Nostalgia | thesmartly.com

Are You Who You Want to Be?

05/03/2011 By JulieOrdonez 2 Comments

“So why don’t you? Why don’t you just do it already? I mean, what’s stopping you?”

When my then boyfriend (now husband) and I drove down to grab some dinner one night a few years back I remember he and I struck up a conversation about his interest in the medical field. When I first met him he was on his way toward that path, and he had ambitions and dreams of endless nights of studying, long, caffeinated on-call hours, and the intense pressures that come with a career in the medical field, to be gratified later by the immense sense of love and humanity that comes with helping to save the lives of others. Over the next few years afterward however, he got off course, and so when he and I began discussing this again at this point in time, and I sensed how he obviously hadn’t given up his dream, I uttered those words above to him: Why NOT? I asked. What’s stopping you?

Flash forward to the present. He’s now in the field he always dreamt of, doing what he loves. And while I’m beyond proud of him for taking that dream and running with it, I couldn’t help but sit and wonder about myself. Sure, I’d accomplished a lot in my fairly young life. But I wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be just yet. And why was I not there? Good question.

There are things called fear. Failure. Guilt. Rejection. Doubt. Anxiety. All these emotions that created barriers within myself that stopped me from being where I wanted to be. Things that stop all of us, at one point or another, from what doing what we need to do to be/do/see what we want from life.

“I want to lose the weight, but I just can’t seem to stick to it…”

“I want to fix my marriage, but it’s going to take a lot…”

“I want to go back to school, get my degree, but you know, it’s gonna be hard….”

“If I could do it over again, I would have done something different…it’s too late for that now..…”

“I’ve tried so many other times, and am still in the same place, so what’s the point anymore? “

For me, I had aspirations of everything from wanting to work for a magazine to being a better Christian, a better wife and mom, traveling the world, to losing those last few pounds of baby weight. It’s not that I didn’t think I could do these things; I knew I could; it was actually taking those steps, taking that deep breath, and the actual diving in that scared me. It’s that fear of the unknown, the having to trust that everything would be alright and letting that control go, that sense of uncertainty that comes with trying something new that stopped me from going for it full force. I’d attempted to go for it multiple times before, only to have the voices of doubt invade my thoughts and erase my confidence, thus stopping me in my tracks.

Sitting in my living room today, having watched the events of this evening unfold and hearing Obama speak of how Bin Laden was dead, several thoughts and emotions ran through me: first, obviously, the great sense of pride I have for our military and our country, of course. Then, I thought of all the other events of the last few years, the war, the massive earthquakes in Japan, Haiti, Chile, the chaos and uncertainty that already exists in our world and the uncertainty that is everyday life, and just how unbelievably precious each and every single breath we take really and truly is. And how trivial our doubts and fears in actuality are in comparison.

Enough. I thought to myself. Just do it. I looked at my husband and said, completely out of context, “That’s it!” After a bewildered look from him, I explained myself. If I sit around and wait for life to happen for me, it never will. Life is precious, it’s a gift, you do what you will with it. You want something? Go get it. I can work to change things in my own life. I can live the life I was meant to live, I will and deserve to achieve what I want from it. I can think back on that little girl who used to scribble short stories in her notebook, dreaming up her future life and what it would be, and know that I can say to her I did it,mama. I did it.

Laugh more, love more, let stress and insignificance go, focus on what matters and to hell with what doesn’t. Live more.

To quote one of my favorite songs by the band Switchfoot:

“This is your life. Are you who you want to be?”

Read more from SJM’s personal blog here.

Image found here.

Filed Under: Humor, Motivate, Nostalgia, Opinion, Spirituality

Bittersweet

04/26/2011 By MichelleS 19 Comments

My grandfather is slowly dying. I should be upset. The nature of the relationship should dictate that I should be grief-stricken. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to muster the grief and sympathy that the situation warrants.

You see, my grandfather was a miserable man, and my memories of him are anything but happy. He was the scary grandfather who intimidated my brother and me as kids. As an adult, he infuriated me with his arcane beliefs and misogynistic tendencies. He never got over the fact that my father’s family, many generations ago, came from Poland. As part of the master race with his “pure” German blood, he looked down on everyone, and he never truly accepted my dad as his son-in-law. In fact, he almost barred my mother from marrying him.

I grew up with stories about those damn Polacks, those drunk Irishmen, those idiotic blacks, and other horrifying racial epithets. He refused to let my mother go to the college of her choice because he felt it was too Communist in nature. He also refused to let her get contacts or buy a pair of jeans. Seriously, Grandpa? She could wear slacks but not jeans?

As a kid, he looked down on me for reading all the time and yet forbade my brother and me from watching TV while we visited. If we were too loud, he got mad. If we were too quiet, he got mad. If we dared to ask questions of our parents or, heaven forbid, other adults, he grew so upset he could barely speak. His belief that women are not equal to men was as apparent to me as his dislike of anyone other than German Catholics. The family joke is that he fought for the wrong side during World War II.

