SORRY, BLOGSPOT.

I have a Wordpress site here.

And I like it better.

Lent: A Season of Yes

This Lenten season, I am not on Facebook. I deleted my Instagram app (though, I confess shamefacedly, not before making sure I could still access my account when I decide to get it back again). I kept twitter. Gotta keep twitter because it keeps you smart, though admittedly in the most lowbrow way possible.

Having stricken myself from social media, I should mention that I don't characterize this as "giving up Facebook for Lent." That isn't quite it. It's so prosaic. It's so paltry. Because it's really not a big deal. The icky part of me, who likes to imagine herself far cleverer than others, dislikes the meager ring to it, the hackneyed, college-girl piety. But I think this twisted feeling draws its source from another, quieter, and better voice.

In my best intentions, this is not exactly a fast - a fast is meant to push you to your limits physically, to teach your soul by way of your body that there are things you cannot ever do on your own. To say, "I gave up Facebook for Lent" seems to me a feeble fast.

Lent is traditionally viewed as a season of giving things up, of fasting and penitence. This is good. But Lent literally means "springtime." Lent is a unique giving up - a sacrifice of ourselves that is in reality a yes to more abundance. It's a turning, a journey, a path increasingly lined with life, a season that ends in Resurrection. In addition to our fasts, Lent is a time to examine our lives, our habits, and see where we are quenching life in ourselves. Where do our daily distractions keep us from fully seeing and breathing and living in the sharp real of God? These days, we say so many "yeses" -- yes to parties, yes to friends, yes to responsibility, yes to relationships, yes to anything you suggest that I can't refuse without feeling crap about myself. But so many yeses are just a way of saying no to the life inside me. Lent, more than anything, is a time to say no to our myriad habitual distractions -- not for the sake of the no, but for the sake of a better Yes.

Henri Nouwen says in The Life of the Beloved that the Christian life is "the change from living life as a painful test to prove that you deserve to be loved, to living it as an unceasing 'Yes' to the truth of that Belovedness.'"

Lent is a season of yes, a respite from all the other acquiescences that leave us harried, stressed, anxious, violated, afraid. Lent is a yes to the love of God, a yes to our need for him, a yes to becoming human.

T.S. Eliot describes the Christian life as "A condition of complete simplicity / (Costing not less than everything)" Rilke says you must change your life.

So I've asked myself, How can I make my life simpler? How can I create space for a better Yes? This is just a little baby step to changing my life.

Jesus says, "I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly."

OKAY, MICHELLE.

Today started innocently enough. Like any other good Saturday, I was two cups of coffee into the morning and on my fourth episode of How I Met Your Mother. On the couch, in my PJ’s, enabling my behavior to continue guilt-free by throwing out the occasional, “I really should shower and clean my room.” 

This continued for some time with only small variations: walked to the kitchen to heat up my coffee, took a break from TV to scroll mindlessly through my Facebook feed, and – seemingly innocuously enough – decided to watch Jimmy Fallon.

This was my mistake.

It was going well at first. Jimmy and Justin doing yet another History of Rap, being cute and sorta boyfriendly with each other which let’s be honest nobody hates. But then I finished that episode and backed it up to the Michelle Obama episode.

Before I know it, my First Lady is looking me in face saying, “I try to exercise every day!”

LIKE COME ON, MICHELLE, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE COMEDY.

The story ends with me doing a Jillian Michael’s DVD and nearly dying. Like who knew butt kicks could be so hard? (Also a flowerpot fell and broke because I live in an apartment where the floor resettles when you do jumping jacks. The universe telling me to sit back down on the couch??)

Living on purpose takes so much energy.

People of New York: Tough Guys & Flowers

It’s Valentine’s Day, cold and snowy in NYC, which basically describes our entire snowpocalyptic winter. I was almost home for the evening, but waiting for the bus, so I decided to duck into the liquor store — the one that is conveniently right next to the bus stop but inconveniently super creepy with a greenish fluorescent glow coming from the dirty windows and the half-broken neon sign outside flickering a big red “OR” to the street, which customers of a philosophical or superstitious turn might take as not such a great omen.

I am neither philosophical (well, kind of) nor superstitious (only sometimes and mostly about fraternities) so I use this store from time to time when planning has gone awry. The people who work there are very nice and it’s right by a cop station. (That sentence is both true and written solely for my mom.)

