spammers

Okay, I mean come on. Who invents these names that show up in my bulk folder?

Today a guy named Castillo Harvey sent me a spam. Then there was Napoleon Huddleston and apparently his brother Jarold Huddleston who both wanted to tell me about tickets they say I'm being billed for.

Who has names like this? Who even invents names like this?

Ridiculous.

In other news, as the Auction nears, I'm surprisingly calm. I had a meltdown week last week, and my favorite guy friends were insanely nice and supportive, and this week when I'm doing fine they don't seem quite to know what to do with me. We've hung out and had good times, but sometimes they just seem...puzzled. "So, you're doing okay?" "Oh yeah, I'm doing fine now. Everyone says things are coming together well, so I decided to believe them." "Oh...good -- that's good." (Maybe they think I'm an insane woman, freaking out one week and blithely fine the next.)

But the thing is that the meltdowns tend to be few and far between. Ordinarily, I'm really fine. Sometimes I half-wish I were consistently broken, just because it seems to motivate men so much to try to make it better, to be there, and they make the greatest companions. And I grant you that I'm pretty lonely. But I can't fake that I'm doing poorly, when I'm usually doing fairly well.

I'm not sorry I'm doing well; I was broken for awhile, and I don't miss it. I do wish that I could find a way to be close to men without having big problems for them to try to fix. My only big problem is that I'm lonely and want someone to share life with, day by day. But how do you tell someone that? (Although I'm starting to.) So, usually when they ask how I'm doing, I say, "Fine -- yeah, everything's fine."

When it's kind of not...I mean, my life is great. I have a great job, great cat, great apartment, great friends, and I really feel like I'm settling in. But I keep coming back to the bare, bald fact that when I consider what I most want in life, it's a family. And I have no control over acquiring one. I have to wait.

But even with the frustration, the loneliness, the yearning, the hunger for intimacy in all its forms, I'm still not broken. And often that seems to drive the good men away. Like I don't need them. When I do need them. Not to fix me, not to save me, not to complete me; but to live alongside me and love me and see me.

Bah, it feels corny to be complaining about it. It'll happen, when I'm not clutching for it. I know this.

So it's a matter of cultivating contentment, a matter of time, and a matter of enjoying the people I know right now, while I have them. Everything will fall into place eventually. Everyone says so, so I think I'll believe them. (Because "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.")

Right?

Right.

overwork and odd bumps

I put in about 65 hours last week.

The next couple of weeks leading up to the auction are going to consume my life. This isn't of course bad -- it's like a strange combination of production week and finals week -- but I'm going to be exhausted by the end. The night itself will, I think, be quite fun.

Poor Simon spends so much time alone that he goes primordially insane when I walk through the door. He tears around the house making brrrrrrrt! noises and leaping out from behind furniture to bat madly at my ankles when I walk past. Lately our favorite game when I'm getting ready for bed involves him ferociously attacking my hands through the shower curtain while he sits in the bathtub. (When he sees the bare skin of my hands, however, he immediately desists and rubs against my fingers and starts purring.)

And I have this odd lump on the back of one of my vertebrae -- it doesn't seem to be attached to the bone, is slightly squishy, and hurts like hell, probably because I've been performing contortionist exercises to prod at it. My acupuncturist says it looks like a fatty nodule and needs an eye kept on it.

I'm freaked out and scared. What is it and why is it there? Is it dangerous? Should I get it looked at? What if I need some major surgery? What if it's cancer? Why does it hurt so much?

Prayer, please. I know I may be a little of an alarmist, but when it comes to my health, I really really like things to be normal. And this isn't normal.

new things

This week kicks off our "Biggest Loser" competition among the staff at work. Twelve people are participating, and there's a nice reward pot for whoever wins.

I'm excited to do this. Now, I know I don't techincally have a weight problem, but I've been steadily putting on the pounds over the past year, and I don't like it. I know with absolute confidence that I will not win the "Biggest Loser" prize, but I look forward to the camaraderie of working with other people to establish healthy patterns of eating and excercise, which will hopefully outlast the 4-month competition and continue into my future.

So yesterday I went for a brisk long walk through sopping spring snow (the snow actually completely covered my glasses and soaked my coat), and today I plan to implement a new two-hour lunchbreak plan, where I still come in at seven and leave at five instead of four. This way I can take a nice walk during my lunch, shower if necessary, eat, relax, and head back to work. (This is the closest to a "siesta" that I can get this side of the Altantic.)

And now I have to roll up my sleeves about the Auction. I'm starting to stress about it. It's a huge task, I've never done anything like it before, and there are so many different tasks that I need to do that it's difficult to stay organized. BUT I have to have faith in the God who put me here, and who equipped me for it -- I don't have to do this alone.

And that's the other thing -- I feel like this weekend contained the perfect balance of companionship and solitude. I hung out with MP, chilled with some of the most fun of the grad students at her apartment for sweeping rounds of Balderdash and Bullshit (both of which I sweepingly lost, but it was oh-so-much fun), and Sunday was church and much-needed shoe shopping, and then an afternoon of trying to take a nap while Simon jumped on my head, and an evening of movie-watching by myself while I figured out my menu and grocery list for the week, and finished paying off my bills. (Ugh.)

So it was good. No matter how well I sleep on Sunday nights, it's never enough for Monday morning, but I'm going to keep this nice past weekend close to mind as a landmark of sanity when everything starts to go crazy...starting in about ten minutes when I have a meeting to figure out what we're putting in the program, get the program text written, figure out volunteer contact information to go into the program, and various and sundry other panic-related things as we all completely wig out.

But it's going to be okay -- by and by. I really need to keep the stress under control. When I don't, it keeps me from falling asleep, seeps into my dreams when I finally do drift off, wakes me up from the dreams to continue worrying, and brings my menstruation on early. (Oh yes. Some girls skip their period when they're stressed; mine comes sooner. So lucky.)

SO, I have a strict don't-think-about-it-when-you're-not-at-work policy. Which has been working so far. But we'll see, when the poo finally hits the fan. In five minutes.

Here's to relying on grace!

a great week

So, after all the angst and misery and anguish of last week, this week was splendid.

It all started, surprisingly and ironically, of course, with church. After tearful conversations on the phone with various people of various degrees of understanding, MP said, "Sarah, come with me to Calvary Temple. Just this Sunday." And I, who left this church at the beginning of last autumn, and who normally decline MP's invitations to go back, said, "Yes, okay."

It didn't cross my mind not to go. And the entire service was unbelievable. I sat there stunned, thinking, this is God gently telling me that it's okay. That everything is okay. And that there's a place for me.

Because the pastor, just after a great worship service, stood up and said, "The word of the Lord today is one word. It's two syllables. The first syllable is re." And I thought, oh-the-second-syllable-is-PENT-okay-I-should-probably-repent-of-my-bad-attitudes, and then the pastor said, "And the second syllable is lax."

And I sat back and thought...oh. Oh.

And the sermon, preached by my favorite pastor at this church, addressed almost everything that's been important lately. I was challenged, encouraged, and filled with joy. And afterward there was a luncheon for the young adults at the head pastor's home, and MP and I both went, and we met some truly fabulous people. One girl busted out with the occasional "shit" and another was telling me how much she enjoys wine. And I just relaxed and bathed in the company of other, normal, cool, amazing young people who are connected with church.

This doesn't mean that any of my previous complaints no longer have value. They very clearly do. But God took me by the shoulders and showed me that the whole thing is not hopeless. And I basked in the "God-afterglow," as MP calls it, for the rest of the week.

The Miracle Auction that I'm running at work is three weeks away. There's so much to do. And this week I wasn't going crazy with stress. I just did what I needed to do. A few coworkers for whom I care greatly are undergoing various extremely stressful personal scenarios, and instead of worrying myself sick over them, I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. And was suffused with peace. And overall a vast thankfulness, that God has brought me here, and is still leading me.

The week has had its challenges. Last night I plunged into momentary discouragement, where I was convinced I'd die alone, and started to feel like I felt all through February. But then I said, "No. I'm sick of being depressed. I don't want to feel this way anymore. God is GOOD, and His gifts are GOOD, and they're pouring out more than I had imagined possible." So I relaxed, and chose hope, peace, love, and faith.

And now it's the weekend -- the last free weekend I'll have till after the auction, since work will, starting Monday, overcome my life for the next three weeks. Last night I went to the Fiddler's with two of my favorite coworkers (the only person missing was Meg), and we hung out and told stories and talked, and then I went home feeling that momentary lonely discouragement and instead of wallowing, I baked a pan of cornbread, took a long soak in a tub full of relaxing bath salts, read half of a cheesy romance novel, started a historical exploration of Helen of Troy, and went to bed. This morning I slept in, read, and began cleaning the house. Soon I'll head over to MP's to do laundry and chill, come home to walk the dog next door, and head back to MP's for a game night. Tomorrow is church and an afternoon of relaxation.

A great week. Thank you, Jesus, a great week.

confessions

I feel compelled by the glass of wine I just sipped to be honest.

I'm lonely. Heart-rendingly, agonizingly lonely.

For many reasons. Obviously because I'm still single. But that's a complicated reason. It's not just, oh wahh, no one wants to date me. I've reached this point where a lot of what I do seems utterly pointless because I don't have anywhere to pour out love. For three years now I've shut off my capacity to love, crammed it back in on itself, because loving meant losing myself, and it wasn't healthy, and I've been afraid ever since of loving badly and of not being loved in return and of being horribly hurt because I throw too much of myself into a person or people.

