Because the past few days i've wanted to be alone more than with anyone else. Maybe that only seems weird because Society tells me i'm supposed to want to be around others, but it also seems strange to me since i'm not stoked about all this time to spend on land with friends! near the end of hanging out the past few nights i've thought about how excited i am to go home.

Is it because i don't know how to interact with people my own age anymore? Is it because i feel like an outsider living someone else's life? Is it because i,m scared to get too Close since now i've been away so much i'm already used to it and don't want to have to go through that all over again? Is it because i'm a girl when science deems it so every so often? Maybe i'm scared i'm becoming dependent so i'm trying to prove to myself that i'm not?

Stupid emotions!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

2007-04-23T14:12:00.001-06:00

I am so excited by Technology right now, i just might start hugging my appliances. i am blogging from my new phone!! A little nervous how this will affect content - immediate emotional release could be bad - but super excited! And so the next generation in my interaction with widgetry begins...
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

2007-04-14T18:39:00.000-06:00

I'm frustrated because I'm sad. I'm frustrated because I'm weak. I'm frustrated because I'm stressed over situations I should have control over, and don't.

I'm not happy in this middle ground like I thought I could be. I'm not satisfied with an unknown, not satisfied with feeling so much, not satisfied with the possibility that I'm getting strung along. Not satisfied with being vulnerable to the emotions and misperceptions of the rest of the female world.

I don't want to move. I don't want to leave my house. I don't want to have to start over. I've already been pulled away from the one constant, the one truly good thing in life right now; my life's been transplanted around me and I'm merely a spectator to the changing faces and scenery.

I'm a better person when I'm alone, when I'm uninfluenced by the ebb and flow of the heart's machinations. I'm better when I care about my impact on and interactions with those around me, instead of worrying about what one particular person thinks of me.

Things have never been "normal." Things have never been too steady, and I'm not happy when they stagnate, but why does this all have to happen at once? Why do I simultaneously have to question every emotion's validity and worth while being removed from my comfort zone?

I think I'll curl up and take a nap. When all I really want to happen is for you to tell me you want what I don't think I can give you. When does it feel ok? When do you not feel like a dummy, and get to take any joy in it? I hate what emotions do to who I am.

2007-04-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

Do you ever really believe someone's Number answer? Do ya?

You know what I'm talking about, that oft-wondered and rarely asked nugget of information that might confirm everything you had always thought about Boy. Or that exact same number could mean exactly the opposite. I think it all depends on how you think of Boy beforehand, anyway. How many people have you had sex with?

Does everyone come into the question with a preconceived "slut" spectrum shaded out? Because I think that spectrum's shading shifts per judging.

Let's say Boy A is a whore monkey. Boy A slept with a mere two ladies, but they were all ugly. One night stands. Meaningless. Boy B, on the otherhand, has slept with 13 girlies and he's still Mr. Romeo because he "cared" about each of them. Logical? Maybe. There's disease exposure, the possibility of Little Boy As and Bs. But still. And you know if Boy B is particularly attractive, the thirteen just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. You're still special. He still likes you, and those others couldn't have mattered.

What's in a number? And why do we all want to know? Because you know inevitably, we all want to ask the Question.

(forgive the lack of Microsoft Equation 3.0)
So, if X=the Number, y=attractiveness, Z=likelihood Boy will get laid tonight:
as y goes towards Brad Pitt, Z increases exponentially
X/y is inversely proportional to Z

And my life? It's a sin wave. Peak-to-peak is my week offshore, with the trough in the middle when you find out there's going to be fog in another 1/T

2007-04-11T22:37:00.001-06:00

Change is a difficult animal to swallow. Maybe she makes me stronger, just living through her time-constant discomfort. Maybe she makes me stronger willed, facing those who make me tremble, tired, and frustrated. Maybe she makes me cry, just a little, but will give me a modicum of that sorrow back in ways the future endows.

2007-04-02T18:41:00.000-06:00

I started thinking today about the difference - or rather, similarity - between regulating carbon dioxide emissions and abortion.

I was questioning my adherence to my "environmental ideals," these very black-and-white perceptions of what's right when it comes to saving Green. Am I the Nation's hypocrit, giving neural- and lip-service to the warm and fluffy goals of the WWF's Sad Panda Eyes Campaign while enabling rich white suburbanites to drive gas-swigging Land Rovers? (Which, by the way, won't ever really "rove" the "land." Unless "concrete" is the new "land")

I love what I do. I've "really drunk the kool-aid," as Jonny put it. But, I whine in a way that sounds pathetically shoulder-shrugging and responsibility-waiving even to my own ears, there's such a disconnect from the neat-o engineering I do day-to-day out here to the potentially negative global impact that viscious fluid has! How can something that feels so good be wrong?

It doesn't seem so negative when I'm out here, seeing the precautions we take to be prudent and responsible. From the middle of the Gulf -- a Gulf with the hazy edges of Dusk and lolling Ocean meeting in springtime -- the world seems altruistic, beautiful, happy, destined. Settled. But my network-tied lifelines to the rest of the world say otherwise.

Back to how the government legislating what I can and cannot do with my body is a succint analog for the Supreme Court's ruling that the EPA has the authority, and the responsibility, to regulate green house gases.

Disappointment has clouded my view on the EPA's motives in the way many of its regulations are written, applied, and enforced. The specific ways the Agency impacts my daily business demonstrate their love of royalties and production so long as they can pass the red-faced test that their regulations limit the industry's adverse effect on the Gulf. It's heartening, though, to see the stewardship that my colleauges and company exercise for our surroundings. So it was no surprise to me to see the Agency's "side" in the Supreme Court case ("let's find a loophole and take advantage of it!"): they had no role in regulating global warming-inducing emissions because carbon dioxide is not legally a pollutant.

Disclaimer: I think pollution is bad. I think we each have a responsibility to recycle and conserve where possible. And, the government probably has some role in ensuring that the globe doesn't become one gigantic Tragedy of the Commons, with the rich industrialized nations puffing car exhaust that even an in-tact rainforest working overtime couldn't counter-act and paying to send the trash we vehemently oppose, NIMBY, to third world countries with no leverage...but where's the line after the government tells me what kind of car I can drive? When does my individual carbon balance become regulated? When does my impact on the community around me supercede my own personal choices? Just like abortion -- how can the government try tell me that I can't do whatever I want with my own body because it'd infringe on "someone" else's rights (the unborn baby. I don't want to open this whole other can of worms of whether a fetus is a person. I think bloggy would feel a little too politically raging instead of the sweet and whimsical touch these pages often shoot for.)

What, then, are my environmental freedoms? What environmental liberties am I, or the little boy playing kick-the-can in the slums of Brazil, or the sister walking to school in Africa...what liberties are we entitled to? Where does my environmental freedom end, and begin to encroach on another's? When, and for what reasons, can the government tell me what my role is in the global carbon cycle? How can we claim stewardship when it's come two thousand years late? At this point, is the earth experiencing a hysteresis of environmental paradigm shift? No matter what actions we take now, will we be able to appreciably impact the reality of 50 years from now? 80? 130?

I'm still a Rachel Carson fan and genuinly believe in the power of sunsets, being lost in the middle of nowhere, gently sloping trees, and bird chirps. But I'm starting to disbelieve that mankind will be able to undo all the damage it's already done. And I'm continuing to wonder if mankind really wants to change or just wants to sound like he wants to change.

What do you think?

2007-03-26T21:06:00.000-06:00

Why is it that I've had constant streams of thoughts needing recording all day, all weekend, and now, when I sit down to flesh them out, they've deserted me. Maybe it's that I don't know where to start. Do we ever really know where to start, though?

It's this feeling that I'm constantly hoping will visit, and stay longer on its next trip. This feeling of complete contentment, quieted joy, comfort in my place in life being temporary and mutable, tender cheer at friendships that sustain neglect and can grow from small chunks of time here and there. I'm relaxed and stress-free, but with a tinge of apprehension for tomorrow's complete change of all that. Tomorrow's going to be like the first day of school's nerves and worries and wishing I were five with my mom picking me up at three.

Forgive the lack of structure...

Live music seems to simultaneously blank my mind and fill it with warm, rushing, gauzy swatches of thought. Seeing the Fray and Dave Matthews in concert Saturday was a singularly amazing experience. It felt as if my heart was just about to leap out of my chest for the immensity of the emotions it was overflowing with. The combination of my IA at my right, and the songs that have served as the canvas for many of my hopes and dreams over the past year, made me want to cry. Me! Cry! When's the last time that happened? Cry, just because there was no other way to release the pent-up feelings inside, no constructive way to get it all out. It's as if there was an overactive silkworm inside, stumbling over itself to draw out each experience, each pain and joy and rememberance and word, and weave them into some cohesive ball of EMOTION that I could spit out. I like feeling, sometimes. I like feeling human, with depth to my nonsense big words and thoughts. I like feeling most when I'm removed from my own reality and so the feelings don't hurt as much. When the music is there, filling in all the crevices that were chinked away by my dad and depression, it seems as if everything's going to be ok; I could almost believe the songs would last forever, that this elation could last forever. But then the stage goes dark and we exit the arena, leaving our dreams unrequited in the massive space reigned in by concrete and plastic seating.

Both talking with IA about his mom and grieving and loss and perspective and having just finished the memoir "Long Way Gone" reminded me, yet again, how I can't expect life to wait for me to get around to doing all the things I want to. Need to. Why it's always got to be now or never. Why I really need to get around to forgiveness.

Anyway, that all made sense to me. That's all I'm going for right now.

2007-03-18T20:30:00.000-06:00

This, right here, is perfect. Soft JM is playing my favorite songs only loud enough to remind my heart of previous listenings; my chenille purple blanket is draped casually across my legs, as if the natural entropy of my living room splayed it haphazardly enough so as to land in just the right places. The accoutraments of a wonderful evening are laying next to me on the couch - the good book I just put down (A Long Way Gone), a glass of chilled water, and the bowl recently emptied of Cheerios. My heart is warm and I can finally get my trapped thoughts out.

Do you know the effects you have on me? Do you know that when you tell me I'm pretty, I really believe you mean it? And it makes the knots in my stomach go slack.

Do you know that I mean everything I say to you, especially when I tell you I'm scared? That all the quickly-constructed sentences I throw into the space between us (the space that seems to ebb and flow with our jokes and smiles, to rush towards us when we laugh and rush away again to give our long glances more room) mean more than I understand? That my thoughts are always directed at some generalized, lost face in the sky, but that sometimes I wonder if you're that visage I've never known? That when you tell me about some equally generalized individual, I wonder if you mean me?

I'm so scared to feel again someone having so much power over my mind, for someone to have a welcome grip on my heart's swells and bursts. Yet through my fear I'm a hypocrit because I want you, I want us, I want the fear to be real because that would mean the happiness is too. I want to continue fulfilling my ambition, being respected, and succeeding, but I worry that my desires are shifting from intellectual prowess to the categories society deems suitable for me: marriage, motherhood, caretaking. We say the things we think we want to hear, the things we think society wants us to say, the things we think you want us to. But I don't know the difference anymore between what I genuinely want and what I'm afraid to want because society already says I should. I'm afraid of an increasing draw to stereotypical "woman" things, things that repulsed me before for the simple reason that they were stereotypical and "normal". Why is it that we're bred to define our uniqueness, our individuality, in contrast to the norm? I want it to be ok, in my own mind, to emote. Ok to realize I can feel - sorrow, elation, excited terror - without betraying my fundamental beliefs of who I am.

Maybe we really are all the same and want the same things, it's just a matter of who's willing to admit it to themselves and revel in their desires, however typical and passe. Maybe I need to embrace the newly important aspects of my heart's urges and accept that I am a walking paradox -- I want to be self-supported, alone, individual, completely responsible and in charge of my own future, my happiness, and my life's path; but I also want desperately to be taken care of, to be charted, to be dependent and depended upon, to take care of that someone taking care of me, to fit into my gender role. Is this a generational complaint, or an individual psycosis?

2007-01-29T21:04:00.000-06:00

Dear Perfect Man, (vol.s 1&2)

I want you to look at me as if you've never seen someone so amazing. You can see my soul, all the parts I wanted so desperately to give someone but never did. I want you to revel in my eyes, in their depth, to ask me to let you in. I want you to believe I'm all you'll ever need. Or want.

You need to hold my head, my heart, my hands with one glance. You need to tell me everything I never knew I needed to hear in that one lingering glance. I want you to not be able to be around me without needing to touch me -- some part of me, some soft brush of skin to feel the warmth of our glow. You'll touch my hip, squeeze my shoulder, wrap me up in your hugs, kiss my head and linger on my cheeks.

You won't forget to tell me you care, but you won't drown me in it, either. You'll be sweet even when you're making me laugh. You'll be sweet even when the world's making me cry. You'll remind me why all those lonely tears were worthwhile. All those achingly pillow-muffled sobs in this very room were worth you. Waiting on you made it worthwhile for me.

You'll constantly want to be near me, behold my heart, touch my hair, ask me to dazzle you with words and stories, travel with me, make plans. But you want me to be sad and troubled sometimes, too, and hold my hands when I want to thrash them at the world's inequities and injustices. You'll hold my hands when we go help.

You'll just love me for everything I've come to love about myself. You'll ask me to be better without asking me to change. You'll accept me for all the things I've learned to, struggled to, accept about myself.

And that's how we'll be, in love, happy, but still questioning and challenging each other. Smilling, laughing, poking, giggling. Loving. You and Me.

Still sincerely (& waitingly) yours,
Jen

2007-01-14T21:33:00.000-06:00

Extreme Makeover Home Edition makes me cry every single time I watch the ending. All it takes to get those ribbons of tears to curl their way out of my eyes is Ty's first steps into the episode's new house. I just know what sort of sap is coming and I can't handle it.

After getting a quick Home Edition-induced cry out of the way tonight, I flipped over to 60 Minutes only to be frustrated by a story on the Duke rape case. Granted, all I know if it is from the highly biased reporting of major media outlets, but I think the whole situation has done a disservice to the support for women to report rape. It seems to me that this case is a bunch of blown-up baloney, that the guys probably aren't guilty (but again, who am I and what do I know) but because of the craziness that's surrounded the case I can see it being one more point of dissuasion for a woman contemplating reporting rape.

Anyway, this weekend was amazing. I experienced my first ever NFL game -- the Saints' divisional playoff game on Saturday. It's cheesy and trite and cliched now, but the emotion of the city and that Dome was palpable. The people, the team, the city wanted the win for so much more than one more tally on the "W" side. It was about more than marching one step closer to the big dance of pro football (am I allowed to mix my sports like that, calling the superbowl the "big dance"?); instead, the Saints were carrying the hopes and dreams of a people ready to be "recovered" and not still "recovering".

The Saints were representing the perseverance of a city sticking it out through meteorological butchering, government oversight and neglect, and season after season of heart wrenching disappointment. This team was showing us all that you have to keep trying and looking to the future. That pig skin flying around the Dome was the weathered hands of residents putting hammer to nail and the morale of a city that refused to go away.

Even better than the game, though, were the friends I spent it with. I especially enjoyed remembering what it was like to hang out with friends I hadn't seen a while, meeting new people whose laughs made me smile for different reasons than usual these days, and spending QT with a, relatively speaking, old friend who always makes me smile. There's more to be said on the second one there, but it'll have to be saved for ellipticalling and not the whole wide internet world.

Oh! Why is it that every time I'm at Pat O's I end up talking about Poverty with a big "P" and how to save the world? Because it's a guarantee that if you go there with me and we have a hurricane, you're going to have to explain to me your views on global poverty and how you're planning to help. I won't ever forget the one poignant time Tom and I talked for what seemed like hours in front of the water feature about my desire to change the world. It ranks up there on the "defining personal thought moments" with sitting under the stars in the Keys with Jonathan, bawling my eyes out with Jody in his car in Curran parking deck after getting a particularly atrocious score on a hand-drawing for an ME drafting class, and the time my mom told me she didn't know how I was her daughter because I was so emotionally cold. But anyway...

Who dat? Who dat sayin' they gon beat dem SAINTS?!

2007-01-11T22:39:00.001-06:00

I've done myself a disservice, not writing about Nigeria right afterwards, assuming that my little scraps of paper would suffice. Let me rustle through them...oh, and I already feel restless again and want to go somewhere. I miss Europe, outdoor hot chocolate, riding underground transportation with friends, blocking out fellow passengers with Coldplay and John Mayer to become complete absorbed in the orange plastic seats with no lumbar support so that it almost seems like I could belong with the rush of green, ages-old foilage outside. The foilage that seems to represent a completely different life, where people value the greenness a little more and appreciate its history and what its presence seems to represent -- the sturdiness of the ages, the robustness of civilizations as stewards, the paucity of humanity.

Oh, and the hope of lands unknown to my wanderlust heart, my optimistic roaming eyes constantly searching for the set of eyes that will catch mine and change everything, the idea that the rest of my life could be just beyond the next scrubby brush along the road, on the other side of that lichen fluffing up from in between the sidewalk cracks. Sometimes -- oh, those few "some" times -- when I'm oblivious I think I could be satisfied with what I have now, forever. But those sometimes are not oftentimes. And I don't want them to be, either.

I want to be the sort of person who naturally wants to give away Saints tickets.

But I digress, back to the hinterland.

I pulled out my note sheets, one white rectangle from the Al Khaleej Palace Hotel in Dubai (on which it looks like I was a captive compulsive notetaker sacrificing words to the Gods of Grammer in fear of running out of room on my ONLY ONE PIECE OF PAPER in all of the modern Arab world); one "Zee Sheer Strip" bandaid package; and one large, placemat-sized church bulletin from Christ Baptist Church in Gbagada, Lagos, Nigeria (message: "With God All Things Are Possible") (Oh, don't forget Prayer Band at 8 this Sunday!)

We can forget notebook #2, the bandaid, because it reads more like a list. This is probably inherent in the natural bandaid shape, the lenght/width ratio of which lends itself to supporting only two-word bullets ("--email Vincent; --malaria pill!; --spray stuff" and on it goes. I wish I remembered what the "spray stuff" referred to; maybe my kill-small-children-with-Deet bug repellent? So on to what the good ol' Al Khaleej has to reminisce (all of which I think is from Nigeria, written on stolen hotel paper).

11/23/06
Why does wealth encourage isolation and fences? To pass into the neighborhood, there's a large metal gate accompanied by menacing signs about needing an entry sticker, proof of residency, and 3 large pineapples. The caked-dirt roads with potholes the size of neighboring countries greet our 1978 Toyota van. I'm pretty sure that this van was once used for human trafficking in California, shipped to [insert stereotypical American College Town here] for a "beat the car up fundraiser!", and finally steam-boated to Ethiopia, used for target practice on the Somalian border, and accidentally dropped off in Nigeria on its way to the oft-visited tourist country of Liberia. Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit. It was probably more like a 1985 Toyota.

The roads were funneled through neatly carved ditches, each about 18" wide. These ditches were multi-purposed, clearly designed for synergistic effect. Part drainage ditch, part trash receptacle, part public restroom. Rising out the backside of the ditches were the thick concrete walls surrounding every single house and apartment complex, with the violence-deterring addition of glass shards poking up from the top of the cement. They would have been pretty, a sun-catching array of colorful broken bottles, except for what their presence implied. This was a nice neighborhood, too, mid- to upper-middle class.

So why, when we have material wealth, why do we feel the need to keep it hidden and eventually ourselves hidden? Why are we so afraid of each other and our potential for evil?

***

There's this dichotomy of advertising here, with an enormous billboard for Hewlett Packard's latest phone-nintendo-ipod-bubblemaker-timemachine posted above a dilapidated, corrogated tin sheeted roof with the week's trash burning in the front yard. Disappointingly enough, consumption seems to be a universal human value even when the only consumption that's really important for the people in that house is probably what the next meal is going to be. There are ads for other technology products passing by as I see traditional tribal markings on the man in the car next to me. There are people swarming the inches between the car "lanes" selling everything from new garage doors to sunglasses to fried plantains (I promise we saw people hawking all of those items, plus a guy carrying a new [huge] tv on his Vespa-equivalent motorbike), intermixed with war victims from nearby countries: teenagers walking with their fists for lack of legs in a country where we didn't see any wheelchairs anywhere, poor mothers with their deformed babies in their laps. And because these sights are so ubiqioutous, I found my heart grow numb very quickly to the mess of humanity strewn on the roadsides. I felt cold, helpless, scared that I could be alive while this sort of suffering still exists when the worst homelessness in America only has to face cold, not machetes.

As we continue to strive to find familiarity in the foreign, when will the foreign become familiar, become important to us, become important enough to change? When will that twelve-year-old in the median with the face of someone who's seen their sister killed strike us to care as we would for an American-looking face? When will there be some subjective American political-economic value placed on that which has no valuation system that can be given by man?

Even as all cities begin to look the same and the world feels smaller, the people still retain their diveristy. Never before have I felt so strongly that my face has betrayed me. I could feel the uncontrollable red warmth spread up through my cheeks when I looked around and saw that I clearly did not belong in some situations, that I wasn't wanted there simply because of the color of my skin and the random brown spots on my nose. I wasn't accepted into this -- something that hadn't felt so foreign, something that gosh! we're all just people trying to dream and reach and love! -- this other world of culture and conversations. In those repeated moments I knew what it was to be black in southern America. In those repeated moments I knew what it was to be [insert every other ethnicity that doesn't look stereotypically 'white', plus gay people!, here] in southern America. And it disgusted me to think that I have ever unintentionally, ignorantly, made anyone feel like that.

I'm also feeling intense disappoint. For so long I genuinely believed that skin color didn't matter (or, rather, shouldn't matter) only to be ostracized by my own. Are there cultural differences highlighted more by color or by national borders? And it's unnerving for this difference to begin to feel normal, to feel acceptable.

***

The snapshot of the country we've seen so far would encourage despair in even the most optimistic UN supporter. But the richness of culture, traditions, joy in life without artificial society-imposed goals and definitions of 'success' beg what a nation is supposed to look like? How do you clean up what's here, for the environment's sake and the health of the people living with 15 million of their closest friends, with the problems so massive and large-scale? How do you ever start? I think Nigeria needs a bubble plot of recommendations.

I'm exhausted, so I'll have to continue my Nigeria recap next time!
Goodnight, world.

2007-01-04T22:25:00.000-06:00

Everybody’s got that picture in their mind, the one of how they think their life is supposed to be. It just makes you wonder if I should hold out for my picture a little longer.

The thing about the picture is: how do you look in it? It’s not about who you’re standing next to, or what’s in the background. It’s: are you smiling? Are you good with the choices that you’ve made? Because if you are, it doesn’t matter where you’re standing or who you’re standing next to. It’s a good picture.

I miss Everwood. tear.

Tonight is one of those nights when everything but what I should be doing is capturing my full attention; I watched tv and played with Facebook. But tv can be so educational sometimes, I convinced myself.

Like Ugly Betty. It's got to be popular because everyone must feel like the Ugliest Betty in the world sometimes. I watch the show and feel myself being in a place of invisibility, where people don't really notice you exist because your hair is dull, your face speckled, your chest flat, and your clothes yesterday. I remember those days, and almost feeling warmly, longingly, attached to them. Those formative days when I didn't even bother trying to look nice because I knew it wouldn't make a difference; it couldn't offset the three pounds of "featherweight" glass balanced on the bridge of my nose, or the awkward way I carried my back-breaking backpack, or the unflattering way my oversized t-shirts fell straight down to the middle of my jean shorts, or the poofed-out scrunchies taming my long hair. Would it all still be ok, would I still be so well-adjusted if I hadn't grown out of it, if I hadn't started to see the light at the end of the tunnel illuminating puberty and friends willing to frame me with new fashion and the possibility that the opposite sex *might* be willing to like me? Would it?

I'm glad I don't know, even I still have all the same insecurities of a fifteen-year-old, knobby-knee'd, perennially awkward girl. (Though I never actually had knobby knees. I was blessed with good knees my whole life. I don't think I could have handled that extra blight to bear, knobby knees.) But old age and willing emotion-talkers have comforted me with the commonality of all these frets.

Anyway, I'm smiling in my current picture of life, even if the background is a little blurry from scenes from the whole world being rushed by and the people I'm standing next to are all at varying distances away (it's a panoramic picture). Ok, I'm really only half-smiling, but I don't want to seem ungrateful. I think I need to write to PM again, because he clearly hasn't written back yet, and I'm tired of waiting.

But PM, if you're reading, I'd like to add something while we're at it: you must visit google at least once a day. You must have at least heard of google mail. (It's ubiqioutous! I'm not asking alot here!)

I still need to post my Nigeria thoughts, which are currently stashed safely all over my bedroom floor, small scraps of receipt backs and unused napkins bunched up on horizontal storage spaces.

Goodnight, world!

2006-12-21T23:19:00.000-06:00

Dear Mom and Dad,

I've been meaning to call you for a while now - I mean, about this one particular thing. We've spoken in the past few days, but the time never feels quite right to bring this up. It'd end up being awkward and some small sense of the immense sincerity I mean this with would be lost.

Thank You. No really, that's it: Thank You. From the very deepest bottom crevice abyss tiny infintesimal microscopic unimaginably deepest part of my heart, Thank You.

Thank You for loving me demonstrably. Thank You for hugging me, pressing me close when I was scared, telling me everything would be alright, making sure everything was alright, protecting me from the things in your adult world I didn't need to know about yet.

Thank You for saying, "no." Thank You for saying, "yes."

Thank You for being honest with me. Thank You for showing me the value of love and family, the importance of work and effort, for your foresight in saving money for me to go to school.

Thank You for trusting me, for letting me learn some lessons on my own, for showing me how much more an open heart and positive attitude can achieve than greed or spite. You instilled in me your values. You made me want to make you so proud. You made me so proud.

