a journey, indeed

One of my closest friends was just dumped by the man she (and everyone else) really thought she'd marry.

Another friend is wondering if he should end his relationship with his partner now or wait until he returns from his year in Africa. Either way, it's probably ending.

A girl who lived a few doors down from me in my dorm freshman year of college is one of four sailors whose boat went missing in a storm off North Carolina a few weeks ago. The Coast Guard called off the search after five days, and still no sign of debris or explanation has been found.

All this makes me think.

I am sad for my friends, their families, and their undoubted pain. I am happy at the thought that my former dorm neighbor, who actually left Macalester before we graduated because hers was a different path, seemed to have found something she really loved and made a life of it. And I fully believe that my friends whose paths are suddenly looking really different, if not just really unclear, will find their way; hopefully in the meantime they will learn to cherish what was beautiful about where they thought they were going and let go of the disappointment that they're no longer headed that way.

Can I quote a girly movie here? Will you think less of me? Do you think I have the guts for it? Well, here goes:

"I'd rather have a few minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special."

(Julia Roberts, in Steel Magnolias, if you were wondering)

promoting intercultural understanding

This ClustrMaps thing (over on the right-hand side of my blog there) is pretty cool. It tells me that there are suddenly people in Europe and Asia reading this blog. Who the heck are you people? How did you get here? I'm so curious.

Just so you know, everything I say here is TOTALLY representative of a typical life in the United States. Especially the part about naked people everywhere.

what's YOUR favorite acronym?

Because my life really is quite wonderful and I don't have anything major to get upset about, I get to notice and be driven up the wall by little stupid things.

(Reality check: when you're biggest frustration is something like the restaurant giving you regular Coke instead of Diet, or a baseball game running late and delaying your favorite TV show, you are living a DAMN GOOD LIFE. So count your blessings and don't yell at your waitress.)

A little stupid thing that keeps popping up to drive me nuts these days is the process you have to go through to sign up for secure services online, such as bill payments, insurance accounts, etc. Specifically, the "security questions" you have to choose and then enter your own answer to so that if someone else were to try to log into your account, they'd be caught red-handed by the fact that they don't know that your first car was a 1973 Dodge Dart or that your first pet was a goldfish named Fartface.

(Note: neither of these applies to me, so don't go trying to log into my insurance website. But I do know someone who once owned a goldfish named Fartface. And it will TOTALLY shock you to learn that my friend was an 8-year-old boy at the time.)

The unique thing about these particular questions is that their answers don't change. This kind of question seems rare. Instead, I keep seeing questions like "what's your favorite song?" and "what was the name of your best friend in high school?".

Like, hello, do you remember high school? The whole point of being a teenage girl is that your best friend changes according to which way the wind is blowing and who will pass notes for you to the cute boy she sits next to in Spanish class.

And does ANYONE have one favorite song that has always been and will always be their favorite song? I can generally narrow it down to the same few, at least until my mood changes or someone comes out with a new CD or I go to another music festival. But one constant favorite? You've got to be kidding me.

My favorite ridiculous question thus far is one option on the Cigna health insurance website where I had to create an account this morning: "What's your favorite acronym?"

Acronym? ACRONYM? Who the hell has a favorite acronym?? Granted, if you held a gun to my head and asked me this question, I could think of a few I enjoy. LASER, for example. Which apparently in some circles stands for "Lots of Applied Scientists Eat Regularly" (I am not kidding). And of course, if you start looking, you can find quite a few to chuckle over.

But seriously, who (besides perhaps our friends at the AcronymFinder blog) actually spends enough time thinking about acronyms to have a favorite that distinguishes them from the general population? Who feels so passionately about their least favorite vegetable that their hatred will still burn bright enough to help them log onto their bank account a couple years from now?

Even the "name of your first pet" question is tough for me. The first major pet was Rascal the dog, but he came only after we'd buried countless goldfish and a guinea pig. The first goldfish, the one I won at the McLean County Fair by successfully tossing a ping-pong ball into it's cup, definitely had a name, a name that was undoubtedly glorious enough to make those few hours he lived after we brought him home from the fair feel bright and loving. But not a name memorable enough that I have any recollection of it now.