But after three years, not loving anyone is empty. I can be the best person my position has ever seen at work; I can be witty and funny, sparkling, the life of every party (and my friends, that's not an exaggeration...MP and I are a study in being the life of the party); I can smile at everyone I see and genuinely wish them a good day...But without loving anyone or anything, it doesn't mean anything.

It's 1 Corinthians 13. I haven't been living it. And I'm tired, I'm tired of not living it.

So here I am, all ready to go, ready to love...and I have my family and closest friends, and it's great. But I don't have a significant male other, and I don't have a church.

Church on Sunday sucked. Again. I left feeling more desperately alone and in despair than when I walked in. Again. I can't do this anymore. It's coming to where I want to say that the contemporary church has nothing to say to me or my generation. Has nothing relevant to bring to our lives. And it's pathetic. It's wrong. I WANT to belong to a church; I've been wanting it badly for over a year. But of the three churches I've attended with any degree of regularity, none of them have contained people who exhibited genuine interest in getting to know me. At one, I was hit on by a certain Wretched Tim, and he was the only one who wanted to spend time with me (and you can bet it wasn't for my sparkling wit or big heart); at the second, I was held at a distance with false smiles; at the third and current, I'm basically ignored.

Why? Why? Two weeks ago as I was walking out, I shook the pastor's hand, as I have every week since I started attending regularly in November (well, I sort of skipped December, but November, January, and February were regular months), and he asked me if I was a visitor. And something in me mewled and died.

I can't do this anymore. I don't have to convince the grad students that I've met through MP that I'm worth hanging around. People who have met me in public three times say of me that I have a dynamic presence, that with MP I draw the energy in a room. I don't have to beg them to see that I'm likeable. What the hell is wrong with the church that I have to work harder than I worked even in high school to show people that I have value? People that I've met four, five, six times, and to whom I've been extremely nice and friendly, won't have anything to do with me.

I have to sit down and compose a thoughtful, careful, deliberate essay on why the church's ministry to Christians of my generation sucks. But for now, believe that I hate rolling out of bed on Sunday morning. I hate selecting the nicest, most flattering clothes in my wardrobe. I hate pasting on the nicest, most winning smile in my repertoire so that CHRISTIANS WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO MODEL THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE OF CHRIST will be nice to me. And I hate doing all this knowing that it won't make a damn bit of difference. Maybe they'll smile and shake my hand, but they won't invite me to lunch. They won't ask for my e-mail or my number. (I had to do all that. Hey, here's my e-mail. Here's my number. Let me know if you're doing anything.)

And most of all, I hate that I can't be myself in church. I hate that I can't talk about my favorite beer or my favorite whisky, I hate that I can't say that my favorite poet is a lesbian, I hate that I can't say, You know that chastity thing? It really sucks sometimes, or that I miss belonging so much I cry myself to sleep sometimes. I hate that I can't say, The concept of "witnessing" is a fallacy. Witness is a state of being. You don't have to cut and paste the name "Jesus" into every other sentence; just be who you are--that's almost always enough.

I hate that I can't jump up and down and point to a verse (because in church one seldom studies the Bible) and say, You know what I love about this?! Look at God's concern for women! Look here!

I hate that I have to slough off everything that matters to me to say, monotonously, God...Jesus...the Bible. Have to spit out all the prefabricated answers they've had us say since Vacation Bible School when we were seven years old. Have to swallow all the doubts, all the questions, all the real, life-changing insights, to talk about utter crap like "courage."

Courage isn't talking to a "non-Christian"; courage is walking into church on Sunday morning. And there's something horribly wrong with that.

There's also something horribly wrong about me sitting here wanting to learn how to love, futilely.

I feel like William H. Macy's character in Magnolia: "I have so much love to give."

What do I do?

End whiny angry passionate blog. More about boring professional rational organized work in the future.

I just want to bang on the drums all day

Actually, if I had my 'druthers, I would read and sleep all day.

So, my job. Is fabulous. Is amazing. Is getting really busy.

My position as Director of Events & Marketing belongs to the Development Team, whose mission, in the simplest terms, is to foster community relationships and so bring in resources (funding, volunteers) to the Center to make it financially and manpoweredly possible for us to help break the cycle of homelessness. I, obviously, manage fundraising events and tell the world about the Center and what we do here. Other members of the Development Team manage the volunteer system, write grants, manage the donations that we receive, and forge/maintain important connections around the community (and that's just a basic start).

At the last Thursday weekly Development Meeting, my coworker Adam (who, I've decided, is truly awesome) announced that he had started coming to work at 7 a.m. This is an hour and a half before most everyone else comes in, and it allows him to get done what he needs to get done before other people come to him with additional requests, so that when they do, he has his schedule freed up enough to do it and not feel overwhelmed by the day.

I thought this was a brilliant idea. Long, long ago I was a morning person. In high school I got up at 4:45 every morning (this was mostly due to the need of four people to use one bathroom). I used to love getting up before the sun rose, so that when it came up, I was ready to greet the new day. Then I went to college and developed this thing called a social life, which required rigorous post-midnight hours, and I stopped getting up in the morning whenever possible. Ever since, I have been trying to free my inner morning person, but with no impetus, it didn't happen.

But this coming in to work at seven was the spark I needed. First, I get to pretty much call my own hours. Which means that I am absolutely free to work 7-4. And four is a great time to leave. There are still a few hours of daylight left, you can do things like grocery shop, work out, and cook dinner and still be able to eat by six o'clock, not eight.

And you can get a handle on the day without the day having a handle on you. Most days I actually have to discipline myself to leave on time; it could easily become a twelve-hour day and I still wouldn't accomplish everything. So when you come in at nine with a list in mind of must-dos, and you already have three messages on your voicemail and ten e-mails asking you to do things, you feel a little violated by the day. You lose a sense of power. By coming in when normal people are waking up, you can neatly avoid all of that, so that when your phone rings and your inbox blinks, you're ready to up and at 'em.

So I started coming in at seven too. I supplied my office with coffee, an electric kettle, and a French press, the product of which I share liberally with Adam and his roommate and fellow co-worker Andrew, who also comes in early on occasion. (We are trying to market ourselves as the young, the driven, and the dedicated, and not the young who have no life outside work.) There's something about coming in while it's dark, turning on my computer, making coffee, diving into work, and having a few minutes to chat with people who appreciate my coffee that makes me bounce out of bed a little faster, and makes me a little more chipper, when the alarm goes off.

Sad, isn't it? One of the highlights of my day is making coffee for two twenty-something men (who both have girlfriends). On the other hand, it's casual, it's relaxed, it's friendly, and it's something to look forward to. My cat, darling as he is, can't appreciate my coffee. And I have, lately, been very much missing a people connection.

This is a fantastic place to work, and being dedicated to a common humanitarian mission, I think, draws us all together in ways other office jobs wouldn't. So in some respects, the people here are like family.

Plus we're here all the time. Driven and dedicated as we might be, we still don't really have lives. But don't tell anyone that.

Adjustments

Yesterday I bought three chick flicks. Aaaah! Why? Why?

Then I came to my senses and went to spend Valentine's Day at Club 23 with the fabulous MP and other (mostly) single grad students. Laughed our heads off. Toasted the day. Went home, slept late, came to work tired.

But when I left for work this morning everything smelled like the faintest beginning of spring, and the pale gray light of the overcast sky was somehow profoundly thrilling. I felt a stab of joy in the pit of my stomach and was so happy to be alive, here, in South Bend, in February, getting into my car alone.

Last week I realized I'm falling in love with South Bend. I couldn't tell you why. There are little things about it -- watching the snow drift like magic along charming Michigan Street in downtown South Bend, sitting in the funky Thyme of Grace cafe in downtown Mishawaka looking out the window on the old brick walls of the outdoor courtyard, driving home after work under a fiery, radiant, red-amber-gold Midwestern sunset where there is SO MUCH SKY and all the building tops of downtown glow like they've been set on fire -- that fill me with joy.

And that's what I've found here -- joy. A joy so fierce it stings my eyes. I love to love where I live, and it's been harder with South Bend than with Grove City -- Grove City was a basic extension of where I'd always lived, minus a Great Lake, while the lay of the Indiana landscape is nothing like where I'd lived before (although a Great Lake is half an hour's drive away -- not bad at all). So it's taken about a year and a half to adjust to the rolling flatness, the quick spurt of spring and autumn, the early sunsets, the extremes of temperature, and the endless slow winters.

I still feel something of an alien in regard to the people -- they're very different from my hardened, curt, abrupt Western Pennyslvania people whose tenderness and compassion are buried deep but all the stronger for the length of time it takes to reach them. Here, where a smile is a penny a hundred and inquiries of "How ARE you?" are more social niceties than actual questions (I'm figuring out that "How are you?" is roughly equivalent to "Hey"), I still feel like a stranger among the inhabitants, although I'm completely awed by their consciousness of and dedication to social need in the area. I'm privy to witness true philanthropy where I work, whereas most people in my birthplace tend to take care of their own, and only their own, and if you have no support system, you're pretty much screwed (but nearly everyone has a support system. The people I know are loyal to their blood family to the death or the last dime). So the people are still taking some getting used to, and I'm still figuring out where I fit in, who likes to smile at everyone but tends to eschew meaningless small talk wherever possible (I think I'm a blend of the places I've lived).

But the land I'm coming to love.

And thank God Valentine's Day is over. I didn't wear black, and I'm glad for my friends who have found someone to love who loves them in return, but it was rougher than I'd anticipated. And I don't like feeling weepy and lost; I like to feel positive and confident in God's provision and grace. And MP was there to laugh, and commiserate, and remind me of what I know to be true -- and of what I don't have to settle for. She's da bomb.