And with every passing day, a testament to the blessing that is having you as parents is thrown at me -- some small thing that everyday makes me say a little prayer that I can only provide some measure of what you gave to me to my own progeny one day. It's not fair that I did nothing to deserve you as parents, that amputees in Sierra Leone did to not get you as parents, that the children of homeless people didn't do -- but instead of feeling guilty over my good fortune, I will thank God and you two. It's too bad that it took 23 years for me to realize how amazing you two are, that perspective really does dictate parental perception.

I don't tell you this enough, this thank you. But in every "I Love You," know that woven into each syllable is the unspeakable gratitude I feel from every last ATCG bit in me.

Love,
your daughter

2006-12-17T22:10:00.000-06:00

*pictures from Dubai & Nigeria and the Christmas party (starting on pg 5) posted on Flickr* I especially liked these:

Where do I even begin to start to explain the relfections of a mind tossed in tumult for the last 2 months? In no particular order...

Seeing The Pursuit of Happyness (sic) tonight tugged me back into the reality my lofty imagination had been hiding me from. I can't think of the last time I've ever worked so hard at accomplishing something, let alone something as important as making enough money to put your head on something other than a thin piece of paper towel placed on a public restroom floor. The comfort and ease of my (steady) job force ignorance to the everyday realities of the people who live next door to me, across the street, in every state and every country. There's never been a moment in my life when I've wondered how I was going to put food in my mouth or be able to pay for something I really wanted (not even needed). And that's not fair.

Why do I have all that I do while others are starving, shivering, abandoned by the socio-economic strata to which I now belong? Why was I born into the family I was, into the opportunities, the chances, the right connections, the abilities, the health that I was? Why was my life so easy, never forcing me to show how much I wanted the dream, never making me work as hard as the Chris Gardners of the world? It's not fair.

How can I justify my own happiness with such a superficial life when surrounded by those who struggle? How can I be who I say I am, someone who ultimately cares about her family and friends and the people equity in life over any possible materialistic thing, when I am eight hundred miles from my family, see my friends once a week, talk to my far-away friends once every two months, and am desperately trying to buy an extremely expensive sports car?

So what to do with this fiscally-incited social responsibility? I feel guilty enough for begrudging what I have been given without sweat, but with an extra helping of guilt for not doing anything with what I have been given to help others in a meaningful way. Plus I'm jaded about the ability of my meager, in the grand scheme of things, dollars to actually change anything and my ability to adequately decide what to put it towards.

Man possesses an immense capacity for hope in the face of abject sorrow. Why? Why does money have to matter? Why can't smiles be the currency of exchange in mankind's quest to be successful?

At the end of the movie, my thoughts came back around to where they always seem to settle lately - relationships. And my heart shakily agreed with my mind that if loneliness is the largest burden I'm being asked to face, if solitude is meant to be my life's struggle, then I will face my small sorrows with a smile. And my stupid, unrelenting hope, my tether to humanity, will keep reminding me of all the happy possibilities still to come.

As Chris asked, what is happiness? As I get older, I seem to find more happiness in my sorrow, in identifying who I am through being forced to question who I do not want to be, than in any concrete experience or party. It's the small moments when the sun glints through the trees at the park, with my heavy breath laced into the chorus of the song on my ipod as my feet thud thud thud along the path, and I realize that just being alive with the ability to run is enough, all I'll ever need, and that life's happiness is in that moment. That moment, woven into the scattered other moments like it -- seeing the sun slowly poke out from behind the horizon on a clear day offshore, offering to help the man trying to push his wife's wheelchair, having someone remember me at the grocery store -- make life's happiness. They make life.

So if that's life for me, does that mean that every day of surviving, every day of not being raped and keeping your child at your side, every day of seeing the sun rise in the morning and set in the evening, is life for people in Sudan or North Korea or downtown San Fransisco? Is life and its happiness merely a product of relishing whatever small moments of hope there are in the day?

It's just not fair.

And what makes me even more sad is thinking that it won't ever change. No matter how much we try, give, help, there will always be people at war with one another, people starving, unemployment, greed, sorrow.

But if we hope, if we all grasp whatever small hopes there are, that will still make trying to change worthwhile. Right?

After writing this post, I found this NY Times article which asks almost all the same questions I pondered over, but actually with some answers.

2006-10-25T09:04:00.000-06:00

My plate broke yesterday. No, not my proverbial plate, used to indicate stress load, but one of my Corelle dinner plates which are reputed to never break. You've seen the recent commercial, with the models and their matching dishware, strutting down the runway when -gasp!- a plate falls and, in slow motion, bounces a few times before coming to a gentle, unbroken, stop in perfect plate posture. It's upright, no visible cracks, ready to be served. Well I'm here to report that it's all a farce!

I was a believer once, back when we had a full set of corelle dishes on the boat, back when no amount of rough seas could bobble those baubles to destruction. No, they were hardy. They were resilient. They were unbreakable.

But yesterday, all illusions of ceramic granduer were shattered with the green-and-black trim's quick disintigration upon impact with my tiled kitchen floor. It was a sad moment in my life, to realize that the same supposedly-indestructable plates I had grown up with were now in shards and smearing their old age all over. Was this just one more sign of time's sharp march through my own life, one more indication that my bones and my heart have grown brittle and feeble?

Oh, goodness.

I don't want to spoil you too quick, Tommers, so I'll leave you with that for now, and save my other thoughts for later.

2006-08-01T11:30:00.000-06:00

Additional thoughts to my previous post: it surprises me how my personal values and success markers have changed in the past year, too. I'd like to believe I've always placed high importance on family, friends, smiles, enjoying the moment, the environment, making someone else's day better, helping to make the people around me just a little more comfortable and happy; but, can we claim to have a certain value set unless we're actively pursuing the fulfillment of those values? Can I really, honestly say I have a passion for helping other people when I haven't honestly thought about the things that used to drive me to tears of frustrated helplessness - genocide in Sudan, the destruction of the rainforest?

Granted, we each tritely "make a difference" in our own small ways - I smile and laugh with everyone and anyone, strive to be a good friend and listener, and call my parents more often. When's the last time I thought about being a zookeeper? When's the last time I thought about giving up everything I have to go to Africa with the peace corp or a mission trip? Maybe I'm finally happy and satisfied with the current status of my life, and that's why I'm not driven to dream about other paths my life could take, but I'd like to think those things are still important to me. I don't want to ever be afraid to jump to do something I care about because life is easier standing still. I'm less afraid of stagnating or falling ill to complacency now than a year ago, but I still think we're always susceptible to the apathy of a familiar life.

I have to remind myself that I'm happy, so happy, with what I'm doing right now, and genuinly feel like I'm making my own little difference in small ways (like adding more cheer and hapiness to the regularity of offshore life; I bet Tommers is doing this too at his platform :)), and I want to get this dream out of my system before I starting thinking about fulfilling my next dream. Because I will. I will get around to all the things I've always dreamed of doing.

Dreams are kind of inherently selfish, since you really only follow the ones that are uniquely your own, that tug on your heart and drive you to take action. Accepting that is tough, that following your dreams and helping others can be personally fulfulling and joyful and doesn't have to be grudging or tedious. I also have to accept that a changing dream doesn't mean you're a bad person for not beleiving in the same things you used to, or that you're abandoning your principles.

Anyway, back to living my current dreams...riding my bike :)

2006-08-01T10:53:00.000-06:00

Today is my one year anniversary of adulthood.

With this finite demarcation of 365 days done and gone, I can't believe that I've:
-lived in New Orleans
-worked in the real world
-paid for everything with money made only by me
-spent a week in Houston because of the worst hurricane in LA history
-traveled all over: various places in the Netherlands (7 weeks), Germany, Rome, Belgium, London, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Destin, Atlanta
-went cabining in the wilds of Louisiana
-spent 6 weeks in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico
-visited my parents, grandma, and uncle
-became comfortable with who I am
-feel closer to who I want to be than I ever have before in my life
-been infatuated twice
-bought a condo
-painted two rooms in my condo
-bought two expensive, famous-designer brand purses
-bought a Trek 1000 bike
-learned what it's like to feel completely alone while surrounded by people and the mirage of a what a "perfect" 20-something life is supposed to be
-learned what it's like to finally be capable of relying on mtself for happiness and confidence, and to feel proud of myself not just because someone else told me I should be

One year ago today I embarked on the journey of my lifetime, and one year in I'm satisfied with where I've been, where I've come, and where I'm set to go. Sure, there are still plenty of things I'd like to change about myself and my life's setting, things I'd like to be better about, people I'd like closer, but I'm finally able to accept that THAT is life - always looking to modify, evolve, change, grow, adapt, challenge, learn, but to enjoy each experience and pain that contributes to all of those developments.

I can only hope that the next year will bring me the same opportnities for personal definition and growth, while challenging and exciting me the way this year has. Dubai/Nigeria is official (tickets bought!) for Nov 17 - Dec 4, New Year's will be spent in similar crazy fashion as last year (though most likely somewhere states side, tossing around the idea of Miami Beach right now), and this time next year I'll be figuring out where I want to post for my next job - Europe, Nigeria, Malaysia? Offshore again or on? Or maybe I'll find someone who makes me want to stay put for once :)

I appreciate my friendships more now than I ever have before, and feel amazingly blessed to be living this life. For today, for this year's marker, I am happy and thankful. I'm also realistic to see that the rosy tint everything has in retrospect right now, wasn't great until I had learned from it and moved forward, and similarly the next year will hurt and suck and make me cry sometimes, but at the end I'll how those things shaped me and made me better, and I'll be greatful again.

2006-07-18T09:21:00.000-06:00

I'm going to Vegas!! Weekend after next!!

I'm so excited!!

Any suggestions for me on things I have to do, places or shows I have to see?

I haven't had the desire to go shopping in a really long time, but I think I'm going to hit up Express and the mall this afternoon to make sure I'm set with Vegas-ready glam wear hehe. The idea of buying clothes loses its allure when I don't have an office to wear cute clothes to and I wear the same pair of jeans for an entire week when I'm offshore, alternating among three t-shirts, and when I live in a city in which wearing more than jeans and a regular shirt to go out in is abnormal, the prospect of going somewhere that dressing cute is required is exciting! wooo!

2006-07-15T20:01:00.000-06:00

Soft jazz courtesy of Michael Buble and my brand new, just-out-of-the-box Bose iPod sound dock is mingling with the light scents wafting from the candles burning from various heights before reaching me, me splayed out on the couch with my laptop resting on my knees curled up beneath me. This finally feels like home, where I can relax and not feel lonely or lame. It's my oasis now; it's been lived in enough to feel warm and cozy, instead of empty and barren. Of course I still wish there were someone else lounging on the couch with me, but for now I'm happy to settle for Mr. Laptop and Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany.

I'm proud of myself for how I've spent my first hitch off, with just the right measure of lazy nothing. I'm finally getting the chance to do the things I promised myself I'd do when I "have the time" - though I still haven't managed to check "laundry" off that list. Since flying in Thursday morning: I had an amazing time at Margaritaville in the Quarter for a company-sponsored social that night (I got to see some of my favorite people in the city, many of whom I haven't seen in more than a month) and even got on stage to play the washboard and spoons! Friday I relaxed and got some stuff done and went out that night until 5 am to the bar with the best cheese fries in New Orleans (F&M's).

Today I played soccer and had the best play of my young career - I managed to steal the ball away from this fierce looking, shaved head, British guy (if he's European, he's got to be better at soccer, right? :) ) not once, but TWICE!! He stood there looking stunned while my team went crazy for me, shouting "Jen's a rockstar!" and other superlatives. It was great. This evening we went to a Zephyrs baseball game (the minor league team here, for the Washington Nationals) sponsored by a vendor, which meant free food and drinks and sitting around the pool in the outfield and not so much watching of the game itself.

My next soccer game is 8 am tomorrow. After my game, I'm going to try to go for a bike ride, sit at the park and read for a bit (I've been on a great reading streak and have been actually finishing the books I start, unlike a couple months ago when it felt like I had lost my ability to read a whole book.), and make dinner for me and Courtney. I'm thinking a spaghetti, with almost-from-scratch sauce with italian sausage and beef plus the standard vegetables, and my new best friend, Basil. Instead of going to sleep now like I should, I'll drone on a little longer...

That's another great way I've spent my off time this week, cooking. I made an amazingly well-seasoned tilapia filet last night for dinner (some cumin, salt, pepper, zested lemon, basil, flour) and complimented it with some blanched spinach that I then sauteed with a bit of eggwhite and baby swiss cheese to make it kind of quiche-like, alongside some spiral-y noodles. I was so impressed with myself! It was fun, too, to just throw stuff together and not use a recipe. Cooking felt intuitive for the first time. I've also made myself an eggwhite omelet every morning with fresh veggies (I really like combining tomato, mushroom, vidalia onion, and spinach) topped with a little salsa. I indulged my penchant for fresh fruit at the grocery store, too, and have been nibbling on plump, ripe strawberries and juicy cherries. I feel like I've been spoiling myself, but I can physically feel the positive effect of eating so healthfully on my body.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I am actually supporting myself in a healthy way, instead of just making it from day to day. Not monetarily, but emotionally and physically. Working at the office was tiring, and I never took time to take care of myself and genuinely relax. I never read or just sat outside. I never cooked for myself because I was always too tired. So that's been the best thing so far, to have the desire to do these things because I don't feel so rushed every second that there are fifty other irrelevant things I should be doing. Now I just need someone to share my newfound capabilities and brighter smiles with...

I'm excited about my mom coming to visit in a few weeks - this is the longest I've ever gone in my whole life without seeing my mom! I think, inside, I'm especially excited to show her what I've done with the condo, my 22-year-old's version of holding up a fridge-worthy finger painting as if to say, "Look, Mommy! I did it! I really did it! I'm all (so they tell me) grown up and doing well! Have I made you proud yet?! Have I? Pat me on the shoulder, hug me, tell me you love me! Tell me you're glad I'm here and happy before I change my mind, break down, and sobbingly tell you I want to check the 'I DID IT' box off my life's checklist and go home!"

The muggy air sneaking through my windows on the drive home tonight mixed with James Blunt's "Goodbye My Lover" into a sweaty soup of memories of Scotland, of riding my bike in Audobon park, led me to Bob Marley and Ansley's room making CDs freshman year to funk music to jamming down the street in Rijswijk with my favorite new French friend.

As happy as I am right now, I'm afraid that soon it's going to go back to me just telling myself that all these things make me happy, to doubting whether I'm happy here only because it means I'm also spending time offshore and that means my fake sense of family. Why do I question my happiness so much? Even when I'm purely, blissfully satisfied, I'm wondering somewhere inside when the happiness is going to end, and how I know I'm really happy at that moment, don't I have to be sad again to realize in retorspect that I was truly happy at such-and-such other moment? I'm confusing myself.

My eyes are drooping and my fingers and tiring; off to sleep.

2006-07-06T20:31:00.000-06:00

Pictures from Europe and the 4th in Boston up at Flickr!

More later...offshore life makes me want to go to sleep at 9:30. Who am I kidding, I always want to go to sleep before 10...

2006-06-29T13:51:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting at an antique wood dining table, leaves neatly tucked under, audibly entertained with NYC radio and my uncle's 1960s speaker system. I've left the apartment once today - a brief stint outside to get some food - and have spent the rest of the day numbly watching stale American sitcoms. It's been great.

My plan was to walk over to the river, scrounge up an inviting bench, and pass away the hours re-reading Life of Pi. I read Yann Martel's book back during the summer I spent taking classes at FIU, the summer I had my brush with radio fame on the Diane Rheme show (I'm the last question of the show! Though Diane said I was from Michigan instead of FL).

The book quickly moved onto my Top 5 list, but as time passed my ability to recall the magical feelings the story invoked has disintegrated and I wanted to renew them; with each page turn now, it's like brushing off the comfortable dust of time that rests gently on a friendship. With the progression of the story I'm rediscovering the intellectual spark that drew me to each paragraph the first time, in much the same way a good conversation creates the same intellectual spark that draws me to certain people. I feel the book testing my boundaries in ways it didn't before, what I'm going to be suckered into believing this time, which allegory I'm going to fall for this time. Pi quickly ingratiates himself: Is he really a boy learning to train a tiger in a liferaft drifting through the Pacific? Or is he a boy driven to murder for sustenance? I so desperately want to believe in the fantasy of the story - that's what good fiction can do, remind me of the fantasy in my own life to believe in - but in the back of my mind I see the symbology of the tiger representing the personal dynamic between Pi and the other survivors on the boat, realism swaddled in fantastical imagery.

The past three weeks have been wonderously freeing, letting me succumb to the vagabond I've always dreamed of being, triangulating my travels between friends' houses, home, and adventure. Traveling has served as my life's mirror, relfecting who I am most clearly when I am outside the comfortable confines of regularity and life's routine. I can feel myself further refining with each trip what I enjoy, what makes me happy, what I'm still searching for, and what I've found. I'm reminded over and over how very lucky I am to be where I am, physically, figuratively, and mentally. There's nothing better than meeting new people, having new conversations, to highlight who you are.

As always, I jotted notes down on post-it notes along the way. My most recent (disjointed) revelations:

There are people who give you a glimpse of how others see you - the best possible way others see you. A confirmation of the way you'd always hoped to be seen - sweet.funny.enchanting. Isn't that what everyone wants - for someone else to see them smart and beautiful? I have this newfound confidence around people who see me how I desperately want to be seen, who both eke out and engage the parts of my personality I like best. That's what any relationship should do, though, right?

I can't see his face as clearly anymore; time has pixelated it in my mind and photos don't show the clarity of his lips my mind did. With time everything falls away into bits, scraps of a life's memories blown about in the dark alleys and caverns of our minds, reminisces of the people and moments we'd said we'd never forget.

I'm overwhelmed by my country's excess. Everytime I come back after an extended period of time away I experience the cultural shock of AMERICA jammed in your face - the dirt, the consummerism and consumption, the massive amounts of wasted space, the demand to count worth in dollars. But the chip on my shoulder for the country that I do, somewhere inside, hold a dear fondness for quickly brushes off because this place is also just so easy. We're all spoon fed entertainment and thought by the mass media and the ever-glowing bright lights everywhere. I frustrate myself. I don't want the main reason I want to live abroad so desperately to be because I crave a new challenge, an adventure I stubbornly, blindly, think can't be here, because I'm running away from my fears of settling in a place alone or stagnating for too long and losing my drive or curiosity.

Class was fun, Rome was the most beautiful city I've ever been too, and Groningen is on my list of potential future residences.

Next is the fun of Kingston, NY with an amazing family I want to be adopted into, then patriotism in Boston for the 4th, then back to the beautiful sunsets of the middle of the Gulf.

Ahh, it feels good to write and get this all out. I think it's time to release my internet tether and venture outside.

2006-06-14T23:02:00.000-06:00

1. I <3 Europe. In general. The Netherlands are particularly great, because that's where I am right now, but I really the think whole continent's got it going on (see numbers 2, 4, and 5).

2. I <3 the World Cup. Hup Holland Hup!

3. I miss air conditioning.

4. I love cheese. And kiwi fruit. And small kiwi fruit spoons.

5. Have I mentioned Toblerone yet?

Love,
Jen

PS I can't wait until NY/Boston...my girls!! I absolutely am the most excited person I know awake right now, at 7am GMT +1!! I should start making notes on everything we need to talk about, all the special dances we have to do in our pajamas, all the cheesey puffs we have to eat, all the zoological institutions we have to visit! :)

2006-06-06T22:16:00.000-06:00

What a perfect night, as perfect nights go. I worked out, played bingo, and wandered around a bookstore for 2 hours before settling on several solid choices.

And since I know he'll read this and is so good about commenting, I'd like to give a HUGE shout-out to my dear friend who is now also my only Bingo Champion friend, Mr. Tommers!!! If only he had remembered to yell, "BIG BLUE BALL!!" when he won Big Blue Ball with a B-10. It's ok though, since he did jump up and down, do a few herkies, and make his excited face (fists clenched, balled up around his cheeks) as the ENTIRE bingo hall laughed at him. It was amazing. $105! 95% of the credit goes to his lucky bingo shirt Gaby made, which said "I only come for the Big Blue Balls", 4% of the credit is for Tom's perseverence in getting the Big Ball seller to come back to our table for one more round of tickets, and 1% goes to the oragami crane I made out of the losing bingo sheet he had already played.

And just for the record, my bingo shirt from Gaby says, "I sling ink like it's my job" (For you amateurs out there, that refers to the inky dobbers you use to mark the spots on the bingo board).

I adore the bookstore, the calm and quiet of the aisles that belies the hightened activity in my mind as I get drawn to interesting looking covers, intrigueing titles, fall in love with stories and pine for more time to be able to read every smooth cover I touch. I feel no shame in indulging all my senses, burying my nose in the spine and gently pawing the pages. I rationalize why some purchases are worthwhile while other selections should be gotten from amazon. com - 'oh, well I'm willing to pay extra for this one [compare to online] because part of the in-person purchase price is for the enjoyment of getting to rifle through its pages in the store, absorb the fonts and page spacing, and revel in the textures of the plot in front of me, kind of flirt with taking it home or not and tucking it safely under my arm for passage to next section and my next interest'.

It was tough to decide, but this lineup just felt right:
The Mermaid Chair (Sue Monk Kidd) - I loved The Secret Life of Bees and picked this one up to round out the relaxing/romantic/girly category of my selections

Night (Elie Wiesel) - I really enjoy books that chronicle personal stories from the Holocaust and this is a classic in the genre. One of my all time favorite books is My Story: Alicia Appleman Jurman, quite possibly the first time I cried reading a book, and the first book I read 3 times. And every time I borrowed the same copy from the Hallandale library!

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) - I've wanted to read this for a solid 2 years

My Ishmael (Daniel Quinn) - I read My Name Is Ishmael for Environmental Ethics, and enjoyed it so much that I've been meaning to read this sequel ever since

Marley & Me (John Grogan) - our next Period Club (aka all the girls I know at work - all 7 of us - got together and made a book club. Our first book was to reread Davinci Code and see the movie together after having a sleepover and potluck dinner last weekend - lots of fun) book selection. It should be a cute read.

I was seriously tempted by Jared Diamond's most recent work, Collapse, but feel like I should get through Guns, Germs, and Steel first. Richard Dawkins and I went back and forth a few times, but I decided I really just want to re-read The Selfish Gene again (which I read partially for Tech's version of freshman "English" and kept the book). Similarly, it was agonizing for me to walk away without John Irving's - my absolute favorite author - newest, Until I Find You, but again realized I'm just longing to re-read my abolute favorite book, A Prayer For Owen Meany and likely wouldn't enjoy the new one that much because I'd be thinking about Owen's story.

In addition to the books I bought tonight, I also have several I've accumulated over the past year that I'm in various stages of completion. Having unfinished books lying around stresses me out, so I'd also like to read One Hundred Years of Solitude and Catch 22. I don't have much hope of finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran because as much as I enjoyed parts of it, it's not gripping me enough to slough through the last 70 pages (same goes for A Staggering Work of Mind Blowing Genuis or something like that). PLUS! I want to re-read Life of Pi (my 2nd favorite book ever) and The Alchemist to refresh myself with the stories in each.

Reading is romancing my mind and therefore makes me nervous to start a new book. I typically embark on a new read with such high expectations, and am afraid before I even start that I'll be disappointed! So I have to convince myself I can start before I even begin. Insane, huh?

I just hope I can find the time to read all these great books I now have lying around, and finish one before getting distracted by all the other options - I certainly don't want to be in the middle of several all at once.

Aside from my great book trip, I was also told tonight on the phone that I'm "not as awkward as everyone thought" and am "good with really young and much older people,"
generally either the 5 and under crowd or the Parent group. Awesome. :)

On the way home tonight, I saw the ducks along West Esplanade have returned. I wonder where they were all this time and where they went for the hurricane.

2006-06-05T20:27:00.000-06:00

I'm an emotions hypochondriac, I've decided. There are a few television shows that somehow manage to impose the feelings of their characters onto me, to make me feel like I have those same highs and lows. Only I share their tears without really having the same resolutions. Or problems. How have I become so emotionally suggestible in my old age?

Life is running away but I'm reining it in, slowly, but fencing in my mind and only focusing on small conversations throughout the day, long emails that should have been written months ago, and hidden smiles nestled in unlikely places. And by ignoring the other things I should be doing but don't want to (or am afraid to). It's a good (but bad) thing I've got so much work to do to keep me busy (or not thinking). Hence the lack of posting: no thinking = easier on Jen.

I really should look for my daily interest in places other than morning meeting recognition, bingo, and digital media. I have a feeling the 10 hr flight Friday will be a good time for me to catch up with myself and all the thoughts I've been avoiding processing.

And my laundry still keeps piling up. Sigh.

2006-05-23T14:37:00.000-06:00

Oh, land. How much more I like sea.

It's much easier to feel like you're following a blessed golden road on some destined journey, gaurded all around by a protection unseen, when you're staring full on into the sun's fierce setting glow over an indiscernible liquid horizon. The firey reflections off the rapidly darkening water shine into my eyes, giving me a sense of blindly following some plan I might have scrapped together some time ago when idealistically plotting what my life would be. 'Yes, when I waver, quiver, I'll stare into the sun and feel reassured that I'm doing the right thing. Yes, I'll stare into the sun and feel reassured that any pain or struggle along the way is temporary because someone with the opportunity to stare into an unfiltered sun is someone who will always have that highlighted path to warmth and brightness laid out.'

I wonder if my great fallibility will be my inability to reach out. If my greatest failure will be my inability to maintain those friendships which are most important to me, if my greatest weakness will be my tendency to hide from that which is emotionally challenging. If my fear of being with someone else will win out over my fear of being alone.

Oh, time.