So I walked in on Valentine’s Day to find quite a little crowd huddled around the opening in the glass barrier separating us as customers from them as purveyors of the alcohol. Six big guys were sitting around behind the glass, doing apparently nothing really in particular, while one scrawny and harassed-looking young guy I’m used to seeing there was dealing with all the customers. When it was my turn at the window, I asked for a bottle of any cabernet cheaper than $15.

“What?”

“Just a cabernet. Like whatever you have that’s around ten dollars,” I repeated, shrugging my arms full of bags and an enormous vase of flowers, attempting to indicate, “I am too preoccupied with not dropping these things to be a part of making this decision.”

He yells to the other guys: “Cabernet??”

“Eh, what kind you like?”

“Any kind, really, just like a $10 bottle,” I repeat.

Confusion ensues with three guys yelling names of wines through the glass door and me trying to say that really anything is fine if you would just bag it up and take my money. This does not go well. Everyone in the store is like Who is this chick with the books in her arms and the flowers in her face trying to gesticulate with her elbows.

Finally this really big guy – like enormous like a mountain, bald-headed and scar-faced (okay, that part is embellishment) – heaves himself up and unlocks the glass door and gestures me inside saying, “Let’s do this the easy way.” So I step inside and they start showing me the bottles and I pick one as quickly as possible since I already feel like a nuisance. Mr. Enormous Man stands by the door watching all of this silently. As I turn to go back out the door to the customer side of things, he says, “HEY—” and something I can’t quite pick up.

“I’m sorry, what?” I ask defensively.

“You know those lilies are gonna open up in a couple days. You gotta water ‘em good and give ‘em some sun.”

For a second I have no idea what he’s talking about, then he points at the tight green buds nestled into the bouquet I’m clutching. I hadn’t even noticed them.

I give him a closer look. “You seem to know a lot about flowers.”

The gruff face cracks into a bunch of craggy smile lines, “Yeah, four daughters and two wives. That’ll do it to you.”

I’m laughing, too.

I pay for the wine, add it to my assorted burden, and turn to leave. As I reach the door, he comes to the window, points again at the flowers and says, “Just wait. Those lilies will be the prettiest of them all. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The Super

Right now I can hear the Super yelling. He’s down on the street, I’m four floors up, but he’s doing a fair job of making himself clear to the entire block. 

“NO NO NO NO NO, YOU LIFT LIKE THIS YOU HURT YOUR BACK. NO NO NO, YOU HURT YOUR BACK. YOU LISTEN, I LIFT HERE, YOU PUSH LIKE I SHOW YOU. I DO IT, NO WORRIES. UP, UP, UP.” 

Henry is always enthusiastic. He welcomed us with a bar of chocolate each and an energetic assurance, “GIRLS, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS, YOU CALL HENRY. YOU CALL, I FEEX. NO PROBLEMS.”

He is originally from Eastern Europe but he’s been the super in this building in Queens for over twenty years. The landlords trust him completely. Rent checks under his door and everything. The children in the building run squealing at him whenever they see him, beside themselves with joy. He usually has a candy stowed away, like I remember my great-grandpa did.

Yesterday as I was leaving the building, Henry was perched on a ladder in the front door. The door was propped open and sparks were flying everywhere. He stopped to let me pass and said, “Soon this door no slam so loud!” I thanked him profusely as the sound of that door slamming could raise the dead. And some poor girl lives right next to it.

Ten hours later, I came back and ran into Henry on the street. I asked how it went with the door. “I FEEX IT, I FEEX IT,”  he said jubilantly. 

As I walked in and heard the familiar ungodly slam at my heels, I knew Henry’s way of fixing things maybe wasn’t always what anybody else would call fixing. But lord can he make a person feel welcomed home.

People of the City: Central Park

He is thin, wiry, the septuagenarian's version of gangly. He looks ready to be puffed away, like the puff of his white hair which despite his best attempts is escaping from beneath a beige baseball cap, like the fluff of milkweed pods bursting. Black pants, running shoes, faded plaid shirt under a gray down vest. His face is pale and deeply lined. Tired. His face is a sigh at the end of a long day. His face is a sigh for a memory that lies down next to him every night. A memory that turns to a bitterness in his coffee the next morning, when light comes in his kitchen windows and the comforting dark of her memory can no longer be drawn about him. His face was a sigh for her.