And it's clean, it's fresh, it's over -- the holidays that make me want to kill myself with loneliness are behind me, and spring is getting nearer. And I'm twenty-four. I knew twenty-four was going to be a good year. And it's been great.

and suddenly I was four years old

Yesterday, for whatever reason, was blah. Empty, miserable, bitter, sad. Call it Valentine's Day Eve Doldrums.

Here I am, twenty-four, with a great haircut and a big smile, with excellent cooking skills and a shiningly clean apartment, with energy and enthusiasm, intelligence and education, a sense of humor, a ready laugh, and a heart full of love for almost everything that exists, and I have only my much-beloved kitty to come home to, and only myself to cook for.

Most of the time I am fine with this, because I have been blessed with an enjoyment of my own company, and I have a support system of strong, close friends. And lately I've been devouring books at a pre-college rate, and feeling literarily fulfilled. I look on my life and I love it, I marvel at the miracle that has been carved out for me, I am fiercely glad and thankful for all that is mine.

But yesterday I was sad. I plodded through the day at work, crawled into my car, drove home, and dragged myself up the steps, thinking over and over, No one loves me. And my tiny mailbox was bulging open with one very large Valentine's Day card from my grandma, with "xoxoxo" printed across the top, and a funny letter and a ten dollar bill inside.

And I started crying. Some things grandmas can still fix. And everything felt cleaner, and better.

Chickeny Goodness

So in the past year I've turned into a fantabulous cook. This is quite an "ugly ducking" transformation, since I come from a long line of fantabulous cooks but never cooked anything besides scrambled eggs, boxed mac'n'cheese, Rice-a-Roni, and Ramen until my move to South Bend. Now suddenly I have about seven cookbooks and a passion for homemade, tasty food.

The only problem with fantabulous cookery is that I only cook for myself. I have no problem with settling on the couch with my latest gourmet meal and congratulating myself on the excellent taste while watching Sports Night, but let's be honest, it's far more rewarding to give than to receive, and half the fun of cooking is watching other people enjoy what you've made.

Plus I miss having sit-down meals with other human beings. Growing up, I had dinner with my family every night. Now I have dinner with my television while shooing away the cat with my foot. Do I feel socially fulfilled through my dinnertime experience? Hardly.

So after conferring with MP I decided to solve the problem by hosting a small dinner gathering this past Saturday at my home with our friends Joan, David (the Grover, as we call him, or, if he's under a lot of stress, Morose David), and Peter. I made my all-time favorite recipe handed down from my mother: creamed chicken over biscuits. MP supplied an excellent apple pie.

And everything was perfect. The food was great -- the five of us put away almost three batches of biscuits (which MP declared to have achieved Southern status!) and nearly all of the chicken; and the apple pie clinched this classically American meal. The company and conversation were deeply enjoyable as always, and Simon kept us entertained playing wildly with the plastic milk ring I had pulled off the jug just before making the biscuits.

I believe the consensus was to hold such events more often, on a rotating basis. It's certainly good for one's overall health to have a complete, homemade meal (well, almost complete...I forgot to make a vegetable, but nobody minded. In fact, when I said, "Oh! I forgot the veggie! Do you care?" everyone immediately said, "No!" Sorry, moms; some things we never outgrow) and interaction with other people while one eats. I for one felt entirely satisfied.

Here's to friends, food, and whole cut-up chicken, which is absurdly cheap. And here's to Simon, just for being abominably cute.

BYO Machete

This has nothing really to do with the hilarious (hiwawious) Emerald Nuts Superbowl commercial, although I would like to point out with MP that I want "Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under The Stairs" on a T-shirt. I laughed so hard I was producing dry, bronchial coughs afterward.

No, this post with "machete" in the title has to do with my apartment. In my little, limited square footage in the frozen wastelands of northern Indiana, there exists a jungle.

You might not notice it when you first set foot in the door. You might see a glimmer, a wave of green from the living room as you look down the hallway, but all in all the appearance is quite ordinary: A charming, old-fashioned apartment with a houseplant. Or two houseplants, if you look over your right shoulder into the dimly lit bathroom sporting a pothos on top of the cabinet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But once you step into the kitchen, you might get an idea. A three-foot rubber plant guards the litterbox next to the refrigerator. A Christmas cactus droops quietly in front of the cookbooks. A nephthytis overshadows the napkins. An enormous dracaena brushes the bottom of the picture frame on the stand by your elbow. A pothos and another, weaker nephthytis loom from the top of the kitchen cupboards. A zebra plant rallies its spikes toward the bright, bare window opposite the sink.

Hm, you think. Well, kitchens are a good place for houseplants. It's bright. It's cheery.

Then you might turn around and peek into the bedroom. A young schefflera stretches toward the sun on the nightstand. A variety of sanseviera flourishes in stiff succulence on the dresser. A enormous cat palm and a stunted majesty palm bristle behind the door. A Janet Craig dracaena darkens the top of one bookcase.

Hm, you think. This woman may be a little odd. I think I'll retreat to the living room.

And that, my friend, is when you realize that you've left Kansas and landed somewhere in Malaysia.

Two huge palms and a thriving ficus dominate one corner. A lemon-lime dracaena and a jade top the entertainment center. A schefflera cutting lingers next to the coffee table. A three-foot "capella gold" schefflera glows under one window. A philodendron and a vast pothos trail from the tops of the bookcases. A cordyline adds a dash of purple to the top of the coffee table. And tucked away in the corner by the computer, a small rubber plant bravely sends up shiny new leaves.

Then you think, this woman is mad.

And you're right. As soon as I moved into my new apartment and fell in love with all the windows (I have two-directional light in every room but the bathroom -- my small, four-room apartment boasts eight windows), I began to cultivate my own rainforest. Call it the longing for a pet (B.C. -- before cat); call it the starvation to be surrounded by living things; call it the never-tamed love of the forest; call it what you will. But I have, to date, twenty-four houseplants, and nearly all of them have names.

I have high hopes for some of them. With proper care, Gregory the ficus could reach six feet (yes, my friends, it's a tree. They're going wild in Florida...fifty feet or more. You can't plant them outside anymore there; it's illegal). So could Cecil the "Capella Gold" schefflera and Maud the green schefflera. I'm defying odds with Sylvia the schefflera cutting (if you wonder why I love scheffleras, look them up, they're lovely -- they're also called Hawaiian umbrella trees), since they're supposed to be very difficult to propogate from stem cuttings. She's not thriving, but she's surviving. We'll see what happens. I've seen lemon-lime dracaenas and sansevieras reach enormous heights, so Cedric and Daniel have great potential.

And the best thing is, so far Simon has only eaten of Robbie the dracaena (whom I moved to a high place in the kitchen to discourage the gnawing. Robbie is my second-oldest plant and one of my favorites. I don't want that rotten feline to kill him); the rest he's left alone.

So yes, I'm crazy. But I probably have a high oxygen content in my living quarters (maybe this contributes to the crazy), and I definitely have the peace and tranquility one feels when one can look at lots of still, green, silently growing plants.

Watch out, though...I may turn into the plant lady from Minority Report and start growing plants that can attack at will, thus necessitating "Beware of Plant" signs on my property.

How awesome would that be?

How can I not share this with you?

Song

You're wondering if I'm lonely:
OK then, yes, I'm lonely
as a plan rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean

You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonely

If I'm lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawn's first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep

If I'm lonely
it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it's neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning

Adrienne Rich, 1971

The Tale of the Tall Interesting Gentleman

It was a dark and stormy night. Two bright, vivacious young women pulled up along the sidewalk in a sketchy neighborhood in front of their destination -- an old house undergoing renovation, designated by its portico festooned with twinkling lights. Uncertain what to expect, they entered the house...and fell through the rabbit-hole into the craziest party they had attended in South Bend. One of the bright, vivacious young women -- me -- came out with a folded paper in her pocket, on which was drawn, in green marker, a map to a Ukrainian Catholic Church, and, more importantly, a tall interesting gentleman's phone number.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am about to take you through the latest tale in my bizarre saga of frustrated possibilities.

I decided it would behoove me to wait till midweek to give this Tall Interesting Gentleman a call. As he had invited me to attend his church, and as I wanted a break from feeling like shit in Sunday School, I decided to take him up on his offer, both for the cultural experience of the Ukrainian Catholic Church (which, if I remember rightly, was Orthodox for awhile but in the 16somethings went back to Catholicism, preserving a lot of the original liturgical and artistic styles of the Orthodox church within itself) and for a chance to get to know him better. But I didn't want to call him about church on Monday and sound lame, so I thought I would call him on Thursday. Thursday's a good day. Close to the weekend, but with enough notice for him to include me in any weekend plans he might have, once I'd talked to him.

I was too inebriated to think to give this Tall Interesting Gentleman (TIG) my own phone number, and I was rather excited about the ball being in my court. Normally I discipline myself not to make the first move (the only times I have initiated anything turned out poorly, and the other times I almost initiated something I learned the guy in question was interested in/dating someone else, and for dignity's sake was glad I didn't actually get to initiate something), but in this case he was the one who'd given me his number, which counted, and I found myself terribly satisfied at the idea of calling him at my leisure, when I was ready to talk.

So Thursday rolled around, and I geared up my nerves, and dialed his number. (Actually I pressed the "Send" button on my cell phone, having saved his number into it.) I got all ready to say hello and go through the "I'm the Sarah you met last Friday at the party," when...he didn't answer.