2006-05-16T17:38:00.000-06:00

The hardest part about being out here is not the loneliness - there's always someone to talk to and there's a certain sense of commeraderie and family from living this shared experience that's so different from the rest of the land-based world - but instead the feeling of isolation. Wanting to reach out and feel connected to the friends and family you know are out there somewhere, beyond this big stretch of blue laid out in sheets all around, is the toughest part. Sure there's email, but there's only so much satisfaction to be had beyond the few-second thrill of reading a friend's note, and I hate feeling tied to Gmail and being at the mercy of its white-highlighted lines of new mail. The phones here are in very public areas, and I don't trust myself to not giggle loudly when on the phone with 2-0-7 Love. So I work out, talk to people about their lives, their kids, the tv shows that gather us in the conference room, and watch movies on the satellite tv. I try to read, but I find that reading makes me think and sometimes thinking too much just makes me sad.

Here, too, it's especially important to be very androgynous, and not let anything thing seem to carry even the slightest hint of impropriety. It's tough to feel llike I'm constantly hiding an integral part of who I am in order to fit in in this world of sports-chaw-redmeat and testosterone. (I wonder if that's what it's like to be in the closet?) Today a woman cook flew out which brought the grand total up to 3 out of 140 people, with me being the only one under 50.

And when you like human contact as much as I do (13 times a day, it's a researched fact! You need 13 x to be happy!) and don't have Tommers around the corner for my daily hand pat or hug, I feel like I'm having to physically hold myself back from reaching out and bear-hugging someone! Especially when most everyone here looks and talks like my dad!

Because of all these realities of being out here that you really only see after it's been three days and you still have another 7 to go before heading back in, I'm becoming more happy about the prospect of only doing a 7-7 schedule in the beginning, to acclimate to hugging myself. But I don't think the self-hug counts towards 13.

I think everytime I come out here it changes me a little, makes me a little more introspective (is that even possible!?!), and a little more aware of what I'm working towards, personally and professionally. It's frustrating, too, though, when all the guys out here are so genuinely nice to me and are very complimentary (in a dad sort of way, of course - one guy told me he was sorry if I caught him staring at me, it's just that I look so much like his wife when they were my age; someone else told me I was "lovely" hehe), and I think about how great it'd be if someone my own age in my own country and state would think the same thing. *typical sigh*

Anyway, I'm breaking all my own rules by doing this right now (using a company-owned laptop! with a company-owned internet connection!) so I'm going to go back to rockin' out my hard hat.

2006-05-12T22:13:00.000-06:00

My life, May - July 2006

May 14-23: offshore (transitioning)
May 25-29: Sandestin Beach Resort (vacation - girls' spa and beach weekend!)
June 9-16: Rijswijk, the Netherlands (training)
June 16-18: Rome, Italy (weekend vacation!)
June 18-23: Rijswijk (the second week of training)
June 23-26: Aberdeen, Scotland (vacation!)

(this part's still a little fuzzy)
June 27-July 5: NYC, Kingston, & Boston (visit Uncle Matt, Kristy, and Biffy if she's there)

July 6: my first official offshore rotation starts!
I'll be working 7 days on, 7 days off (as in, no work whatsoever, I'll no longer have an office on land), so if you want a visitor let me know and I'm there :)

I'm a little overwhelmed at the prospect of everything that's going to happen between now and the middle of July, but I'm calming myself by trying to take each day as it comes, not constantly look forward to the next exciting adventure, and enjoy each moment. That's all we can do, right?

2006-05-08T21:42:00.000-06:00

The smell of fried chicken is comforting in its power to overwhelm my senses as my feet plod along the heavily grated streets on my walk to work. I still haven't figured out quite what those grates are for, but the medium-sized glare of the bulbs below illuminate a shallow, cavernous space. Rudimentary flood system, perhaps, to allow water to rapidly fill in these essentially hollow sidewalks and be pumped away to a canal, rather than wait for finicky street drains to shoulder the burden.

The walk had become routine, something to be spiced up every few days: Gravier to Baronne to the alley to Carondolet and the entrance; Gravier all the way to Carondolet and then west towards Poydras; Gravier to Baronne to the other alley to Carondolet and towards Poydras. This was my daily intrigue, with the sights and smells of the paths bleeding into the dynamic backdrop of a slightly depressed city. The first few weeks back sheened with the dampened spirit of a city that felt still closed to those of us try to re-enter and re-instate normalcy. Now, the streets feel more willing to accept our grudging footsteps and the city's characters have resumed their usual posts, propped up against always-grimy stone walls and surrounded by the previous day's garbage waiting to be picked up by the city. By the walk home, sometimes the garbage has been collected but the characters are still sitting. Usually in the same slumped position I first passed them in. And everytime I walk blindly by these people humanity has forgotten the irony of the garbage pick up is not lost on me -- these plastic bags of tangible trash have a courier whose job it is to gather and relocate it while the characters are left to sit and rot without a similar caretaker to gather and relocate them.

Most mornings I tell myself, "Tonight I'll give him a dollar on my way home," but I never do. What will that dollar do, really? And then I feel ashamed because my next line of logic goes something like, "If I give him a dollar today he'll start to expect it everytime I walk by, which is twice a day, and how awkward would that be?!" The day I begin avoiding helping someone out of fear of awkwardness is the day I know I am a hypocrit with grand ideals and no backbone with which to act on those personal values.

2006-04-30T18:06:00.000-06:00

Know what makes me feel better when I am despairing on my couch, moving listlessly through the motions of life? What makes me feel true hope and know that there really is a place for me in the world alongside everyone else?

It's hearing President Clinton's words on CNN during their special on AIDS, and the hopeful message of all the other panelists. It's being reminded that there are so many bigger issues the world is facing right now, so many more important struggles than my frustrations with personal acceptance and affirmation. It's know that there are better causes for which to despair than my own lack of self confidence and personal fulfillment, and it's knowing that there are ways to make myself better by making the lives of those around me better.

My spark was dwindling, I was feeling captured and a lackluster sense of passion for those worldwide tragedies that normally motivate my heart to figure out how I can go and do and share in my part of lessening the undeserved burden on so many good people. And yet, as always when I'm writing here, I'm still sitting, in the same place, without concrete plans to use my hands and move my legs. The strength of the calling within me to somehow do something only continues to grow and I pray that oneday soon an opportunity will become obvious to me as an outlet by which to express this desire to help.

2006-04-24T20:06:00.000-06:00

I don't want this to be my burden, my life's personal tragedy, this specter of loneliness waved like a proud badge of courage. Because I'd rather be comforted than courageous.

Walking through the parking garage tonight my mind separated my two very overlapping, omnipresent frustrations of the past few months -- the loneliness of being physically alone in a new place which I'm convinced everyone feels (an emotion which, ironically enough, seems highlighted and magnified when in a large group), and the sorrow of my desolation that (and I hate myself for admitting it) comes from realizing that I really want to be in a relationship again and not having ANY prospects (or hope of meeting new prospects) to think about a relationship with. *sigh* I hate myself for not being satisfied with being alone, for not being able to find that comfort within myself, for not being strong enough. For questioning my motives and wondering if I really only want to be with someone or if I need to, to be happy -- and I don't want to need to be with anyone for my happiness.

I went to church yesterday, for the first time since last summer with Danny, and it amazed me (as God always seems to, when I open my eyes) how the sermon spoke directly to me. I also talked to my mom for a solid 90 minutes yesterday, which made me simply happy.

I took a different walking route between the building and the parking garage today, and maybe I just needed that little bit of spark in my day to get my mind thinking, because those shadowy steps through the dim, muddy gray concrete jungle illuminated another emotional contrast: a satisfied, comforting acceptance of knowing that I have friends and family who genuinely do care about me, and a rational, if sad, acceptance that friends can't make things better, magically, just by talking to them - even in person. That it's ok and normal to be sad, that I don't have to feel guilty for being sad as if I'm letting someone down by letting my irrational emotions control my thoughts and decision making process. Because Friends are there to make it easier to deal with the sadness that they can't fix for you, not to make you feel guilty for not being happy.

Friends make those sad seconds that last for eons worth living through because you know they'll be there when the eon is over, waiting with a smile and that hug. When I'm shivering from the cold that seems to be seeping over me from the inside out, my friends will be the blanket that gives me even just a degree of warmth, even just the knowledge that there are edges and that the cold can only go so far. And my friends realize, too, that they can let me be sad without needing to try to make me feel immediately better. We all need to weep, sometimes.

And you'll always be there with the fresh towel when I'm ready to dry off.

2006-04-23T08:29:00.000-06:00

I need someone to hold me to a higher standard. I need someone to challenge me to be better than what I am right now, to keep learning and growing and not just sit here in my mind stagnating. It seems that the people around me are afraid of talking about anything too personal. Maybe it's because we're all afraid to push the lines since recent events have shown how fuzzy and mutable friendship is. We're afraid to have real conversations because they're serious and not the sort of carefree fun were built our friendships around. But I need my mind to stretch, be told it's wrong, be intrigued, to be sustained and capable of having carefree fun - how can you live a life with half of your faculties turned off for fear of the specter of "seriousness" poking in? Maybe this is the difference between making friends in college and out -- in college you're supposed to be finding yourself, having the big talks, figuring out how the world works, but when you're where I am now the world tells you you're supposed to already have everything down and know how it works.

But dammit, I'm younger than many college seniors! I still feel like a baby in the world, hungry for definition and guidance, but only being fed harsh lessons in the real world without a proverbial mom to come and cradle me under my flailing arms. I had assured myself that having close friends in far-flung places wouldn't make the friendships that much harder, when in college we were all so busy and running different places anyway. But I'm learning that the hardest part about being miles and miles away from each other is not being able to look into each other's eyes and see the friendship so clearly. Now, we're only able to trust the inflection in the voice on the other end of the line to mean everything you want it to. To trust that the other person knows how much you're trying to put into your voice to mean everything you used to just know from their expression. Deep conversations about nothing at all lose something when there's not a shared small portion of the sky speckled with glistening stars overhead or a shared tightly-looped, industrial-grade, blue-gray carpet underfoot. I miss you guys.

I was so excited about having made a new friend recently (and a non-work friend at that!) because so far all our friendship has been was conversation about the real world, philosphical probings of the each other's worldviews. But we haven't talked in a little while and my mind is filled up again and bursting with things to understand and vague notions of ideas to discover, without another mess of gray matter to do so with. And there's only so much philosophical pondering you can do alone over a slice of toasted bread with cheese with MTV on in the background. And I've come to find that there's a finite amount of satisfaction to be gained from doing anything excessively singularly -- only so many nights I can enjoy the solitude of reading a book on my couch or vegging out to a movie or going to sleep early or cooking for one before it just becomes pitiful and boring and lonely. Only so much contemplating my changing outlook on the world and my role in it without another person's thought process to clarify what I see of myself and what's around me. So now I'm left with the sadness that comes with feeling like you lost a friend you never even really had and the frustration of not having anyone to talk to.

I'm tired of not being accountable to anyone but myself, because most times I don't feel strong enough to hold myself up. I want to find ways to stop my nightly struggle to not feel sorry for myself; I'm need to find other ways to pass the time other than reminding myself of all the tangibly good things that make life worthwhile when I'm really just longing for those abstract things that make life life and not just a catalog of events and time's waysigns. I just don't want to feel broken anymore. And I want to have a meaningful conversation about life or the world without feeling like I'm being a downer to all the people around me.

I want to write about things other than my repetitive posts about being sad, even if that is why I started this blog in the first place so very long ago - for seeking relief from those thoughts I'm not comfortable talking about.

2006-04-20T18:39:00.000-06:00

The edges of the red paint are curling down, twirling their own petals of latex into shards of whimsy and rebellion. The rubbery flakes of thrice-coated Bold Cherry veer away from the straight edges of the crown molding but can't quite detach from their substrata. They're terrified. They're flawed. They're ugly. But they're my imperfections, I guess.

My overactive imagination has made trying to live outside of my head and its machinations nearly impossible this week. In reveling in my dreams, pretending that a life exists outside of my own and everything goes just how it should, I've unknowingly let go of some of that control I'm constantly grasping with white knuckles to prevent swirling into an abyss of emptyness. And I'm finding a fresh feeling of freedom to experience the kind of genuine happiness I haven't found in a while -- the kind of happiness that comes from honest external validation that tells you you're worth something.

That also means that when I'm not happy, it's hard to just be neutral. Once this door cracks open even a smidge, past resentments crest in crescendo against the hollowed out wooden panels, splintering the door to allow anger and tears and frustration and sorrow to fight the joy for the best seat.

I just want you to know me. To tell me that I'm going to be ok. To tell me that it's ok to cry until you're too tired to cry anymore. That I'm still normal. To tell me why I never quite feel complete even when everything around me is just so, when anyone could look in the front window and see just so evident all around. Tech seems so easy now. I keep telling myself it'll get easier here, it has to, but it's hard to live in the present when the only thing running through my mind is to look towards the future because it'll be better.

I just want to be ok with this.

People shouldn't be this complicated. Or capable of causing this much hurt. And so frustratingly single-minded: I can list on my hand all the things that rack me with sobs and cause me to hide in my own mind. But, identity-less Internet World, I don't think you're ready for that list yet.

Part of this whole experience was supposed to be about "finding me" and "knowing who I am as an individual." But what happens when I realize I don't necessarily like what I've found? And when I recognixe that there's not really a solution to be pointed out in a table, to be calculated and applied?

I really want to feel home again, wherever it's moved to. What to do when my usual tokens of home fail to comfort? Where to go when there's no longer a physical location to be home, there's no longer a specific person to hug to be home? I don't want to have to escape to the numbness of my mind everytime I wonder who I am because I don't have a marker anymore to point me in the right direction ro remind me where I'm going from where I've come from.

2006-04-02T19:01:00.000-06:00

On the plane ride back to New Orleans tonight I nudged the radio volume a little lower than usual so as not to drown out my overactive analysis of the weekend's events. And I blinked harder than usual to keep the tears that kept threatening to explode from my eyes from bombarding my seatmates.

I feel similar to how I did the fall of my second year, when I walked around campus numb, always on the verge of crying, when I drove in desperation to the Borders on Ponce to find something to read that would take me away from my mind and its torments. I consumed Death Be Not Proud and it reminded that there are things that could be worse in life even if I didn't think they could feel any worse.

When I couldn't get out of bed and prayed to a God I didn't even believe in yet. When it felt like I was the same person I had always been, fumbling, feeling my life's snoglobe tossed around, wondering if it was me who was changing or everyone else around me or if anyone noticed my difference.

I feel replaced; the seat that was once always mine has been filled by someone new. I don't understand why I feel his words so much, that they hurt or mean so much, why they cripple me in his hug. Because after this long why does it hurt more now than ever before?

I know that I didn't dream the last 4 years of my life, but it's hard to remember what that reality felt like. Walking around campus was real, but out-of-phase. Now there's always something else in the eyes of old friends, the ever-persistant question behind the question 'how are you.'

The other parts of the weekend were happy. Overwhelmingly happy: the friends, the confidence, the smiles, the encouragement. Knowing the doors to walk through. Knowing the tv channels and the funny smell that always pervaded the hallway. Knowing exactly where to put the sink handle to get the right water temperature. Knowing the friends. Feeling known. Being perfectly, completely honest to the most important people to me. Being vulnerable in the safety net that is my friends' arms and words.

All of which makes it that much harder to be back here, only connected through thin wires susceptible to the distractions of life. And now, absorbing the enormity of the weekend's revelations, all I want is to be back on K's couch in the comfort of regular crust pizza and the familiarity of someone who knows everything. Thank you.

All of this, this selfish, petty emotional tumult, is overshadowed by The Kite Runner, one of the best books I've read in a while. My linguistic fingers are feeling feeble tonight though, so I'll leave those thoughts for next time.

Oh sleep, come take me away for the night.

2006-03-26T11:49:00.000-06:00

It's funny how time can shape your memories of past events. You think you have a solid grip on what your personal history is, what's happened to you in your life, when suddenly you look back and realize your current experiences are constantly revising what your past ones were. Your perception of those past occurances, anyway.

I don't know if it's that the passage of times heals old wounds or patches over those chinks in your heart that held a grudge; maybe it's that we start to remember things how we want to remember them, or how it's easiest to remember them in our own reconstructionist version of life's timeline. Maybe we remember life how we wanted it to happen, or to fit today's purposes. Like right now, when I really miss you and so only remember our time being really good. Or when I watch a movie and feel this strange sense of identification with a character's perspective when my ability to empathize is mostly based on a slightly refined model of my own truth my mind has molded.

I miss my mom. I miss uncomplicated hugs where you could squeeze as hard as you possibly could and it was still never enough, I never had enough strength to grasp close enough and keep her here, next to me. Even when I wanted nothing more than my individuality and to escape the trappings of being someone's little girl, I've always always always wanted her, and that hug, right here. As I've gotten older I see my mom more and more as a model of what motherhood should be, a model of what being a successful woman is. I've never told her that, though, and probably never will because I'll let my everlasting fear of inducing family awkwardness and tenderness prevent my outpouring of emotions. No, I'll keep those pesky emotions trapped up, instead, where they belong for now. And I'll keep her, unfairly, at arms length.

I watched Stepmom this morning and was reminded of how much I pretend to not "need" my family, how susceptible I am to my stubborn belief that I can do anything on my own, that I don't need anyone. When in actuality, I feel that desperate, insane irrationality that is love telling me to stop being so remote, to take advantage of the relationships I have and give more. But I'm so very scared inside that they're all going to die soon because they're old, and that it'd be fake or not real for me to start now, to create something that I've always wanted but am tormented by all at the same time. As if, I'm taking revenge on my parents now, keepign them away, for all the pent-up resentment I've harbored but once it's too late I'm going to realize that the only person feeling the brunt of that revenge will be myself.

I just need to try harder and care more. It's so easy here, with friends all in the same situation of families at a distance, to create my own little pretend family-type support structure. Which is important, too, but I can't let myself forget that there's no replacement for the real thing. I'm going to try harder this time.

2006-03-06T20:05:00.000-06:00

Would it be alright for me to tell you that sometimes, in that fuzzy few minutes that seem to standstill, between shutting my eyes and drifting off I still think of you. And even in my mind's haze I can tell that I'm smiling without trying and my heart's a little happier. Is that silly?

I was disheartened by a sitcom on CBS tonight (How I met your mother, maybe?) which focused on a girl who earned a fellowship to a culinary school in Germany so had to have the "do we break up" discussion with her 2-month boyfriend. And I was disgusted because the conversation only involved two options for this lady, going alone (and breaking up) or staying in NY (or whereever they were). Why couldn't he even consider going with her? This storyline hit particularly close to home because of my own stubborn-head-ed-ness, and also made me really sad. Because as one of the other characters pointed out, you can chose to follow your dreams and live lots of lonely nights, or you can be in love and spend those nights next to someone's heart.

It's not fair for the two to be mutually exclusive, dreams and love or happiness and independence or me and relationships. You know?

And I refuse to believe that they are; I can't believe that they are and still think optimistically that somewhere out there is someone who I'm going to care about enough to be willing to quit any job for him, do anything for him, but who will care enough about me, too, so that he'd never ask or expect me to. I just hope that I'm not fatally idealistic, precluding myself from ever again experiencing the joys and miseries of complicated, torturous, blissful love.

Because deep down I'm scared that I'm completely wrong and that society won't let me be successful in work and still be loved in a relationship, that societal morays will habitually screw me over. And I'll be too pigheaded to realize it until it's too late and I'm a 45-year-old who's had so many lonely nights she can't identify the aching in her heart anymore because she's emotionally dull inside.

sigh.

2006-02-28T19:20:00.000-06:00

Mardi Gras 2006

2/26/06: John Burnett, NPR reporter. Tons more pictures of Mardi Gras on flickr. And Tom's got some great shots, too.

The events of the past week and a half have built steadily to the crescendo that is Fat Tuesday, with each day contributing stories that I'll remember and laugh about every year from now on when I think back to my very First Mardi Gras.

I've never felt so proud to be a New Orleans resident, to be able to tell the people we met in the street, "I live here. Do I like it? I love it!" Look at me - I've picked up saying "for" when indicating at what time I'll be ready, and I can (almost) distinguish between the accents of a person from Chalmette and Lafayette! I wound my way through back streets to avoid parade routes and, aside from one horrific traffic event when I slept in my car (I'll come back to that), I successfully navigated my relatively new home like a native.

For the past six days, this city has felt ALIVE, buzzing with the excitement of reveling in a tradition that has brought its disparate inhabitants together in some semblance of harmonious celebration every year for the past 168 years.

Party-goers own the streets for most of this time, though by most evenings the trash and un-caught beads have pretty much taken over. $6 Dominoes pizza boxes clutter the corners where sidewalk meets building, and hundreds of forgotten or undesirable throws are strewn hapharzardly about the neutral ground. New Orleans is a notably friendly town to begin with, but there's something about the child-like joy parades evoke (along with the endless supply of alcohol that is more ubiqitious here than water) that makes this place more like a cross between one big college town and the largest close-knit neighborhood block party you've ever seen. People here are just happy. And happy is a wonderful thing to see when blue tarped-roofs and water lines are still visible in the background.

The parades were absolutely amazing and the weather was perfect. We caught Thor on Wednesday in Metairie (the rest were all in Uptown), Muses Thursday (famous for being the only Krewe with an entirely female membership, and for throwing decorated shoes to the crowds), Iris and Tucks Saturday, Thoth, Mid-City, Bacchus, and Endymion (the two 'Super Krewes,' so named for being the biggest and best) on Sunday, and Zulu (it was ironic that the painted figures on their floats were white when it's the only all-black Krewe) and Rex today. The scale of the floats surprised me, considering I had been expecting rinky-dink, paper mached ones and not the huge monstrosities they turned out to be. The evening parades, with their elaborate lights and mechanized parts, were by far the best. If you're interested in more history or what Krewes are all about (it was foreign to me until several weeks ago): nola.com.

We camped out with a tent and a grill for Saturday's parades, and hung out with various other friends with connections to bathrooms and food for Sunday. Friday's festivities were centered on seeing the Rebirth Brass Band at Tipitina's on Tchop (AMAZING!! they also walked in several of the parades), and Monday was spent on the Cetco-sponsored balcony at the Royal Sonesta hotel on Bourbon. For the big day on Tuesday we watched the parades from the company's grandstand in front of our building (great view) and then went to the Acme Oyster House, which Halliburton had rented out for its private party.

The two vendor-sponsored events were amazngly cool, definitely one of the best perks of the job I've found so far. At the Royal Sonesta, there was an endless supply of beads to chuck at the people three floors below. We left the Square at 2:30 and stayed on the balcony until well past midnight, knocking full beers out of the hands of unsuspecting people, tossing beads into the convertibles that drove by, and consuming the free food and alcohol. At one point a target got annoyed that she had been hit and told a cop nearby, who promptly came up to our balcony and kicked someone off for throwing too hard (he was just the scapegoat, and ended up coming back out about 10 minutes later). I really enjoyed chatting with coworkers in the relaxed atmosphere that, though work related, was clearly socially oriented; it felt less forced and fake, less like you were trying to constantly impress someone or win their respect than at similar hand-shaking sorts of events in college. Oh! AND, while riding in the elevator back up to the suite guess who else was jammed with me and 7 others?!!? CHARLIE GIBSON!! Charlie Gibson, of Good Morning America fame! Someone else in the elevator recognized him first and said something, after which I asked if I could shake his hand -- and he said, "sure!" so I did!!! I SHOOK CHARLIE GIBSON'S HAND!!! I'd say I'm never washing it again, but that'd just be dumb after being on Bourbon street for so long.

I've eaten at the Oyster House once before and knew to expect good food, but I think it was even better today. I ate at least 4 raw oysters and 10 fried ones, plus fried shrimp and catfish and gumbo and rice and beans and sausage and hush puppies. It's fun to finally be at the point of being here long enough to where I could walk in and immediately see 10 people I knew besides the 5 I had come with. Ah, plus there was the random driller we had met Saturday night who happens to be a Halliburon person contracted out to us. But that story's for another post.

Sunday night while waiting for Endymion to start after Bacchus had rolled by (Endymion had postponed their initial Saturday start because of forecasted rain, which was hard to believe at 1pm when it was absolutely beautiful out, but sure enough at 3:30 on the dot when their parade would have started, huge drops started to plummet from the sky), our group was approached by a man with a mic, asking us if we were from here. We came to find out that he was John Burnett, AN NPR REPORTER for All Things Considered - I was estactic and star struck and immediately thought to ask him for a group picture after we all gushed about how WE ALL LISTEN TO NPR and talk about the stories in our car pools and over breakfast. He was pretty taken aback by this group of 7 early-twenties, fresh faced kids who were fawning over him - he told us, "Wow, we never get this kind of attention!" We didn't fit the profile of who he wanted to talk to (experienced Mardi Gras goers, which none of us were), so we weren't in his story, but it was sooooooooo cool to meet him. I was a giddy school girl for a solid 45 minutes and immediately called my mom and Jody to boast.

Endymion included some big names on their floats, including Willie Nelson, John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Anderson Cooper, Elijah Wood and some others I can't remember (Bacchus had Michael Keaton), and ELIJAH WOOD TOTALLY THREW BEADS AT ME!! I caught several pieces of plastic spooled together by flimsy string that had been TOUCHED! by Elijah Wood. I was a giddy, uncontrollable school girl for another 2 hours.

Unfortunately, after we walked back to our cars parked at Gabe's in the Warehouse district (we had been watching Sunday's parades much further Uptown, a solid 30 minute walk down St. Charles) the parade had gotten to the area so all sorts of streets were closed and the traffic was not moving at all. Courtney and I were exhausted so we decided to take a nap in my car to wait out the parade, only to be woken up by several raps against my window from a rather large man yelling, "It's dangerous - you shouldn't be sleeping in your car!" He continued to yell with concern until we showed signs of clearly being awake and putting the car into 'drive'. I chose the most-trafficky way to get home (ugh! I was so frustrated) so it took me an hour to go the 7 miles home.

I especially liked walking everywhere we wanted to go, the impetus for which was the horrendous traffic everywhere (see above), and fully appreciated the great deal we have with our downtown parking contracts. We're allowed to use the parking garage we use for work ALL the time, including Mardi Gras, and it's literally 3 blocks from Canal and 2 blocks from Bourbon. Free. (well, not technically since we pay $25/month. but it feels free at times like these.) Having my office to leave stuff in and use the bathroom was key, too.

