30 Days of Blogging, Day 26: Describe Your Dream House

I can't say the house I'm living in right now is my dream house, since it's not situated in the woods and doesn't have a spectacular view.  But I love my house.  I do wish I could make a few substantial improvements, though.

I wish the kitchen looked like this.  Right now I have a tiny galley kitchen, which makes it hard to do anything very complicated.  Also, there's really no room for more than one person in the kitchen at a time.  I'd like to have a kitchen where people can cook together comfortably.   

And I wish I had an outdoor office, like this.  I realize it would have to have a window air conditioner--otherwise, it would be unusable for six months of the year--but I like the idea of being able to leave the house without actually leaving home.   


 And, finally, I wish we had a piano like this in the living room:

I love listening to my husband play the piano.  He doesn't get to do it very often, since we only have a small keyboard right now, but in my dream house there's a baby grand piano where he can play anytime he wants.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 25: A song that makes you think of someone besides your significant other

There's a scene in the remake of The Parent Trap where California Lindsey Lohan has just arrived in London, pretending to be her identical  twin, London Lindsey Lohan.  While she's briefly taking in the major sights of the city, The La's song There She Goes is playing in the background.  My daughter once told me that this song made her think of me--in fact, when she was very little, she told me she couldn't watch The Parent Trap when I was away from home on a trip, because that song made her miss me too much.

So now, of course, whenever I hear that song, I think of her as well. 

30 Days of Blogging, Day 24: Make a Play List for Someone

I'm coming down with a cold and I feel like crap, but I'm certainly not going to punk out on a 30-day challenge when I'm this close to the finish line.  I am going to cheat a little bit, however; instead of explaining each song, I'm just going to say that my husband will know why each of them is on the list.

Is Your Love in Vain, Bob Dylan

Kiss Off, Violent Femmes
Straight up, Paula Abdul
Eternal Flame, The Bangles
The Flame, Cheap Trick
Under the Milky Way, The Church
Back in Your Life, Jonathan Richman
My Baby, Scruffy the Cat

30 Days of Blogging, Day 23: Something you wish you had done

One thing I wish I had done is start running sooner than I did.  I played a lot of sports when I was younger--softball, volleyball, basketball.  When I got to junior high, though, it quickly became apparent that some girls were much more serious about sports than I was.  I'd always just had fun with whatever I was doing.  So I stopped playing sports after volleyball season in 8th grade, and after that I didn't do much of anything physical.  I took the occasional aerobics class in high school and college, but that's about it.  I always had friends who'd run for fitness purposes, but it never occurred to me that I might do this. 

Flash forward about 30 years, more or less.  I've taken my daughter and two other girls from our church to a weekend Advent retreat at a local church camp.  During free time, one of our options is to hike up to the cross that overlooks the campsite.  This is what the girls want to do, and they beg me to come along.  I'm from Idaho; what's in front of me is not a mountain, not even close to a mountain.  It's a hill.  A steep hill, but a hill nonetheless.  So I say fine, we'll do the hike.  When I say this, it does not occur to me that I haven't climbed either a mountain or a hill in a very long time.  Like, 30 years, more or less.

Halfway up the hill--maybe not even halfway, actually--I start to realize that I'm in big trouble.  My legs and shaking and my heart is beating faster than I think it's ever beaten before.  I can just barely breathe.  But there's no way to give up and go back down the hill, because we're hiking in a line.  Also, I don't want to abandon the girls.  So I keep climbing, and I start praying, and I make it to the top of the hill.  This is when I start considering that I might have to tell the counselors who've led us up here that I can't make the climb back down, because my heart is really racing and I really can't breathe.  I have visions of being taken down the hill by EMS people, on a stretcher, wearing an oxygen mask.  I can't do that to these girls, though.  I can't scare them that way.  And I certainly can't have the camp director calling their parents and saying Please come pick up your daughter.  The chaperone from your church was too fat and out of shape to make it through the weekend. 

So I say a very earnest prayer:  God, please get me down off this hill.  I know I'm too young to be this out of shape. But I swear, if you get me down off this mountain, I will change.  I have to be able to get these girls back to their parents.  Please, God, just let me get these girls back home and I'll do better.