Right now, though, as he passes the bench where I sit in Central Park, the memory lines break into lines of frustration as he gives a sharp tug to the red leash in his left hand. The Scottish Terrier at the end of it has sat down on the sidewalk, facing the way they just came, and is refusing to move. With a barely audible huff, the man walks gingerly back to his dog. He bends down to lift it, turns it around to face the right direction, sets it back down, and begins his forward journey again. Immediately the Scottie turns and pulls in the opposite direction. This is repeated four or five times, each time they get a foot or so nearer to my bench.

As I chuckle, the man looks up. Wearily, even apologetically, he smiles and says, "He doesn't want to go home."

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself,

by Barbara Crooker

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

"Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself," by Barbara Crooker, from Radiance. Copyright, Word Press 2005.

Subway Fare

[This is a weekly post where I talk about whatever I happen to be reading at the moment. No book too great or too small to be read. Since most of my reading happens on my subway commute, I'm calling it Subway Fare.]

Yesterday a friend gave me this book. There's nothing better than having a friend over for breakfast and she turns up with a bag full of books for you to read on your commute. She put this one in my hands and in retrospect I guess I went all Frollo on her, mustering a pained face full of distaste and saying something peevish like "What---is---this---peasant---trash." On the strength of her masters degree in literature, she rolled her eyes and said, "Ignore the cover, you'll finish it in an afternoon."

OK, I will say to no one's surprise and with no animosity to our author Ms. Clare, this certainly did not hit the New York Times list on account of the exquisite writing. Here's a taste of the exposition technique:

He'd asked her to stop calling him Uncle Luke about a year ago, claiming that it made him feel old, and anyway reminded him of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Besides, he'd reminded her gently, he wasn't really her uncle, just a close friend of her mother's who'd known her all her life.

GEE, THANKS FOR MAKING THAT CLEAR, EXPOSITION. "Besides, he'd reminded her gently for the sake of any third party who might ever read the story of their lives and wonder how he and Clary are related since obviously there is no way she has FORGOTTEN unless she is like that girl in 50 First Dates and can't remember ANYTHING, he wasn't really her uncle."(Also, Uncle Tom's Cabin!? Is it possible that a human person who has been alive on the human earth for any amount of time could have only ONE association with the word "uncle" and that it would be a 19th century sentimental protest novel?? Like, how long did you ponder that one, Clare?)

With that minor caveat, I am ready to admit that there are a lot of sexy magic people, which is really why YA fiction exists and NOBODY is complaining about that. Certainly not this girl.

So I've been reading it on the subway. (And in parks. And in my apartment.) But I usually hide the cover.

(Because I still care about what people on the subway think of me because most of them are so well dressed and might be models. I'm sure this is something I will grow out of when I have children.)

P.S. I just read a line that says, "Her voice was like honey poured over ice." Ugh.

Too Late the Phalarope

"Yet it comes to me that it is not the judgment of God but that of men which is a stranger to compassion; for the Lord said, go thou and sin no more." -Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

The feeling of finishing a book that tips you into a better world and a better self and a greater heartbreak.

Valentine's, Tina Fey Style.

Some of us don’t really go in for Valentine’s Day. Because it’s annoying and cheap and the wait to check out at Walgreens is at least five minutes longer than usual. 

So this year, thanks to Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, I have decided to celebrate Anna Howard Shaw’s birthday!

To brush you up on women’s history: Anna Howard Shaw was a bold and courageous leader of the suffragette movement in the United States and a staunch defender of peaceful civil disobedience. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Obvi worth celebrating. So, on this the 166^th birthday of Shaw, I present to you: 10 Ways to Celebrate Anna Howard Shaw Day.

1.      Reconsider your current life goals. If you are a woman, and alive, you owe it to us all to win and keep on #winning. You should be the winningest broad you can possibly be. Think you like where you are right now? THINK AGAIN. Until you have started a movement of suffrage, got an MD, and become the first female to be ordained into the Methodist church, you are just not trying hard enough. I mean, seriously, look at yourself and ask yourself are you living up to the life Shaw died for you to have? (Technically she died of pneumonia, but the main thing here is that she is dead and she would want you to do some epic shit.)

2.       Play Famous Women of the World Trivia! Make face flash cards and play it with all your feminist friends! Or try THIS incredibly difficult Famous Firsts in Women’s History trivia. If you ace this, I hope you work for the government. It would make me feel better about our collective future.