I let it ring eight or nine times, thinking perhaps it was a home number, and then had to hang up so I didn't sound crazy, in case he was home and screening his calls. I was confused. I hadn't counted on this turn of events. In every scenario I had envisioned, he might have invited me out over the weekend, he might have agreed to come pick me up for church, he might have agreed to meet me at church, he might have invited me to brunch after church, but he always answered the phone. It didn't even occur to me to think that if I was ready to talk, he might not be.

MP suggested that as a grad student he might have been at an evening class when I called. So I decided to try him in the midafternoon on Friday. He didn't pick up his phone that time either, but it did go to the automated "The Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try your call again later" message. So I learned that he had a cell phone, and that he didn't have voice mail.

Hm. Well, I thought, I'm not calling him again today. My number will show up on his phone, so hopefully he'll see that it's the same number as yesterday and call out of curiosity. But I also don't want to look like a psycho repeat-dialer. So I'll call him one more time on Saturday.

No answer then either. At that point I wondered if perhaps he had dropped his phone in the toilet, or run it over with a truck. It was a Saturday, for heaven's sake. So after a conference with MP, she said she wanted a break from her church too, so we decided to trek out together to the Ukrainian Catholic Church and see if we'd run into him.

Of course this all sounded much more noble when we were planning it. In our minds, there was no hint of the desperate "I'm so single and you're tall and interesting and good-looking and well-dressed and you listened to me rave about poetry and you were interested in what I had to say about 'Spring and All' and the slower, better seasons in Pennsylvania and you know how to take care of plants and since I can't get hold of you over the phone I'll collar you in church just in case there was a good reason for not answering my calls and because my curiosity is piqued" symptoms of the woman who has lived too long alone with nothing to do but watch TV; we wanted the cultural experience of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and if the TIG happened to be there, so much the better.

So we went to the Ukrainian Catholic Church. And it was small and beautiful. The art is very Orthodox and richly colored and gilded. The liturgy is, except for the homily, the announcements, and one collective prayer, entirely sung. And the TIG wasn't there.

It's not like we missed him in the crowd; the crowd consisted of about twenty people. So we squeezed in next to this tiny old lady who was our Ukrainian Good Fairy for the entire Mass and walked us through the liturgy book and showed us when to stand and sit, and which refrains to sing, and asked us if we were baptized into the Catholic church, and when we said no, told us anyway how the Communion was served differently in this church than in the Roman Catholic tradition. She was sweet, and sharp, and adorable, and wonderful. And even though my vocal cords felt a little stretched after the service, I was glad for the cultural experience that I went.

But no TIG.

As we walked out of the church, I said to MP, "I think this is a SIGN FROM GOD." She laughed, and agreed, and I filed it away for my non-dating annals, and am now reporting it to you.

Although I did learn that the TIG is a part-time truck driver on some weekends. So maybe he was out of town; but that still doesn't explain why he doesn't have voice mail (you'd think that would be all the more incentive TO have voice mail). So regardless, I think perhaps he's a bit odd, and I'm not too worried about pursuing his cell phone any further.

At least I got a really cool Mass out of the deal.

And the bright, vivacious young woman resolved to laugh, and keep her chin up, and wait for the next adventure.

The End

TV love

So, difficult as the season has been with Fox airing it so sporadically, my love of House has grown. But tares of concern grew along with the love. With Sela Ward's character's placement at House's hospital, I feared the show would grow too soap-ish and focus too much on a "forbidden passion" instead of the amazing potential for nonsexual relationships between House and the members of his team. I want to see the father-son relationship between House and Chase, the mentor-learner relationship between House and Cameron (because she's the one who tries to make herself needed, but this time she needs him; oh and she's just turning into a really cool character this season), and the teacher-pupil-rival relationship between House and Foreman.

But what I had feared began to take place: too much House and Stacy. Oh no oh no, I thought. Why? Why, show?

BUT Leigh Ann told me that not only is the next new episode airing on the seventh, after nearly a month of absence, but that it is also Sela Ward's last episode.

I should have trusted my show.

Damn you, Billy Collins

Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart for the express purpose of purchasing Corpse Bride, which I had never seen but my faith in Tim Burton is so absolute that I knew it wouldn't matter (and my faith was well-placed). As I surveyed the display in the middle of the floor that sported several versions of Corpse Bride as well as every Pink Panther movie every made, a very cute little boy about the age of three wearing a red coat wandered up from somewhere and began to look at the movies too. I assumed his parents were somewhere nearby. He went in the same direction around the display that I intended to go, so I sort of followed him, being careful not to tromp on his little sneakered feet, and I appreciated the fact that this unusual kid wasn't screaming or clamoring or yelling or making a racket; he was just looking. As we rounded a corner of the display, I glanced up to see a man in his late thirties or early forties watching me with this soft expression, and with the kind of visceral shock you expect when you jump into a lake in April, I realized he thought the little boy was mine.

I guess it looked like a perfect mother-son scenario: This lovely well-dressed young woman sharing a quiet movie moment with her cute and well-behaved little boy.

Suddenly my very good day darkened considerably. I felt a little winded, not because the man was mistaken, but because he was understandably mistaken, and because a part of me that keeps very still and small most of the time leaped up and shouted, That child should be mine! I want a family! What are you waiting for?

I think this is really the first moment I can remember feeling like that. Sure, I've wanted a boyfriend, a fiance, a husband...but to be honest, I've never wanted a kid, except in the most abstract way. Especially after holding inconsolable, irritable, restless babies for nine months in PEDS and just wishing they'd shut up and go to sleep so I could quit holding them because they were driving me crazy, and thinking these thoughts might qualify me as "bad mother" for the time being, I firmly and with a great deal of relief kept the idea of children extraordinarily abstract, and very far in the future. But yesterday, seeing myself through a stranger's eyes with huge amounts of approval as a mother, I realized that the fit would be good, and that I do want children, not abstractly at all. (Not tomorrow, of course, but sooner rather than later.)

I waited till the boy's parents called for him, then bought my movie and walked out to my car in a sort of daze. I very nearly called MP to yell about it in a crazed-single way, because that's funny and tends to relieve angst and restore perspective, but instead I turned on the country radio station (bad idea) and drove home.

Later that evening, feeling rather Wm Had a Headachey and maudlin, I decided to cheer myself up with a few poems by Billy Collins, who in addition to being brilliant is nearly always funny. Instead I read a poem that made me cry with its sweetness. Here it is. (But afterward I watched Corpse Bride and was marvelously, macabrely comforted. What an exquisite creation.)

Love

The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.

William Had a Headache...and So Do I

I slept very ill--I am tired, and have a bad headache.

What a great holiday.

Actually the headache isn't bad, and I think more tiredness-induced than anything. Celebrations were fun -- they happened in at least two states this year (Indiana and Maryland), which is significant growth from last year. If anyone else celebrated in any other states, I want to know! My goal really is to see this printed on calendars someday.

I was glad to be able to attend, having had to leave work early (thankfully I had gotten all my work done for the day) and go home and sleep off whatever Steak 'N' Shake had done to me. Grim determination also helps, and WHHD is only once a year.

We honored the holiday at the Fiddler's Hearth, kicking off with Sonia's limerick and an original sonnet of mine (printed below), and going on to read the poetry of various other (and better) poets than Wm (one gal, the fabulous Laura, is herself published, and brought her own. I was as green as the beautiful cover on her printed book with awe and envy). MP read "Nutting" with the most delightful innuendos in her tone, much Guinness was had by nearly all, and ridiculous arguments about Wal-Mart notwithstanding (this girl was quite enjoyable till she insulted everyone in the USA who can't afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart -- as a proselytizer she's decidedly inept -- and after awhile, tired of the badly formulated arguments and possibly impersonal but still inexcusable rudeness, I forcefully suggested we talk about something else, so we discussed them Cubs and the nature of Frank's Place, a charming dive in my general neighborhood), the holiday was a brilliant success. The Meg Formerly Known as Boss was there, and her friends Jennifer and Matt, and altogether it was roaring good fun. We stayed too late, and I slept too little, but today I'm so full of good poetry and good camaraderie it doesn't particularly matter.

Tonight, though, I'm kicking back. I've been extremely social after eight or nine months of being extremely antisocial (Meg and I agreed that my nine months in PEDS were like a gestation period, and now I'm suffering separation anxiety and she's suffering post-partem depression), and my body is just plumb worn out.

So Happy Wm Had a Headache Day, everyone!


The Lost Poem

Tonight I'm so exhausted I can't write--
With all the watching underneath the trees,
While Dorothy bought our food and shoes, of bees
Whose velvet stroking on the clover white
Inspired such ecstatic contemplation
I nearly lost my great and noble mind--
With wrestling all the thoughts of all mankind
I lost my gift for penmanshipped oration
And asked dear Dorothy if she'd write, for now,
The words that I myself could hardly say
That I would claim as mine the foll'wing day,
And while she did, if she would rub my brow.
But now perhaps my greatest poem is dead,
Because she told me no, and went to bed.

It's William Had a Headache Day (Observed)! So observe it!

I want to say three disparate things in this post.

1. Wm. Had a Headache Day

Two hundred four years ago tomorrow, Dorothy Wordsworth recorded of her brother in her Grasmere Journals that "Wm had slept very ill -- he was tired and had a bad headache." To celebrate this only moment in history when a rational human being might sympathize with long-winded and self-absorbed Wm, the fabulous MP and I started our own holiday. In commemoration of his headache, we go out the night of Jan 30 and toast Wm's ridiculous poetry with several or more drinks, so that on Jan 31, we can say with Wm that we too had slept very ill, are tired and have a bad headache.