And somehow, when it was time to start hiking again, I got down the hill.  I fell once, because my legs were weak and shaky, but I made it back to the campsite.  And when I got back home, later that day, I told my husband what had happened and started looking for a treadmill.  I didn't want to be able to make any excuses--rain, heat, whatever.  I wanted to hold up my end of the bargain, since God had taken care of me when I asked for help.

At first, I could barely walk a mile on the treadmill.  That's how out of shape I was.  It's humiliating to think about this now, but it's true.  Before too long, though, I'd moved up to two miles.  Then, as I was trying to improve my speed, it suddenly occurred to me:  maybe I could run.  I had never, ever thought of myself as a runner, so I really wasn't sure if this was something I could do.  I started off very slowly, holding on to the arm rails of the treadmill while I ran.  When I gained a little confidence, I let go.  Then I kicked up the speed.

Now I love running.  I love the way I feel after a good run, tired but full of energy at the same time.  I love the way deep breathing clears out your brain, and the way an endorphin rush just lifts off the top of your skull.  When I'm in a good routine and running several times a week, I feel really powerful.  Like I could run anywhere.  I'm not competitive about it--I don't run 5ks, and I didn't join the team my university put together for the upcoming Rock-n-Roll half marathon--because I'm hard on myself, generally speaking, and I know I'd start feeling bad about running if I didn't do as well as others.  That's why I don't run with a partner, either.

This is something I do for myself.  And for God, of course.  I just wish I'd started sooner.     

30 Days if Blogging, Day 22: Something you wish you hadn't done

Once you become a parent, I think your list of regrets in life multiplies exponentially.  Every day, it seems, there are choices to be made, and you never know if you're doing the right thing.  You make what you think is the best decision at the time.  But lots of times, you only get one shot--you can't go back and fix what you did, if it turns out you did the wrong thing after all.

When we first moved to Texas, Jordan was starting first grade and Andrew was still in preschool.  He was four years old, so he needed just one more year of day care before he started kindergarten.  I found a center close to our house, checked it out, and made arrangements for Andrew to start spending his days there.

We'd had terrific child care in Columbia, Missouri--it was university-sponsored, led by teachers with college degrees and staffed by students studying to be teachers.  I knew it wasn't likely we'd find anything we loved as much as our previous day care center after we moved.  So when I started having some misgivings about the place I'd chosen, I tried to write them off to an unfair comparison.  I never had any concerns about Andrew being unsafe or in danger, but he obviously wasn't happy.  He's always been a shy kid, so I told myself that of course the transition to an unfamiliar place would be difficult.  He'd adjust. 

But when his feelings about day care didn't improve, I told myself he only had to be at this center for a short while.  Less than a year.  I'd just started a brand new job at my university and I was nervous about proving myself.  I was trying to earn tenure.  Looking for a new day care would have taken me away from work during the day.  I didn't want to make it look as if I couldn't balance being a mother and a professor just when I was at the start of a new career.  I'd worked so hard to get where I was.  I tried to focus on the big picture and keep in mind that I was supporting my family. That without my job, we'd all be much more unhappy than Andrew seemed to be.       

When the academic year ended in May, I took Andrew out of day care as soon as I could and spent that whole summer at home with him and Jordan.  I hoped some time (and a super fun summer with Mom) would just erase that whole awful year from his memory.  While I don't think he suffered any long-term damage, he still says "I hated that place" every time we drive by it.  Clearly, he has not forgotten that experience. 

If I could go back and make a different decision for him now, I would.  Even if it meant ending up at a different university, or in a different career altogether.  I had other options.  I didn't take them.  And I really wish I had. 

30 Days of Blogging, Day 21: A story about your best friend, past or present

I could tell you something about my friend Susan, from high school, or my friend Jayne, from college, but instead I'm going to tell you something about Steph, from grad school.  I met Steph toward the end of her undergraduate career, right after I'd started my M.A. program.  I've always thought she was incredibly cool--she's one of those effortlessly hip people who exist entirely in a world of their own making.  I'm still jealous of her ability to just sit back and let life happen.  Whatever comes up, she deals with it and moves on as if that were always part of the plan.   