And now that I know what a party New Orleans is capable of, even post-Katrina, I can't wait for jazz fest, which includes Dave Matthews Band, World Leader Pretend, Jimmy Buffet, Kieth Urban, Cowboy Mouth, Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco, and TONS of other famous jazz/funk bands! And I've got lots of space for visitors! :)

February has certainly been a whirlwind, and March is already sweeping me along - I'm going offshore for three days tomorrow. I'm excited for many reasons, but one of them is that I seem to get lots more sleep out there than when I'm here in my distraction-filled house. And I've slept about 15 hours total in the past 6 days, so I'll take every hour more I can get.

I've figured out what I'm going to do for Lent, something I'm excited to share but will have to wait until I get back because it's too important for me to try to describe through rapidly shutting eyes.

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

2006-02-17T08:24:00.000-06:00

Ah, I'm playing hooky right now and it feels WONDERFUL! I'm ocean colored this week; I'm normally on the Green schedule and would have today off, but since Danny's coming next week for Mardi Gras I switched my Fridays to have next week's Blue friday off, hence me being ocean blue-green. I scheduled an appointment for today two weeks ago before realizing I would want to work today, so instead of going in early, leaving and coming back, I'm chiling on my couch watching Dawson's Creek and feeling a much-need sense of renewal. I'll head in to work after the appointment and a quick jog at the gym.

It feels really nice to just relax, kind of sneak away from the world even if only for a few hours, and revel in the illusion I've always had since I was first conscious of mid-morning TV. Being able to watch TV between 8am and noon on a weekday has always represented the height of luxury to me, since it means you don't have to work or be at school; weekday mid-morning feels like found time to me, that you had to be clever and happy to find it nestled away between the more readily available early afternoon and the time slot reserved for the day's preparation. So relaxing at home right now feels like I'm rewarding myself with a little break for a long, hard-working week.

Sometimes I really need to catch up with myself, not in the lonely nighttime hours when I'm stuck in my head and fanciful day dreams like Zach Braff's character on Scrubs, but just doing nothing, thinking nothing, without feeling guilty for wasting time because this is my found time, my un-wasteable time.

Anyway, time to get ready. Thanks for the comment, Favorite Kyle! I'd be willing to share the internet with you, if you want - I know you'd treat it kindly and tenderly :)

2006-02-14T18:03:00.000-06:00

Internet, will you be my Valentine?

I've always appreciated how you never fail to be there for me when I've needed you -- well, for the most part anyway, so long as my upstairs neighbor has a connection.

And Tommers, don't be silly. Not want to be your friend anymore? Ha! Who else could I ever possibly enjoy cutting king cake with as much as you?! :) And we've already dialogued offline about this issue, but to make sure it's captured I'll send you a note. hehehe

I have a new hero: Joey Cheek. Check out the npr story from this morning. I literally teared up this morning getting onto I-10, hearing about this regular guy who's using the platform that transforms him from a regular guy into someone with a voice to help many someones else. We can all do the same thing, on our own scale, finding our own platforms. In my inspiration, I've been brainstorming ways I can contribute like Joey is encouraging his sponsors to; since I feel empassioned by the same issues he spoke about (probably why I was so unusually moved this morning) - suffering in Sudan, etc. - I was empowered by his belief that his $25,000 will make a difference. Because that's usually where I'm stumped for optimism, wondering how the couple hundred dollars or even couple thousand I could donate would matter. But I'm slowly realizing that it's about the movement, being a part of a larger group of people who care to contribute, so that the movement grows and some sort of peace is waged. I don't have to make the whole pie myself, just a piece of it.

And I'm feeling better about only having the ability right now to "help" monetarily or with the small platform I've wedged myself onto within my own sphere of influence. I don't have to wait until I'm capable of one big push or ACTION to make a difference, it's the little things each of us do along the way that will make someone's life just a smidge better, even if it's only from knowing that somewhere, other people care.

I realize now that that was just a cheesy pep talk to myself. But, ah, internet, that's why you're my valentine. Because you love me for, not despite, my cheesy self-motivating pep talks. And I love you for your open willingness to submit to them. Thank you, internet.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

2006-02-12T22:05:00.000-06:00

Yay for gmail's new conversation tool! I can't remember what it's called, but I just had my first chat with a fellow logged-in gmail user. It's sneaky, this gmail chat feature, and doesn't allow me to avoid getting sucked into internet conversations like I do by not ever signing onto AIM anymore.

Apple and I (I'm testing out "Apple" for my bike's name; I like the contrast of Apple actually being a toasty blueberry color) went for a 45-or-so mile ride today (woo!) along the levee, from Audobon Park to past the New Orleans airport in Kenner and back. I stopped along the way to do sit ups and chat on the phone (there was much to be discussed post-last night's episodes), so including about 30 or so minutes of stopped time, I was out for 2 hrs, 50 minutes. When I started the ride it was about 35 degrees outside, and by the time I finished it hadn't really warmed up much. Most of me was alright with the intense wind and brisk air since I had bundled up well, with ear coverings, gloves, and four layers of clothing, but my toes were numb -- beyond numb -- by the time I hobbled off my bike to walk the last 10 feet to my car.

After lunch at the 'Bees with the usuals (including TOM who loves to see his name on the internet) we went to the annual Pecan Festival at a local church school. What a rewarding experience that was, to get pelted with silly string, get denied admission to the elphant-go-round ride, to lose to Tom at the roll-the-ball-to-make-your-car-win-the-race game, and to eat 25 cent homemade cupcakes!

To round out an exceptionally full Sunday (especially now that soccer season is over) we went to see Brokeback Mountain. Overall, a cinematically excellent movie. I'm still not sure how I feel about the actual story, though, as in my reaction to it or understanding of the bigger picture message (because it definitely felt like a message-y movie). D said it best, essentially, that the movie seemed to say that you either try to live your life following your heart and be punished / killed for it, or you bury your dreams and live a miserable existence. But we decided it's still worth trying to be happy. Maybe we're all fatally optimistic.

In my anger last night, I forgot to mention why we were out in the Quarter to begin with -- the very first parade of the Mardi Gras season, the Krewe de Vieux's "C'est Levee"! It was a racuous parody of the last 5 months of Katrina-induced craziness, with plenty of free condoms passed out along with the beads for good measure. And yes, I did catch 2 stings of beads, but, no, I didn't have to do anything other than smile for them. :)

I'm so excited for the festival season to finally be underway - this city seems to take on a special twinkle and there's an undercurrent feeling of boisterious cheer. Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

2006-02-12T01:16:00.000-06:00

Ugh! I'm so angry!

You do not leave drunk friends with sober friends who are smaller than them, and then proceed to walk away to the car without EVEN TURNING AROUND. AT ALL.

Because then things like tonight happen, where I'm screaming, "TOOOOOOOOMMMMMM" like I've never screamed someone's name before, and Tom is wandering off into the drug-selling center of downtown convinced that he is more knowledgeable than I am about where the parking garage is. AND I KNOW WHERE THE FUCKING PARKING GARAGE IS.

He runs off in the opposite direction from where we should be going, and I'm feeling lost, knowing that physical strenght wasn't going to allow me to pull Tom in the right away, having just lost that battle, and not wanting to lose physical sight of where he's going, so I just call D and, as my throat catches, tell him I've lost Tom and can't get him to come with me. I HATE BELLIGERENT DRUNK PEOPLE.

So D comes to rescue me and Tom , we run a solid three blocks shouting out "TOM!! TOMMY!! TOMMERS!!" until we find him, oblivious, rambling (literally, like a newborn colt not yet sure how to use his legs in a coordinated fashion) talking to his own reflection in a store front. And D holds his hand the hold walk back to the parking garage. I am somewhere between fuming and holding back tears at this point, FURIOUS that NO ONE noticed we weren't with them, ABSOLUTELY LIVID that NO ONE cared enough to turn around and make sure Tom and Jen were still with the group. Friendship is demonstrated in actions in the worst, most selfish of times (ie when you're another sober person ignoring the sober people around you trying to ensure the safety of the trashed) and tonight proved to me one person that isn't worth being a friend, and reaffirmed the friendship of another.

At the same time, I've realized (yet again) that I NEED to find new friends, outside of this circle to hang out with. Too much drama has developed and it makes me feel awkward and wierd and I'm just not having fun anymore. I don't like knowing that people are talking about each other behind their backs. In the beginning it all seemed so perfect and innocent and happy and now we've all known each other too long and strange things are starting to happen. I depserately miss uncomplicated friendships. Where are you, H and D?

Nights like tonight also make me tempted to quit this uphill social battle of being a female engineer. There's a lot of talk in our mostly male dominated group about how easy it is to progress as a woman or a minority, but I have to say it better damn well be easier because every other part of this business, this business of life and living and making friends and connections and hanging out, is HORRIBLE and TOUGH and HORRIBLY TOUGH as a woman -- there's no group of friends to make and hang out with, and you only get invited to so many group events because they want to "hang out with the guys" and hit on women, and who wants a woman with them for that, even if she is a purely platonic work friend, she still doesn't have a penis. And so it's wierd, like there's still always this line whcih cannot be crossed because at the end of the day I can only be so androgynous and included in so many things. It makes me angry, frustrated, sad, upset, and sometimes just want to give up and do something easier. Because gosh darnnit I like being a woman and I want to enjoy my womanhood while I'm young -- I hate feeling like I can't every truly be myself because i'm still around work friends who will judge me and question my actions. in some ways, having a boyfriend would make things much easier because it would take that off the table, it would eliminate the potential for ulterior motives which i feel like people are always look for in your actions.

Ugh. I'm so angry inside and angry double because I know I probably won't ever do anything about this frustrations, other than trying to hang out with other people and remember what it's like to be carefree me with a sexuality and not a box around me - and remember that it's ok to have fun without always being drunk. The more I'm around genuinly WASTED people, the more I question why we do it to ourselves. I should go to sleep now. If I can fall asleep with all this anger pent up - I just want to yell at someone and make them realize what jerks they are!!! aaaaaaaa

2006-02-07T20:16:00.000-06:00

I had a Driveway Moment tonight (for you non-NPR junkies out there: driveway moments), coming home from a run in Audobon Park with 3 friends from work. I stopped running after one loop (about 1.75 miles; plus the walk back to my car I probably was moving for about 2 miles) when the other three kept running because my shin splints have come back and it SUCKS.

I started to feel the creeping pain that warms my outer calves with a tingling, uncomfortable sensation about a month ago during a spinning class while standing in second position but I ignored it at the time. When I ride my road bike I don't do any standing up really (New Orleans tends to be pretty flat) so I don't feel any pain thankfully. And in the past few weeks I had been ok when running -- but tonight, since I was pushing it and really running so that I kept up with the three guys, I inflammed the shin splints and had to stop before my legs physically rebelled and collapsed like matchsticks refusing to defy gravity any longer. By the time I had limped far enough away from other people I stopped clenching my eyes and let the tears that seemed to come from a part of me I didn't control - I don't cry over things like this! I refuse to submit to my own physical weaknesses! - roll down my cheeks. It was sort of satisfying to feel the hot wetness distract me from the still numbing pain shooting up my legs.

On my slow, gimpy walk back to M's house I noticed that the left rear door of a suburban mom's SUV was open, with a jacket hanging over a child's carseat. I paused for a minute in front of the house, considered continuing walking by but turned, walked up to the palatial, stately house and rang the doorbell. Behind the giant wooden door I could hear a father instructing his young son the proper, safe way to open the door when you didn't know who was outside. When the big slab of a now dead tree finally swung open, it revealed a beautiful New Orleans style home glowing with the warmth of a happy family pitter-pattering around on real hardwood floors. The father's greatful expression was enough for me to know I did the right thing by stopping, but as I walked away the mother's voice carried from inside the house, "Make sure you check the car to see if anything's stolen."

I felt like I had been slapped in the face. Granted, she wasn't necessarily talking about the person at the door (she didn't see who rang) but the fact that here was a neighborly person doing the polite thing and the first thing that comes to the woman's mind is to check for robbers. So much for thinking the best of people and letting them prove you wrong.

But I made it to M's, hobbled up the stairs to retrieve my keys, and cursed my stupid shins the whole way home. The worst part is that I think the only way for the pain to go away is to rest my legs, ice them, and wait for some time to pass before straining them again with running.

I realized on my miserable drive home (when my shins hurt, it's like a malicious, vengeful warlord is using a rusty razorblade to slowly shave away microns-thick slices of the outer portions of my lower legs) that, besides the King Cake bakery B recommended today closing one hour prior to my arrival at the store, I tend to be much happier and in a generally better mood when I'm at work than when I'm not. And while I suppose I'm fortunate for that, it seems a litle backwards and makes me feel a little lamey-mclamesters.

Meh.

Right, so my driveway moment. Terry Gross was interviewing Senator Biden (Dem.) on Fresh Air and I was heartened to think that the next presidential race might include two people who I have grown to respect and enjoy listening to, Biden and McCain. Both are eloquent, show their concern for a country too defined by parties and not issues, and recognize the importance of things I think are important (hehe, a clearly necessary defining characteristic of a candidate I like)

You can check out the great interview here. Did you know Biden's first wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash right before he took the oath of office when he was first elected Senator in the early seventies?

2006-02-06T22:22:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the tips, guys! And I agree about the components, Livia, they're what I was thinking about before fit, which I realized was stupid especially since this is my first bike and I won't be able to recognize the incremental difference the components make in the way an experienced rider would. I haven't found the less savvy gearing mechanism of the 1000 to be frustrating or inconvenient yet, which is what I understand to be the main difference between the starter-type bike of the 1000 and the little-more-serious 1200 and its gearing mechanism.

I went to a spinning class tonight and was disgruntled with the experience. Aside from feeling like I was cheating on my new bike (which has yet to be named; when the right moniker comes to me, I'll just know it), the spinning bike didn't have nearly the same comfort as mine, which was finely-tuned for me by an expert, and bike time has come to be alone time for me so I felt strangely naked biking with other people again, feeling like they could all read the stripped emotions and thoughts I was sure were obvious on my face. And yes, we're definitely going to have to find some time (and place!) to ride together again now that I'll have properly working brakes and a bike that's not older than I am :)

So, I was really sad earlier tonight while blogger was down for repairs and I wrote this (below), which I feel slightly uncomfortable posting but which I'm going to post anyway to force myself to be accountable for my emotions. I don't want to let myself pretend like being sad sometimes doesn't matter because the emotion passes and the smile returns, because I should value my sorrow and what it helps me learn about myself just as much as I revel in my joys. So, against my own better judgement,

I want to know your lips approaching mine
with the promise that they’ll come again sometime
Will you tell me I’m beautiful and mean it?
Will you let me be sad and still wipe away my tears?

My life is at a distance, right now
if it felt more real the covers would be insurmountable
and I’d stay buried forever, cowering
so I keep my pain a more comfortable bit away

I just want to know that you care
but I want to feel okay with feeling sad and stepped on.
Then I cry a little bit
and suddenly life seems a little more manageable
and my resolve comes back and builds a little bit more of a wall.

2006-02-04T11:39:00.000-06:00

Livia! I went into the store thinking I'd walk out with the (men's / "unisex") Trek 1200, but had done a little research on the WSD line and so when the sales guy told me they wouldn't have any 1200's in my size in the store for another week and asked if I wanted to try the WSD 1000, I figured, why not?

And I'm so glad I did! As cheesy as it sounds, from the moment I sat on the bike (they let Dan and I take a test ride through Uptown, the neighborhood around GNO Cyclery) it felt like I was riding a comfy cloud; it felt like I was part of the bike, working with it to move forward and not against it. The bike felt like an eager puppy out on its first walk in the park, urging me to go forward a little faster, a little faster. And this was in regular sneakers! So imagine my joy when I fell even more in love with the bike and its performance once I started riding with clipless pedals and my SPD shoes!

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wrote a WHOLE LOT and blogger lost it. I hate Blogger and My Life. Hate. (and that's a strong word)

UGH!

I can't do it again.

Recap:

Bike = good for reasons I typed (somewhat eloquently, too; narrower handlebars, seat shaped for child-bearing hips, shorter stem, smaller overall) but were lost.

Friends coming to visit = wonderful for reasons I typed (I'm LONELY and MISS uncomplicated friends who care and listen and talk) but were lost.

Superbowl watching = fun and heartening to watch for reasons I typed (the joy of happy people that renews my sometimes-failing optimism that pure happiness does still exist) but were lost.

James Blunt = amazing to listen to for reasons I typed (listen 3 x day and still makes me want to cry every time) but were lost.

ugh.

2006-01-31T20:16:00.000-06:00

I like how, just now, when the President made mention of Coretta Scott King's death today in tribute to her good works the entire congregation of primarily old, rich, white men stood in ovation as the camera panned around to the only two black faces its controller could find, zooming in on the (and how unexpected!) studied mix of tenderness, sorrow, and deference to one of their heros clear on their slightly darker faces.

It all just seems like a circus show put on for the people who are already supporters and will cheer when the President says "the", and the people whose minds are so made up in their need to be defined by opposing everything the President defines for himself that they're merely watching to find more fodder for their rants.

And then there's the newly-sworn-in Alito, eyes darting around uncomfortably, clearly not sure whether there's a camera on him or not, not sure if his face is expressing the right measure of austere concentration mixed with the relaxed pleasure he's supposed to have for a night of listening to his leader.

I just don't think I'll be able to watch this much longer without poking my own eyes out while sticking butter knives repeatedly into my ears. What a charade!

2006-01-30T22:06:00.000-06:00

I'm in love. The kind of utter, hopelessly romantic sort of love that sweeps you off your feet making you simultaneously terrified to be caught unawares that you're being dropped and ecstatically happy to be happy: Thursday I bought a Trek 1000WSD road bike.

She's amazing.

I'm also in love with [moderately] big city living, again - finally. Our move back to OSS today was done better than I ever could have expected, with the right mix of fanfare, politics, publicized generosity, and self-promoting cheerleading. I'm very proud to work where I do, with the people I do.

I meant to write more, with the historic feel of today's celebration and the presence of people like the city's [chocolate] mayor highlighting the importance of the experience (and the genuine shivers I got in watching the flag hoisted up our flag pole as a member of the soon-to-play zydeco band bleated out the national anthem on his trumpet). But it'll have to wait until tomorrow, because I'm planning to ride my new bike to work tomorrow and I need a good night's sleep.

2006-01-24T20:14:00.000-06:00

"I know it's crazy, but I'm a girl and that's how we roll," Carla to J.D. in tonight's Scrubs

That's my excuse for everything. Like illogical jealousy that just seems to pop up at the most inopportune, unexpected times. Ugh, I'm a girl and that's just how I roll.

2006-01-22T22:45:00.000-06:00

I wrote this yesterday and fell asleep before posting it:

For myriad reasons, I've been especially weepy-feeling today; there was the nasty spill I took walking back to Darren's house last night that has left me with a rather large bruise on each knee, a bruise on my left kneecap, and a splotchy purple region on my upper thigh from where the various peaks and valleys of the mountainous terrain that is a New Orleans "sidewalk" met my falling leg. Then there's something that happened yesterday that should probably be embarrasing, maybe even mortifying, but being who I am I refused to succumb to the pointless emotion of embarrassment. There's when I just dropped my soda while walking back to our table at the bar where we watched the Steelers romp all over Denver, as if my fingers decided at that very moment to boycott my dictatorship over their daily actions.

In any case, driving home tonight from the Bourbon House, a famous New Orleans French Quarter restuarant where a group of us took a potential new hire to dinner, I took Canal street with the thought that I was already on the east side of town and it'd be easier than going back to I-10. The magnitude of impact Katrina has wreaked on the residents of Lakeview and Midcity - not to mention the even more devastated ninth ward - finally dawned on me as I realized just how many lights are still gone from windows that are still streaked with the grime 7 feet of water leaves behind. Aside from the vegetative debris that has, for the most part, been removed, the area looks EXACTLY the same as it did four months ago.

Every squalid, dark building I passed suddenly meant something to me: each building represented at least one individual's life that has been forever altered, one human face that isn't able to soak in life, life's sun from their favorite window here. And I realized that everywhere, EVERYWHERE in the world, EVERYONE has something to be sad about, their own personal tragedy to discover and then spend the better part of the rest of their lives living to cope, overcome, and smile. In its normal, cyclic internal dialog, my mind thought about how this is how people can care enough to affect change - that each person has some personal drive for some personal cause that is impetus enough for them to make a difference.

This I Believe, that everyone has their own personal tragedy and when it's your own, it's the most important, pressing, challenging experience. I may not face the tragedies of hunger, family absence, or drug abuse, but I've come to accept that my own struggles are MINE, for me to figure out, revel in, and learn from; I can't feel guilty for sharing my minor, petty, average problems for fear that they shouldn't matter to my friends; my friends care because they're MINE (the problems, not the friends), not because they're drastic or terrifying or unique.

Tonight

It's not fair for you to flirt with me if you know that you don't like me.

IA, thanks for trusting me to talk. You always continue to amaze me :)

M, I've never stopped thinking of you as a friend. Everyay. Ouyay areyaya orfay everyay appedwray inyay anymay ofyay ymay ondfay estyay emay oryay iesyay. Are you still in FL?

2006-01-17T20:16:00.000-06:00

Ok. So, we know that after years of thought and introspection, I know what I want: what drives me, my passions, what I want to see changed in the world.

And we know that I'm finally tired of pretending I don't really care when I really do. When I love conversations about it.

And we know that I'm ready to accept the insurmountable challenge Following My Dreams is sure to be, that I very likely will fail in my pursuit of "something." And yet we also know that, to refer back to my favorite quote, "...no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." (The Alchemist)

So I've accepted my idealism, accepted that it must be tempered with a dose of realism to have any hope of accomplishment, I've got the encourgement and belief of great friends who tell me I can do anything if I let people see the - trite as it sounds - genuine fire in my eyes, and I'm stuck on the "where to begin" part of things.

So where do I begin? I feel like this trek along my Passion's Road is going to require me to feel like Ron did in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when he thought Harry had slipped him some felix felicious(sp?), or lucky juice, and just follow whatever seems right and applicable at the moment.

To find an idea, belief, person that moves you deeply enough, touches you strongly enough to make you willing to give up your entire life’s being to see it through. IA Jonathan says this is what determines the people who make a difference and why they do so in particular fields, because they are willing to give everything to see through fruition that passion that is particularly theirs.

But like true love with a person, how do you know you’ve stumbled across your true passion, especially when you grow up being told that what you think you know at a young age you don’t really know? Even though I felt like I could cry on Saturday night when I was talking to Tom about how much, how deeply, I wanted to save the world in my own way (the alcohol might have made me hyperbolize a smidge), am I really willing to give up everything – all the comforts I’ve worked for for myself – to clean the environment help Sudan stop suffering make people understand and care for each other?

Am I? Especially when my “dreams” are so broad and stereotypical and far reaching? What if I suddenly realize what a horrible mistake I’ve made in listening to The Alchemist? And yet, I know in my heart what I must do – follow my Personal Legend (if you’ve never heard of that phrase, read The Alchemist!.

Ugh, this is so frustrating to feel trapped in a circular argument with myself about this whole abstract "dreams" thing. Ugh.

Outside the ramble that is my mind's continual confusion, it's been a good few weeks with more on the way. Thursday I'm going to Atlanta (wooo!!) and Sunday-Wed it's offshore.

Saturday night was a fun time in the French Quarter, where we had a conversation with a 30-ish woman about our "kids" - I, apparently, had three (ages 6, 4, and 2) according to a very intoxicated friend; but the random woman told me something that stuck with me and for some odd reason I've taken to heart. Maybe it meant more coming from a stranger who somehow got this impression from a 30 minute conversation (not about the kids - that rouse was given up pretty quickly). She told me that I was amazing and after asking her "WHY" with a look of shock on my face, she told me because I was beautiful. "A natural beauty," she said. It reminded me to never underestimate the power of kind words in passing, and the way they can have unintended effects. I want to be more honest with people and tell them really nice things to maybe make someone else feel the same sort of surprised and touched way she made me feel.

Even though the woman had obviously been drinking, she seemed honest when she said it and why not just take something at face value without analyzing why I don't really believe it to be true like I normally would, right?

And so what if I'm not really "beautiful" -- I've decided that everyone deserves to feel that way once in while anyway.

Next time I see you, I'm telling you something honest I like about you.

2006-01-09T22:35:00.000-06:00

Can someone please explain to me why the New York Times devoted 2 "pages" online to this story, about a "real life" Melrose Place-esque apartment, while "U.N. WARNS THAT MILLIONS RISK STARVATION" receives only 2 sentences? TWO SENTENCES. That's not even enough to call it a paragraph.

I know, I know - until Africa becomes a politically sensitive location for the US, which really means once it becomes of economic interest because of oil or becomes of social interest because of more Christians and/or white people living (and dying) in the area, it will remain merely a blip on Congress's collective radar.

I know, I know - there's the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism, problems in Afghanistan, massive hurricane damage, Iran's unclear nuclear ambitions, oil disturbances in eastern Europe, losing the battle for democracy in Haiti, the fight for environmental protection and against poverty at home - but I still can't wrap my mind around how a wholly unenlightening feature on neighborly inbreeding is worthy of more NYT attention than STARVATION. Or India's purposefully declining female population. Or Fujimori's registration to run for president (again) in Peru.

I know, I know - the paper has to print the stories that will make people buy each day's edition, and people like to read fuzzy, human-interest related pieces. I know we ran many softer-than-a-two-minute-soft-boiled-egg stories when I was Focus Editor. But I still feel like the Times has a responsibility to its readership to provide a more somber, harsh, realistic view of the world as it's actually happening. And now that they own the International Herald Tribune, an old standby favorite of mine, that's not even an independent source of world-focused news!