So my point, if indeed I have one, is that this is dumb. Ask me a questions whose answer won't be different a week or a year from now. Ask me my mother's maiden name, or whether I've ever gone skydiving. Ask me if I think George W. Bush should be impeached. EASY questions.

it's a good thing jerry falwell already died

So many people insist that homosexuality goes against nature, that if it were genetic it would be present in the animal kingdom (as if humans are not members of the animal kingdom) but its absence confirms that humans "choose" such behavior, and that homesexual couples will destroy the traditional family structure. Such people apparently need to go to the zoo.

and look! i'm not dead!

Saturday, 12:30am: So I'm sitting here in the dreamy little house at the end of the road in the woods where I'm housesitting, it's late at night, and I've just finished watching a movie on my laptop. Suddenly I hear a car door slam. Nearby. Now this makes me sit up and take notice, because this house is literally at the end of the road. Not even the road; it's at the end of a little side path that cuts off someone's driveway and goes around that house and then ends at this house. This house is not one that you just happen to end up at accidentally.

So a car door slamming at 12:30am is more than a little weird. My first thought is about the fact that I left my keys in my unlocked car in the driveway (this is how out-in-the-woods I am) and some vagrant has come out of the woods to steal it. So I get up to run out the door, thinking, I suppose, that I'm going to chase the thief down the road (dressed for the occasion in my fleece-lined running tights and big Macalester sweatshirt and nerdy-chic glasses, the combination of which will no doubt inspire fear in the hearts of man and beast), and just then I hear the creak of the screen door.

Now I'm thinking, "hmm... I might be ready to die, but I'd really rather not..." and then I see two faces on the other side of the door, a smiling man and woman, looking suddenly rather unsure of themselves. So I open the door, they introduce themselves and say they're friends of the owners of said house in the woods, and ask if I'm the babysitter. I explain that, no, I'm the housesitter, and the family is gone for the weekend.

They tell me that they're from Maine but have been down in Northampton, MA (45-ish minutes south of here) because she is auditioning to be lead singer of a band. Now they need a place to crash. They ask if I'd heard the phone messages they left earlier in the evening, which I sort of had but hadn't really paid attention to since I was watching a movie on the couch. They now understand why they hadn't heard back. We agree that had I gone out dancing this evening as I'd originally planned, and returned home later than this, as I probably would have, to find two total strangers in the house, that would have been very, very bad.

So, what happened next? Of course. They crashed in the extra bedroom in the basement. Because if it was all really a cover story for an intended axe-murder, it was quite an impressive one. But they didn't kill me in my sleep, so they stayed here again last night. Now we're all sitting here drinking coffee, about to eat some eggs that I picked out of the henhouse this morning, making plans for me to come visit them in Maine sometime this summer.

Here's to making new friends under the most hilarious of circumstances.

"i think we're dead"

This is too too too too awesome.

this is so...

Creative? Charming? Awesome? I can't quite find the perfect adjective, but just check it out.

(Thanks, Justacoolcat.)

for the record, i haven't seen any naked people... yet

http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_5906267

I have so many thoughts on this, but for now I'll just let the article speak for itelf.

Oh, except I really want to know where "Brattleboro resident Teresa Toney" thinks indecent exposure does belong.

resting in peace for a while now

I just found out that the cat I owned when I lived in Minneapolis had to be put down about a year ago. I've been terrible about keeping in touch with the lovely former roommate who thought she was keeping him for a few weeks after I moved to New York City and, due to twists of housing fate, ended up keeping him for the rest of his life (thanks Marnie!). He apparently succumbed one of those we-could-operate-for-$3000-and-a-low-chance-of-survival-anyway kind of tumors.

I'm really rather impressed that he lasted as long as he did, since he always had what appeared to be a combination of bulimia and black lung. Have you ever owned a pet with what sounds like a serious smoker's cough? It's odd, very odd. Visitors would often hear him hacking and give me hesitant, questioning look before gently suggesting that my cat might be in the throes of death. To which I always replied "no, he just does that."