Steph grew up in Kansas, which is where I met her, via our mutual friend Bruce.  Later, she moved to Idaho--where I grew up--because both she and her husband were looking for jobs, and the university where I was working always needed adjunct faculty.  About a year after that, I moved away from Idaho again, to work on my Ph.D. in Missouri.  (Steph drove cross-country with me during that move, since I was traveling with an infant.  She was my co-pilot/car nanny, and indispensable in both roles.)  In the meantime, our friend Bruce had moved back home to the southwest, decided on a career in medicine, and gone to med school.  Later, he accepted a job that brought him back to Kansas.

So now Steph lives in my hometown and occasionally checks in on my elderly parents.  I live in the southwest, Bruce's old stomping grounds.  And Bruce lives in northwestern Kansas, near the tiny town where Steph grew up.  Steph tells me that there are days, even now, after 16 years of living in Boise, when she looks at the mountains and thinks "I live in Idaho."  But, no doubt, those moments are followed by her realization that this is exactly as it should be.      
    

30 Days of Blogging, Day 20: A book that meant something to you

I love books--hence the career path I have followed thus far--but I'm not sentimental about them.  There were books I loved as a teenager that I can see as deeply flawed now (pretty much everything by F. Scott Fitzgerald falls into this category, with the exception of The Great Gatsby.)  There are books I didn't like as a young reader that I now love (pretty much everything by Faulkner falls into that category.)  And then there's the occasional book that changed my life.

The Poisonwood Bible is one of those books, for about a billion reasons.  Most important among those reasons is the fact that it made me think of Africa in a completely different way--not as a shape on a map, not as a continent, but as a place where people live.  Reading about the U.S. government's involvement in the murder of Patrice Lumumba made me deeply ashamed; realizing this was a piece of American history that conveniently gets left out of the official story told in textbooks made me furious.  I loved the Price family (except for evil Nathan, of course) and found myself a little horrified to realize that I sympathized with vapid Rachel as often as I did with compassionate Leah.  That's Kingsolver's point, of course--that we're all a little bit selfish and a little bit selfless.  The important thing is to balance those impulses for the greater good.

On top of that, this book contains a moment of genuine surprise that I wasn't at all prepared for.  That's a rare treat, when you've read as many novels as I have.  The Poisonwood Bible restored my faith in the ability of a book to suck me in, surprise me, and make me sad when it was over. 

30 Days of Blogging, Day 19: Your Faith

I was raised Lutheran--by which I mean, I grew up going to a Lutheran church every Sunday.  My father had grown up without any sort of religious training.  My mother didn't know a lot about what it meant to be Lutheran, specifically; she just knew that she'd always gone to a Lutheran church, and she was Confirmed in a Lutheran church, and therefore she kept going to a Lutheran church.

I hated church, as a kid, and hate is not too strong a word.  Our church was in the old part of town and had no youth program to speak of.  Occasionally there would be some spurt of youth-oriented activity, and my mother would insist that I go and hang out with people I didn't know at all.  I went to church because I had to, and when I didn't have to go anymore--when I moved away from home to go to college--I didn't.

Having kids of my own is what changed my mind about all of this.  When you have children, the world starts looking like a much different place, full of potential dangers and injuries.  I didn't want my children to grow up vulnerable to twisted people who might claim to know something about the Bible and the afterlife;  I wanted my kids to have a certain amount of Biblical literacy that they could claim as their own.  And when I started looking at the Bible myself, I realized that I actually believe what the Gospel says.  Like, really believe it.  I realized that social justice and Christianity go hand in hand, in spite of the fact that many people who call themselves Christians work very hard to prove that's not the case.

I go to church now because I believe in what it stands for.  I believe in helping people who need help, which is what Jesus did.  I believe in loving my neighbor, difficult as that is sometimes.  I believe that doing these things is the only way to heal this broken world.  I go to church to remind myself of that.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 18: Your views on a current controversial topic

It's a good day for this topic.  Or, rather, a sad day for this topic.  Yesterday our country missed an opportunity to repeal the shameful Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that's been in place since 1993.  An overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of repealing this policy--including my dad, who was a 22-year Army veteran, an officer, and a soldier in two wars.  He once said to me "It makes no sense to make people lie when you're asking them to pledge to serve their country with honor.   There's no honor in lying."

Amen, Daddy-o.