So why is the average NYT reader more interested in the travails of apartment complex 126 than the daily struggles of people living on less than $1 a day? Is it because it's easier that way, to not be forced to face the reality of the disparity we continue to live in, unaffected as we pay more for a cup of coffee than the majority of the world sees in a week? Is it because humans are naturally, inherently self-centered and more comfortable being ignorant to the plights of their worldy neighbors? Or is it because the media, space, geography, and time make it easier for us to forget the sun rises on someone else's poverty while we bask in its setting's glow on prosperity?

How will things ever change if we can't find the room - or the compassion - in the limitless space - and empathy - of the internet to publish more than TWO SENTENCES about an entire people's suffering?

I wish I could change the world. I wish I knew where to start. I wish I had the confidence to think my actions, once deciding where to start, would make a difference so that I could fulfill Gandhi's, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

2006-01-04T20:59:00.000-06:00

When I'm lucky, these moments are followed more closely by each other, these moments of simple clarity when my intentions are transparent, my ideas are clear, and my honest desires aren't shrouded by what my mind says should be. It's the path to get there that's not so obvious. But I enjoy this feeling of stress-free utter helplessness; I know what I want more than anything, I'm fully aware of what I'm willing to do to get it, and yet I can't move. I am stuck in time in location in situation even though my heart feels more confident than ever before that it knows - it knows! - what it needs to do.

It's pleasantly easy to feel this way, knowing I'm being completely honest with myself without rationalizing why I shouldn't worry about not being able to change things because, so my mind usually says, I don't really want them to change and this is fine for now, enjoy what you have and stop thinking about how to make the future happen right now. Because right now I know. I know that I am more happy than anything in the world when I'm traveling and seeing new places. I am more content being around people than being here alone in my house. As stupid as it is and as much as I disagree with myself for these emotions, I want to be in love again. I want to really care about someone. Being with my closest friends over the holidays, physically feeling present in every moment and as though every sense was heightened - I was LIVING - reminds me how little everything else matters and how tired I am of being selfish. For someone else to make you more happy than you'd ever know how to try by simply showing that they were thinking of you; to be visited again by the knowledge of what it feels like to put a smile on someone else's face.

And I know who, too. Well, kind of. And I'm tired of pretending, forcing uncomfortable emotions to scurry from my brain, that it'd be okay if my foregone conclusion that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life actually does come true. Because I'm not okay with the idea of being alone for the rest of my life. I've done the alone thing, proven I can make it. Myself has found me and we've gotten to know each other well enough that I think it's time to bring someone else into the relationship.

Paper and pen met many times in the past two weeks and it feels weird to try to recapture all of that here, as if it would steal some of the raw thought that lured the ink across the page. But I did have a wonderful time at home with family and D and H. My mom, uncle, and I discussed real things we hadn't ever even tried to broach before, things I had only ever talked about with Dr. S before - my dad, boys, relationships, my family's lack of emotional expression and its consequential suppression of my expression of emotions in life outside of the internet, etc. I felt more attached to my family, more impressed by them as people, individuals than I had in my previous 22 years.

I went to the beach, where I talked to my uncle for hours about Sudan and hope and why the little efforts we make in our lives to do some modicum of positive change for the "world" matter and religion and hope and pessimism and hope. I saw Pride and Prejudice and discussed with Danny why we set ourselves up for disappointment by seeking entertainment from these softened, idealistic visions of a reality that doesn't and won't ever exist? Is that what love is supposed to make the world look like, the hills that green and the individual blades of grass that differentiated from every other blade, highlighting our own unique but lovable quirks? Wondering how you can make a list to give to someone and ask them to think about you all the things listed in these song lyrics, to allow me to make you feel about me what those lyrics say. Tell me that,

"I can't bear these nights of thoughts
of going on without you
this mood of yours is temporary
it seems worth the wait
to see your smile again"

or

"There is no need to test my heart,
with useless space.
These roads go on forever,
there will always be a place, for you.. in my heart"

My parents have redecorated my room in the past 2 months, so that you'd never even know I had ever lived in the room. I told my mom I didn't like it. (What was I supposed to say, thanks for erasing me?)

I don't want my wall to build back up, post-being in the comfort of friends and home and reality, I don't want to be protected. Ilikefeelingvulnerablerigtnowitsmorerealthisway.

Tonight, this was true as my wails of "melody" wafted from my gaping mouth to escape into a dead surroundings:

"On the way home
this car hears my confessions.
I think tonight I'll take the long way."

Oh, and my insurance adjustor is coming Friday morning to tell me if my walls have to be torn down because of residual water damage. ah, the reality of walls of a different sort.

2006-01-03T20:03:00.000-06:00

I'm alive!

Tom's peer pressure is forcing me to type through my heavily shutting eyes, willing every fingerstroke to finish this sentence so I can sleep.

My past week in London = amazing. Pictures soon.

Words soon, too.

Oh, and what do you think the seven wonders of the ancient world are? (and NO PEEKING on the internet! that's part of the challenge!) How many can you name with some certainty they might be on the list?

Of our small, unscientific sample of moms, friends, London hotel conceriege, and flight attendant, no one's been able to name all seven on their own yet.

If I die of cholesterol poisoning and uncontrollable puking (imagine that cinematically inspiring scene from Team America here) tomorrow night, tell my friends and parents that I loved them. Wendy's Challenge, here I come. (FYI: Wendy's Challenge, verb To eat every item on the Wendy's value menu in one sitting)

2005-12-14T21:17:00.000-06:00

It's been raining for most of the afternoon, and as night fell it brought with it thicker droplets to heave upon the parched, yet not thirsty, city. Tonight's is the first real rain we've had since I've returned from Europe.

Know how the physical subtext of certain events in life burden those physical conditions with a subtle, yet not ignorable, meaning? This rain makes me feel the way watching the flustered reporters on CNN did, as they hid behind post boxes during Hurricane Katrina's wrath: scared. Scared without something to blame. How can you fault the wind for blowing or the water for rising or the rain for falling?

I was Scared of the unknowable. Scared of the certainty of horrible things to come. Scared of not being scared enough to make a difference in my preparations the next time.

The streets were still driveable, with only the slightest gullies surprising my wheels here and there. And even though the weather forecasters have told me the rain will stop cascading by the sun's rise, I see my neighbors' FEMA trailers standing at attention along my path home like bright-eyed soldiers happy to be given an achievable mission, and I'm still scared inside.
_______________________________

My absence of late is the responsibility of my upstairs neighbor, who suddenly realized last week, after 3 months, that he should secure his unsecured wireless network. I didn't want to break my golden rule -- accessing blogger from work -- so imagine my happy surprise to see that I can connect tonight. I think I might suck it up in the next month and just get my own internet :(

Now I'm going to relieve my overworked muscles and clear my stuffed brain - it's amazing how not writing for a week can make your mind swirl and feel fuller than a turkey at Thanksgiving - by joining Mr. Bubbles, some water, Catch-22, and Beethoven.

I put new pictures on Flickr: foiling my coworker's desk, the HoeDown in Ponchy two weeks ago, some from Cabining this past weekend in Cypremort State Park, and some random ones, too.

Tom has even more (especially cabining).

2005-12-04T19:54:00.000-06:00

Dear Perfect Man,

I want to know how often you think about me. (Is it often?) Do you wonder what I'm doing? Do you picture the next time you'll be able to look in my eyes and feel that little pinch of guarded excitement in your heart? Do you wonder if I think about you as much, at such random times throughout the day, as you think of me?

I wish I were brave enough to tell you that I wonder what you're doing and I feel that pinch of guarded, fearful excitement in my heart when I think about the next time I'll be able to look in your eyes. I think about you, at the most random times throughout the day. I wish I were brave enough to find you. I wish I were [*see Biff's comment] brave enough to be honest, to take the gamble, to recognize that the benefits outweigh the risks, and tell you everything.

PM, you'd know how to make me feel better about being achingly honest and tell me that it doesn't make me psycho, right? Because I don't think I should have to play the "game" if you really are Perfect, and that's all the game's about, right? It's all testing each other's emotional boundaries to see if there's a line beyond which you'll stop appreciating my quirks. But then you wouldn't be Perfect, right?

PM, this would all be so much easier if you'd just find me and convince me that you're you. Because I'm having a hard time trusting myself to not get hurt by being more carefree and giving with my emotions; I'm finding it difficult to not care. Which means fear has been shopping around my conscience, looking for where best to set up residence.

PM, can't you just explain yourself to me? Can't you give me a brief list of things I should know about you like I did? You shroud yourself in perfect sunrises, in tree boughs that bend just so in the wind, in the magic of the lake's alternately glassy and tumultuous attitudes; you remind me of you in the glory of everything that's around me in nature, of what perfection would feel like, of what your beauty and intrigue and challenge should evoke within my soul. So that meeting you should feel like a brush with an old, comfortable, favorite book who's suddenly revealed a hidden chapter that completes the story in ways I never knew complete could be.

I'm so hopelessly idealistic and scared (untrusting?), and I'm beginning to realize how that makes me the biggest block to me ever accepting you, PM, or believing that you could possibly be you. But you'll fight for me, right, PM? Please fight for me. I need you to fight for me when it's easier to not look you in the eyes.

One last thing, PM, before I end tonight's plea into the great human abyss that is the world wide web (always hoping that some word, some word, will resonate somewhere and mean something, anything, some word; it's like when you search haplessly for something when you don't know what you're searching for and you feel somehow closer to finding the unknown by at least putting the wiggling worm on the hook before casting out your line with no clue of what you're hoping will clamp on), why is the latest DVD release of new seasons of The West Wing always available in the UK before here?

Love,
Jen

PS I worry I'm the dead weight on the end of a pendulum, swinging back and forth between remembering my dreams and consciously taking action to pursue them and wondering how to know when my dreams have changed and how (or if) my actions should follow suit.

2005-12-02T21:13:00.000-06:00

I'm a stereotypical girl in my affinity for clothes; I can very easily convince myself to spend irrational amounts of money on unnecessary purchases because they're just so cute and I would be so sad if I didn't just buy that one sweater with the really cute scoop neck and delicate color. My mind feels relieved to make the purchase as a preventative measure to feeling sad and it just feels logical in its illogic.

But I've never been equally swooned by other materialistic Stuff. Until the past year or so, anyway, when I discovered an appreciation for pretty cars that are also capable of going vroooooom. Especially after drooling over the impressive racecars at the Nurburg Ring in Germany during EP00, I have been figuring out how much I want to put aside for the next year so that I can buy or lease an awesome amazing drool-worthy car. And today, aside from completely covering a coworker's desk in aluminum foil (a great prank I highly recommend; but that's a story I'll save for once we've seen the coworker's reaction next week and I have pictures to share. Our boss thought it was awesome though and laughed a lot this afternoon), I designed the Audi TT Roadster of my dreams (with the Bose premium package of course, KAB) . She's beautiful. It's hard to resist wanting to pick the most of everything - horsepower, interior features, blah blah, but for the upcharges how often am I really going to take advantage of the incremental advantages of those features? Exactly. Hardly ever.

For me to get much more serious about this purchase/lease, though, I'm going to have to overcome the fact that my 1999 Suzuki Grand Vitara is working absolutely fine. Nothing wrong. Not even a hint that anything's wrong (all good things I realize). Although this could be seen as a positive, since I will get the most for my car as a trade in if it is actually operable. So I feel a little wasteful and indulgent thinking about getting a sweet sweet car. And it'd also mean less money going into the long term savings for when I'm old and feeble.

But let's be honest here, bloggy, who cares about old and feeble when you can be young and cool in a silver (or ocean blue pearl or gunmetal gray) convertible with the top down screamin' out 'money ain't a thang'?

Another issue I have is that I feel like when I do decide to make a purchase, whatever it may be, I'm destined to get hosed by the dealership. Isn't that how car purchases just work? You just have to accept the lying and cheating as part of your dues to take the gleaming hunk of high technology materials and purring engine off the lot.

Oh! And another thing - I feel like I have to take a MAN with me because that's just how it works. Those nighttime news magazine TV shows have shown the same story repeatedly, about how the man always gets a better deal when trying to buy a car. This idea insults me, and not necessarily because of the fact that I'm a verified, real, true-to-life mechanical engineer (and, shhhh, don't tell the dealer that that doesn't really mean that I know that much about cars on a practical level -- sure, I could Carnot cycle all day, but when it comes to understanding the nuances of WHY I'd want the extra piston - or whatever it's called - I'd have no clue) and so I should be given just as much respect. This idea insults me because I'm a person who wants to buy a car so I should be given just as much respect and just as much of a good deal! Ugh!

I never knew it was possible to day dream about a car as much as clothes, home decor, and guys (and not necessarily in that order :))!

Today's been a great, great day - and not just because of car dreaming and office pranks - also today: Tommers braked hard and reversed, saying, 'you've got to see this! oh my gosh!' It was jolly Santa Claus! In Robert, LA! We went to the local Dollar General right after lunch so Tom could get some plastic guns for the hoe down tomorrow night (I'm so excited to wear my Target-bought cowboy boots and big ol' belt buckle!), and we asked our boss if he wanted to play kickball with us next week when we organize a lunch time game on the walking trail (don't ask. ok, so we have a "walking trail" around the trailers and pond at our wonderful camp).

Now I'm going to fall asleep with an Audi zipping around my mind and the wind tousling my hair and the windshield preventing the bugs from flying into my ecsatically opened smiling mouth.

2005-11-30T21:39:00.000-06:00

Pictures from the past month (incl. Thanksgiving) added to Flickr tonight.

And the link to Tom's pictures.

2005-11-30T19:54:00.000-06:00

ahhh, I finally figured out the "archiving" feature of gmail tonight (you'd think I'd never used email before - who HASN'T figured out archiving by now?). So I feel pleasantly relaxed and satisfied for having spent the last 50 minutes organizing a small part of my digital life. aaahhhh (that's a pleasant sigh). Though I'm still stuck using IE (uggghhhh I hate internet explorer! stupid stupid IE give me my Mozilla back! I hate stupid newsmonster that has somehow crippled, paralyzed friendly Firefox) so I can't have too deep a pleasant sigh.

Jen, I keep meaning to email you for troubleshooting help but I read Slate, get frustrated with IE and then give up, not wanting to mess with using IE any longer. Thank you for offering your know-how to release me from my IE imprisonment!

Since I don't feel like spending the time to change the template to add this to the Recent Tommisms sidebar, I'm going to note here Ccup's funny (ok, I almost spit my milk out my nose this morning) comment from breakfast during our conversation about a certain philanthropic organization that the company supports; as a rule the philanthropist won't put their raised money towards health organizations that perform abortions and so C passionately exclaimed as to why she wasn't going to the feel-good info session later in the day, "I think [philanthropic org] should be aborted!"

I'm pro-choice too, but I don't think I could have ever expressed my beliefs quite as eloquently as C :) hehe

Maybe you just had to be there.

2005-11-29T22:28:00.000-06:00

Pushing up the last few inches on the inclined shoulder press I really heard the lyrics to Carve Your Heart (Dashboard Confessional) for the first time. For the first time, when I've listened to the song at least 50 times. It's as if Chris Carraba (sp?) snuck into my carved out heart to find the lyrics (bold cliff notes idea thanks to Biffy):

Carve your heart out yourself
Hoplessness is your cell
Since you've drawn out these lines
Are you protected from trying times

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish that she had never dreamt at all

Oh look now
There you go with hope again
Oh you're so sure
I'll be leaving in the end

Dig your ditch deep enough
To keep you clear of the sun
You've been burned more than once
You don't think much of trust

Man it takes a silly girl to lie about the dreams she has
Lord it takes a lonely one to wish she had never dreamt at all

Oh Look now, there you go with hope again
But I'll be sure your secrects safe with me
Oh you're so sure
I'll be leaving in the end
Treatin me like I'm already gone

but I'm not
I will stay
where you are
always

I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)
I will stay
I will stay (oh look now, there you go)

Tonight's been very thought-y, especially since conversation with Jody is so hard to do without including lots of thought-y thoughts. I was reminded yet again of how easy it is to forget how rapidly other people's lives move on simultaneously to your own, completely unaffected by you. You are irrelevant, kind of. At the same time, talking to someone with a vantage point mired in history serves to magnify how you've changed on a microscopic level that feels macroscopic to the person holding the magnifying glass. You're more adult, you're wiser, you've had all these thoughts that I've not heard or seen expressed, all these thoughts that influence your daily outlook; I'm more adult, I'm more confident, I've had all these thoughts that I've languished in contemplating without you there as my sounding board. You say you know yourself now more than ever before and I agree for myself. But at the same time it makes me sad to know that for every bit more that I know myself, it means I know you that much less.

And yet hearing your voice soothes my wandering soul and grounds me in the reality inherent in reaching out to a dear friend. Hearing your voice also makes me thirsty to climb out of my well and let D and H and JO and K's voices wash over my parched ears more often. I miss you guys. In that kind of way that makes me day dream about the last time we were together, the last conversation we had in person and what the first thing is we'll talk about when we see each other next (D - a joke about improved performance. H - a joke about improved performance. hehe) I especially am missing my IA right now.

How is it that parents serve as a mirror for the worst exaggerations of the impatient, selfish, unforgiving facets of your personality? They're the only two people in the world who I can love the most while pushing them as much as possible to test them, to be a jerk just because I can. Thanksgiving was satisfactory, but the magic of the holiday has been robbed from my idealistic imagination. Cooking the full spread's really not that hard. And the stresses a manufactured holiday create because societal morays dictate that the day go a certain way, that you feel and act a certain way, are just unnecessary. I'm on the verge of deciding that I'd much rather spend time with my parents on any random day than one with human-assigned, arbitrary importance.

2005-11-28T22:07:00.000-06:00

Going east on West Esplanade, just within reach of the 17th St. canal's high concrete wall, I looked south onto Lake Ave. to see a healthy-looking, fluffy black dog meandering down the street. He was wandering in the truest sense of the word (can dogs be struck with wanderlust?) with a sense that he was taught to always have direction -- to be a dog for goodness sake (and dogs don't ask for directions) -- and yet he was desperately searching for his warm, food-filled home. He looked well-kempt, with a sleek, full coat and a gait marked by puppy training classes. Should I stop and get out of my car? It's not like my neighborhood is bad; I could safely check the dog for tags in the middle of the darkened street. An image of my mom's concerned face flitted across my mind's eye - she volunteers once a week at the humane society and has a soft spot for these sorts of things - what would she say if she knew I drove by a lost dog without doing something? What horrors are the dog's forlorn owners imagining right now? What would I have thought, how many tears would I have cried, if I had ever lost my yellow lab Sandi? How grateful would I have been to the kind, thoughful girl who had taken the chance to greet my perennially cheerful pup and call the telephone number on her collar's tag?

But instead, I'm standing at my living room's counter top, typing this. Wondering. Regretting. Pondering my own anthropomorhpism of the dog's situation: if I won't even stop my car to help this creature bred by humans for mankind's selfish enjoyment, what does that say for humanity's propensity to help each other? Ignoring my tendency to sweeping generalization, what does that say about my own compassion, my own willingness to reach out to someone else when I see them wandering, lost, on life's figurative road? In my guilt, I'm still not moving any closer to the door.

(I'm sorry!)

2005-11-22T19:48:00.000-06:00

I've grown to appreciate the insane cyclic tendencies of my emotional throttling. Occasionally I worry that I'm too quick to attribute a swing in my emotions to "nature;" instead of brushing off my own relevancy, I should question why. Because otherwise my own frustration with my self builds up (why do I feel this way still? Shouldn't that cycle be over by now? Shouldn't I be happy again and not weighed down with this deep sad feeling?). I hate not knowing how to fix what's wrong because I can't pinpoint what that "wrong" is.

I'm excited to see my parents tomorrow, but mildly nervous at the same time. For the first time ever, they're coming to MY house. No pretending anymore. I'm no longer my parent's little girl, even though to them I probably always will be. But it doesn't feel fair anymore to be able to blame my development disfunctionalities on them because I'm an adult, expected to have grown out of any difficulties they inflicted on me by now.

I'm nervous that Thanksgiving isn't going to be what I always expect when I go home. I'm horribly sad inside (but trying to ignore it) that my family is so very small. By virtue of the people who will be here I will be reminded of who's NOT and how they're ALONE (grandma in FL too frail to fly here) or DEAD (everyone else) and how for my tiny gene pool the holidays don't really mean huge gatherings, they mean a typical nuclear family dinner with a slightly larger table spread. We've even taken the tradition out of the holiday by moving it to LA, so now there's nothing grounding me in my Thanksgiving except for the stupid matching turkey candle holders we put on the table every year.

Stupid turkey candle holders.

In the vicious cycle that is emotion, I move from sorrow about what is vs what is not to feeling guilty for being sad when I'm so lucky with what I do have.

I was reminded of a great conversation with Jonny this past summer, sitting outside his rented cabin on Conch Key (approx. 60 miles north of Key West, FL) post hockey games and splashing in the pool and just being mesmerized by the black sky and pinprick stars and word play; Jonny said that no one is truly unique, and yet that's what we're all stretching for. We're all trying to define ourselves in opposition to everything else that's out there, when in reality we're all basically the same (are there ever any new thoughts created anymore? or has ever unique idea already been explored?). We try so hard to be different when we derive the most comfort and share the deepest senses of humanity when we can identify something SIMILAR with someone else. I suppose I derive some comfort from knowing that the people around me are provoked into sadness by many of the same things common to our situations (broken city, limited social structure, etc. etc.) but I still manage to feel very much alone in my solitude and questioning and puzzling over how to change my situation when I don't fully know how I want it to change.

Know how you can lull your mind into numbing emptyness? That's what I've felt like for the past 2 weeks. And I reassure myself, it's part of the cycle. Don't worry, it'll change soon. I'm in the phase of avoiding conversations I already know, scrounching down into my little hole in the world, attempting for an obscurity I don't really want but am attracted to because it's just easier that way.

Eh, I'm doubly frustrated by not being able to express myself in words here what I feel like my mind is thinking; so while this post kind of almost makes sense to me, I can tell it's convoluted and rambling. Eh. Maybe it'll work better next time. And then again, this all just starts to feel so redundant and needlessly self indulgent.

2005-11-22T18:31:00.000-06:00

I've stumbled across some pretty cool websites tonight, worth sharing:

Pandora
"Pandora has hired 30 musicians who have spent years analyzing 400 attributes of songs, like melody, rhythm and vocals. They’ve analyzed over 10,000 artists and 300,000 songs to date. Users pick a band or song to get started, and create a “channel” based on that type of music and which you can stream over their site in high quality audio. Over time, by telling Pandora whether or not you like a given song, the channel will evolve. You can share these channels with other Pandora users." -- from TechCrunch

What's especially neat about Pandora, and what makes it better than Yahoo's similarly free launchcast radio web-based application is that it plays artists that match your taste but that you likely haven't heard before; whereas Yahoo sticks with mainstream picks (or repeatedly plays the exact songs you've starred instead of searching to play songs similar to what you've indicated you like).

Equally cool (and what Pandora's technology works with) is the Music Genome Project

PaidContent.org
"Paidcontent.org is a news site covering the business of digital media and content."
I like sites like this that quickly update me on the "cool" new movements in internet content and capability. The site has effective links to find more information when you want it (a feature Slate and Wikipedia employ extensively; I really, really like this feature and its ability to lead you down a winding internet path otherwise unlikely to be created -- it allows me to feed my occassional ADD tendencies and follow the littlest things that capture my intrigue).

Side note: Twiki (a cousin of Wikipedia, I think, or the same development company) has been implemented with many success stories by big companies to facilitate communications and knowledge retention on big projects. I first heard of it through a random discussion board on my company's intranet (we don't use it, but there are whispers of future use). I think the underlying technology, and the day-to-day capabilities it provides to streamline information management are really cool.

A9.com
This is Amazon's new-ish (I have no idea when it came out, really) search engine to rival Google. As much as I like the ability to search different forums, the results become very cluttered and distracting. If the display format were changed a bit, I could see slowly switching away from being a die-hard Google-er.

The Great Google Wipeout
Fittingly, a story in Slate first started my stumbling link-to-link-to-link discovery tonight. It took me a paragraph or two to "get it" (I won't ruin the reading experience for you by giving a synopsis).

I don't understand Google Base -- what's the point? What makes it different and better (a trademark of Google technology, typically)? Upon first perusal, it seems like a less developed and more difficult to use amalgamation of ebay, google, and froogle.

Share cool sites you particularly enjoy (or that just made you go, "wow. who thought of that?!") and let's nerd it up all together.

2005-11-20T18:11:00.000-06:00

It's still wierd, unnerving, unsettling, to drive home from a night uptown and be able to see remnants of the city's skyline in my rearview mirror while being surrounding by the pitch black, unelectrified, mangled-ness that is my next-door neighbor of Lakeview. There's this dichotomy of despairing destruction paralled by people trying to have fun and fulfill that human side of the nebulous process we've taken to calling "rebuilding." (check out Tom's pictures from driving around Lakeview 2 weeks ago)

Friday night Tommers, C-cup, and myself (pictures coming soon...get a preview in my just-created album on facebook) attempted to play Eduardo 32-ounce Hands at Tom's amazingly '70s apartment before going to some bars in Uptown with other friends. Most Walgreens in Florida have an attached liquor store, yet in my new wonderful city that has drive-thru daquiri places the Walgreens are liquor-less; so what should have been Edward 40 Hands was modified to fit what the only store (a gas station) on Power-David-Hickory-Dickory-Dock (in all seriousness, the road is named all of those words in a 3 mile span) had -- 32 ounce bottles. After I dropped one, though, I had to substitute 2 regular 16 ounce bottles.

I have no regrets about the college experience I enjoyed, but I'm wondering how different it would have been if I had lived like I do now, partying hard every week. And compared to most of my friends, what's "partying hard" to me is run-of-the-mill to them. I'm a novice, under the tutelage of some of the greats in having fun. I've learned more liquid games in the past 2 months than I did in 22 years.