3.       Call your mom/grandma/aunt/surrogate. Unless you’re Kyle XY, your family is largely responsible for who you are today. So I’m betting that – even if you don’t realize it – there is a woman in your family whose strength, tenacity, wit, charm, guts, overall badass factor brought you here today, O great feminist that you are. And yeah, housewives of the fifties were some strong-ass women. So thank her. And spend time with her.

4.        Go to TheMonastery.org. Get ordained.

5.         Refuse to acknowledge when people say “Happy Valentine’s Day!” to you. At most, give them a, “What? OH! You mean Anna Howard Shaw Day!? Yessss, dahhhling.” Then kiss them on both cheeks and walk away quickly.

6.       Dot your “i”s with hearts. THIS IS THE ONLY DAY that you, as a self-respecting feminist, can get away with such indescribably appealing behavior. Scribble those hearts with the full force of all your hatred towards the entrenched crises of everyday sexism and Kim Kardashian.

7.       Stop trying to sabotage that girl that you can’t stand just because she’s a teeny bit smarter, prettier, funnier, and has more friends than you. You know the one I’m talking about. The Venn diagram of this girl’s friends and your friends overlaps fairly significantly, but her circle tends to be slightly better dressed and more musical than yours. But on this glorious day of feminine self-actualization, seriously, you have to let this go. Because you know when you hate on her, you’re really just cock-blocking yourself. Stand by the sisterhood.

8.       Have a DIY “Consent” Panty Party! Everybody picks a consent-themed slogan (such as “Ask First, DUH" and adheres it onto their favorite pair of underwear! Because, ladies (and gents, because you guys can fight for rights too) – we all know the suffrage movement of our day is fighting rape culture. And that I am actually serious about.

9.         Write 1,000 love notes to Tina Fey thanking her for recognizing Anna Howard Shaw Day and setting all of us free from the chains of February 14.

10.      If you are over 18, BE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE. Seriously, I’m ashamed of you. Everything she died fought really hard for.

Feel free to share your own ideas of how to celebrate in the comments!

Post-Grad Angst

When I was in high school, I was super responsible. Wanted to be more on top of stuff than the next person, seem put-together. I watched people, learned quickly, decided that I would do lots of hard things, was ambitious and idealistic, blah blah blah. So I have this self-image, right, that I'm like super mature and responsible and probably ahead of my peers in that arena.

Dude, as if!! Post-college life hits me and I seriously can't do anything right. That's not totally fair to myself, because I mean I have a good job and good friends and I even tithe and stuff. ALL THAT ASIDE, I have to say----it takes me weeks to get shit done.

Exhibit A: My sister's wedding/Christmas/now-birthday present. (Keep in mind she got married LAST June and Christmas was in December. It is now coming up on June again and her wedding/Christmas/birthday gift still sits on a box in my bedroom in Chattanooga. She doesn't live anywhere near Chattanooga.)

Exhibit B: My dad asked me to transfer the title of my car to myself three weeks ago. This wasn't a surprise. He has been gently nudging me to get my own car insurance for a few months and then we got to the point where he just has to transfer the title. So he literally puts EVERYTHING together for me and mails it to me with a wonderful print-up explaining to me literally everything I need to do.

And yet I still manage to screw it up. I go to the wrong place first and offer up my file full of personal information. The nice little lady behind the divider looks at me with some alarm and sympathy and says, "Now, sweetie, who told you you were supposed to come here?" Come to think of it, no one. I just came to the place where I assumed I had to come.

Three locations and thousands of forms later, I have my own car title. (Some of this was not my fault and was simply the beauty of bureaucracy at work.)

For now those are my exhibits. But they make me wonder what seventeen-year-old me would think. She'd probably laugh and be relieved I turned out to not be too uptight.

It's a Wonderful Life

I have a little house.  It is kind of a box.  It has six rooms with a kitchen and bathroom attached.  The floor in the front rooms slants away from the floor in the back rooms.  When I sit with my back against the couch, my legs go downhill.  I think the house was once filled with water and faced with the problem of how to drain itself.  The walls are all unsure about which way they are supposed to tilt, so they do as they choose and try not to match the angle of their windows too closely.

Three girls live in this house with me.  And, together, we have undertaken to make this house a home.