And to quote Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 17: Something you're a little OCD about

This one's also pretty easy to answer (although, sad to say, there are many things that fall into this category.)  I'm completely OCD about symmetry and evenness.  A framed photo hung on the wall at even a slight angle will drive me nuts.  If I'm starting a new project, generally I need to start it at the beginning of a week (or month), which is why I was pretty proud of myself for starting a 30-day challenge on September 5th.  The much more likely response would have been to wait until October 1st.  Or perhaps November, which actually has 30 days and wouldn't have one leftover day, like October.

I'm telling you, it's bad.

Whenever I'm painting a room, I can spend untold amounts of time trying to get a straight line at the top of the wall or around the doorjamb.  Even in spots that aren't going to show--if I know there's a blob of paint on the wall, I'm going to scrape it off and work to cover it up.  Trying to texturize the walls in my bathroom was a nightmare because I really wanted the lumpiness to be even across the wall, when of course the point of texturizing is random lumpiness to cover irregularities in the wall surface.

My friend Chris likes to come into my office and move the calendar on the corner of my desk.  It's always positioned at a 45-degree angle from the front edge of the desk, lined up with the right-hand corner.  One day he came in and nearly had a heart attack when he noticed the calendar had been knocked out of position by something I'd put on top of it.  (I'm not a neat freak, so clutter isn't unusual, but generally speaking my clutter is organized in piles.  To recycle.  To deal with.  To file.  Etc.)  After he moves the calendar, he likes to stand there talking to me because he knows I won't move it back until he leaves.  But he also knows I'm barely capable of holding a conversation while my calendar is askew. 

This passes for entertainment at my office.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 16: Something You Definitely Can Live Without.

Easy.

Television.

My husband will laugh when he reads this, because he hates the TV and doesn't like that it's on so much of the time.  I'm used to having the TV on, it's true, but I'm hardly ever watching it.  I've done writing residencies where no TV was available for two weeks, and while the adjustment is a little difficult at first, it's also pleasant.  I like the way quiet sort of takes over your life when there's no TV available.  (When I went to O'Hare Airport after two weeks without television, I almost started crying as the result of overstimulation.  The noise!  The lights!  It was all too much.)

But when you live with children--or, at least, when you live with children in a neighborhood like mine, where not having access to TV would be a pretty big deal--you get used to noise.  Including TV.  When the house is quiet (as it is at this moment), I actually get a little nervous.  Quiet is unnatural.  It's better to have some voices in the background to remind you that everything's fine.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 15: Something You Can't Live Without

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's nothing I really couldn't live without (aside from the basic requirements--food, air, water, etc.)  I'm a pretty adaptable person and when I have to let go of something, I do it.  I may not like it, and I may not be happy about it, but I do it. 

There are several things that make life much less pleasant when they're out of rotation, though.  First among those is coffee.  With both of my pregnancies, I gave up coffee.  That was absolutely the hardest part about being pregnant.  There's conflicting research about whether pregnant women need to give up caffeine entirely or just cut back, and of course my mother insisted I didn't need to do either--"I drank coffee the whole time I was pregnant with you kids, and you were fine," she said.  You also drank alcohol and lived with a man who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, I could have added.  But the fact that we all dodged various bullets didn't make me feel inclined to follow her example. 

I knew it would be harder for me to limit my coffee drinking than to just give it up altogether, so that's what I did.  Toward the end of my second pregnancy I observed to my friend Denise that when you're pregnant is when you most need to relax with a drink or wake up with a cup of coffee, and you can't do either one.  It's so unfair. 

Healthy children are pretty good compensation for those temporary sacrifices, though.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 14: Your Favorite TV Show

Although the TV is often turned on at my house, I don't watch a lot of it--the television often serves only as background noise.  When I'm writing or working seriously, I need a quiet house.  When I'm just putzing around on the computer, or reading a magazine, the background noise of the TV is there to keep me company.  (Also, I find it very difficult to do only one thing at a time.  If I'm a reading a magazine, I have to be watching TV simultaneously.  And vice-versa.)

One of the main reasons I don't watch a lot of TV is that so much of what's on now is just disgusting.  It's vulgar and childish and just generally more offensive than anything else.  When I do have the TV on, I'll watch reruns of older shows (like Seinfeld) or something on Food Network.  The only current television I watch with any regularity is Mad Men--I do love me some tormented bad boy, as long as the torment is genuine and not self-serving--and, now that it's back, Parenthood.  I like that the family on this show seems real.  The adult children bicker with each other and carry grudges, like siblings (even grown siblings) tend to do; the younger children have real issues to deal with, not just the usual high school drama; and the couples are fighting over real problems, like whose job should take priority when family decisions have to be made.

