Emily Margaret.

I once heard that faith is just the knowledge that all things change. Like it's a comfort, as I grew up thinking faith to be, that bad times will end, just hold on a little longer, etc. But if we take that to be true, than we're accepting that all things change. Not only the bad.

Good things can change too. And isn't that what makes life so bittersweet?

I think it takes a kind of courage to face loss smiling, happy that you have something to miss.


This is my best friend Emily Hamlin. She's going to Syracuse University next week, for their nationally renowned Public Administration Masters program. That they're throwing money at her for her to come learn from them is only a suggestion of what an epic person she really is. I'm lucky and proud to know her. That I'm going to miss her is an understatement.

Turning the tides

I'm coming to the realization that I may be a pessimist. I almost remember being an optimist, before some grand teenage disillusionment. Now I can't see a rose but for it's thorns. Maybe this is some long standing defense mechanism, expecting the worst. I rather hate it. Ironically enough, I don't think it will end well.

Now watch, wait and see, as I turn the tides.

I'm grateful for chocolate milk. That shit is delicious.
I'm grateful for aloe plants, that are healing my lobster skin so well.
I'm grateful for the people at the state department, for giving me a job. And for Karen, Darlene, Lillian, Cyndy, Lori, Marcella, Steve, Mrs. Goldwin, Razelle and Stella- for everything they've done for me.
For 'Chuck' at the bike shop for selling me an awesome bike, and giving me a discount on my helmet for working for 'the man'.
For that girl I waited at the street crossing with, chatting about biking.
For Mom, raising three kids and still retaining her sense of self.
For Dad, holding a steady job for 40 odd years, and still encouraging us kids to be adventurous.
For Gavin, threatening to beat up, I believe, every boyfriend I have ever had.
For Jody, my amazing sister, who, on occasion, makes me feel deeply human.
For Brent and Ryan, for loving my sister so well.
For Keefe, who was at times a doggy glue that held our family together.
For Cat, Lobsty, Norm, Figgy, and the whole slew of animals I brought home to foist onto my mother. You were all somehow special to me.
For Emily, for coming out of no where, and being amazing. I never expected to have a best friend again.
For Laura, inspiring my love of science and reason.
For my Wise, Beautiful, and Fun aunts.
My adventursome uncles and cousins.
My old friends, and everything they taught me and let me teach them.
For Dinosaurs, and their mighty talons.
For Cynthia, who sublet us her sweet apartment, when we were so quietly desperate for a place to live.
For Tanuki, an honest, hardworking, heartwrenchingly adorable cat- who could have spawned a legion of kittens, ruling by fluff and mewls alone. Instead she sleeps on our laundry and cries outside the bathroom door when Dave tries to poop.
For the maple tree, for growing new leaves this spring.
For Dave. His good heart and patience. The intent look in his eyes when he puts aloe on my back.

To my chagrin, I think that some of my pessimism comes from statistics. That no one can be so thoroughly blessed with such good people. That loss must wait somewhere. And that it's immature of me to find them irreplaceable. But these are the jewels of my life. And like the maple tree, I want them to come back every spring, and grow big and healthy.

Being Human.

Recently Dave posted a blog about being a dwarf. More specifically, the experience of being drunk and functional. Unfortunately Dave is not as impervious to liquor as the stout dwarf, and the ensuing post was a source of amusement for all.

I think Dave was only half-serious in his research study about dwarvishness, and I am only half-serious when I say I'm still figuring out how to be human. It seems like other people 'get' this, or at least don't wonder about how to have the most fulfilling human experience. I think I forgot to pick up the starter manual at birth.

I've seen some beautiful and awesome things possible in life. Two middle aged people, married, and still playfully in love with each other. The man would follow his wife around the house, playing songs and singing to her on his mandolin. She would bring him dinner in a crock pot when he worked late, wrapping it in kitchen towels to keep it warm.

I know people who find their jobs meaningful. I know people who wordlessly inconvenience themselves for a friend. These people have something, they are something. What were their trials? What lessons did they learn that this kind of beauty is their reward?

I want to know these lessons, because I think they are integral to being human. Show me, please.

Image hoisted from Sarachmet.

A long vein.

Let me continue on this vein, I think the topic is applicable to most of my generation.

What I know of being Grownup comes from a 2nd hand perspective, watching my parents as a child, when they were closest to myself now in terms of personal development. Now understand that I love and respect my parents, less out of duty than of honesty. And if I wind up as fun and well-adjusted as them when I'm their age than I will have done something right.

But growing up my parents appeared preoccupied with life. If they enjoyed it much, it was beyond my perception at the time. I was the one having all the fun and freedom. Now I see them on my own horizon. Were they zesty when I was young? Or did their spirits hibernate under the cloak of a career, marriage, and parenting winter? How did they ever weather that simultaneously?

I feel as though I'm only starting to know myself, just on the cusp of this Grown-up winter.

Grown-ups.

What a foreign species Grownups have been. Mailing their money away, owning fun stuff like cars and pools but never smiling gleefully over them, sometimes with little versions of themselves orbiting their legs or torsos.

I realize now that I've always had the presumption that Grownups would be another race entirely all my life. It was unquestionable that I would become like my mother, and stop wearing rollerskates in the house.

And yet, I'm increasingly mailing my money away, and when I drive it's never with the lawless abandon that I once dreamed of. My own sister, my template for living well, has what can only be called a 'family home'. For her family. There's a mortgage, and a lawn mower, and a dog, and a son, and a 'baby on the way'. All empirical evidence indicates that she is now a Grownup. What is this alchemy!

I think when she and Brent first announced the pregnancy I said something haphazardly like 'that's not supposed to happen'. I suppose it was an offbeat way to express my surprise. But at the moment my mind was being blown away that my enigmatic sister was now an enigmatic adult, and less like me than ever.

So maybe growing up is inevitable. But the implications of that have never been better expressed than by the great Randall Munroe:

Said I wouldn't...

But I've got this blog now. I found there were thoughts I couldn't fit onto Twitter that I wanted to be seen somewhere. Let's play both sides of the fence, say there are no angels looking down, glorying in my little flashing life. No celestial writer constructing my plot. Someone out there will look into my brain meats and see a spark.

Congratulations, viewer. Welcome to my head.

I realize that this can't be a standard college bitch-blog, and if I spend this bandwidth talking the nuances of my day then I'm missing the point. What I've picked up from my Aunt Diane, and gentleman friend Dave, is that I need a theme. I feel narcissistic picking myself as a theme, but for now I'll have to do.