I am Mary Bailey in my mind.  I can hear the deep celestial voice narrating my life, and see her athletically wallpapering as I brush paint onto my own walls.  It fits, since she is my inspiration for everything.

I think I may have reached a manic state of homemaking.  Every morning, I brief the cadets (ie, Hutton and Oatis, my roommates) on the day's activities.

"Did you see the grass outside?! The Round Up worked! Today we are planting the garden! And we need to finish painting and buy mulch and get curtain rods and light bulbs! and oh I almost forgot! the kitchen smells funny so we need candles! and can we get some furniture for the dining room because I hate it right now! and we need to do the dishes also and clean out our windows and do we have a hammer?!?"

Of course, only one or two items from the morning's list actually get accomplished by evening. But each day, a bright change is felt and seen.  My room painted.  A curtain up with twinkle lights.  The windows cleaned outside the kitchen.  Wall hangings going up.  Blankets appearing.  A piece of furniture rearranged.  Added.  Each change is a beacon raised for beauty, a buffer against chaos and dirt and darkness and, of course, ants.

As any good thing, it takes time and I want to jump ahead of myself.  But as the time slowly creeps along, the house not only transforms visibly, but begins to take on that unmistakable, though invisible, mark.  THIS IS THE WORK OF MY HANDS, it says.

This is my 320 Sycamore.

I did NOT take this picture crooked.
Yes, the door is THAT crooked.

Today I decided it would be a great day to get a tan. If I had made a For and Against list to "Getting a Tan," it would've looked like this:

Yes, these are the conditions
in which I decided to get a tan.

For:

-I am not tan.

Against:

-"Extreme Drought Conditions"

-"Heat Advisory"

-99 Degrees Fahrenheit
-Humidity: 50%

Foolishly, I did not make this list.

Instead, I made today's decision much like I make most of life's important decisions: I judged by my feelings on the matter.

I stepped outside the back door to "test the temperature." Though I admit I was at first unable to breathe, my ultimate conclusion was that it didn't feel as hot as yesterday. True: yesterday was 105 degrees. "It's cooler than 105 degrees" is like saying "She's prettier than Alice Cooper." No shit.

But I didn't think about that. I just took one look at my fading tan lines and thought how fun it would be to get some sun. I got my bathing suit, towel, and Communion with the Triune God.

(Yeah, that's right. Reading John Owen while tanning takes the edge off first-world guilt. Though at the time I just grabbed it because it's what I'm reading.)

Guys, it was so hot I legitimately thought my nail polish was melting. But I got a nice base.

In the meantime, I also discovered a new casualty to drought conditions: Playing in the hose. Like this. No more of that if you care at all about your greater farming community. This realization, punctuated by a moaning cow over the fence, marked the low moment of my day.

I eventually trooped back inside. I say "trooped" because I felt like a Calvin and Hobbes strip. You know, the one where he's complaining about being bored, so his mom sends him outside and he begins screaming about heat stroke or something. It took me about an hour to return to room temperature.

Lesson for all you kids out there: Being bored does not mean it's a good idea to ignore all parental and governmental warnings and think you can just go outside when the whole world is under a heat advisory.

I wish I were a writer.

I just discovered one of those old drafts of blog posts that, in writer's block or creative despair, are consigned by their authors to lie forever dormant and dusty in a draft folder in a private account in a gigantic impersonal blogging site. The kind of draft that gets tapped out in straggling enthusiasm only to be left with a huff of tears and a "I'll never be good at this, why do I try??!!"

This particular draft only had two words.

"Ugh, writing."

Writing is like dredging up from the closet the skeletal structure that you suspect could be all of yourself and holding it up to the light of day. It looks different every time - sometimes gruesome, sometimes almost pleasant, humanlike - but your fear each time you stare at the closet door, wondering if you should unearth the monster within, is not at all, "I wonder what it will look like? I hope it will be one of the good times!" (Of course, that's definitely a concern that might flit across the "Less Important" list in your mind. The one that's okay with fooling people.) But no. Your fear is to see again the hollow spaces between the ribs, between the chest cage and spine, inside the gaping mouth. My fear, as a wanna-be writer, pulling the writing out of myself, is that it will prove to be empty, a grinning specter, posing as a human being and only more grotesque in its likeness.