We broke the city's 2 am curfew Friday, staying out until we were kicked out of the bar at 5 am. Our penalty was getting ripped off by the taxi, since he had to drive past the blockade to get back into the city after dropping us off and he was afraid of the marines. (It was crazy to see on our way out -- a real Army humvee armored car checking the IDs of incoming traffic) I made my first official non-work friend in a 23-year-old Marine who had just finished 7 months in Iraq after being in Afghanistan for a while. At some points in the conversation, I just didn't know what to say: how do you comfort a person who can't legally rent a car yet fights tears in a bar talking about his friends getting shot out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile? How do you assure him that you care, that there's a difference between being "liberal" and a "democrat" and "against war" and supporting his efforts and his desire to join the military to get an education and discipline? How do you have a discussion about patriotism versus pride in your country's legal ideals in the middle of a dirty, all-American bar? I wanted to hug Z and squeeze out every horrible memory and image of bleeding patriots singed into his mind, but I didn't. I didn't want to belittle the emotions he was sharing by trying to take them away.

Saturday C-cup and I joined some older co-workers (do married people ever hang out together, by the way? I never see people with their significant others and it seems strange to me) to watch college football. The rest of Fat Harry's was happy because LSU beat Ole Miss into the ground and then they became huge Georgia Tech fans when it became a real possibility that my beloved Yellow Jackets were going to win out over Miami, causing UM to drop their 3rd ranking in the BCS to allow LSU to move up. It was awesome to have people conratulate me for my victory -- that never happens for a Tech grad! Usually it's consolation from friends, not excited "wooooooo!!!!!"s What a great victory. Though we missed a few balls that should have been interceptions and were typically sloppy at some points, we still looked like a real football team for most of the game! :) GO TECH!!

I signed up tonight to participate in my first ever road race, something I've thought about doing for a while but haven't for a variety of reasons, timing, distance, in-shape-ness; I'm super excited and think it'll be especially cool because my parents will be here for the holiday so they'll cheer me on at the finish :)

Don't worry, Sarah, I promise I'm not going to interview at NASA next and move to Houston, now that I've started playing soccer and running in races hehe :) (oh, and we lost our second game this week, but I still had fun!)

Tom pointed out Friday that I hadn't posted in "nearly two weeks...fine, maybe 8 days" and gave me the following suggestions for topics that I feel like I should still address:

"how you fell in love on the platform
the story we're writing
your love of fried seafood
Calorie counting
how standardized tests are racial biased
only 20 more days of Robert
How candy bars have come back to the cafeteria
your giant piece of cake
thanksgiving with the flies"

First, going offshore last week was AMAZING (even better than the first time). I fell in love, as Tom noted, with the drilling rig and the smell of mud and being on a huge metal beast and the salty air and the funny operators and feeling necessary to something working and exploring and learning and! I can't decide which I want to do more, go offshore for my rotation or go abroad for a rotation. I let my mentor know how much I want to go off, but (for good reasons, I understand) I won't be able to until next year after my next training course in the Netherlands. *sigh*

I just got annoyed with myself for writing in here about a list -- yes, I want to record the memorable things that happen so I can look back and remember little things I'll probably forget made me laugh or smile, but I'm not thinking here enough, and that's what I enjoy most about this medium, this being able to postulate about life and potentially make someone else think something differently or with a new consideration, just like I what I read other blogs for. So enough listing.

2005-11-14T19:05:00.000-06:00

I just killed a bug. With my bare hands.

(when I go to jail for an newly developed anger problem incited by all small things that buzz around my face, will you bail me out?)

2005-11-13T16:22:00.000-06:00

Ok, seriously. Seriously. Bug Master, I'm going to need to you to get your troops to stop STOP doing this whole fly-around-and-die thing. Really. Because I've now cleaned my fridge twice in one month (more than we cleaned it in a year in room 207) and I'm really tired of scraping your brethren's guts into a trash can. Forget about the disinfecting process - I've already given up, deciding that if I've lived this long through you landing on my dinner and buzzing around my face, then my sealed food will be fine. The fridge does not need another dousing of lysol and bleach.

Speaking of, I'd really like to be able to buy fresh produce again. Soon. (please?) The only fruits and vegetables I can buy right now are of the prepackaged variety, in containers that will seal again once they're opened. Because you have this nasty habit of infesting anything of some interest to my stomach even when it's in a plastic bag (don't even get me started on leaving things to ripen on the countertop). So if it's disruption of my normal life you wanted, fine, YOU WIN. I concede defeat. NOW JUST GO AWAY. thanks.

ugh

So I joined a soccer team. Yep, me, Jen - the Jen whose buddy put up a post-it note next to his desk to tally the number of times I trip walking past his desk to get to mine. The Jen who face plants even when playing the sports she's GOOD at, like tennis. The very Jen who would rather duck from the ball, run AWAY from the ball, than chase after it (Jen's brain: who thought it was a good idea in the first place to run around kicking projectiles off the safe, safe ground into the air?? WHO??).

So this Jen played her first game today after prepping by buying cleats, shin guards, and soccer socks at Target and securing additional medical coverage on her health insurance policy. And Jen actually played for almost the whole game (minus about 5 minutes at the beginning of the second half; I love co-ed team rules when only 4 girls show up and there have to be at least 3 on the field) as the left-side defender. I was fierce. I was brutally unforgiving. I managed to get a "good job, Jen" from the goalie at one point, after stealing the ball away from the other team's offender. Yeaa-yerr! I had been all prepared to just pick flowers on the edges of the field, too!

The Hungry Hippos play their next game next Sunday, and I'm already pumped. I'm thinking about buying a real soccer ball to learn how to kick and control the ball during the week, but then I remembered that there's no green space in my area because I'm paying for it to be a dump site....stupid Katrina!

2005-11-12T19:36:00.000-06:00

"It could be that all these developments are constitutional [i.e., exempting the CIA from laws against torture]. Maybe you can't enforce the U.S. Constitution in Poland. But the Constitution is not supposed to be just an obstacle course for officials who are trying to get around it. It ought to inspire policy even when it doesn't impose policy. Ditto the Geneva Conventions. Why would you even want to be clever about reasons it might not apply here or there? Nor is the Constitution supposed to be divvied up like patronage, with the First Amendment for liberals, the Second Amendment for conservatives, and so on.

Laws, including constitutions, are supposed to have sharp edges. Even without the help of clever lawyers, they define what is permissible in the process of defining what is impermissible, and they send a strong message that if it's not impermissible, it's OK. By contrast, a bone-deep desire to be left alone, a tolerance for eccentricity, a quick resentment of bullies—these are qualities that Britain has more than America, I think. And they may be more important."
--"A Tale of Two Constitutions; Britain, land of freedom" in Slate this week

Also: "I Want My Oil Yesterday; Why it takes so long to drill in Alaska"

2005-11-12T13:24:00.000-06:00

You know you've had a great night in New Orleans when you barely have time to rush to F&M's in Uptown from the French Quarter before the city's curfew hour hits and you still manage to bite into some tasty tasty cheese fries stolen from a friend's basket (who you haven't seen in 3 months, stupid Katrina) since the kitchen refused your order citing the proximity of the curfew.

You know you've had a great night in the French Quarter when you incite the awesome lady piano player at the piano bar in Pat O's to play "Old McDonald" (...had a farm, e i e i oooo) AND get the whole bar to sing along while you're doing the hand motions for "a cluck cluck here" and "a cluck cluck there" because she didn't know the music for 50 Cent's "In Da Club" or "Sippin' on Gin and Juice" by Snoop Doggy Dog. You also know it's great when you get the waiters (who are my dad's age) to dance to "Hava Nagila" in a big circle.

You know it's a stranger night than normal in the French Quarter when there are as many miliary police officers and national guardsmen as there are party revelers and when you look around you there are a disproportionately larger than usual number of skeezy construction workers. In fact, they're ALL skeezy construction workers who don't understand, "No, we're lesbians, we don't want to dance with you" (which was C's motto for the night as I hugged her away from men with dry wall still under their nails and in their hair). The men we tried to inappropriately dance with, the national guardsmen -- hey, who can resist a man in uniform?! -- walked quickly away from us as we laughed hysterically.

I love the "small town" feeling of the New Orleans late-night scene (it was like this before the hurricane, too), how you always manage to meet up randomly with friends. And when you're having a good time, there's nothing like the joy of "Heeeeeaaaayyyyyy!!! I know you!!!" even when you've only met them a few times before. I like having "our" spots in the city (though that list was rather large, it has dwindled to the 3 places that are open now).

In other news, I got my hair cut yesterday and LOVE having short hair again. It just bounces on my shoulders and has some layers with long bang-ish things in the front.

Thanks Jen for continually educating me about cool technology :) A link to my site feed is now in the "notes" section of my sidebar. I'm about to google "site feed" because I still don't know what it actually does..... hehe

2005-11-10T21:53:00.000-06:00

This has become one of my favorite times of the day: I've watched some TV at the gym (if I time it right, Good Eats followed by quality like Sex in the City or The O.C.), I'm scrubbed clean, and I've (hopefully) gotten everything done I wanted to for the day; all that's left is to ponder until I drift off to sleep.

At the end of the day I called my platform to schedule a trip offshore to walk out some new piping I'm working on, and now I'm going next week! Even on the phone I was already excited, my heart all a pitter-pat, ready to be terrified by a helicopter before spending 30 hours in the middle of the Gulf. I'm finally figuring out how my workload cycles, with what's becoming normal lulls and crests in quantity and challenge. I'm amazed by the responsibilty I've been given, and even more amazed by the ability I'm finding myself to have in solving real engineering problems. I know I've talked about this general sentiment before, but I have to share my surprise, again, about how applicable school has been so far. Oh, did I already mention how excited I am to go offshore next week?

Driving home from the gym my mind was caught up in making a list of errands to accomplish during my Friday off tomorrow. When I found myself focused on the long list of grocery items to purchase per Mrs. S's Thanksgiving Menu Shopping List, I was struck by the extravagence of it all, this whole Holiday Idea. Because, genuinely, what's the common theme of all American holidays, aside from the commercialism and family? Extreme hyperbole! We don't just have meals, we have HUGE FEASTS. Seriously, it's going to be my mom, dad, and myself at my house for Turkey Day and yet I'm cooking a turkey, Honey Baked Ham, green bean casserole, yams (with pineapple and marshmellow of course), pumpkin pie, pecan pie, brownies, and relish plate - and I might be forgetting some dishes here. FOR THREE PEOPLE! I'm not even going to go into Christmas extremism, but you get the idea - why do we require our holidays to qualify as such by virtue of their exorbitant nature?

I love, love, love the holidays, but when I was driving home and thinking about the sheer massive quantity of food I'm going to buy ingredients for tomorrow, all I could notice around me was the disparate damage shwooshing by outside my car windows. The smell of rotting was pushed out, there were no obvious signs of all the families with no possessions who've left the area, and in my little cacoon of greed and consumption I was oblivious, ignorant to the crying needs of the homeless, ravaged, and ignored.

So what to do? Put some of the money I would've bought food for my feast with towards relief efforts? Or donate food to a shelter? Or what? Just feel guilty? This is our trite "time for thanks," sure, but I don't want just the calendar's page to be my impetus to kind actions, they feel more fake or shallow that way. Ugh I'm such a broken record -- whether it's women raped in Sudan or hurrican relief or environmental conservation, I always get stuck on how much matters. How do my actions matter? So why bother? But if I try to do good, helpful things 'just because' are they then selfish because I'm doing them to feel good about myself and my actions to help the world? Does it matter if they're selfish so long as the actions help someone in some small way? I want to be altruistic, but I so easily lose sight of what altruism is.

I love comments, btw, friends. Thanks for your thoughts, that helped spark my own mind. :)

Lastly for tonight, a huge hug for D (can you feel it? right now?). You're not giving up on love - when you follow your heart you can never be giving up on love. I'm reminded of one of my absolute favorite quotes, from The Alchemist, something like, Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

2005-11-08T22:01:00.000-06:00

Boo, email is a dangerous thing when done tired.

This morning I went back to the Square to retrieve "items critical to business success" to bring back to the farm land; it was also my first trip downtown since coming back. The morning felt like the rough draft of a movie script, with a dense fog cloaking both sides of the interstate from view. I was tunneled into the Superdome area and the CBD, which looked surprisingly normal (aside from Poydras being squished into one lane each way for a stretch were signs reading "Falling glass!" shouted warnings from in front of a beat up office tower). Structurally, the city is fine. Windows everywhere could use some work. Being back made me realize again how much I fell in love with my office and downtown in general in those first few weeks. I missed my upside-down pictures and my ergonomic foot rest (I brought it back to RTC). I miss having my buddy next door instead of across a cubicle and not being able to hear Tom's phone when I call him from across the other side of the fake wall we currently have. It will make work a little easier to have my huge binders of process flow diagrams instead of piecing through them in online pdf files.

After getting our stuff out of the office, T, Buddy, and I drove through Lakeview (the area on the side where the canal broke that got horrrrrible flooding). With the fog still hanging heavily and the huge 30 foot wall of soaked, moldy household discards on the median, I expected to see men in biohazard suits and not just typical looking utility workers in orange safety vests. Most sobering of all was the almost cartoonish solemnity of the neon spray painted orange X's by every door. The top quarter of the X had a date and the right and bottom quarters had numbers for people trapped inside. In some places the Xs were almost at the roof, right above the dingy brownish/murky yellow line that striped the entire neighborhood - the flood's waterline. Those high Xs were made by men in boats. Boats.

One particular area that my mom and I ate at when she helped me move in a mere 9 (?) weeks ago was right on the Lake, with 4 restuarants, a park, and a large area with 15 sand volleyball courts. From the parking lot you wouldn't even guess there had been large structures at the site, because they were completely gone. No stray plywood haphazardly strewn about -- everything. Everything. Was. Gone. Completely, utterly, absotutely gone. There were also still national guardsmen in several areas we poked around, which is still disconcerting. Every house in the Lakeview area had 8 feet or so of water and every house will need to be completely gutted and rebuilt. Every one. When in the world is my city ever going to be normal again?

What physically, chemically makes words so seductive in my mind? How can a few well-chosen adjectives make me feel more inspired than any picture?

Last brief thought for the night, inspired by (sigh) The Real World: are people disposable? Can you use one for a little while, get bored of his or her features and no bad feelings move on? Is anyone actually capable of connecting with another person, physically or mentally, for a brief period of time and then completely forgetting them or easily brushing them off? Watching the show it seems like the answer is yes, with no problems - how, I wonder. I can't figure out how to put here the vague premonitions of thoughts my sleep brain is meagerly bubbling up, so I'll try again tomorrow (earlier.).

2005-11-06T19:02:00.000-06:00

My friends here in New Orleans call me "Pathy" (full nickname: Pathy McFishActress, but the last name is a whole different blog entry-worthy story) because of my tendency to stay on the path and not stray from the straight and narrow when driving an electric golf cart. They chased geese and stole other players' balls, and I clung to that concrete path like it was my job (technically, as a caddy, it was). Sure I veered off a few times here and there to gleefully bounce over gnarled, exposed tree roots, but the extreme is what earns a nickname, right?

So it was no surprise when Friday afternoon we went to a Go-karting place in Baton Rouge and I exhibited more Pathy-worthy tendencies. Is it my fault I care about safety?

While waiting for our rag-tag pit crew to start our engines I asked, "do we get helmets or safety goggles?" (I wouldn't have asked for the safety goggles except for the large sign affixed above our starting point that clearly demanded, "YOU MUST WEAR HELMETS AND SAFETY GOGGLES") My esteemed mechanic's response? "Nope. Don't need 'em."

It's ok, I tried to tell myself, the hardcore go-karting place in the Netherlands only had us wear safety jackets, gloves, and helmets (with eye protection) because it was two stories with sharper turns and faster cars. We're outside in beautiful weather with palm trees lining the course and a friendly Comfort Inn parking lot on the other side of the course's fence. No problem! I'll admit it, my Pathy-nervous-wimpy side was screaming inside DON'T DO IT!

But I survived, and in the end I wished for some eye protection just because the engines sputtered so much and the tires spit up every particle on the road, so I drove blind for most of the way to prevent my eyes from being gouged with dirt and tar specks. It was a good time and incredible to see my 6'3" buddy crammed into the tiny plastic shell of the car.

Talk about HSE concerns - I think I might be harboring the next insect-carried disease pandemic in my house (Malaria had to start somewhere). My previous struggles against pesky flying bugs was to no avail, and I'm being overrun again. With their constant presence (and now in every room of the house, not just the kitchen), I vascillate between trying to accept them as the household pet I never knew I always wanted and hating every single hairy leg sprouting off their abdomens, wanting to scream in frustration, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE. And it's not for lack of trying - I spent hours today scrubbing any potential sources of buggish home; my kitchen is disinfected, as are my two bathrooms. My fridge is yet again a mortuary, though, and I feel like singing a dirge everytime I open the door to see the body count of the fallen rise.

The problem is escalating, too, with the identity of my enemy evolving. No longer am I just waging war against small fruit fly-gnat-small black specks, I'm now forced into battle with larger, scarier looking bugs who look professional. They know what they're doing in my house and how to best avoid being squashed. Where the black specks whizzed around aimlessly and were just kind of annoying because they had no rhyme or reason to their air dances, my new foes have a purpose and direction that drives them to dive bomb whatever I'm eating. Or preparing to eat. I had to fish one such bugger out of my peaches tonight after dinner. I'm starting to worry for my own health (and judgment capabilities) when I went along happily eating my contaminated peaches. Or when I find it normal to eat with one hand while continuously swatting the air with my other.

If my house is as clean as it can get and I'm still losing to these insects' geometric reproduction cycles, how can I expect them to DIE until my neighborhood is cleaned up? Because I'm sure the festering, rotting piles of poo all around my condo building aren't helping the situation.

2005-11-03T19:05:00.000-06:00

I found this rather serendipitously, on an old lab mate's lj,

comment with your name and I'll
1. respond with something random about you.
2. tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. pick a liquor i'd take a shot of with you.
4. say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. ask you something that I've always wondered or liked about you.
8. If I do this for you, you should post this on your journal (eh, I don't really care about this one. do whatever you want.)

Look, I've done one meme and now I can't stop. I just learned this new usage of "meme," by the way, which I haven't heard since I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins back in freshman english. Did my usage sound authentic? hehe

2005-11-03T18:04:00.000-06:00

I AM A WOMAN!! (hear me roar?)

Granted, you might have known that already. But today I graduated into REAL womanhood - I wore these new Steve Madden shoes, bought in Atlanta this past weekend, to work today with my normally-too long jeans, so that the hem of the jean just brushed the floor and the rounded toe of the shoe peaked out. Me, in moderately-heeled shoes. At my real life job. I'm so hip. Don't worry, I'm still the same person inside and will be back to my Birks and sneakers tomorrow.

Fluids always has been my favorite subset of ME (that's "potions" to the younger Shaw), and only partially because I wanted to adopt my professor as my third grandfather (oh Dr. S, you were so cool). Today I got to calculate head loss and flow rates galore, finding pipe length equivalents and Cv and oh my! It was neat to being doing something that was such a clear, direct application of something I learned in school (and to find that with a little prompting and thought, I even remembered the theory behind it, and not just the calculations to solve). As helpful as school was in doing the job I am now, the most valuable skill I seem to apply most often to get work done is my ability to use the internet. You can fix any oil problem with the help Google. Seriously -- at a group meeting this week, someone asked a question of the rest of the team if anyone had encountered that particular problem before or was familar with common solutions, and when no one spoke up, the group lead said "Google it." Yes. I love billion dollar company's solutions to problems their engineers don't know right away.

In other news, I HATE THE JEFFERSON PARISH WATER DEPARTMENT. 'Hate' is a very strong word. I realize this, and intend for the word to carry its full weight. HATE. Ugh, now I feel bad and overjudgemental because the woman I spoke to on the phone was really nice, so I'll go with mildly disdain. I MILDLY DISDAIN THE JEFFERSON PARISH WATER DEPARTMENT.

Local government billing departments (parish = county for you non-Louisianans) are understandably LOST after this whole hurricane mess. I understand. But you charged me $3.73 for the voluntary recycling program I signed up for, AND HAVEN'T EVEN MANAGED TO PICK UP MY REGULAR HOUSEHOLD TRASH. IT'S IN A HUGE PILE, ALONG WITH THE DRYWALL, BEER BOTTLES, AND ROTTING POO OF MY 5 OTHER CONDO NEIGHBORS. The parish website says that recycling services have been stopped until further notice, which is FINE -- there's too much dead body-mutilated house-rotting stench trash in this city to worry about rinsing my half gallon milk jug -- but don't nickel and dime me for it! Then again, the recycling debacle is nothing compared to my compulsory payment for Lafreniere park ($2.26), which I didn't even know EXISTED, not to mention that it's currently being used as a TRASH DUMP. I'M PAYING FOR A GREEN-SPACES TRASH DUMP -- that I'm not even using because YOU AREN'T PICKING UP MY TRASH.

It's the moral here, not the measly $6. I wanted answers and to have my frustrations heard (even if Betty Sue on the other end of my nicely-said tirade just told me, "I'm sorry ma'am, you're going to have to call these other two numbers to find out. We're just the collection agency"). So I waited 58 minutes on the phone, said my piece for 3, and haven't gotten around to calling the other two numbers she gave me. And my trash is slowly growing legs of mold that I'm hoping will walk the whole pile to stupid Lafreniere park.

I'm off to the gym to run while watching this season's premiere of the OC. I can't wait to be an average TV-watching American who has a weekly routine of watching one particular show. I've tried to play this game before, though, and I suck at remembering every week. And I thought I was so good at routine, too. Ugh.

Oh! One more thing - did you know that carrots were originally dark, dark, dark and the Dutch genetically got the random African orange strain to dominate as an homage to their royal family? Check it out: about ten lines down (I love Alton Brown :))

2005-11-01T20:47:00.000-06:00

Why is it that the majority of my male friends are better at relating and talking about their feelings than I am? They can specify what hurts them and what makes them scared in the five minutes it takes me to figure out how to wrap my verbal skills around whatever it is floating around in my head, neverminding the uncomfort and immaturity I feel when trying to then convey it to someone else. Intellectually, I'm 22. Physically, I'll give myself 19 (22 with my hair down and a smidge of mascara). Emotionally, I'm a barren twelve-year-old.

Knowing how to identify what I'm feeling, and why, is a fine skill that I don't quite have down; it takes a professional who knows the right questions to ask to get it out of me. Back in the spring, when my emotional energies were so clearly focused on not freaking out about possibly having multiple sclerosis amid trips to the neurologist, it was easy - I was dealing with something specific, I had support, and I trusted that support and their genuinity (is that a word?) -- Dr. Shippey had to care. It was her job. I had a reason to need support. I had a reason to lean on someone else.

But now, when there's nothing clearly wrong and I have every reason to be lost in happiness and security, it's difficult to trust why someone would care what was going on in my life. So I stay gaurded, fearful that I don't really understand how I feel so why bother trying to explain my unknown to someone else? Especially when I have no clue where to even start or what words to use to get me there. I know, friends are friends because they care, blah, blah, you have to share with others for a fully balanced friendship, blah, blah, I know people care about me and don't care how confused I am it's just the process of sharing that counts. I don't want to be a burden when other people have more pressing, real things to be worried about.

But I honestly don't know what to share - that I'm absolutely terrified of meeting someone who I really, really like because I won't know how to give to them what they give to me? Or that I'm absolutely terrified about hurting someone again the way I already have? I'm absolutely terrified that I don't know how to understand my own heart when it comes to this stuff - I've buried it so far down to prevent myself from being sad that I've lost it and don't know how to trust or feel it again. I'm scared of being rejected. I'm afraid of not being rejected and messing things up. I'm worried that my own mistrust for myself will prevent me from trusting the people around me. So I'm closed off, because for right now it's just easier that way.

Tonight Jody said that he thinks love is logical, in that you decide to love someone else or to let them love you. But I want to know how you actually do the act of deciding to love someone else? How do you know you're falling in love with somone, that it's worth trusting more and more and giving more and more? Because it happened accidentally last time and I never knew it was happening until it was too late. Sometimes it just seems easier to think about being selfishly alone forever. I've never been one to take the easy, less challenging way out, but there's just something about this genre that I can't handle or understand. I'm such a confident, strong willed and strong minded person when it comes to school or work or personal ability or other Life stuff, so this dichotomy is all the more distressing to me. Ugh.

I wish Love could be in a computer language that I could code, I could dissect and piece back together in a more sensical way. I write some simple math, like

love(time)=boy+girl
boy=constant
girl=constant

relationship=boy(y) + girl(x),
where x, y=effort

Or something. Anyway, to something I do understand. Which is that I'm nervous about my first physical since my G.B. diagnosis (here or here) in April - I know that nothing's wrong and it doesn't matter or affect my life anymore, but it's still scary to go back to the doc when the last time I was poked repeatedly with a intramuscular needle thing that measured my nerve responses to electric shocks. Hopefully I'll be able to extend my record 2 blood withdrawals without fainting.

Oh! If anyone has been tempted to come visit me in New Orleans (it'd be fun!), Airtran has a sale right now until Nov 10. Pretty cheap flights from Fl and Atl.... hint hint :) (and to Cali, so Jonny I'll be calling you soon :))

Goodnight, World!

2005-10-31T20:20:00.000-06:00

Happy Halloween!

Pictures from Homecoming added to Flickr.

More thoughts soon. Sleep first, tonight.

2005-10-30T19:29:00.000-06:00

10/27/05
Airtran Flight 51, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport:

The last time I saw this city from the air was from a bobbling helicopter, and then it was normal. Lit. Populated. This time it was littered with blue roofs looking like perfectly square, perfectly blue pools. Strewn with pockets of light. Pockets of civilization. The normally glowing skyline of downtown was dim, and in tonight's falling dusk it appeared as though the buildings of the CBD were stretching their hardest to uproot their structures and leave the scarred, pockmarked city.