I don't know if I could choose between those two, or which one I'd choose if I had to.      

30 Days of Blogging, Day 13: Your Favorite Band or Artist

I love music.  I was one of those teenage girls who felt like Top 40 radio was speaking about her directly.  When MTV made the scene--first as a half-hour TV show, when I was in junior high, and later as the All Music, All The Time channel it became--it completely changed my life.  I spent ridiculous amounts of time sitting around, watching videos and listening to music.

I have a very clear memory of the first time I saw the video of R.E.M. singing "So. Central Rain."  I loved that song.  I loved Michael Stipe's voice.  I loved Michael Stipe's hair.  And when I heard that song, I knew I was hearing something I'd never heard before.

R.E.M. has always felt that way to me. Hearing  "Cuyahoga" and "Fall on Me" for the first time felt very similar to that first encounter with "So. Central Rain."  I'm less crazy about their more recent stuff, but I realize bands and artists need to evolve.  Nobody wants to sing the exact same song over and over for thirty years. So I'll just keep listening to the old stuff and reliving the revelations of my youth.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 12: An old photo and a story

Some of you may have already seen his photo (if you're my Facebook friend.)  This was taken while my family still lived in a rental house in Boise, so I can't be more than five years old--we moved into the house where my parents still live just after my 5th birthday.

I really think I remember having this picture taken, because I remember striking that pose very purposefully.  I felt quite sassy in my cowgirl garb, and I wanted to let that be known--and, apparently, that was okay, or at least for as long as it took to capture this picture.

I'm not sure what I thought the poodle purse added to this ensemble.  (The knee socks and saddle shoes were, no doubt, my mom's contribution.)

30 Days of Blogging, Day 11: A photo that makes you sad

I belong to a Facebook group, Pawsitively Texas, that works to find homes for animals who are in danger of being put to sleep at area shelters.  The guy at left, Scott, was one of the dogs on their rescue list several weeks ago.  I see pictures of adorable, needy cats and dogs every day via this group, but something about Scott's picture just broke my heart.  His eyes looked so sad.  He reminded me of our dog, Hailey, when we found her at a local shelter.  Even my son, who was six years old at the time, asked me "Why is her face so sad?"  I told him she was sad because she needed a family, and that's why we needed to adopt her.  She's been a much-loved member of our clan ever since that day.

I knew we couldn't adopt Scott, but I kept checking back to see if someone had adopted him.  He did find a foster home, so at least he was safe from immediate danger.  Then I read that he'd tested positive for heartworm disease, and I figured his fate had been sealed.  In its advanced stages--as it is in Scott's case--heartworm is an expensive disease to treat, and a HW+ dog requires special care.  I couldn't imagine someone would adopt a dog, even one as beautiful as this guy, knowing he came with that kind of baggage.

But guess what?  Someone did.  Some beautiful soul looked at Scott's picture, saw the same sad face, and did something about it without regard to the cost or care Scott will involve.  His name is Chance now, which seems completely fitting to me. I swear he's smiling in this picture.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 10: A picture that makes you happy

This is a picture of my mom and dad that I took several years ago, before my dad's health started declining.  We were having lunch at a barbecue restaurant in Boise.  I was on sabbatical that October and visiting home so I could attend his 80th birthday party that weekend.

My dad is not the type of guy to stick out his tongue when you take his picture.  He was a drill sergeant in the Army.  He was a serious bad-ass and a very strict father. But for some reason, he decided to stick out his tongue that day. And he managed to do it at the very last minute, without me seeing what he'd done.

When I reviewed the picture on my camera, I just started laughing.  "Did you actually stick out your tongue?" I asked him.

He was laughing too hard to answer.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 9: A Piece of Art or Sculpture That You Really Like

I'm going to cheat on this one and talk about both a piece of art and a piece of sculpture because I can't choose between the two.  Not that I'm saying sculpture isn't art.  I didn't write the prompt, people, I'm just responding to it.

