Dear Joe Mohan,
I have a problem, and I know that the best person to talk about this to is you. I was at the thrift store this weekend, and I bought a velour hoodie from H&M. I’m not sure if the burnt orange color is right for me. It’s a good cut, and it’s definitely more feminine than most hoodies I wear, which makes it a plus. Do I a) look good in burn orange, and b) keep the hoodie because even an unflattering color is better than looking like a 13-year-old-boy, unintentionally?
As I was thinking about the list list list of things I want to be when I grow up, I realized that for every item, I have a person who I acquaint with that particular skill. I didn’t necessarily know them when I made the list, but I like that I can correlate. (Although, as we all know from Psych 101, correlation does not mean causation.)
1. Midwifery. My friend Kim is a doctor, and she gets to deal with people’s bodies all the time. Supercool.
2. Trucker. My aunt Lora did this, and she’s about the best general role model a person could have.
3. Sign language. I met Amber after writing the list, but I think it’s one of the reason why I took to her like a prestidigitous kitten to a toy piano.
4. Teach for America. My AmeriCorps teammate Jenn is TFAing right now. Much like midwifery, you are in charge of people’s children, under various amounts of pressure. (Sometimes the kid, sometimes me.)
5. Children’s librarian. I would not be pursuing this career if it weren’t for my elementary school mentor, Ms. Bernard. JUST KIDDING! She was scary. My mom was a children’s librarian when I was a kid, and it was the best job ever. If I could be the children’s librarian for the Francis Banta Waggoner Community Library in DeWitt, Iowa, I would. The quilt she made for snuggly window-seat reading is still there.
6. Masseuse. My friend Alaethia is studying Oriental medicine right now, which is way more complex and advanced than just massage, but when we talk about it, I get all excited and squiggly.
7. Canoe Mississippi. Pebbles (Em) is the most hard core, crunchy, granola, sweet-fern-tea drinkin’, outdoorsy outside cat I know. Her passion for canoeing nears a fever pitch. She doesn’t want an engagement ring, she wants a canoe tied to her finger.
8. Master knitter. My grandma taught me how to knit, as well as crochet, sew, embroider, tat (who even knows what that is?!), and refer to snacks as much needed “medicine”. She’s nonchalant about makin’ stuff, but it’s always functional. That epitomizes what I want to be as a knitter.
9. Live in far Northeast. Again with the Pebbles. Her aunt learned masonry and built herself a 16-sided stone house in Maine. I want to live there, near Pebs, and go fishing a lot.
10. Master some other language. Alena seems to slip and fall into pools of language, and when she gets up, she’s fluent. She started college with Spanish, and somehow ended up with a Russian major. RUSSIAN!
So, those are people in my neighborhood who have affected me, either previous to the much esteemed list, or have been Celestine-Prophecy-like drawn to me, possibly because we have shit in common.
Last night I went to my usual pilates class, and my instructor was running late. When we settled in for class, she announced that she had some negative news, but she wanted to tell us before class so we could get on with our class and put some positivity into the world. (I approve of her choice!)
She was late to class because a woman who had been raped, throat slashed, and left for dead had come to her house for help. You can read the story here. Beyond what information the Trib story gives, I also know that the guy was wearing women’s undergarments under his clothes.
The whole story left our whole class stunned. This area is so far north of Chicago that there’s still a rural feel to it, and this is one of those really unfortunate things that leaves everyone feeling vulnerable. I guess the attacker was released from prison in November, and he’s a registered sex offender.
Anyway, I’m lucky enough to not hear many of these stories. The year before I went to St. Ambrose, a student was raped. For my freshman year, everyone was adamant about not walking across campus alone. By senior year, the caution had slacked. That was the last time I was aware that my otherwise-safe environment was not as it appeared. I can’t decide if I should turn my naturally low internal alarm up a notch in general, or just when the environment dictates. I don’t want to become paranoid and exhausted by my cautionary efforts, but I don’t want to live cavalierly when it’s apparent I should be more careful.
If you’re interested/scared shitless/wary/angry, there’s an online registry of sex offenders in Illionis.
You may remember my plea for donations for my friend Angela’s Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Well, the walk was this past weekend. (You may have noticed, since over 2,400 people migrated up the coast from downtown to Rogers Park and beyond.)
Angela reports that she has eight blisters (I swear, one of them looks like three on top of each other). She camped in Rogers Park during the thunderstorm, and is no worse for the wear. She said that amongst the walkers was a 75-year-old and a woman seven months pregnant. (That’s good baby karma, y’all.)
All together (including Jake and Kat and myself) Angela raised $2,300, and the walk raised $5.4 million dollars, of which $2 million has been donated to Midwest hospitals.