Further east, the worst hit neighborhoods were just dark. No street lights and no cars to pierce this desolate darkness with their beams of light. Hope ran away hand in hand with the light from his poor, poor city that so quickly got under my skin.

I get wrapped up in the day-to-day and forget about the people just on the other side of the canal that is my next-door neighbor. When my morning drive takes me across a 20 mile, perfectly straight causeway I'm treated to a perfect sunrise that begs ignorance to the problems I drive further away from with each intensification of the orange glow. The sun fingers its purples and oranges up across the lake, such that the lake falls right off the edge of the earth Then, when I turn west towards Robert on I-12 a brilliantly golden orb is funneled behind me by the channel of foilage that frames the highway. So with this perfectly normal daily ritual that obfuscates the outside world, how can I help but to think about nature's profound beauty and the trite healing power of time? How can I help but to feel childishly optimistic, to feel every morning my faith in New Orlean's successful return rise with the creeping sun? How can I help but to forget about the stark difference in my morning's routine from the reality existing 10 feet across a deviant flow of water from my front door?

But from the air and its new perspective on the mangled mass splayed at my doorstep, I'm reminded of how blessed I am. More importantly, this picture has served as the necessary impetus for the situation to hit home, and for me to realize that the best way for me to help since I've got no dry walling or home rebuilding experience (and no secret contractor friends) is to do the cheesy thing of listening, smiling, and offering commraderie. Conversations with absolutely random people on the plane and with coworkers in the past week indicate that all most people want right now (again, other than a visit from their insurance adjustor or a contractor) is someone to tell their story to, to commiserate with. And I can do that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Perfect Man,

I've been thinking about you for a little while now, but had kind of forgotten about you in the past 2 months because, well, you know how life gets in the way of relationships like these. But this weekend was a Married-Engaged Persons reunion, too, apparently, and not just GT's Homecoming. How do so many people find the person they want to spend the rest of their lives with in the first 20 years of life? If the divorce rate is 50%, then by gosh some of these people must be horribly wrong! Anyway, all this togetherness talk got me thinking about you again, and as always, refining who you are. So let me lay some things out for you, P.M..

First, you have to know something about me. They might be minor, I agree, but I think it says alot about me if you overanalyze it enough (and I know you will, P.M., because that's part of your requirements):

I keep a notepad and pen nearby whenever I read. Even fiction. Even for pleasure.

I keep a list of words I don't know and then look them up at www.m-w.com.

I lack certain perseverance and follow through, and so sometimes I give up on looking up all the words on my list. Then I feel guilty and blame myself for everything else I've done poorly in the past four years.

I really like the autofill-in feature of Mozilla, especially on M-W when it reminds me of words I looked up recently and refreshes my vocab. Who needs flashcards when you've got autofill-in?

I'm very materialistic about some things. Like pens. I'm willing to spend $10 for a good rubber-gripped ball point. I'm sorry.

I get stressed out if I don't write things down when they come to mind. Which is why I always try to carry post-it notes or notepads with me, but also why, for lack of better implements, I jot notes down on (unused, thank you) tissues and 1-inch tears of scrap paper. Which is why I've also accidentally honked at people many times because I try to use my steering wheel as a firm writing surface while driving.

Sometimes I go to sleep with dirty dishes in the sink and the counter not cleaned off.

Sometimes I'd rather not talk about it. And sometimes I'd like you to ask just to ask (so I know you care and really are Perfect) and then accept unequivocally my "I don't want to talk about it." Sometimes I like thinking better than talking. Lots of times I like being alone, or with other people, more than being with you.

I have a very hard time imagining ever giving part of my life to someone else for an indefinite period of "forever." Yet, I long to pour my love and excitement and sweet ideas into you, P.M., and stop constantly day dreaming sappy melodramatic scenarious in my head when I should be thinking about separation processes. Even with my pessimism for the reality of "love" (eh, been there, done that) and its suckiness, I still want you to say "I love you" to, and you to hug with all my soul.

I want to be nervous and get butterflies when I think about seeing you.

I want you to challenge me - mentally, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. I want you to make me question what I believe and why I believe it and force me to have to explain myself so it's obvious when I'm bullshitting to be difficult and annoying to you. I want you to call me out. But I also want to be able to affect what you think. I want both of us to be better people because of being with the other person.

I want you to think I'm smart. And I want to think you're smart. I want us to talk about nerdy, stupid things during romantic, candle-lit dinners. I want you to make fun of me for always wanting to eat dessert.

Perfect Man, this isn't too much to ask for, right? And I should keep looking for you, right? Because I deserve you. Right?

Love,
Jen

2005-10-26T23:09:00.000-06:00

one phone call from the list: check

Thanks for a refreshingly normal conversation, IA. I'm always surprised how nice it is to hear your voice :)

Four more phone calls to go before tomorrow's end.

2005-10-26T19:49:00.000-06:00

Are you going to be A-town anytime between tomorrow night and Sunday? 'Cause Shawty's going to where the playa's play and the dirty bird kicks the three, and you know she wants to hit it up July '05 style. Many, many pitchers of margaritas at Willy's, flasking it to the game Saturday, maybe a little Moondog's action for old time's sake, Flying Biscuit, Jake's, not being able to remember anything that actually happened the whole weekend...except seeing all your smiling faces, of course!

hehe I'm also hoping to find time to go to Lenox (MARTA's smarta!) because I have a ton of discounts and free things from my birthday to use before they expire Monday.

As excited as I am to return to my first home away from home and see some of my best friends, I'm also a smidge nervous about how it will feel to go back and be surrounded by nothing but the physical reminders of the memories of the last four years of my life. I'm already picturing what my mind's going to cycle through when I walk down that pathway next to the IC as you walk towards SAC (that one AMAZING sunset I saw through the leafless trees while overwhelmed by how much work the Focus section still needed that night), down Skiles (the sailboat that's always there the first week of the semester; forcing fliers into people's hands), on east campus (evading parking tickets; playing football in the freshman quad with KAB, Lindsey, Corey, and Ansley just so we could get muddy), the Technique office (talk about a love-hate relationship), the MRDC (fun times with T-lo and Sneds; sneaking Biffy into the ME computer lab), ULC 207 (207 Love!!) ....*tear*

We won't even go into the potential disasters that could happen. *I will not think about that. I will not think about that. I will not think about that.*

Homecoming, here I come.

...........................................................................

My reminiscing inspired me to look back at old pictures, so in honor of homecoming and some special people who I won't get to see, here are some of my favorites:

DX Semiformal 2004 - 1/2 of 207
d(Biff+Jen)/dx=0
(hahah Biff, please tell me you remember the solution to that)

Halloween freshman year Corey and I dressed up as our friends, a real set of twins on the GT cheerleading team. I <3 shirts with iron-on patches

Just go out with us to the Compound, Smelly, or we'll carry you!

Who would have though Atlanta would freeze?

Jonny!! Willy's, no, ATLANTA's not going to be the same without you.

and...

Happy Halloween 2K5!

2005-10-25T21:14:00.000-06:00

I'm failing miserably at accomplishing my goal to call at least one person on my list of people to call an evening. :(

Is it my fault that MTV reality shows are mind numbingly addictive? Since they come on an hour earlier here, I can fill up on smut and still be in bed by 10:30! (Is anyone else tired of Lacy and her whining? Or the constant rollercoaster that is Danny and Mel's "relationship"?)

Since Tommers and I are calorie counting (seriously, we carry notepads to every meal), I have to get my body-rotting disaccharides from somewhere.

2005-10-24T21:11:00.000-06:00

I'd also like to add that my family's thirty-year-old mango tree that stood faithfully in our backyard fell over today in Hurricane Wilma's winds. Mango tree is now drooping over the sea wall into the canal, never again to bear sweet, sweet fruit for my mom to make into ice cream or bread. My mom almost cried on the phone today when she called to tell me our house is ok minus the tree and our screened-in-porch. It's funny how a tree can become such a tangible symbol of abstract family memories.

One more thing that deserves note - and I'm probably going to regret writing this later and delete it,

*********original post deleted due to the internet's lack of obscurity**********

why don't you learn that getting drunk isn't an excuse for being honest or for being an asshole? You still have to be responsible for what you say and do even if you're getting alcohol poisoning in the process.

have i mentioned how much i love my sofa and TV?

2005-10-24T19:18:00.000-06:00

With a lack of a better way to start this post (know when your mind gets cluttered with too many things and you just don't know where to start?), I'm going to do this thing that I was "tagged" to do by Baucs; this marks my first ever filled out survey internet thing. Momentous.

10 Years Ago: This puts me at twenty-one days past twelve, back when "teenager" still seemed so far away and 16 was an eternity that would never come. I was in 7th grade at the home of the eagles, McNicol Middle School; what jumps to mind instantly is that Mrs. Voss was my science teacher, I chased Hanson around the cafeteria patio area (and him with that bowl hair cut - whatwasithinking), and my science fair project (which won 3rd place at the State Science Fair in Engineering, woot woot) examined the effect of material and surface roughness on the growth of marine fouling organisms (like barnacles and algae). If the last sentence didn't already give away my secret, I was a glasses-wearing Dork with no fashion sense (though some would argue that that hasn't really changed), no chest, and toted a lunch box with me to school (that the mean kids would occassionally hang from the top of the -- what's that game with the ball hanging on a string from a pole, 2 people hit it back and forth until it's wound around the pole?? -- pole and laugh at me for being undeveloped. I loved middle school.) Enough of those memories...

5 Years Ago: Ahh, five years ago was a much better time. I was in the 3rd month of my senior year in high school, I had a car with a parking spot on campus, I was surrounded by amazing friends (word to your mothers, H & D), and I was part of the sci & eng magnet program's golden children (oh, and I had filled out by now). I was riding high and feeling good about my college applications (how grounding it was to go to Tech and meet lots of other people who vastly outmatched me at everything - academics, effort, modesty, you name it); even if things didn't always make sense at home, at least I was distracted by 10 million other things in my life. Though I figure this is the way it is for mostly everyone, my senior year marked a definitive end to a significant portion of my life as I knew it up to then. I could feel how differently life was about to go, but I tried to stay focused on what had become my personal mantra for surviving: stay in the present, do everything with no regrets, and don't dwell on the past unless you're actively learning from it.

Granted, university changes things for everyone; my experience allowed me to learn why I had to crumble the stones I had built up around my heart in order to ever know what it feels like to have a friend truely care, or what it's like to hurt so much you want to die, or what it's like to have unbounding joy that you're afraid of because you don't want to know what it's going to feel like when the joy ends. I know, I'm drifting into 4 years ago, 3 years ago, but I've been so wholey shaped as a person by key events that I could count on my hands that have all happened in the past four years - I was always an inquisitive girl and a passionate (and overdramatic) writer (and probably still have a flair for the dramatic here), but I didn't know what it was like to let yourself down -- and only yourself -- to feel like you had lost who you were, to know what disappointment was until the first two years of college. And I'm so grateful for those days-worth of tears because now I understand the importance of not burying things, of letting my friends care about me, and of investing in someone else even if it's going to kill you inside at some point. But I digress...

One Year Ago: The beginning of my senior year at GT, my confusing and complicated and amazing and wonderful senior year. I was completely ready to graduate and move on with my life. I had learned all that I thought I needed to, I had grown as a person as much as I thought I could from one environment, and I needed new challenges. I finally felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, that I had earned my own respect and was finally seeing through fruition the goals I had set for myself for the past fifteen years. I had the most amazing birthday ever (thanks to my friends - I love you guys! :)) and right around now, one year ago, I was interviewing for jobs, taking the GRE, and deciding which of the many open paths I wanted to venture down. It's funny that no specific events jump to mind (except my birthday party - keg stands wha what?!), just a general sense of my emotions and mental state. I guess I have always been a little obsessed with "thinking and feeling" crap and not so much the activities that make me think and feel.

Yesterday: I reflected on how happy I am with my current situation (in the grand scheme of things, neglecting the fact that New Orleans is a huge toxic stew and I'm far away from new friends) while talking to one of my absolute favorite people (I <3 KAB! :)) on the phone. I spent the weekend in Baton Rouge -- Saturday night LSU game, all-you-can eat brunch at a sports bar while watching FOUR HOURS of Sunday football, some tennis and laying out in the sun, more football watching, grilling out, and driving back to New Orleans to sleep.

Five Snacks I Enjoy:
chocolate, grapes, chocolate, pretzel and cheddar goldfish, chocolate pudding, and chewy fudge ice cream with marshmellow goop topping from Jaxson's

Five Songs I Know All the Words To:
Our Lady Peace, "Clumsy"
Maroon 5, "Sunday Morning" (if you didn't know, that's the song Mr. Bloggy's title comes from; the subtitle thingy -- thisisthestory blah blah -- if from a Nine Days song from back in the day)
John Mayer, "Your Body is a Wonderland" and "My Stupid Mouth"
Counting Crows, "Anna Begins" (really, most of the songs on August & Everything After, give or take a few a articles here and there)
"You're a Grand Ol' Flag" ha - it's true
I also really like to screech Dashboard Confessional at the top of my lungs in my car, by myself or with H & D, but I kind of make up the words sometimes because even if I knew the words, I wouldn't be able to make them sound like the words you hear

Five Things I'd Do With a million dollars:
I hate this one. I don't want a million dollars, or the social responsibility that comes with it, because one measly million dollars won't even make a dent in alleviating world hunger or violence or rape or prejudice or cures for AIDS or cancer, so what do you do with it? How could I ever pick which cause most deserved some small token of support, when I don't feel like the money would make any difference in the long run. Ugh, this question makes me really frustrated because with my defeatist attitude, why should anyone ever do anything to try to make things better for someone else or for the environment if it won't ever change things on a broader scale? But I still think it's worthwhile to try, I guess. Right? I guess you have to try to have hope - or do you have to have hope to try?

Ok, I know what I'd do with the million - I'd find the most compassionate, burdened person in the world and give THEM the money, trusting that they'd do a better job of doleing it out than I could.

5 things I'd never wear:
1. a popped collar. do you really think protecting your neck from a strong draft looks good? do you? because really, it looks like you're trying to go for a mysterious, bad-boy look but falling short and just end up looking like a lopsided, dopey, unfinished goof who follows five minute fashion trends in the hopes that your outside appearance will speak louder (and more effectively) for your personality (or who you purport to be) than your conversational abilities and actual self will. rant!
2. elastic-band jeans. eeewww.
3. two pairs of squishy-down socks at the same time, layered, each one a seperate revolting shade of neon. (I repent for my past sins...I was six and you know you did it, too!)
4. my hair poofed up in the front like a duck's bill (you know, like fake bangs pulled back in a pin and then teased to make a hemisphere of bad stringy hair over the center of your forehead, like that girl on this season of the Real World)
5. huge furry, tassled boots from the Netherlands with little fur-ball things hanging down the sides in magenta

5 bad habits:
overthinking every. stupid. thing.
cutting people off when they're talking.
not paying attention when people are talking, and being lost in my own mental fantasy land instead.
being late. just enough for it to be annoying to other people, but not enough for me to ever get myself in trouble for it.
not calling my friends enough. (or calling them back in a timely fashion)

5 favorite toys:
my power tools set (that's right I installed all the hardware in my bathroom and hung all my pictures on the wall) If I had my own cad/cam mill and lathe, they'd be my favorites too. I'm excited by torque. (pause) hahahahahaha
the internet. does that count?
board games with friends
digital cameras - especially my video of Biffsters and I doing our special dance in the hallway of the apartment last year after Mock Rock. hahaha, or the pictures Emily's took of us all looking oh so *special* *sigh* for a moment of bittersweet memories :)

That was fun. Now I'm going to pass responsibility of filling this out to Jen Lee, Jonathan, and Emily (who never ever ever posts ever. boo.)

2005-10-20T19:23:00.000-06:00

Tonight Tommers came over for dinner (I made this awesome turkey bacon-wrapped chicken stuffed with spinach, garlic, and pepperjack cheese, with some sauteed garlic-olive oil broccoli and wheat spiral noodles) to celebrate the arrival of my new sofa. I put a picture of her on Flickr. *sighs of joy*

Through the evening's conversation I realized that I now have three items of clothing that I will probably never wear again because they've been challenged beyond their elastic limits (so, uh, we're talking about the plastic deformation region if you were to plot stress vs strain of the fabric? uh ah what's going on - I totally just dorked out, and yes, I have a fully functioning "delete" button but I'm choosing to let you all laugh at me instead like I just did for thinking that). Those items include two red dresses that Andy borrowed for the Red Dress Hash 2 weeks before Katrina (sponsored by some running club, men and women get up in red dresses and race through the French quarter, stopping to get the beer that is handed out along the way instead of water) and my Old Navy pink flowered tie-back low-cut cotton shirt that Chris swapped me for exactly a week ago. And by "swapped" I do mean that I was then wearing his black and some other colors stripped button down. Sexy.

I took the day off work to get the sofa, and while waiting for it to arrive around 2pm, I WASHED MY ENTIRE FRIDGE. AND FREEZER. Have you ever washed an entire appliance before? Have you?

It didn't so much smell as the entire floor of the fridge was COVERED WITH SMALL BLACK BUGS. Gnats/flies/ebola carriers, whatever you want to call them, they decided to move into my house, live it up on my rotting cream cheese, have nasty gnat sex on every shelf of my fridge -- I'll give it to 'em for doing it on all the vertical AND horizontal surfaces -- and then all DIE. I was hoping that once I had taken the FOUR HOURS to clean out the mass grave that was my food preservation unit, there would be peace in my world. The bugs would stay outside and I would stay inside. We'd respect each other's space. By God, these 4 walls are all I've got -- you bugs have limitless boundaries on places to pester other people!

But no. No, no, no. All that wild bug fornication was clearly fruitful because post-cleanup I am once again the owner of a very cold cemetary that also happens to be a conveniently cold storage box. And I'm boycotting cleaning it again because I know those bugs probably did it like unprotected monkeys before dying a very cold, but sexually satisfied, death. So there. Tommers says that so long as I stop leaving plates of raw, spongiform-infected beef around I should be ok. Damn.

Luckily my resident mold friends were much more cooperative in their eviction today. I mixed my first ever bucket of bleach and water to disinfect the few spots around the house that were growing a thin layer of fuzzy, greenish-black mold. It was really satisfying to wipe that sponge over a particularly hairy spot and see it dissolve in seconds. I felt hardcore, too, with my yellow PPE kitchen gloves on. HSE, wha what?! (hehe that's Health Safety and Environment for my non-work friends out there, and PPE is Personal Protective Equipment. I think.)

In driving around today, the mounds of trash started to blend into the fabric of the landscape, and I didn't feel as depressed by how somber everything looked. Maybe it's because I had just fought my own battle against death (those gnat hussies!) and done a little of my own destroying (take that mold, mildew, and soap scum!); at the same time, though, I don't want to lose my sensitivity to the uniqueness of what's going on. It's becoming precariously normal. I filed for my homestead exemption today. And drilled some exploratory wells in my wall where the paint has bubbled up. Normal.

I'd also like to mention that I've had NPR on since I got home at 4:30 today, which means that for the past 2 hours Tom and I, and then just me, listened to classical music. In my grown up house. aaaaa!! Have I mentioned how much I love having a couch? To lounge on while stealing my neighbor's unsecured wireless internet access (I probably shouldn't write that here, huh?) and listening to *ahhhh* classical music. I have arrived.... :)

2005-10-19T21:41:00.000-06:00

Do you ever feel that your life is just a fulfillment of someone else's perceptions?

2005-10-19T20:19:00.000-06:00

I don't know whether it was seeing the siding torn off the Comfort Inn I stayed at in June when I visited New Orleans to look for condos, or if it was the sheer overwhelming emotion of the entire strange situation, but with every mile that brought me closer to home I was brought closer to tears. This all actually happened.

It seems as though everyone is faking normalcy and I just want to scream from my car window, "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE? WHY ARE YOU BUYING CANDY AT THE CVS WHEN THERE ARE TEN REFRIGERATORS ON THE CORNER AND NATIONAL GAURDSMEN WITH RIFLES AND HEAPS OF ROTTEN LUMBER AND BLUE TARPS EVERYWHERE?"

The past 6 weeks have been a redundant lesson in how life won't wait for me to be ready for it. First, my mom had surgery to make sure she didn't have cancer. Next, Hurricane Katrina destroyed any sort of feeling of "home" I had so desperately tried to create. Then Jody told me he wanted to put me in the back of a metaphorical filing cabinet, easily accessible when needed for a sweet memory, before telling me a week later that he has a new girlfriend. I was angry at myself for being upset, because I broke up with him. I should be ambivalent. I should be happy, or at least happy tinged with bittersweet-ness, that he is feeling better. But I should not have felt as utterly lost and hopeless and racked with sobs in the Learning Center bathroom because he decided to officially move on from the only thing I've ever known. I know I've tried to build a new reality in the past 4 months, one that is independent and free and unemotional, but it still hurts in that really, really deep part of your heart -- the part that you know there's nothing you can ever do to change. It hurts in that kind of way that makes you curl your fists and want to scream. It hurts in that kind of way that you feel like your heart is literally digging its way out of your chest with a dull soup spoon.

So I just pushed it away, the confusion and tears over lost love, lost city, and lost time, until it's easier. But it's not easier yet and everyday when I leave work I wish I had something to go home to -- some cheer other than the still-life flowers I bought Sunday with the hopes that their life would remind me that I'm still apart of the living when surrounded by the stench of the stagnant sorrow of a broken city. I can only drown in mindless MTV for so long.

It's hard to have hope when you can see, not 100 yards away, the wide hole that caused the massive flooding that ruined the city; it's hard to have hope when you feel like you won't ever be in love with your soul mate again; it's hard to have hope when you feel yourself treading water in a pool with no edges and no stairs. It's hard to have hope when geography keeps you from hopeful things like friends and

At work I can only think of 2 things when I'm not distracted by flowmeters, MOCs, and SAP, and one of them is how to escape the fog of depression that hangs over everything south of the Lake for a little while -- but I haven't worked here long enough to try to request an assignment internationally, and as much as the area sucks right now, I don't want to feel like I'm somehow quiting or escaping. I know that I'll get used to being in this different, more subdued New Orleans, eventually.

In the meantime, I've got a trip to Atlanta in a week and 2 days -- oh the awkwardness, I can't wait -- and my first Thanksgiving to learn to cook a turkey for, and a certain Intellectual Advisor to call back :)

Oh, and the rest of my European Adventure was everything I could have hoped for (or everything Danny and Hanson hoped for, anyway). I had a great time, and since my last posting visited Berlin and Gronengin. Maybe more on that later; it's hard to think that I was there less than a week ago. How does this dismal "rebuilding" area suck you in so much?

I listened to Michael Buble driving around Metairie to get my mail for the first time and see what everything looked like, and this particular part of a song struck a chord:

"And I feel just like I’m living someone else’s life
It’s like I just stepped outside
When everything was going right
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
But this was not your dream
But you always believed in me"

...addition 15 minutes later....

Listen to this if you didn't hear it on Monday's All Things Considered: a great commentary on poverty and a similar sentiment to my lamentations about ... post-Katrina aid donations.

So I also just realized that my 22nd birthday came and went without any great, stereotypical Jen over-analysis. Sitting in the Grand Winston Canteen the week before my birthday, I tried to enumerate the great milestones of the last year of my life, and all I could think of to jot down was a list of places I'd been. How can a year of my life be characterized most aptly with a mere list of geographical locations? I want to immediately spring to mind the mental trips I've taken, the geography of my moral, ethical, and emotional map that I've plotted in the past year. I finally got brave enough to admit I could go to the CC and challenged my confidence. What good books have I read in the past year, aside from The Bomb in My Garden, about Iraq's nuclear weapons program (that stopped, according the the book anyway, a long long time before Bush's invasion)?

I'm too tired now to think. Goodnight world. And friends, I promise I'll be a real person again soon and call.

2005-10-14T09:40:00.000-06:00

The dread I feel at this instant for leaving Rijswijk and EP00 and this university-holiday-escapee setting is at least moderately tempered by the fact that for the first time, "returning home" doesn't mean parent-filled Florida. It means the calm and relaxing caverns of my own home. My own home in a state in which I have 1 girl friend and enough guy friends to require both hands to count. I won't be immediately bombarded with the returning-home standard inquisition: how was it? tell me all the details in a brief overview all at once. I know you're leaving out juicy details, young lady. Not wanting to talk about the five weeks that just passed because I want time to process them myself first, to distill my own confusions and contemplations and analyses into a comprehendable, compact review for others. I want to relish in the small, nonsense things that made the trip for me, to wallow in the small funnies that aren't worth telling other people who weren't there before losing them and their freshness and the emotional reaction they spark. I want to be selfish with my memories, to make them concrete, before I share.

2005-09-26T12:54:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking this since this morning when I checked my email and wanted to send a big shout out to my 207 hommies and my Jonny -- you guys can't possibly know how much I really enjoyed (and needed) to read your sentiments this morning. There's something special in being reminded so plainly that you have a personality, a life outside of your current situation. That even as you grow because of the situation you're surrounded by, it's still possible to carry along yourself -- your real self that you know is there somewhere, even if being shy around new people can bury it a little -- and your friends and your shared experiences to that new situation. After 48 hours with 3 guys oogling women and going on and on and on about boobs and butt and hottness and drooling over anything with two legs that looks like it's older than 10 years old, it's hard to maintain a sense of self worth, let alone a sense of being a woman as more than an object. Granted, they are nice guys and I know some of it was in jest and they were "exposing the real guy" to me (like that hasn't already been done), it still seemed different (more overt and sexist, maybe? comments made with less respect, maybe?) this weekend. Like I told them at dinner last night, it becomes necessary for me to build a wall up inside to make sure that I don't absorb too much of their mindset and lose my own opinions of myself and what's important. I also don't want to walk about from these 6 weeks never being able to trust a guy again since I've known plenty of sex-crazed ones who are still respectful, decent people.