This is the "Bird Girl" statue created by Sylvia Shaw Judson, a member of the Shaw family that owned what is now the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois.  I've done two writing residencies at Ragdale, and both times I was overwhelmed by the spirit of creativity that just sort of oozes out of the walls in that place.  This statue, the last time I was there, sat in front of the newly renovated Barn House.  In the photo at left, "Bird Girl" is situated somewhere in Savannah, Georgia--she rose to fame on the cover of John Berendt's Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil.  I couldn't find a photo of her at Ragdale that showed this level of detail, though.  "Bird Girl" is typical of all Sylvia's sculptures, many of which are on the Ragdale grounds--they're very simple and incredibly beautiful.  You can see more of Ragdale (and Sylvia's sculptures) in this blog post.

You've probably seen this painting before.  It's Un Dimanche Après-Midi à lÎle de la Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, on display at the Chicago Art Institute.   My husband and I went to Chicago to visit a friend not long after we were married, and that was the first time I saw this paiting in person.  It's enormous.  I didn't grow up going to museums, so I hadn't seen a lot of art--and honestly, it had never occurred to me that paintings came in different sizes.  I figured they were all just, you know, painting-size.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. 

Then, right after I finished my MFA, my husband and I went to Paris to visit our friend Michael.  He was in the Foreign Service and living in Paris at the time, so we had a free place to hang out while we explored Europe with the assistance of our much-more-worldly friend. We saw an exhibit of Seurat paintings while we were there, including the studies he did while composing La Grande Jatte (though not the painting itself--the CAI doesn't loan it out anymore, apparently, after it was almost destroyed by a fire at another museum.)  There were sketches of all the characters in this painting in different poses, and that's when it occurred to me that artists didn't just start at one end of the canvas and paint their way across, or start in the middle and head for the edges.  Again, I know that sounds crazy, but it's true.  We bought a poster of this painting at the end of our museum visit.  It's framed now, hanging in my living room, and it's the only souvenir we brought back from that trip to Paris.  (We were young and broke.  The poster was cheap.  The framing, done years later, was not.)

Later during that trip, we happened across the Seurat family tomb in the Pere Lachaise cemetary--completely by accident, but it seemed kind of fitting, after seeing the exhibit.  I stuck some flowers through the grate on the front of the tomb, and I still remember that as one of the most important things I did while I was in Paris.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 8: Reasons Why You Love Your Significant Other

Well, this is a nice change of pace after yesterday's disappointment-fest.  This is a list that could go on indefinitely, but here are a few reasons:

1.  Because I knew, ten minutes into our first conversation, that he was the person I was supposed to be with for the rest of my life.  I could even tell you what he said that brought about this revelation, but then I'd have to relate the whole conversation for that sentence to make sense. 

2.  Because he has a wicked sense of humor that very few people know about.  He's very quiet, but when he speaks up, he's hilarious.

3.  Because he'll always do the right thing, even when it's not the easy thing.

4.  Because he goes out of his way to be nice.  Last weekend we went to IHOP for breakfast after church, and when he saw a woman approaching the front door carrying a baby in a carrier, he jumped up and opened the door for her.  He wasn't the person closest to the door, but he didn't wait to see if one of those people was going to help out.

5.  Because he's a really good dad, available and supportive but not a doormat or a cash machine, like so many fathers are.   

6.  Because he genuinely wants me to succeed at whatever I do, and he takes pride in my success rather than feeling threatened or diminished by it.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 7: Someone from the past who disappointed you

I really don't like thinking about things like this.  I'm big on moving ahead and leaving the past in the past, where it belongs.  But, okay.  In the spirit of completing the list.

There was a guy I knew in graduate school.  I can't say we dated, exactly, but we hung out together constantly.  When we weren't hanging out, we were talking on the phone.  We had one of those relationships that makes you sit around and think "What is this, exactly?  What are we doing?"  The answer to that question seemed to change on a pretty regular basis, and in retrospect I think that was intentional.   

We had a lot of things in common.  I really wanted that relationship to work--I liked who I was when I was with him, and I liked the way he saw me (or, at least, the way I thought he did.)  But toward the end of that relationship, whatever it was, he played a very cruel joke that left me feeling humiliated.  I don't know if he intended for me to feel that way, but I'm not sure how he could have anticipated a different outcome.  THen again, maybe that in itself says something about him.