So celebrate this holiday! Take your friends out tonight, drink, and read poetry (even other people's poetry. This is a holiday in mockery of Wm, after all). This is our only opportunity to spend time in the mind of one of history's most famous blowhards. Sure, it's a Monday, but any excuse for a cold beer, right?

2. Steak 'N' Shake

...is evil. Although I routinely get horribly sick every single time I eat there, I go back for more thin and crispy fries and Mushroom 'n' Swiss steakburgers. Which I did last night to obscure the bad effects of Underworld: Evolution (which, though inarguably terrible, I privately enjoyed). And I'm paying for it in digestive bowel agony today. I think MP is right; they coat all their food with Ex-Lax. But I know that, in a month or two, I'll go back.

3. Plumbing Prowess

While I'm on a related subject, I proudly state that last week I fixed my toilet. I didn't do anything that required ancient poopstained jeans -- nothing so complicated -- but still, it was a sizeable problem. When I pushed the handle to flush last Tuesday evening on the phone with my sister, I felt it give in an unnatural way, and five minutes later when I came back to check I found my toilet still running.

Damn, I thought, the chain has come loose from the hatch. Well, no biggie. So I lifted the lid off the tank to rehook it and found, to my consternation, that the chain fastens to the hatch with a little loop...and chain, hatch, and loop are made entirely of rubber. No convenient hooks; no sturdy metal; no. And the loop that holds the chain to the hatch had entirely snapped like a broken rubber band.

What to do? I put my sister on speakerphone and stared at the conundrum and swore and fumed about how long it was going to take to get repaired. Laura's helpful input was not to shit at home for a few weeks.

Now, I come from a long tradition of determined, independent women who don't take "no" or "wait" for an answer. If something needs fixing and there's no one else to do it, we fix it, right then and there. So not fixing the toilet was not an option. And neither was pouring a bucket of water down the toilet each time I used it.

So I racked my brains. What can I use? Tape? No, the whole thing is underwater. String? My fingers aren't small enough to tie it. If only I had some wire. But I don't have any wire. Wire...wire...wire!

That afternoon I had pulled a Christmas ornament hook out of the carpet (the months following Christmas are full of digging up needles and ornament hooks and strands of tinsel, aren't they? Christmas never dies) and laid it on the coffee table to store or pitch later. I said to Laura, "I'll be right back" and went to fetch the hook. I straightened it out, plunged my hands into the hellishly icy toilet tank water, and with the wire bound together the end of the rubber chain and the broken rubber loop. And then I flushed. And it worked.

I'm still, as you can see, congratulating myself -- though not doubting my career calling. I love finding resourceful solutions to practical and immediate problems.

Look, she can hang her own pictures too!

and the truth will set you free...and tick you off

So, while my professional week was amazing and totally awesome (unbelievably, I didn't leave work yesterday too exhausted to think), my social week was full of a froth of insecurities I thought I'd buried right after high school.

See, in high school, like so many people of academic and artistic bent, I was an uncool, badly dressed, painfully awkward geek. The only setting in which I felt comfortbable was the classroom, where I won a certain amount of respect for being smart. When I had to set foot in the hallways, though, it was like running a gauntlet from one class to another.

So when I came to college I blossomed. Particularly because at Grove City the cool people WERE the academics and artists. I have never in my life been surrounded so consistently by so many brilliant and truly cool individuals. I don't think I ever will be again, unless we all scream "Chuck it!" to the world and start a Grove City Alum commune somewhere in Montana. In college I learned that I'm likeable, fun, outgoing (but still an introvert!), engaging, and a decent addition to a group of people. I had so much fun I didn't sleep for four years. I came out with a completely madeover and much more accurate self-perception, which stood me in good stead talking to strangers in retail and meeting people who were continuing their education at higher levels. I had confidence in more than my intellect; I had confidence in me. (Insert Julie Andrews singing and swinging a suitcase around here.)

But at some point this past week it all fell apart. Granted, after last Friday's insane party we were probably all tired; but Club 23 felt a bit strange and my interpretations of people's behavior faltered. Now, it's true that when I'm tired my grip on reality fragments like a dropped light bulb, but even being tired didn't explain the strength of the resurfacings of the old, old convictions that no one likes me and everyone wishes I weren't around because I'm not good enough.

Because that's all hogwash. I knew it; but still, I wanted to know where the misery came from. I like to understand my own irregular tickings. And in a conversation with MP yesterday (now that we're not roommates we've gone back to being best friends, it's fabulous), I figured it out. It was an occurrence in church that set the whole thing off.

Last week, in compliance with my 2006 goal of 3/4 Sundays in a month church attendence, I went to church. Rather eagerly, in fact, as the (young single) people in my Sunday School class have been welcoming and fun, while letting me have my newcomer distance. I went to the early service, where I noticed a few new (to me) faces sitting with more familiar Sunday School faces, and I thought, Oh goody, I'll get to meet more people. Several of them were rather good-looking mid-twenties guys. (Hence the oh goody. Not that I'm cruising for a boyfriend, but I like to test the waters, you know?)

But when I set foot in the Sunday School classroom, it was like plunging into cold bathwater. A couple of people I'd already met said hi, but the group was so much larger that they were the minority, and the people I didn't know made no overtures of friendliness. None. They wouldn't even make eye contact with me. The seats were set up along three eight-foot folding tables arranged into a "U," with the chairs running along both the inside and outside perimeters of the "U." One particularly good-looking guy (good-looking in the way that you notice him and think, "He's probably an asshole" -- he had a sort of cultivated indifferent arrogance to his mien, rather like some guys I knew at Grove City) sat directly across from me. Two feet away. He would not look at me or acknowledge my presence, before, during, or after class. From two feet away.

The other guys were more or less the same. And something in me quailed. Part of me thought defiantly, "Why should I introduce myself? I'm the newcomer. It's THEIR reponsibility to make the first gestures of niceness." And part of me, very simply, was afraid. What if I stick my hand out and introduce myself and they ignore me?

I left CHURCH on the verge of miserable tears. I endured my share of Christian assholes in my high school youth group, who made me feel marginal, awkward, and worthless, but I met a greater share of Christian and agnostic guys in college (mostly in the English department and theater) who treated me with dignity and love. This throwback to adolescent anguish caught me completely off guard.

Why? Why wouldn't they say hello? Why wouldn't they look at me? Oh yes. BECAUSE I'M PRETTY. And because I'm single. Somehow that appears to spell "danger" to the usual Christian guy. And I don't understand. The way they ignored me (and I was looking at them with friendly, open interest -- not interest in their hands in marriage, interest in meeting them -- most of the way through class) made me feel ugly and small. I wondered what was wrong with me. I forgot all the lessons I learned in college and through the grad school community and began to slip into old patterns of self-doubt and fear.

I'm not going to rant about this at length. I would just like to point out the strange irony that I felt safer, more cherished, and more appreciated at last Friday's party at 3 a.m. among people who had had too much to drink than I felt thirty hours later in the house of God. And while I won't apologize for the fun I had at the party or criticize anyone there, myself included, I want to say that there is something WRONG with the contemporary church when the best and warmest times I have in my life fall outside it. And this has been the case for a long time.

This is one of the reasons why I basically eschewed church attendance all the way through college. And I don't know what to do about it. Because now I NEED a church body, a baseline of people who share the same faith. Especially with my family so far away. So I'll continue to attend, but not with the same eagerness; more with a sense of perseverance through something mildly scary and unpleasant. I love the services. I love the preaching. I don't like having to try to convince people that I'm a good person to have around. I shouldn't have to. Everyone that I've met anywhere else but church hasn't needed convincing. Why should the church body? I like most people I meet on sight. I like people. What is this furtive silence that cripples the outgoingness and warmth of the church? I haven't even busted out with my scary opinions yet.

But at least I know again that everyone else, church aside, enjoys my company. Self-doubt is a horrible thing, but now that I know where it came from this week, I can categorize and contain it, and not let it bleed out into all my other relationships.

Maybe I should be bluntly specific and say that this whole post (which you might have already gathered) has centered around guys. The girls in Sunday School are much more approachable and friendly. So I guess what I'll do is go to make friends with them, and forget about the guys completely. But for how long is that a healthy thing? Part of being a body is interacting with members of both sexes. And part of being a woman -- particularly a single woman, with more social freedom -- is interacting with men. Not because culture dictates it, but because I want to interact with men. I want to cultivate friendships with men, because I like men, and some far-off, hoped-for day I want to have a man who is exclusively mine.

Gah. Oh and one more thing, while I'm irritated -- why can't Sunday School classes and small groups exist apart from study books and study guides? My youth pastor might have screwed up a lot of kids through leading them to believe that God only loved a perfect individual, but one thing he did right: He had us do this novel thing and READ THE BIBLE. My high school Bible studies went something like this: "This month we're studying First Peter. Open your Bibles. Okay, ready? Chapter one, verse one. Go."

Sola Scriptura. One of the glories of being a Protestant -- in fact, one of the fundamental tenets of Protestantism for which, as MP pointed out, people in history have died -- is knowing that, with the Holy Spirit inside us, we can read and accurately understand the Scriptures ourselves. We don't need a "Life Issues" book, a topical studies book, a study guide, or a set of videos to interpret the Scriptures. We have the Holy Spirit, the vast context of the Bible itself, and the body of believers to make, clarify, and guide our interpretations.