I mean, come on, I'm using skeletons as a metaphor for writing. How tepid is that? Gross, gross, gross. It's a good thing I don't take anything seriously.

"Being a writer" is such a fad.

Ugh, writing.

How to Be Good at Being Grown Up: Ep. 2

Yesterday an insurance salesman came to our house. Because I am a recent college grad and despite my vigorous attempts to insist that I understand finances, Mom said, "It would be a good idea for you to sit at the table with us and try to learn something."

(I also had to clean my bathroom.)

So, at about 2:15 exactly, in strides our insurance salesman, young, grinning -- sporting his class ring, well-coiffed, highlighted hair, and the boyish look of a high-school football champ. (He also turned out to be a jovial family guy who actually encouraged us to do what was best for us financially. A+, sir.) He dialogued comfortably with my parents, cracked jokes, apparently made lots of sense to them, and left us with generally happy feelings.

But the table-talk was an enormous personal disaster for Yours Truly.

Look. I've taken economics classes. I got A's in math. I graduated with a killer GPA and I understood Inception after only one viewing. But apart from a couple grade-school analogies that Mr. Insurance threw out for me in desperation, I understood about zero percent of what was said around that table that day. If you are a recent college grad, this may happen to you one day, too. And you, like me, will probably feel like this.

So, recent college grad, I've collected some ideas for what to do when the dreadful day of life insurance-purchasing comes. Fear not, here are eight failsafe ways of preventing yourself from looking like a complete dingo. You may learn nothing about life insurance, but you will look intelligent and that's all that matters in the real world.

1. Make cookies. This only works if you are a girl. But if you have cookies and lemonade prepared (and a pleasing presentation), most people won't notice much of anything.

2. Smile a lot with eye contact. It makes you seem charming which makes you seem engaged which makes you seem smart. This also may work better if you're a girl.

3. Nod regularly.

4. Ask lots of really generic questions that don't really apply but make you seem engaged, like, "So if I died tomorrow . . . . [significant trail off] . . . ?"

5. Write stuff down. A short year of journalism has taught me the invaluable lesson that if you have a notebook and are scribbling frantically in it, people think you know what you're doing. And they are intimidated. (Good.) Feel free to simply doodle whimsically across the page. Just guard and hide it carefully like it's your family's financial statement or something. (Do people hide those? Whatever.) Combine this with #4 for maximum effect, as follows: "Right, so could you explain the ROTH IRA one more time? I'm definitely interested in pursuing that and I want to write it down."

6. Use words like "pursuing," "researched," "funds," "analysis," "crunch," "numbers," etc.

7. Mention your accountant friends if you have any. Example: "Yesterday I was having wine with an accountant friend of mine and he said...." (At this point, you should be thinking about getting one.)

8. Above all never, never, never, never, never ever let on that you are as clueless as you are. God forbid they think they have something to teach you.

As I did NOT follow any of these tips very faithfully and as my parents RATTED ME OUT ("Oh, Hannah's going to just sit here because she wants to learn how all this works!"), I was forced to learn about life insurance. I also learned, through a deft word-picture by Mr. Life Insurance, the difference between stocks and mutual funds. A stock is like one broken pencil. Mutual funds are like one broken pencil in the middle of a bundle of unbroken pencils. Life-enriching stuff there.

Till next time.

Beauty Hurts

My twin sister got married last weekend. What was it like? I wish you could have seen her: all the curly-haired playfulness of the toddler I toppled out of wagons with; all the early morning brown-eyed wonder of the young girl I thought I could protect from all worldliness; all the full body of a woman grown beyond me in love and wisdom; all the pristine white glory of a bride in her Bridegroom's cathedral.

The glorious affair was so rich, exhausting, beautiful, shocking, altering, that I don't have many more words for it apart from hours upon hours of stories that will be slowly unwound at family get-togethers for the rest of our lives. And everything else about it is hidden in my heart because it has washed over me and surpassed me. I can't talk about how it feels to see your beloved sister walk down the aisle.

She's beautiful.

Providing Food for the Family, or How to Grill Burgers

So, since I'm a grown-up out of college now, a big part of my life is figuring out exactly how to BE a grown-up. What better way to document the learning process than blog it, right?? SO, here is the first installment of "How to Be Good at Being Grown Up." This episode of "Providing Food for the Family" involves: "How to Grill Hamburgers." Enjoy my wisdom gleaned from my first experience grilling. Your very own How-To Kit.