It was even better when they encountered him sleeping in his favorite position - on his back with all four legs sticking straight up into the air. Nope, he wasn't dead then either. He just did that.

I've wondered, and others have asked, what had happened to him since I moved away, so it's good to finally know. Hopefully he's gone to a better place where he can drink out of the toilet, roll around in wet bathtubs, and lay on people's faces in the middle of the night to his big heart's content.

R.I.P, Cat.

multiple kinds of joy

Sometime in the past few days here in my happy little corner of Vermont we hit the tipping point between spring and sprung. The fields and lawns turned green a week or two ago, but now the trees really have leaves and the hills are so alive that Julie Andrews actually stands singing at the top of each one.

And now we're having a real true thunderstorm! Nothing close to the Midwestern storms of my youth, those which made me first fear and then love the wild beauty and unpredictability of a great thunderstorm, but a storm nonetheless. The smell of rain on new leaves and the incredible vivid greenness of the world now as the sun peeks back out now are better than any gift I could ever get.

Now I'm on my way out to drive for a very very long time a whole other part of the country to relax in beautiful mountains, play with wonderful friends, and dance the weekend away. I know that sounds suspiciously close to what I do here, but you don't understand. This is LEAF, and that's something else entirely. Hope to see you there!

so incredibly legal

This is a fine, fine day, my friends. Perhaps you think it's because of the 85-degree weather, which would indeed be lovely if I were outdoors. Who invented this "workweek" thing anyway? I think work should only be required on gross days.

I digress.

The beauty of this day is that as of today I've accomplished my ambitious list of car goals for the past three days. I have:

1) Obtained up-to-date, excellent, shockingly inexpensive car insurance. Plus I finally went back to State Farm (from the lizard) (talk about a successful ad campaign) and no longer feel like I am biting the hand that fed me (explanation: State Farm's world headquarters are in my hometown and provide nearly the entire economic base for the community, and my mother - hi Mom! - worked there for a while, which made me eligible for a State Farm-sponsored scholarship, which is largely how I could afford the college I went to).

2) Obtained a Vermont drivers license and registration. Oooh, pretty green license plates!

3) Gotten my emissions inspection, which is an East Coast (and California?) thing you have to do every year and must be done within 15 days of registering the vehicle. Did anyone actually expect me to take care of that within 15 days? I didn't think so.

4) Gotten my oil changed. Only 2,000 miles overdue on that one. But they really just say that to get you to spend more money, you know. Every 6,000 miles is fine, said my truly wonderful mechanic in Queens who later got (*sniff) shut down by the IRS. aHA, so I'm actually EARLY on the oil change. Go me.

5) Gotten my pretty green VT plates actually ATTACHED to the car, which is no small feat considering that the crazy uninsured man who front-swiped me a few months ago in New York City sheared off my front license plate in such a way that new holes had to be drilled in my (still very bashed-in) front bumper to attach the plate.

I'm sure you'll agree that that's quite a lot to do in three days. And now my car is so incredibly, beautifully legal that I just want to speed right past a cop. Ha ha, just kidding (hi Mom!). But seriously, while the above may sound like a list of just your basic car care responsibilities that we all have to do, many of you know that I am something of a gigantic failure when it comes to doing these things in a timely manner.* And since setting your standards low helps ensure you will meet them, I feel pretty darn proud of myself right now.

*Luckily when I went through airport security to go to Minneapolis a couple weeks ago, it was either too early or too busy for the TSA officer who told me my license had expired (hey, I was really busy that day) to care all that deeply.

starting the week off right

One motivational trick that gets me to the gym is the fact that I don't have a TV at home (well, there is one, but it doesn't get any actual channels, so it doesn't count), but my gym has two cable TVs in the cardio area. Meaning I can still get my morning fix of SportsCenter.

Yes, I'm a girl, and I really like sports, and I watch SportsCenter. Theoretically men are supposed to fall head-over-heels for this, but leave it to me to know a lot of men who couldn't care less. Just my luck. But I digress...