I'm sick of study books. I love the Bible. I love the beauty, the power, and the awful magnificence of the words of the Word. We're not refined by the words of John MacArthur, or Jerry Bridges, or even Oswald Chambers. Sure, their opinions can be helpful and serve to expand our understanding. But they shouldn't be our tools for interpretation. We have the most valuable tool -- the Spirit of God -- right at our fingertips, right under our ribs, enfolding our minds, less than a breath or a firing neuron away. Why are we cheapening that, and our own ability to understand what the Spirit gives us to understand, by thrusting it aside and clinging to things from the NavPress? And why are we cheapening the Bible itself by not allowing it to stand on its own?

It's a glorious book. I just want a group of people that can sit down around one chapter a week and dissect it. Other people's insights -- the insights of normal, everyday, nontheologians -- are so enriching. And when people sit down to discuss the Bible, just the Bible, together, there is a revelation and a powerful accountability that takes place. If someone has an opinion that's way off base, other people can point it out -- using Scripture. If someone has a fabulous insight that no one else has heard before, it can be heard. And when the Bible is sat down to and read in its own context (a whole chapter, not just a verse here and there...I'm not a big fan of topical studies, unless it's relevant to the chapter you're actually talking about), something holy happens. Because this is a book that is meant to be shared, bread broken among the body of believers. This is the book that lays out the whole basis of our faith. Why are we letting it collect dust in our minds by only opening it where the Navigators tell us to? Not that the Navigators are bad interpreters; but they're limited. The Bible is not.

The Bible speaks for itself. So does the living Spirit of the living God.

So we should read it. Corporately. Because this is where real transformation happens.

Mommy, wow! I'm a big kid now.

A year ago, sick to death of retail, I was desperately considering two options: grad school or a desk job. I fantasized about sitting down most of the day. I thought about having my own phone extension and a business card. I thought about wearing all my pretty Ann Taylor clothes to work, but not to advertise them; just because that's what was in my wardrobe, and they're professional.

So I talked to a few of my Ann Taylor associates who, unlike me, also had full-time office jobs, and they promised to keep their eyes open for similar occupations for me. I allowed myself to go wild in my imagination of a future as a professional woman...but still thought of myself as being perhaps a receptionist, having no real experience in the business world apart from selling people clothes. I never bothered to daydream about my own office; I realistically decided not to shoot too high, but imagined a better life than fourteen-hour days in retail in constant terror of employment termination due to low sales.

And now I have an office job.

It's better than what I had allowed myself to dream. I have my own office. I am not a receptionist, but a director. I have my own phone extension, my own computer, and soon my own business cards (that will say Director of Events and Marketing on them!!). I've held the position for just over a week, and I've already started meeting important people in the community, and making contacts with area businesses in preparation for our most involved and productive fundraising event of the year, the Miracle Auction in March.

I love it. I report to the Sr. Director of the Development Team (Angie), and as I'm a complete rookie I'm relying heavily on everyone else's knowledge and experience (particularly as I'm still green to the South Bend area and don't know anyone -- right now there's a flurry of names being tossed around that I'm just scribbling down and hoping to learn as time goes by), but largely I'm responsible for myself. I'm in charge of getting done the daily tasks that need accomplishing. I'm in charge of keeping updated, complete, and accurate records of every call I make and every donation promise I receive.

It's awesome. My Virgo self is in love with all the recordkeeping and listmaking. My independent self is in love with the control I largely have over my own time management. My get-out-of-here self is in love with lunchbreaks and off-site meetings. My professional self is in love with making so many new contacts and meeting so many new people. My ambitious self is in love with the goal of improving upon the people who have held my position in the past and being the best Director of Events and Marketing ever. My social self is in love with being able to do things with people relatively late at night again, and with being able to get around and visit coworkers periodically during the day.

Last week I attended an off-site committe meeting which flowed freely with ideas, laughter, appetizers, and wine. Tuesday I went out to lunch with the fabulous MP and one of our friends in the area. Tomorrow for lunch I'm attending a meeting to taste-test the entrees for the Auction at the ritzy Palais Royale.

I feel like I've graduated to real life. Not that anything I've done since graduation wasn't real life -- it was very real life, being poor and overworked and uninsured, and then poor and overworked (but insured) with at-risk children -- but this, now, is real, settled, relatively secure professional life. Of course there is the small, familiar voice in me whispering, "But what if you screw it up and get fired?" but the larger, newer voice briskly answers, "You won't." And that's the voice I believe.

When I first accepted the promotion a couple of months ago, MP said, "Sarah, you're your own chicklit heroine!" And, funny, it's true. I have a decently-paying (though I won't by any stretch of the imagination be rich), high-powered, fulfilling job for a really worthy cause, I get three weeks paid vacation every year (THREE WEEKS!!!)...and at the end of the day I come home to a reheated dinner and my cat, change into casual clothes (usually pajamas), and sit alone on the couch to watch DVD collections of TV shows.

It's a really good thing the job is going so well, and that I wake up eager to go to work in the morning, and that I have such fun with my fabulous female and gregarious grad school friends, because the singleness aspect of my life has been wearing lately. Leigh Ann pointed out last night that, really, it isn't necessarily a boyfriend I want, but certain things (physical contact -- almost no one hugs me or touches me at all -- companionship, walks, dinner options) that usually come neatly and conveniently packaged in a boyfriend. So if I can't have that tidy package, I need to look for the broken-down elements in separate places. (Isn't she smart?)

And I'm feeling, after my long absence from and sudden ready presence among the graduate school community, sort of passed over (left out? forgotten? pick the least offensive word, since I'm sure no one does it consciously). Maybe it's that I'm too tired this week and lacking perspective, or that I can't expect to dive back in after keeping such limited hours for so long and expect to be effusively welcomed or expect things to go right back to where they were. Actually it's probably both. But the truth is that while I'm extraordinarily comfortable with my own company and certainly need a majority of quiet evenings and time alone, I'm also tired of being by myself. I don't work closely with any one person every day, so my social needs are no longer met through Meg (insert forlorn sad face). And after years of holding people off out of a fear of not being able to give them the right, agape sort of love, and out of the fear of being hurt and let down, I want to jump back in and cultivate a close group of good friends who love each other well and have a relaxed, good time together. But those things take time, and at the best of times I'm not very patient. So I need to dedicate myself to a gradual process, and wait. (Getting more involved with my church will help in this area, too...and so far I've attended church within my goal for the year: 3 Sundays a month.)

So yes -- wonderfully, thankfully, the job is going beautifully. I love it. And now I must go and continue checking off the items on today's priority list.

toto, stop chasing the white rabbit

Last night I discovered something about myself: After a Grolsch or two and the hour of midnight in very old houses, I regress to the age of five and begin hopping about looking for adventures.

It all started calmly enough, a birthday party for one of Marianne's colleagues at a lovely old house in downtown South Bend which is undergoing a massive renovation at the skilled hands of its owner. We arrived, mingled, had fun meeting new people (or at least I did; I've been out of the loop for a semester and now that I have a job that does not necessitate daily and total superhuman patience I can lose a small bit of sleep and still function), and generally behaved ourselves until Hans, the owner of the house, mentioned that the first floor boasts a trapdoor but wouldn't say where.

It was all ridiculousness from there.

I charged over to Marianne and shouted over the music about the trapdoor, and the two of us were off like little bunnies (or one big and one little bunny) jumping up and down on various places on the floor listening for hollow noises. We searched built-in cupboards. We opened a door and were nearly staked in the heart by a vast bundle of falling wood. We stomped and capered until we found the door in a most obvious place, then begged Hans to open it. We ran down the spidery stairs into the basement and came back up through the proper basement door. We were giddy with the spirit of exploration. We wished there were a secret passageway.

The rest of the night is a bizarre montage of poetic renumerations of springtime and autumn in Pennsylvania to a tall interesting gentleman who responded with stories of the Ukrainian Catholic church, a British marker fight, a self-proclaimed scary and ugly German student who is neither scary nor ugly, and clattering explorations of the many rooms of the house.

We stayed till four a.m. I woke wondering how much had really happened and how much was the product of the busy imagination of a bored and lonely single woman who stayed up far too late with people she hadn't seen in far too long. But there on my bedside table was the folded hand-drawn map to the Ukranian Catholic church in Mishawaka, with the tall interesting gentleman's phone number. (Yes, ladies and gents, I got a phone number at a party from a man who invited me to church.)

A perfect evening. Even if I had to talk to Marianne to verify that it actually occurred and wasn't a result of too many Buffy fumes clogging the brain.

oh my catness

Simon is batting a piece of frozen broccoli all over the apartment.

at long last love has arrived

We met two Easters ago, while I visited home from Grove City on Spring Break. He was new to the neighborhood, and we hit it off the moment we saw each other. We spent some time hanging out, and I introduced him to my parents, who had seen him around but never formally met him. As he had no family or friends in Erie, my parents took him under their wing while I went back to college and eventually moved to South Bend. I made it a point to see him whenever I came back to town. Visiting him always made me ecstatic, and for his part he always seemed pleased that I was home (he's not a man of many words, but he communicates effectively nonetheless. It's a surprisingly good combination).

This past Thanksgiving everyone sat down for some discussions. I'm lonely in South Bend and while he is generally a little reserved, he loves me and always has, and Erie really has nothing for him. Plus it was crowded and noisy where he was living, and he needs some space and some quiet. (Finally, someone who appreciates my space and quiet!) Mom and Dad thought he was right for me, and so they helped us get set up for him to move to South Bend. He came back with me right after Christmas (the drive back was distracting, I can tell you!) and moved into my apartment. It's a lot smaller than what he's used to, but for the time being we're making it work, and he's not a complainer, which I certainly appreciate.