I wrote a story about this guy many years later (of course). It ended up being more non-fiction than fiction, though I did change the ending.  Most of the people I know who've read that story seems to understand, without being told, that they're reading about a real person and not some figment of my imagination.  Every one of them has said something like "You're lucky you found out who he really was."  I suppose they're right, but I didn't feel lucky to know it then and I don't feel lucky now.  Just sad, even all these years later.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 6: Someone From the Past that You'd Like to Get in Touch With

This is a pretty hard one, actually.  There are many people I've lost touch with over the years; some of them have tracked me down on Facebook, and one of them wrote me an actual letter after reading my novel.  I'm always glad to hear from people I used to know, but I'm taking this topic to mean "someone you might actually consider reaching out to yourself."  That's a much more difficult question.  (See my Day 2 post if you need an explanation as to why this might be.)

Probably, though, the answer would be my friend Susan from high school.  We became very good friends very quickly at the beginning of our senior year; I was never a person with a big friend network, and Susan was really the first "best friend" I'd ever had.  After high school, we went to the same college but joined different sororities--so of course we made different friends and didn't see each other as much.  We also developed different priorities, and after awhile we just didn't understand each other very well.  I moved off campus and became a vegetarian.  She got more and more enmeshed in sorority life.  It got to be difficult to spend much time together at all.

I don't know if Susan and I would have much in common these days, but I'd be interested in finding out.

30 Days of Blogging, Day 5: The Best Thing in Your Life Right Now

Easy question today.  My little family has always been the best thing in my life. 

At first, it was just me and The Hubs.  For six years we just had fun together, going to movies and trying out restaurants and taking road trips whenever we wanted to hit the road.  The early part of our marriage was one giant adventure. 

Then our daughter was born--she hated riding in the car until she was old enough to sit in a forward-facing car seat, but after that she was a terrific traveler.  She spent most of her time around adults because we took her with us wherever we went.  By the time she was two, I was telling people that having a toddler was just like having a little roommate.  That's the kind of kid she was.

Our son was a surprise addition to the family, a wonderful surprise.  He was the easiest baby ever born--all he did was eat and sleep and smile and snuggle up with me.  When he got a little older, giving him a hug and kiss at bedtime was the best part of my day.  He was the very best hugger. 

I always knew I wanted to be a mom, but I didn't know how much I'd enjoy being part of my family.  There's really nothing I'd rather do than hang out with these people, and knowing I get to come home to them makes even the hardest days easier to get through.
  

30 Days of Blogging, Day 4: A List of 20 Favorite Things

In no particular order:
 
1.  Coffee
2.  Making bread
3.  October
4.  Red wine--in particular, Middle Sister Rebel Red
5.  Tulips 
6.  Polish on my toenails, never on my fingernails
7.  My Microplane lemon zester
8.  Planet Hollywood's white chocolate bread pudding
9.  A chai latte on a rainy day
10. Taking a run when it's chilly but sunny outside
11. Yoga pants
12. Softlips Vanilla 
13. The smell of pine trees (Not fake pine scent.  Ick.)
14. Cadbury Mini Eggs (Not the creme eggs.  Ick.)
15. Long walks in quiet places
16. NPR
17. Lemons, lemons, lemons
18. Salmon
19. Barbecue
20. Staying home on a rainy day

30 Days of Blogging, Day 3: You Favorite Quote

"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."  ~ Meister Eckhart

I love this quote for many reasons.  First, it's about writing--or, specifically, it's about revision.  This is a quote that debunks the importance of the first draft.  Lots of young writers want to believe that their first draft is the "truest" draft, the closest thing to what was really on their minds when they were writing.  I know this because I used to be one of those writers.  Over time, though, you learn that revision is where you figure out what you actually meant.  As I tell my students, "You have to make the clay before you can do anything with it."

I also love this quote because it's about learning to live with integrity.  You can't understand the story of your life unless you're willing to re-write some chapters when new information arises and new wisdom surfaces with age and experience.  You can't believe the same things throughout your entire lifetime if you're learning and growing.  "I was raised to believe . . . " is one of my least favorite phrases.  I was raised to believe many things that I don't believe anymore, and I don't believe those things because my experience of life has proven them to be untrue.  If you're going to live with integrity, you have to be open to doubting the people you love and erasing pieces of their influence.  That's never an easy thing to do, but it's a necessary part of living in the truth.                       