But anyway, the point of this post is just to say thank you for making me remember (it's nice to be reminded often) how much I love my friends, who they are, and who they encourage me to be. You guys inspire me. You guys make me want to be kinder and more thoughtful. There's just nothing like feeling overwhelming, pure caring for someone else that's not shadowed by selfish ulterior motives.

So yea. Thanks. :)

2005-09-20T10:20:00.000-06:00

Dear Bloggy,

Alright world, why didn't someone tell me before how difficult travel in Europe is? I was always under the impression, during my previous trists through the continent that I could get anywhere, with many different modes of transportation, at the drop of a hat. But I am quickly learning that either something has changed in the last four years since I was last here, or else I am trying to bludgeon my head against a wall instead of trying to search for plane tickets and train passes. Or, realistically, I suppose it could be because of this little festival called "Oktoberfest" that everyone else in the civilized world appears to have made arrangements to go to at least 3 years ago. Who would have thought it'd be so frustrating trying to plan a trip from little ol' Rijswijk to Munich? Who?

*sigh*

This weekend it looks like I'll be traveling with a group of four guys to this city in Germany known for its forumula one racetrack, that lets you drive your own car on it for a fee. If you know me, then you know that "Jen" and "fast cars" and "Formula One" go hand-in-hand. Clearly. ha.

No, it's actually that I prefer to travel somewhere new, a place that I haven't been before, even if there's not much there that I'm super interested in, than sit by myself in a hotel -- plus, I don't feel comfortable traveling to a new city completely by myself (it just doesn't seem safe) and when you're in a class with 24 men (there are 3 of us women) and only around 7 of us are free to travel on the weekends (there's some crazy beaurocracy of when the company pays for your hotel and meals on the weekends depending on your "home" country -- which could be different from where you're from, where you live, and where you work), I feel like it's bound to happen that I'm going to get suckered into doing very manly things.

Which brings me to the gripe I mentioned yesterday, a gripe that isn't really fair to harp on and one which Tom is being driven crazy with whenever I talk about it (really, I don't talk about it that much. Seriously!): the incredibly slanted, worse-than-Tech male/female ratio. It's insane that I am experiencing a 1:9 ratio. 1:9!! ONE TO NINE!! It's no lie that I really do feel like I've learned to become moderately androgyneous to fit in with the group of MEN that I find myself with ALL DAY. Don't get me wrong - I really like men - they can be great people, good friends, fun....uhh... right, so it's more of this feeling of not being able to really relate with anyone on a different level, one that's emotional and touchy-feely. Men avoid those levels, for the most part, and it seems to take a woman to be able to have a discussion with a relative stranger about ooy-gooey things. I MISS OOY-GOOEY THINGS. It's gotten so bad that this past weekend when I was in Amsterdam with a group of 4 guys plus another 10 or so we met up with in the city for dinner Saturday night, I felt like I was flirting with one of the guy's girlfriends just to have a conversation with her! The situation made Tom and I crack up. We joked about shelling out the cash for me to buy a you-know in the red light district for the conversation for me. ha. ha.

Seriously, my heart swells when I talk to another woman - I'm immediately like --- AAAA I don't know how to relate anymore but I really, really want to because you can understand me and we can talk about shoes and shirts and guys and how much we like puppies and kitties! I also feel like my uber-competitive side is coming out because in order to survive in this man's world you have to constantly, repeatedly prove yourself to the rest of the group. "That's right I'm man enough!" BUT I'M NOT A MAN! Yet I still succumb to various challenges (I admit, they are kind of fun. And it is kind of fun to ignore the softer parts of life, pretend like feelings and etiquette don't matter, you know - think like a man) like who can drink 1.5 liters of water faster, who can drink 7 beers at the Heineken Experience, who can stand in the turn-y part of the tram (where the two cars are connected by accordian-style plastic things) while going around curves and remain standing without holding on to something.... you get the idea. Still, I'm looking forward to (I might even say, craving) being treated like a woman again. Being complimented, having doors held open for me, having someone think I am sweet and gentle. (Ok, they probably think I'm sweet and I guess I've never really been graceful or into male chivalry....I just want more of a middle ground instead of this masculine extreme environment!). I've even had their stereotypical thought processes invade my own in the past few days -- I find myself thinking about sex and sexual things every 3 minutes! Maybe it was the whole being in Amsterdam and watching the free 24 hour porn with the group (how excited do you think THEY were?!) and going to the sex museum there (good thing it was only 2.5euros) and the red light district....

*sigh* plus now I've used waaaaay to many ellipses in this post, something I am ashamed of because I like to be able to finish my thoughts definitely - I should be able to - with a simple period. *double sigh*

I feel much better having gotten THAT rant out of the way, so that poor Tom didn't have to listen to it AGAIN. For posterity's sake and my ability to look back on this and remember the special details of my experience here that will likely fade away in the next few months as I figure my life out again in New Orleans, I'm going to recap what the past almost-two-weeks have been like. First of all, the plane ride was INCREDIBLE. First class on a transatlantic flight with your own fold-out seat pod thing that gives you massages and toasts bread (ok it doesn't really toast bread) and individual tvs with on-demand movies easily made the trip worthwhile. And it was only 7 hours worth of my trip! I watched the movie Crash, which I really, really liked, and was inspired to write down some thoughts on racism and poverty and how to change the world, which I'm going to try to post here when I get some time. (again, for personal posterity's sake.) When the course started, our first task was to get ourselves from Rijswijk to Nadrin, in the Ardennes in Belgium, by 9am the following morning (we started around 2 pm Friday and had a bunch of tasks to do along the way, kind of like a world traveler's scavenger hunt, with only a certain amount of money that they gave us). I rode a random woman's rickety old bike in Den Haag (the Hague) next to the parliament building, painted a face mask on a train to Brussels, and slept on the cold, hard floor of a random carpark (parking lot) in some small (read: TINY. as in, one baker, one church, two hotels, NO TAXIS) town 20 minutes away from Nadrin. I refused to pee on this parking lot like the boys all did (again, I was the only girl in the 7 person group) and luckily one of the hotels in the town let me pee in their lobby. In the restroom of their lobby, that is. It was TONS of fun - I had a blast and there's nothing like an incredible journey to bond a group. In Nadrin, we stayed at the sort of place you would have a corporate or school retreat at -- bunk beds, greenery, middle of no where -- and did some projects related to working well in teams and chellenging yourself. Again, tons of fun. I went bike riding several times through the countryside surrounding Nadrin (essentially, I was biking the Ardennes! aaa!) and talked to the sheep (I have quite a "baaaaa!"), I went abseiling (repelling of a 40m sheer face mountain), did a ropes course (the one where you climb a 10m pole and jump off of it and try to catch a trapeze swing thing), drank a lot (the company buys tons of beer and wine to stock the place up for everyone), and had an all around wonderful time.

Since returning to Rijswijk, class has been bearable (interesting, with mostly sufficient lecturers). They give us lots of breaks throughout the day, the food and coffee is good, and we process alot of the information by doing mini sessions of group work. It's amazing to see how much of a "typical" person the company looks for there is - you can quite easily identify a common trait in all of us what it is that makes us employees and why we were chosen to work here, regardless of where we're from, what country we work in, and what discipline we work in. I mean that in a good way, because there are definitely plenty of things that define us as separate individuals, too.

Time to meet some friends for dinner. More soon!

Love, Jen

2005-09-19T00:57:00.000-06:00

I'm alive! I heart Rijswiick, the Netherlands, and Europe in general (but we already knew that, didn't we?).

More to come later; off to class now.

Question: has anyone else had the experience of being around so many men for so many days that you start to feel as though you've become androgynous and have no feminity left? I'll explain later...

2005-09-03T19:35:00.000-06:00

GO JACKETS!! STING AUBURN!!

It's only the first quarter right now, but we're winning and it's as exciting as it is bittersweet. For the first time I'm not at a game, it's not because I'm swamped with homework or couldn't afford the trip out of Georgia. For the first time when I care about college football, I'm no longer a collegian. I don't want to be shut out from a Fall of chips, dip, and beer. *tear*

The enormity of Katrina's effects is finally starting to sink in. Before, I convinced myself that the news media was just highlighting the worst, most drastic and made-for-tv parts of town (Biloxi looks like a lumber scrap yard) to dramatize the issue, that it wasn't really that bad and people were overexaggerating the damage. I was horrified when people started to compare this rinky-dink hurricane and people's conscious decisions to ignore the many warnings to leave, seek shelter, stockpile food and water (of course no one deserves something like this to happen to them, but I'll be crass and say that it is harder to have sympathy for the people airlifted out of their flooded houses when you know they were forewarned) to the tsunami. The tsunami. Seriously, comparing an event that was tracked for weeks prior to its arrival in New Orleans to one that materialized in a matter of minutes? Comparing an event that struck a first-world nation in which even the poorest people still had cable and electricity to lose to an agrarian, mud-thatch-hut nation ravaged by more water than Lake Ponchetrain contains when it's full? Comparing an event that is estimated to result in 50,000 deaths across several states to one that took the lives of more than 200,000?? Such ill-suited comparisons seem to rob the tsunami, its victims, and its survivors of ... something.

But now, now I'm starting to see the severity (though I still think it's wrong to be compared to the tsunami). Starting to see why so many friends have called and emailed to make sure I'm out of the swamp. Starting to see why people are flooding the Red Cross with donations. I'm very conflicted and confused and angry and guilty feeling, still, though; maybe it's a combination of guilt for not feeling the call to give and contribute aid (mom says that's because I'm one of the victims, so I shouldn't feel the need to give when I still don't know if or how much I'll have to pay to rebuild) or guilt for feeling like I'm faking being a victim when I'm blessed enough to have the means to rebuild whenever the city lets me start, or because I know I have so many places to go if I need, so many caring friends and my family. So I feel like I should care more, have more compassion for what's going on. But I don't and I can't fake it. It's a natural disaster. It happened. It sucks. But it only ruined material things, and oftentimes I wonder if America is too materialistic to begin with. It sucks people died, are dying, and more will perish before this is "over," but we're in America with American drugs and hospitals and care takers, meaning that the number of dead is much, much, MUCH less than it could be or would have been if this had happened in any other place in the world. Maybe I'm just optimistic to a fault.

If only I were still at Tech (but then I wouldn't be touched by this disaster quite like I am; or maybe then I'd care more), there'd be easy ways to gather people to donate things like school books or shoes or pens and paper for the displaced kids to continue to learn while they're stuck in various domed sports venues. If it even matters...it's hard to put faith in the good of donating when there's no clear plan for where that money is going, how, and on what time frame. It's the same as my struggle with how you help the women being raped in the Sudan - the scope of the problem is just so so so big, how can you ever feel like your $5 or your 2 page letter to the government makes any sort of ding, let alone a dent? I do see the unexplainable hypocrisy in the way my own mind works, though, since I somehow feel like whatever my small efforts are to "save the environment" matter in some grander scheme.

I want to help in a personal way, a way I feel connected to and that will help someone or some way I can identify with. Like the Salvation Army - I wish I still had the name and contact info of the guy my senior design group worked with at the SA when we helped redesign their mobile kitchen canteens (the trucks used to deliver hot meals to disaster relief workers). I would love to donate specifically to that effort, to that effort that I've seen and understand and know the good it really does. Giving to some nebulous Red Cross coffers just won't make me sleep better at night convincing myself I've "done something."

I don't know.

I hate that tomorrow I'm going to spend money to "replace" a bunch of stuff I'll need in Europe that I didn't take with me when I evacuated (when we left Saturday, we all honestly thought we'd be back in NO by Thursday at the latest) but that I'm betting is perfectly dry and good back in my house. I hate wasting money, especially under these circumstances when it could be used for so many better things. I guess my classmates will appreciate it if I buy some toothpaste, though.

Goodnight, soggy and troubled but "turning the bend" world.

2005-09-02T13:37:00.000-06:00

+alive - check
+healthy - check
+family - check
+friends - check

To everyone who called, emailed, messaged, prayed, thought, and hoped: thank you. Thank you so very, very much. Hearing your voices, reading your words, and knowing you were thinking of me have been bright spots in this otherwise dismal and frustrating situation.

Anyone reading this most likely knows more than I do about what's been going on in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit Monday - since evacuating Saturday my only source of information has been the rumor mill broadcast on CNN and the slightly more credible phone tree of my fellow displaced employees. My mom managed to zoom in on some satellite photos published by CNN which show my house with its roof still attached and no appreciable amount of standing water. Thankfully, I live on the western side of the 17th street canal and the levee for the canal broke on the eastern side. This means that barring any broken windows, and since I'm on the second floor, my house should be okay. This is also hoping that no one has broken in and looted my home. More importantly, I'm ok and the rest of the people I know in New Orleans are ok, so the material stuff is just secondary.

My heart does go out to the people I've seen on CNN like the rest of you, the people with no means to escape like I did. In the wake of this water catastrophe, though, a spotlight has been shone on a great hypocrisy of America: we only seem to care about the poor when we just can't ignore them anymore, when the circumstances make our normally turned eyes inhumane and when we are forced to make up for our past transgressions with hyperbole. We advertise with great fanfare and relish our deepest commitments to helping those less fortunate, we donate, we give supplies and time and it's needed and wonderful and helps. In these situations, I know the sincerity of the giving doesn't matter because it's simply people in need getting help. But still, I'm skeptical to applaud those helping when I want to know why the people they're helping had to get wet, drenched, and surrounded by lots of wind in order for them to show their care with tangible help. All those people at the Superdome were poor 7 days ago, had nothing 7 days ago, dealt with rape, homicide, theft 7 days ago, but no one cared then. It's only now, when their desperate situations are impossible to ignore because they're floating in the streets and insanely robbing Walmart that we reach out.

Please do reach out, help, that's great. But when the water has receded and you're able to go about your daily lives without being reminded by CNN that there are people starving and homeless, help more - that's when I'll applaud and know the world really does care.

Amid disaster, we still have the right to rant, right? :)

I flew into Ft. Lauderdale from Houston last night, where I'll be staying with my parents until Wednesday. Sept 7 I'm flying to the Netherlands to begin my previously-scheduled 6 week training course that will acquaint me with the ins-and-outs of the business. This means that I won't be able to return to my house in LA until late October, if even then -- hopefully the airport will be open by then. Since there's not much for me to do here, anyway, I'm kind of glad for this brief repreive, for something to do other than worry and wonder.

I'm going to try to keep this updated, and would like to sit down and process everything Katrina-related tonight or tomorrow... it still hasn't sunk in quite what's happened since I've been living a whirlwind of half-priced Astro's games, free Coldstone (it's amazing what you get for being a refugee in Houston), and games and games of shufflecock that make it feel like I just took a week's vacation in the most freeway-laced city in the world....Plus, I just watched The Notebook with my mom (I read the book, too) and it reminded me that everyone has a tragedy in their life, some great, epic moment that defines a transition or entire lifetime. I haven't figured out what mine is, if it's even happened yet. I'm sure that for some people, this past week will be their great defining tragedy. There's always sweetness in the resolution of a tragedy, though, and I just hope that my hurricane-hit brethren will be able to find that sweetness sooner rather than later. And I hope I'll be able to help when I return, in a way that might really matter. ...Ahh, another great confusion in my mind about the value of the different types of help and why it matters - you give money and it doesn't change your life, you don't really have to think about the sadness of the people you're "helping" but if it does help them, does it matter? Or to truly help and feel like you've helped, do you have to feel some measure of sadness or forfeit, too, some type of hands on help? Do you have to do it for some "right" reason .... Plus, thoughts on the way friendships and human relationships are effected by disasters and why.....Not to mention, do you think you can only have one great love in your life? And like tragedy, is there any way other than retrospect to know it?

Well, for now I'm dry and though slightly stressed about the next few months of my life, excited about the challenges they will bring and the landscape for memories they'll provide. Thank you again, friends, for expressing your caring. I'm already looking forward to seeing you Atl-ians at homecoming (provided I can fly out of New Orleans then).

2005-08-23T13:20:00.000-06:00

The water's playful blue hue belied the purpose of my visit. Normally those light ripples and slow current would welcome my sweating body into its expanse, but from 120 feet above the surface and with seemingly shark-sized barracuda circling for lunch below, there was going to be no frolicking in dewy sea spray for me.

Instead, this trip had a singular purpose: to acquaint me to a tension leg platform (TLP) and do a little hands-on exploring to bring some knowledge and ideas back to the office for some projects I'm working on. For my friends not in the oil industry, a TLP is considered a boat by Coast Guard rules -- it is essentially a floating platform that pulls a mix of oil and gas out of deep wells (I was in around 1700 feet of water I think), processes the mix, and sends the separated oil and gas to shore via miles and miles of pipelines. It. Was. Awesome.

I wanted to laugh at myself and my dorkiness, because one of my first thoughts when disembarking from the helicopter and descending the sturdy metal stairs to one of the many levels of machinery, whirs, and humming, was, "Wow. I'm so glad I happened into mechanical engineering in college. This is sooooooo cool."

I think I would have squealed if my better judgement hadn't told me it'd be inappropriate and possibly delete all of my professional validity with the burly, 200 lb + men that inhabitat the platform for 14 days at a time.

The little pieces of information I've slooowly picked up in the past 3 weeks finally CLICKED in a great way yesterday and today; my vocabulary is becoming such that I can have a full conversation with someone that actually means something technical and productive, without using phrases like, "that thing he referred to when he mentioned the thing with the pressure and the valve? That thing? Know which one I'm talking about?" Luckily the people I work with are really good at what they do, so up to now they've been able to decipher my idiot-speak. But now, I really think I might be able to explain to someone what it is that I do, and, even better, how hydrocarbon production in the Gulf actually works. Well, basically, anyway. And I might still have to throw in a few, "You know, that pressure and valve thingie with the pipe?"

I'm already itching to go back offshore, where the work I do takes on a pertinance and importance that's lost in an office miles from the production. Granted, it was a little strange being one of two, yes TWO, women on a platform with 120 people on board at the time, but no one treated me any differently, and I'm starting to get used to being a rarity.

Nighttime was lonely; everyone gets 15 minutes a day to make personal calls and it's sad when you don't know who to use your 15 minutes to call. Sure, I've got friends but it seems less important to call to shoot the shit for 15 minutes with an old friend when you know everyone else is saving their 15 minutes for a wife or child. Even so, I'd be willing to suffer the sadness of the lonely times for the mental stimulation and excitement of the day's work, not to mention the beauty of the surroundings. Every once in a while, I found myself staring through the metal grates below my feet into the mesmerizing, too-pretty-for-Crayola-to-capture-and-name blue of the ocean. I couldn't get over the fact that, here I was. In the middle of the ocean. Doing engineering stuff. In the Ocean. The smile that escaped my lips forced me to laugh at myself and the speed with which I felt at home. I saw bilges and thought of the time I helped my dad pump the bilge on Physalia (the sailboat I lived on). I saw the sun, and thought of how many times I had ridden against the rails at the very front of the bow as Physalia slowly sliced through the Atlantic's waters, me leaning into the future over those rails, urging the boat to go quicker, quicker over the dark blue to catch my happy heart that was leaping in front of us, 10 knots faster than the sails could carry our fiberglass hull.

2005-08-21T19:39:00.000-06:00

Thankfully, I didn't get into an accident today on my drive home from the gym while I frantically scribbled this on a piece of orange paper I had brought along expressly for the purpose of recording my raw thoughts after a tough phone conversation earlier.

It hurts to hurt someone. I just broke someone's heart, again. I re-broke it. And I'm worried that things won't ever be the same. I mean, I know that "things are never the same," inevitably; life's uncompromising progression rejects the stagnation I need to dissect, understand my reaction and I worry that there aren't any words left that can salve re-opened wounds and I worry about not being able to fix things. I hate not being able to fix things because we're all people and can communicate and things should be able to be fixed. They should be able to be fixed.

I'm a five year old child, head cocked quizzically to the side, belligerently questioning my mom why things have to hurt. Why does life have to be so achingly sad sometimes, and why is so much of that sadness caused by flitting words, tossed carelessly into the space between two people with mismatched understandings? And why can't these weightless words ever be taken back, why is it that their very transience is what makes them indelible? We're all just people. Can't we just see that, see the other's eyes and mouth and ears and cheeks and stray hairs and know that we mess things up, we say the wrong things and sometimes the right ones and it's all okay because we're the same species connecting, reaffirming our own humanity and existance in a gigantic, lonely world?

The truth might be evading me, slowly seeping out of my ignorant mind, sneaking away as my heart pretends it's okay - NO! I'm not lonely, not sad! I'm slipping back into forgetting what it's like to feel real - no, to feel anything but excited or happy; I'm going back to being afraid to feel if it's not good because I'm scared I won't be able to handle it. I'll revel in it too much, I'll sink into enjoying desolation. In "protecting" myself I'm losing sight of myself, I know.

I'm afraid of failing at being alone.

I'm afraid of crying too much and not knowing why and so not knowing how to stop and so I don't think and don't cry when all I really want is to pound my fists against your chest and bawl and tell you that I love you. I know it will feel good to taste my Independent Tears.

Yesterday Jonathan asked me if I ever think about being forgotten, and at the time I said no. But in the past 24 hours I've begun to wonder what my marks have been, are, or will be. This is the greatest test of being alone; I feel rushed to validate my existence to another person, to be given some affirmation that I matter somewhere to someone, even if I know it in my mind. Perhaps that is one the most magnetic draws to being in a romantic relationship - knowing that more often than not throughout a day, someone else is consciously aware of your existance in the world.

I'm scared for my mom, and I'm scared that I'm losing my conviction; I don't want to be scared back into a strong faith. I can't help feeling like a hypocrit.

I hate sounding like an emotionally bypolar psycho here, bloggy, with happy posts followed by equally tearful ones. I never meant for this to be anything more than a journal, though, and my written words are always an exacerbation of reality. Jason Mraz wrote in his journal thing (found randomly online), "the great thing about the shows for me, is how I can stand on stage and work out my problems. That's the moment where everything makes sense to me. Like if there's somebody that I need to say something to, but I can't tell them face to face, I know how to say it on stage....Because honestly when I get on stage, it's almost as if a mirror is put up in front of me, and I'm able to look at myself, and see exactly how I want. Exactly how I want to live. Exactly where I want to go. Who I wanna be. Ya know?"

That's how I feel when I'm writing.

I agree with this too, "There's a seed inside all of us, we're all put on this earth, I believe, for one specific purpose. Whether it's to teach someone something, or learn something from someone, or to say one particular thing at one particular point in their lives which sets off a chain of events that affects the world. Whatever it is we are here for that, and we all know what it is, or how to get to it. And, I hope I can be some type of link in that chain of events that will hopefully put a smile on everyone's face before our time is up. Because that's the inevitable. We need to, I don't know what we need to do. (laughs). I don't know what everyone needs to do. But I know what I need to do and I'm happy."

I'm still searching for what I need to do. Until then, I'm just going to keep trying to put a smile on someone else's face even if all I want inside is for mine to be tear-stained.

....Quick addition a little after I first posted this. I was reading Mandy's livejournal and learned that Erich's in jail. For grand theft auto and possession of cocaine. I don't know quite what I think, other than that my reaction was intense sadness for life's cruelty: the crazy way peoples' lives cross, meeting for only instants on a macroscopic scale, but still define so crisply a certain phase of that life. I haven't seen Erich in 4? years now -- he and Mandy (my best friend from middle school through the beginning of college, and someone I still think about all the time, but that's a whole other story about my inability to maintain friendships) dated for a little more than three (I think) years in high school and college -- but immediately thought back to the time I went as moral support with Mandy to a narcotics anonymous family/friends support group meeting while Erich was at his NA meeting (I think that's what they were called) and how much Erich's drug use affected her and their relationship (how could it not?). He was such a normal guy in high school, in the sense that it was "normal" for the people around me to be recreational drug users, but then he was one of the kids who never stopped when he finished school. He had a good family, both parents, all the stuff "they" say will produce a productive citizen. So why is he now sitting in a Broward County jail cell? I know he has no idea I'm thinking of him right now (I wonder if he even remembers me) -- I don't even know what I'm thinking other than, man, that sucks, and, why? Why you? Why anyone like or not like you? How do people's lives diverge so drastically? Why?

Erich, your shirt is pulled to the side and your face is older, but I look at your drugged out eyes and I still see, or want to see, the same boy that made my best friend the happiest - and saddest - I ever saw her. Why? Why?

......Another addition:

Interestingly, I am the 33rd site that comes up on Yahoo when you search "awesome jugs." This reminds me of today's Dooce entry.

2005-08-19T09:11:00.001-06:00

Upside down map of the Gulf of Mexico and calendar

Upside down moniter, key board, mouse, chair on desk

More upside-downness

My hardhat! Upside down!

A prankster hit my office while I was in lots of meetings this week. Apparently it happens to everyone at some point, getting your office turned upside down. The sad thing is, when I first walked into my office, I thought "Oh, maybe the ergonomics guy was here and is bringing me new furniture!" (because I had an erg audit earlier in the week and it was decided I was going to get some new equipment, including a roll-y ball mouse)

But no, Silly Gullible Jenny, you were had. It was HILARIOUS. The attention to detail is incredible; the job was done quite thoroughly. I commend the deviants for their quality. Most everything is back upright now (it was hard to use the flipped over moniter and mouse; I tried though), except for the dry erase board wipe-off juice and the picture of the sailboat (which was already in the office before I got there, thank you very much).

Which is why, when yesterday both the guy who works in the office across the hall from me and myself walked out of our offices at the same time and he said to me, "You know, sailboats usually work best the other way," I said, "I know. But I kind of like it better this way."

(oh, and notice the awesome-ness of having a camera phone now! what what?!)

Work has really picked up in the last few days, I've got new projects and am going offshore Monday-Tuesday. My first helicopter ride! Aaaa! I'm so excited :)

Plus, how could work be bad when I spend the majority of my time laughing -- or trying to laugh silently (you know, where you kind of rock up and down in your chest, trying to hold the peals of giggles inside) and letting a few yelps escape.