I didn't think it would make much of a difference, really -- I was only a little annoyed, to be honest, at the thought of having to share my bed. But everything is indescribably wonderful. In the morning he cuddles me awake; after work we romp around the apartment (so far no complaints from the neighbors) and I laugh at his antics; in the evenings we curl up together on the couch to watch TV (he's remarkably tolerant of Buffy and Angel). And going to sleep at night is so much warmer.

It makes all the difference in the world, having someone to come home to. I can't take two steps anywhere without him coming to cuddle and tell me how glad he is that I'm around. It's so nice to have someone to touch. And we don't have to talk all that much; it's enough to be in the same room with him. He knows when to leave me alone, and when to snuggle. He's perfect (except for his insistent demands to be fed. He can't cook to save his life). He's the sole reason I haven't been blogging lately; I love spending time with him too much even to talk about it to the blogosphere.

Marianne likes him tremendously, and even Meg says he's not that bad. It helps that he's extraordinarily good-looking, and charming to boot.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have a cat. And everything is changed.

ends and beginnings

Today is my last day in the PEDS program. Tuesday (we get Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off) I begin my new position at the Center as Director of Marketing and Events.

How do I feel? Mixed, of course. There's the incredible relief at not having to change diarrhetic diapers or wipe slug-snotty noses, relief at not having to calm temper tantrums or constantly count to ten to hold my own. There are the pangs of loss and sadness at not being close working partners with Meg anymore. There's excitement for the energy Vanessa the new PEDS Assistant will bring to the classroom (my energy's been about gone since October). There's guilt at being offered this position while Meg, who's been here longer and worked much harder, has to hang on in PEDS for awhile longer and train yet another new PEDS staff member (when she was the PEDS Assistant, her boss Angie was offered and took a position as Director of Development, so that Meg became the Program Director in Angie's place and I took Meg's old position. Now Angie is going to be my new boss, since my new position is included in the Development Team. It's ironic and awful at the same time). There's hope and joy at having my own office and a new and challenging job.

The next few weeks are going to be topsy-turvy as I adjust.

There's so much I've wanted to say, the past couple of weeks, but no time to say them the way I want, so this little update is, I hope, an appetizer for more consistent posting.

the rusty ivories

The week before Christmas I was struck with a deadly attack of needing to play a piano. I took lessons from the age of nine to nineteen, and after quitting lessons (due to the demands of schoolwork) my daily practice ground to an eventual halt with my move last year to piano-less South Bend. (Not that there are no pianos in South Bend, but there were none to which I had access, having had to leave my own upright at home for lack of storage space and the inallowability of playing it in an apartment complex.)

So just before Christmas, when job stress became unbearable and sleep came with a fight, I felt the muscles in my arms and torso and hands and fingers aching to pour their energy into cool smooth keys. My body longed to engage in music. So I took the piano books I'd brought from home, just in case, and after work one day slipped up to the Community Room on the third floor, a vast open room which when not in use lies empty and boasts a piano. I dragged up a chair, opened a Grieg sonata, and attempted for the first time in more than a year to play something besides the simple melody I'd written in high school.

It was, of course, a disaster. Like trying to dredge your memory for fragments of a forgotten language when suddenly faced with a native Spanish-speaker in a half-emergency situation. Music I had once nearly memorized (or, in the case of Debussy, had completely memorized so that even when I couldn't find my place on the page my body remembered to play) I had to sight read. I picked over the songs for half an hour in frustration, then finally hit some sort of stride and ended in a decent tone. Roger the maintenance man came upon me playing, encouraged me, then sensitively left me alone to my struggles. I left slightly disheartened but resolved to continue relearning to ride the bicycle, as it were.

Then tonight I sat down to play my own piano, the piano that knew my fingers and my feet on the pedals from the time I was a child. It went almost like a dream. There were still rough spots that I had to stop and squint at, but the difference playing my own piano was astonishing. And when I played "Claire de Lune," my favorite piece, it was how I imagine old lovers who parted under necessary circumstances coming back together...cautiously, a little warily, with a longing and a touch of sweetness and remembered love. There were spaces where I'd never really gotten it right and had to work over with careful attention, and other places where the music and I had meshed so completely that I couldn't ever forget it. Overall it was a little clumsy, a little halting here and there, but still beautiful.

And complementarily enough, my sister's half-grown cat fell asleep next to the piano, listening.

It's been long enough that I've gone without music. I can't afford more lessons, but I can practice what I once learned. It'll have to be in the Community Room until I get my first house and can transport my childhood piano out to South Bend.

I have missed music.

the necessity of poetry

You can see what I've indulged in from my Borders gift card: the complete (well, it says "complete" but we all know it isn't) poems of James Wright, and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far by Adrienne Rich.

I like James Wright because he could be categorized as "confessional" (a term which I despise anyway, misapplied as it is to woman poets honest about their lives and their worlds and the world, making it sound as if they had something to be ashamed of, telling their lives in strands of burning words, holding language accountable for its glossed persecution of the experience of women rendered to silence) -- Wright writes with a tenderness and self-awareness and sensitivity that I appreciate. He has a good strong use of metaphor and a consciousness of the natural world that, very simply, work. An emptiness comes through in his poetry that is at times almost Japanese. So I like him.

Adrienne Rich I love. More than any other poet, she inspires me to write.

So I'm sitting in a quiet house for once -- my parents gone (to work? on errands? they left no note), my sister sleeping, the menagerie of animals for once at peace. It's nice, to be alone and quiet in the house. I'm used to living alone, I'm accustomed to cherishing my space, to waking up and breathing and knowing that mine is the only breath in the rooms that are my own. Living alone is a sort of wild dream, something I can't always believe, that makes me glow with happiness.

It has its funny aspects. I've largely stopped reacting at all when I drop something or hurt myself through moments of uncoordinated stupidity. The other week I spent a few minutes putting a huge stack of CDs back into their enormous CD carrier, then when I went to stand up to put it away the carrier ricocheted off my knees and bounced into my face and cut my lip. I put the carrier down, reached for a tissue, and pressed it to the cut until the bleeding had mostly stopped. Then I put the carrier away. Throughout the whole incident I didn't make a sound. Why would I? There was no one to hear.

Then last week I was cleaning up the kitchen and set a clean glass on the edge of the counter and turned toward the living room to fetch a tissue because I felt a sneeze coming on. In the process of turning I bumped the glass and heard it drop to the floor behind me and shatter. I turned around, looked at the mess, then went to get the tissue. After mopping up my nose, I returned to the kitchen and got out the broom and swept up the shards of glass lying all over the floor. No swearing. No anger. No reaction even. Something that once was highly unusual and is becoming more of a norm.

Maybe it will change when I get a cat. Part of the lack of reaction, as I mentioned, is the lack of audience. It seems far more functional just to clean up the mess than to get mad about it. But then all the reactions I don't indulge get packed in somewhere inside me and periodically I have a sort of insane meltdown to let it all out (and those are times when I'm glad there is no audience). But all of it takes place in the emptiness of my own rooms and although it would sometimes be nice to have someone there to say, "Sarah. It's no big deal. Calm down," or to laugh at the humor of the situation, or to put a pair of reassuring arms around me and let me fall apart if I want, there's a joy in taking responsibility for my actions, all of them, and a joy in knowing that I can live on no one's initiative but my own.

This does not excuse me from a need for community. One of my New Year's resolutions is to attend church three Sundays of every month, to build community. And I'm starting to build community at work. Man is a social being, and I can't deny my place in society among other human beings. But it is wonderful, so deliciously wonderful, to have my own tower to retreat to. Mike at work says that being an extrovert or introvert has nothing to do with being outgoing or shy and everything to do with what energizes you: people or solitude. So while I'm outgoing and engaging and love being around people, I am energized by solitude. I need to back out of society quite often, actually, to recharge my batteries and reorient myself to life.

So living alone is perfect for what I need, and emerging from my tower is necessary as well.

And so is reading poetry.

Integrity

the quality or state of being complete; unbroken condition; entirety --Webster

A wild patience has taken me this far

as if I had to bring to shore
a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
tossed in the prow
some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted like unspoken anger
behind a casual mist.

This length of daylight
this far north, in this
forty-ninth year of my life
is critical.

The light is critical: of me, of this
long-dreamed, involuntary landing
on the arm of an inland sea.
The glitter of the shoal
depleting into shadow
I recognize: the stand of pines
violet-black really, green in the old postcard
but really I have nothing but myself
to go by; nothing
stands in the realm of pure necessity
except what my hands can hold.

Nothing but myself?...My selves.
After so long, this answer.
As if I had always known
I steer the boat in, simply.
The motor dying on the pebbles
cicadas taking up the hum
dropped in the silence.

Anger and tenderness: my selves.
And now I can believe they breathe in me
as angels, not polarities.
Anger and tenderness: the spider's genius
to spin and weave in the same action
from her own body, anywhere--
even from a broken web.

The cabin in the stand of pines
is still for sale. I know this. Know the print
of the last foot, the hand that slammed and locked that door,
then stopped to wreathe the rain-smashed clematis
back on the trellis
for no one's sake except its own.
I know the chart nailed to the wallboards
the icy kettle squatting on the burner.
The hands that hammered in those nails
emptied that kettle one last time
are these two hands
and they have caught the baby leaping
from between trembling legs
and they have worked the vacuum aspirator
and stroked the sweated temples
and steered the boat here through this hot
misblotted sunlight, critical light
imperceptibly scalding
the skin these hands will also salve.

~Adrienne Rich, 1978

Trying to Pray

This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes, and think of water.