I haven’t actually talked to Angela yet today, but she didn’t look like she was hurting too much yesterday. She’s a champ. Three and a half woops for Angela! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoooo!
Did I ever tell you about the time I was at a YRUU con (Young Religious Unitarian Universalist conference) and the Saturday night activity was learning about wiccan traditions, and then we had a drum circle?
Yeah. I was in a successful drum circle. “Successful?” you wonder. I’ve decided that drum circles and eighth-hour jam sessions are either successful or unsuccessful. You either all hit the rhythm or you don’t. I’ve experienced both, but in this first percussion jam-out, it was successful.
There were several actual drums, and then we pulled all the pots and pans from the kitchen, along with various utensils, to use. I think I ended up with two heavy-duty coat hangers. They had a nice high tone. Austin Wells (Grinnell ’03) started out with a giant soup pot. In 4/4 time, we all joined in. The result was music. We sat, fascinated by the collective sound we made. Eventually there was a silent movement to get up and move around. We formed the obligatory cha-cha line of impromptu instruments.
Goddamn right, we looked like hippies. It was awesome. I’d never experienced spontaneous music, and being high schoolers, we weren’t jaded enough to not think it was the coolest thing ever. Even with my six-year-old-mind’s enthusiasm, I don’t know if I could start a drum circle with a straight face now. Isn’t that sad?
So we kind of Native-American-hopped around the room, coiling around until the head lead us downstairs. As we went, someone started singing. It was the first time I heard the lyrics, but I’ll never forget them.
We all come from the goddess
And to her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean
It was one of those things I remember with a sense of awe. I thought of it this morning, in the context of remembering when the adults got really pissed off when they discovered a whole set of kitchenware, ruined.
I was reading my BoingBoing RSS feed today,
and read this account of an experience in a chocolate shop in Florence, Italy. As I read, I kept smiling bigger and bigger. The sensations Doctorow describes are amazing, and make me want to go home and pull out that truffle cookbook I got for a quarter, and make something really really decadent.
I mean, the look on his face in the picture says everything, and I fell a little bit in love with him just then.
I spent my weekend playing Not Pr0n and going to various theatre. Jason and I got comp tickets thanks to the ever-stickly Hannah.
Today I am going to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, again. Then I will continue to do what has consumed me. I will knit.
(I do have to interject that instead of knitting mastery swatches all weekend, I knit on the iPod cozy mastermind piece I have invented for Kate’n’Ade. I even shopped for a toggle, until SOMEBODY got to HOT in the CRAFT STORE.)
I am impatient for this week to be over, because I’m going home Thursday night to spend a three day weekend at a knitting retreat in Wyoming with my mom.
*Happy birthday to JoMo.
Hey – anybody out there feeling a little bit guilty? Did you maybe do something this weekend you’re feeling a bit abashed about? Do you feel that all you need to do is maybe just do something positive and selfless, and you’ll be back on karmatrack?
If that’s the case; or if you have some change in a jar that you could cash in, but it’s like bonus money and if you gave it away it wouldn’t affect you; or if you have bills laying about that you want to get rid of …
My friend Angela has signed up to do the Avon walk in Chicago, and is raising money for breast cancer research. And training to walk really really far. And she needs to raise some money to do it. It’s an admirable undertaking, and a tax writeoff.
Post a comment with your name (or an easily recognizable nom de plume) if you’re down.
Click here to access the online donation, and see a picture of Angela and her cute grandma. Post a comment if you don’t do onliney money stuff.
I sarificed a good night’s sleep, partial hearing, and having to spend two hours commuting to work (instead of my ususal 5 minutes) all to see “Other Jason” perform with the band Velva at Schubas last night. They played with the High Strung and Capitol Years.
I can tell you, it was totally and completely worth it. O.Jason had been telling me about this show, how they sing a song about Swedish Fish and he plays a laser, it’s wacked out — and it was all that and more.
The High Strung were the best part though. I never go to rock shows, and I usually don’t like them much. Watching the High Strung was amazing, and I didn’t feel my usual “Ehhh, I should get going” impatience. They could have been Muppets. They all wore white cowboy shirts and white Levis with palm-sized stars running down the arms and legs. The bassist smiled when he sang. The drummer looked as if he had cerebral palsy. (That sounds awful. I know. I know. It’s just that he was playing so GD hard, he looked like he had a congenital defect.)
Their music was like the Beatles, only harder. I know that sounds hackneyed and eye rolling, but that’s it. They were like audio Paxil. I came in neutral, but after watching the show, I felt a little happier.
(My “i hate rock shows” thing kicked in, about 11:30, and I left after hearing just two songs of Capitol Years, but they seemed to rock just as hard, and I plan on finding some of their music.)
Off to catch the effing train.