Step 1 – Cut up any vegetables you want on the burgers: onions, tomatoes, peppers, etc. Prepare all that extra stuff so that when the patties are done, you can eat them right off the grill. Otherwise your patties will be cold when you eat them and you'll hate yourself.

Step 2 – Empty the grill. Take the rack off and dump the old coals and ashes out. Feel free to scatter them joyously across the back of the yard and imagine volcanoes as the ash engulfs your face.

Step 3 – Fill the grill with new coals. In my case, you may discover that you don’t even have enough coals left in the bag to fill the bottom of the grill. In which case you should call your dad and ask him where the new bag of coals is. When he tells you there isn’t one, you will then proceed to collect all of the used coals that are now scattered across the back of your lawn and pile them back into the grill. This may take some time.

Step 4 - Pile coals into a mountain. Make sure there’s one layer across the whole bottom and then the rest form a pyramid. If you are a perfectionist, this may also take some time.

Step 5 – Soak the bujeezus out of the coals with lighter fluid.

Step 6 – Set them on fire. The coals will ignite quickly and you will want to make sure your face is well out of the way.

 Step 7 – While the coals are getting nicely hot and whitened on the edges, go inside to prepare the meat. Break the ground beef up in a platter and pour the marinade all over it. Work the marinade in with your hands. You want the meat to be a nice brownish color when you’re done. I use Dale’s seasoning and it’s magical, I swear. Also good and easily available: onions, garlic, salt and pepper.

(Note: If you happen to have forgotten to remove the meat from the fridge in advance of Step 1, it may be cold enough to numb your entire arm while you rub the seasoning in. In this case, my best advice is to suck it up and be the man or woman that you are. You’re grilling here, not watering daisies.)

Step 8 - Roll the meat into tennis-ball-sized balls and flatten them into patties. Layer them on a second platter.

(Note: Your mom may tell you to roll the meat into golf-ball-sized balls. What she means is tennis ball. That golf-ball-sized patty will – trust me – shrink into an oblivion of grease and ashes.)

Step 9 – Go back outside with your platter of patties. Spread the coals out with your grill tongs, flat enough to fit the rack back on top. At this point, it’s probably a good idea to scrape and brush the rack so all the nasty goop on it gets incinerated into relative sanitation. (All the goop, that is, that ISN'T on your hands and arms and possibly your face.)

Step 10 – Place patties on rack. Give them about five minutes to a side. (IE – Five minutes on one side, then flip. Five minutes on the other side, then done).

Step 11 – Serve on buns with whatever toppings you please.

Insider tips for maximum effect:

-Play “Pet Sounds” while grilling.

-If you are a girl, which I am, wear a pretty apron. It will make you feel 1950s - but not subordinated, because you’re grilling.

-If the beef cows in your backyard come up to the fence during grilling, DO NOT LOOK INTO THEIR EYES. 

Overheard in the Classroom, Episode 2

"Come on, electrons, come on!" -A reporter encourages his computer charger

"I'm teaching young character assassins." -Dr. Roy Atwood reflects on training journalists

"Oh I'm assuming I'm gonna get a very breezy draft." -Dr. Atwood announces his expectations for our first draft which is deadlining in an hour

"I mean, this is like trying to kill a mouse and taking a sledgehammer to everything!" -Dr. Atwood weighs in on the education debate

"The short version is I don't know what I want to do and the long version is that my parents have a vineyard, and I know that in ten years I will have to take care of the vineyard with my husband who will be toiling in the vineyard." -Rosella, my roommate

I am REPORTER.

I made a conglomeration of bloopers for you! (I feel like that should be followed with "Happy Birthday!")  Take it, cherish it.



(The actual finished product is here. It's not nearly as good as this one, though. I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Work of genius, this.)

My Apartment

We moved into the apartments of The King's College on Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday but all the days are running together into years).  Now, I know "the Wolcott Hotel" probably sounded ritzy and great and, judging from the lobby, I thought it would be, too.  And it was pretty great except that I think it was built for humans when they were the size of the Borrowers. Or Stuart Little. All I'm saying is I probably could've brushed my teeth over the sink while sitting on the toilet. Not that I would but I could, you understand.

Needless to say, spacious apartments are nice.  This is my favorite part about it, though:

My spot in the window.

My view from the window.