~James Wright

post-Christmas craziness

I love Christmas. While it didn't feel quite fair to have Christmas on a Sunday, we more than made do (Mom and Dad went to church while I shamelessly stayed home with Laura and Keith to catch a late-morning nap -- very necessary to make up for the two and a half hours of sleep caught the night before due to present-wrapping and early rising to look at the tree). I asked for a number of intensely practical things that I never feel justified in putting into my budget -- new towels, cloth showercurtains, a Swiffer duster -- and I got them all, plus some (a new phone with a working answering machine! and a nice 3-qt saucepan, and jersey knit sheets, mmmmm). Laura gave me a GORGEOUS coat from her place of employ, Banana Republic, Keith gave me a scrumptious gift card to Borders (which I am going to spend today, the hole has burned through my pocket and into my skin), and Boss Meg gave me a FABULOUS monthly/weekly planner which will be absolutely indispensible as I move on to my new job.

I visited with church people and friends yesterday, and today am spending time with my beloved Eigh Ann after my post-Christmas shopping spree. Among the things I need (aside from the eight or so books that I do not yet own, imagine!) are gloves and a scarf to match the new coat, and new jeans.

It's so nice to be at home, taking a break from work. Since Christmas and New Year's fall on a Sunday, we get to take two weekdays off of our choice, and I took in addition three personal days (personal days! how adult! how career-oriented!) so that I get the whole week to myself to spend on my native soil with friends and family. So so good.

Even though I'm having dreams about cute guys who select other girls over me. Meh.

Oo but yesterday I saw a preview for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and those views of Johnny Depp more than sustained me.

who's surprised?

Your Reputation Is: Maneater

You're the kind of girl all the chicks hate...And guys are both scared of you yet strangely drawn in.

What's" Your Reputation?

nevertheless, hello

Holy smokies, it's been awhile since I've updated.

The reason for this is simple: My life has been turned into some ghastly sort of one-dimensional hell where I drift in the-ghost-of-Marley fashion with my jaw bandaged shut in order to stifle the moans of despair. I have kept myself at a level of near-complete exhaustion in order to deaden myself, with the result that I have no brain cells left for blogging.

And it's all because of work. Work has become as difficult as it could imaginably be at every facet.

Now, lest you think I am about to launch into a barrage of complaints, allow me to say that I am not in true despair. I just have to hang in there. I know that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well"; but boy howdy, I'm tired. And I wish to explain to my beloved readers why.

The Center for the Homeless in South Bend is a sort of national phenomenon. It's not a soup kitchen, or a shelter; it seeks to end homelessness for its guests by giving them all classes and programs to address and fix why they're homeless. People can get their GEDs, acquire sponsored internships and externships around the community, pay off debt, learn about themselves, and find homes, all while having their basic needs met and their basic bills paid by living for free at the Center.

In its fifteen-ish years of existence, the Center has expanded a great deal, rather beyond its original vision, and so it is in the process of hashing out what its current vision and purpose are supposed to be. So there's been a lot of turnover as various people have left, and as a new leadership is establishing itself; and overall, as with all revolutions, things are in a state of temporary chaos as the new order begins to gain its balance.

This puts a lot of burdens of adjustment on all the staff, and the PEDS program where Meg and I work is no exception. We're undergoing a lot of changes anyway -- changes to the curriculum, changes in our supervisor, changes in the enrollees to the program, changes in the number of volunteers (on whom we rely -- a day with five toddlers and three infants and without help is almost impossible) and now changes in the program assistant, as Meg looks for a replacement for me in preparation for my move to the administrative branch.

As other children have left, Meg and I have taken on five new children, all very young and very needy. Two of the infants do not sleep when the older children do, so now there is no point in the day wherein Meg and I get a break. We have no lunchbreak, and with the vanishing of the volunteers (mostly college students) for their long Christmas breaks, we have had to beg for help from the already overworked staff in order to be able to put all the children down for a nap in under an hour and a half. Meg and I agreed yesterday that we are so busy taking care of kids all day long that we don't have time to run to the bathroom or even put on chapstick. We're desperately overworked and overwrought just trying to get through each day.

So I've pretty much shut down into survival mode. No emotional response to anything, no deep thinking. I come home deadpan from work every day and shuffle around the apartment putting off going to bed, then get up so tired I see flashes of light as I stagger to the bathroom to shower, and drag myself to work.

At least I can say there's a light at the end of the tunnel -- I get to start my new job once my replacement in PEDS has been found. It's much worse for Meg as she tries to keep the program running by herself. Hopefully the new hire will have more energy and boundless enthusiasm.

I do love the Center. I love working there and I love the people who work there and live there. Last week I sang a duet with one of the case managers at the Center's holiday talent show and it went over extremely well, and it was nice to come out of the woodwork and be part of the community there. Last week also some of the staff got together after work at the Fiddler's for fun and socialization, making me fall in love even more with the staff. I am optimistic about everything working out in the end for everyone else's benefit. It's just a roughish road getting to where we need to be.

So simple exhaustion is the reason for my long silence. Today I took an entire Saturday to go nowhere and do nothing but relax and clean. Tomorrow Meg and I are getting together to bake cookies, and when I come home I will finish wrapping presents for the people for whom I can afford to buy presents. It's going to be a lovely Christmas, I think -- not because of lavish gifts (tons of bills for various things -- hopitalization, car tax, car rental -- have just arrived, tightening the screws down on my already squeaking budget) but because this year I can spend Christmas at home with my family. That in itself is comfort and joy.

o tannenbaum

Yesterday I pulled sturdy jeans over a pair of old nylons, layered up in sweaters, donned the only hat that becomes me, and headed up to Michigan to fetch myself a fine-lookin' tree with Boss Meg and her husband Phillip.

Christmas tree selection, transportation, and installation is possibly a greater difficulty to the modern single woman than the pointlessness of hanging mistletoe. A dear friend (an attached young man) once asked, "Why do all these TV shows and movies make a big deal out of single women having to drag Christmas trees into their apartments through their windows?" Because it's the starkest thing about the single life. A woman can be content, even satisfied, with her life as a Singleton; but managing a Christmas tree by herself throws into sharp relief the inherent wrongness of having to navigate life alone. There should be someone to help her with the damn tree. When there isn't, it goes beyond a feeling of cosmic mockery and violates the sensibility that lies at the marrow of Christmas: connection. Divine connection to humanity, human connection to humanity. A woman falling back on her own resources to set up her isolated celebration of connection is a terribly ironic tragedy.

I've been blessed so far by not having to set up makeshift pulleys out my living room window. Last year when I couldn't go home for any of the holidays because of the demands of retail, my parents visited for Thanksgiving and brought with them a Scotch pine to set up in my living room. (One of these days I'll post on the necessity of having parents, even and especially as an adult, and how glad I am that my parents maintain an active involvement in my life, or I might be lost.) They helped me purchase the lights, the ornaments, the tinsel. I decorated it alone, but even though I cried as I did it, I did not feel abandoned.

This year I could not have done it without Meg and Phillip. And I had a wonderful time. We drove to a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere, which supplies its customers with saws and hayrides (horse- or tractor-drawn) to the tree fields, where you can wander at will and select your very own tree. Phillip cut mine down for me (a tall, full Douglas fir -- I'm drawn to triangular trees the way some people are drawn to certain body types), and we hauled our trees back to meet the next hayride and headed to the home base where our trees were mechanically shaken free of dead needles, measured, priced, and bundled. Then we went into a log-cabin style general store for complimentary hot cocoa and to pay for the trees. Phillip strapped the trees to the top of their SUV and we returned to their place for chili and tree decoration, after which they drove my tree to my apartment, carried it upstairs, and went about the messy business of setting it up in my living room.

I had already rearranged all the furniture to accomodate the beautiful annual intruder, but we hadn't factored on the difficulty of forcing the tree into my ancient tree stand. In the end my living room carpet was littered with branches, bark, sawdust, pinesap, needles, and twigs as Meg and Phillip hacked away at interfering tree limbs. (At one point Phillip was doing the sawing while Meg and I straddled the still-bundled tree to keep it still, and I laughed and said, "Meg, we're having a treesome!")

So now I have armfuls of fir boughs to adorn the apartment, a clean carpet, and a fully decorated tree. Every family decorates differently; mine favors large colored lights, some of which randomly blink (and the first half-hour or forty-five minutes of tree decoration involves unscrewing and moving bulbs around to eliminate clusters of one color throughout the branches) and no particular theme to the ornaments. The tree is a hodgepodge of homemade, inherited, bought, and acquired ornaments placed to fill its spaces, some hung as far back as possible, layered over with silver tinsel icicles (no garland for me!) and topped with an angel. The overall effect is friendly, warm, and delightful; my favorite evening advent activity is to turn off all lights in the house except the tree just before bed, and sit listening to Christmas music or in silence, watching the tree and the needly patterns of colored light it throws against the white walls and ceiling.

It's still odd, decorating by myself and for myself, but this year I feel I have friends with which to share it. Next weekend sometime Meg and I are getting together for a Christmas cookie-baking bonanza (such fun, to swap recipes), and she'll be stopping by during the week to see what I've done with the tree. I'll have Colette over soon, and I'm pretty sure I can drag MP over for some insane Christmas cheer.

This is a new and glowing facet to celebrating Christmas: sharing and experiencing the traditions of fully grown friends. Everyone has a different story, and story, as Leigh Ann and I enthusiastically discuss, is life.

So I'm single. So I'm living alone. But I didn't have to wrestle my tree in place by myself, and I am beginning to feel more and more connected where I am.

And my tree is fragrant and gorgeous.