Anyway, this morning they were talking about this new poll from ESPN, which reminds us that there is still a significant racial divide in this country which manifests itself in interesting ways. (In fact, I think sports in the United States tell us a ton about race and class issues in this country. Try starting THAT conversation at your next SuperBowl party; you'll be a hit.)

I think one reason I like sports (and ESPN) is that it's great for ADD - before you've digested one story, they're off on a whole other topic. For example, while I was thinking about the Bonds poll and how unsurprising it is (to me), they gave me something definitely surprising, in the you'vegottobekiddingmethat'sawesome category:

Chess Boxing.

Have a great week!

proving myself (to myself)

It was such a beautiful day today that even after a couple hours outside for a fabulous (slightly belated) May Day celebration - we danced around a real Maypole! I love hippies! - and despite the wealth of friends and food available at the May Day potluck brunch, I just had to come back to Brattleboro and do something outdoors.

There are so many hiking opportunities around here that it's pretty intimidating to a total newbie hiker like myself, particularly when I'm going alone (dog notwithstanding). Which, in fact, I hadn't done until today. I looked at a few maps and websites and finally decided to see if it was really true that, as The Geologist told me, I could get on a good trail in New Hampshire right across the river from downtown Brattleboro (aka the WalMart Parking Lot Trail. Which is totally not its real name). So I put the leash on the dog and set out.

And three hours later we got back home, having walked - walked! - to a whole other state and climbed up a mountain (actually another side of the same one I hiked a couple weeks ago) and down again.

Now I feel like an achy old lady who needed to go to bed at 9pm. Oh wait, I felt that way before. At least now I have my first solo hike (and a huge dog who dragged me back to the bottom over a somewhat rocky, uneven trail) to blame for it. That's waaaay better than simple hypochondria.

fun with government agencies

The main task for today is to get the local police department (not the whole thing, just one person) to come to my house and look at my car. No, my car wasn't broken into, nor do I think it's about to explode. I need a cop to look at my car to visually verify the VIN (that's Vehicle Identification Number) and sign my application for Vermont registration so that I can register my car in the closest DMV office, not the one over an hour away. (I could explain why there's a difference in where I can go, but that would be boring, so I won't. You're welcome.)

Vermont Awesomeness, Example 1: There are multiple branch offices of the Vermont DMV. The main office is up in Montpelier (the only state capital in the U.S. without a McDonalds, by the way); the nearest branch office is in Bennington. There are also "mobile locations," one of which is in Dummerston, a little town right next to mine (why it doesn't just come into Brattleboro, the largest town around here, is a mystery, but as you'll see the Vermont DMV has a few mysterious practices...).

Which means (this is the awesome part): my local(ish) DMV office actually operates out of the back of a truck hanging out in a warehouse parking lot every Mondays and Tuesday.

Vermont Awesomeness, Example 2: The Vermont DMV customer service department. The experience of getting in touch with them contains so much awesomeness, in fact, that I can only offer a couple of the numerous examples I have from calling them recently. I am not being sarcastic. It's been hilarious.

For starters, you can choose whether to opt out of having your call potentially answered by an inmate in a Vermont state correctional facility. The first time I called, I did not opt out, and was disappointed to have my questions answered by a very pleasant woman named Candy who was not, in fact, a convicted criminal.

Then you have the fact that when I called the second time and found out that I could avoid going all the way to Bennington if a local cop would come verify the VIN and sign the form, the woman I was speaking with (jokingly) suggested that I make this request by calling 911 and reporting squirrels in my tailpipe (um, OK, it really was funny in the moment).

But the absolute best thing about the Vermont DMV is that the customer service line is open 7:45am to 4:20pm. Have you ever heard of a place that closes at 4:20? Not 4:15, not 4:30. I really hope that it is for the reason that first came to my (and, admit it, your) head - they're totally all going outside to smoke a joint.

Except maybe the inmates. This state isn't that enlightened.

that's 101.5 years, if you're counting

In Memoriam

Stella Gordon Birnberg
October 7, 1905 - April 28, 2007

She was greatly loved, and will be greatly missed.