30 Days of Blogging, Day 2: Something you dislike about yourself

I don't like the fact that I'm so shy.  I'm not even sure if that's the right word for it at my age--I'm not comfortable talking to people I don't know well.  Is that shyness?  I can do it, thanks to my sorority training, but I really don't enjoy it.  Maybe that's just the sign of an introverted nature--I'm energized by time spent alone, not time spent with others.  I'm perfectly happy hanging out by myself, and I'm happiest when I'm at home with my family.

Whenever I'm asked to attend some social event, my immediate response is to say "Oh, sorry, I can't."  Even when that occasion involves people I know well, that's my first reaction--I have to make myself pause for a moment and actually consider the possibility.  This has a tendency to make people think I'm standoffish and conceited, but I don't think I'm either of those things.  Just borderline agoraphobic.  

30 Days of Blogging, Day 1: Something You Like About Yourself

I'm glad this project begins on a positive note--with a metaphorical pat on the back, so to speak. 

I have a hard time thinking of things I like about myself because, as the child of Midwestern parents, I was raised to be unfailingly humble and self-deprecating.  My usual response to a compliment is, "You're so kind.  Thanks.  But I wish . . ."  And from there I go on to explain what was wrong with whatever had been complimented.   Secretly, though?  (Not so secretly now, I realize.)  I like that I'm able to reach people with the things I write.  Whenever I publish an article in The Chronicle, I love getting email from other professors who tell me I've expressed something they too have been feeling.  After my novel was published, getting email from readers who were moved by that story meant a lot to me.  When my colleagues read my work and tell me they enjoyed it, I feel like our personal relationship changes--like we know something new about each other.

Putting your writing out into the world is a scary thing, but getting positive feedback makes it worth the risk.

30 Days of Blogging

As some of you know, I've been busily posting on my other blog and, in the process, ignoring this one entirely.  I've been feeling regretful about that lately  because I started this blog with good intentions: to give myself regular writing practice, and to make myself think about something beyond the daily details of my life.  These are still things that matter to me, though I haven't been making them a priority.

So.  With that in mind, I'm going to embark on a project:  30 Days of Blogging.  I saw that my niece was doing this on her blog, and when I did a quick Google search I found many different lists of daily blog topics for a 30-Day challenge.  I've picked the topics that seem most relevant to me and I'll be responding to one a day for the next month.  I'm going to try to keep my responses brief, so the project will stay manageable.

Does it bother me that I'm beginning a month-long project 5 days into the current month?  Yes, it does.  Very much.  (More on this when we get to Day 17 of the challenge.)  But I don't want to wait until October to get this started.  I hope you'll check in daily and read my responses to each of these prompts.  Better yet, why not blog along with me?  30 days of writing practice never hurt anyone.


Day 01 → Something you like about yourself.
Day 02 → Something you dislike about yourself.
Day 03 → Your favorite quote and why it's your favorite.
Day 04 → A list of 20 favorite things.
Day 05 → What’s the best thing in your life right now?
Day 06 → Someone from the past you'd like to get in touch with.
Day 07 → Someone from the past who disappointed you.
Day 08 → The reasons why you love your significant other or best friend.
Day 09 → A piece of art or sculpture that you really like.
Day 10 → A photo that makes you happy.
Day 11 → A photo that makes you sad.
Day 12 → An old photo of you (taken at least 10 years ago) and a story to go with it.
Day 13 → Your favorite song, band or artist.
Day 14 → Your favorite TV show, past or present.
Day 15 → Something you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 → Something you definitely can live without.
Day 17 → Something you're a little neurotic/irrational/OCD about.
Day 18 → Your views on a current controversial topic.
Day 19 → Your faith, or your political views in general.
Day 20 → A book that really meant something to you.
Day 21 → A story about your best friend, past or present.
Day 22 → Something you wish you hadn’t done.
Day 23 → Something you wish you had done.
Day 24 → Make a playlist for someone, and explain why you chose all the songs.
Day 25 → A song that makes you think of someone besides your significant other.
Day 26 → Describe your dream house.  Post pictures, if you want.
Day 27 → Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 28 → Something you have to forgive someone else for.
Day 29 → Something you still hope to accomplish in your lifetime.
Day 30 → Write a letter to yourself at 20. Offer some advice based on what you've learned in life.