So, as he sits in the hospital fighting his congestive heart failure, I struggle with what I should be feeling and what I am feeling. I want to feel sad, but feel guilty that I cannot. Rather, I almost feel relief that this miserable man who was filled with so much hate and distrust will finally find peace. It’s the most sympathetic feeling I can muster for someone who never enjoyed life.

Michelle can also be found on her blog, That’s What She Read.

Filed Under: MISC, Nostalgia, Opinion Tagged With: Childhood, death, family, Grandparents, Grief

Grandpa’s time machine

04/19/2011 By Darren Nethington 13 Comments

I took a little trip the other day. It wasn’t in a car, or on a bike. I didn’t even walk. It was a trip through time, you see, and to take it, I only had to sit comfortably on my Grandfather’s couch. I’ve read that time travel really is possible, if only you could travel at the speed of light, or drop through a wormhole, or perhaps step into one of the innumerable parallel worlds that are said to populate the universe. I didn’t have to do any of those things. In fact, I didn’t even have to move.

Grandpa sat grinning at me from his easy chair. His head bobbed slightly on his frail neck. His sparse white hair spun like gossamer from above his ears. He didn’t look like he commanded a time machine, but he was nevertheless in charge of this journey.

Grandpa spoke and off we went. It was the early 60′s and we were seeing my Dad. Darrell was his name. He’s been looking at me from black and white photographs for as long as I can remember: here he is in a plain white t-shirt and tough guy shades; there again, he’s banging a guitar like Elvis, wearing his jeans rolled up at the cuffs with that damn t-shirt. My Mom’s in that one, on her knees next to him with her arms outstretched, acting like a weepy teenager with front row seats: two dumb kids acting up without a care in the world. But these were only photos. Me and Gramps were going back to see the real thing.

Here was Grandpa and my Dad, lingering at a car lot in Southern California. Dad had his eye on a 40-something Chevy coupe. He wanted it, but he didn’t have the money.

“The guy said, take it anyway,” Grandpa said. “I told your Dad, you won’t take it until you have the cash.” Grandpa laughed at the memory. Dad busted his ass for two more months, cleaning canvas bags in some factory, but he finally collected what he needed and bought the car.

“What’s he do when he gets the car?” said Grandpa. “He puts these huge mufflers on it, then lowers the front and raises the back. Bounced all over the place. Lord.”

“Gramps,” I said, “Didn’t you and Grandma take that thing to the store once and break the eggs on the way home?”

Grinning , Gramps said, ”That’s what I told your Dad.”

Grandpa steers the time machine elsewhere…or else-when? We’re in a courtroom. Dad is standing dejectedly before the judge, Grandma by his side.

“Your Dad got a speeding ticket not a month after he jacked up his car,” says Gramps. “When they went to court, I told your Grandma to tell the judge to throw the book at him. The judge says, two months with no driving or 6 months only driving to work. Your Dad took the two months. He never got another ticket.” Grandpa laughed again. “He said, Dad, you go over 30 miles an hour on that street all the time. I said, yes, but they can’t hear me a mile away.”

Grandpa was silent after that–our trip was over. He sat in his chair with his eyes closed, a wistful smile on his lips, his face glowing with bittersweet memories of a son long dead. Time eventually steals away all that we hold dear. But sometimes, if we’re quiet (and we throw in with a good skipper), we can get back a little of what was lost. When we do, we find we never really lost the most important thing of all: love, the essence of every bond that really matters and the one thing that time cannot diminish. See, Dad may be dead and buried, but he is alive in the time machine that beats in Grandpa’s chest.

You have but to close your eyes and Grandpa’s heart will take you wherever you want to go.

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Nostalgia, Parenting, Spirituality Tagged With: death, family, heart, kids, memories, parenting, relationships, smartly, time, youth

To the Mom Who Films Every Single School Performance

04/12/2011 By Sheryl Stein 12 Comments

Dear Overzealous Mom,

After several years of attending chorus and band concerts, talent shows, award ceremonies, and other school assemblies, I have become, in short, familiar with your work. You are the woman who leaps up before each and every song start or critical moment, flips on your video cam, and starts to preserve those wonderful childhood memories we all wish to remember as we move along that strangely short continuum known as life. I’m very glad that you are careful to gather each and every note your child has warbled. I envision a home library filled with videos, each carefully categorized for future generations’ use.

You may not realize this, but thanks to your fastidious attention to capturing those moments, you have also become a part of our family’s memories. At first, I would attempt a paltry photograph here or there, only to capture your back, shoulders, or butt (the latter of which has gotten larger over the years, which I can glean from my photographic evidence.) I would try to sit elsewhere in the auditorium, and yet, like two toddlers hellbent on getting the one toy in the room, our worlds would collide again and again. Over time, I gave up hope at actually watching my child in any performance; I would simply hope that my being there was enough for her. She’ll never know that I spent my time, teeth gritted, trying to see around your standing, ample frame, hearing less her voice and more of the whirr of your taping.

I should learn to live with the fact that your child must be more important than mine or anyone else’s here at school. However, now that the final year at elementary school is coming to a close, I have been asked to share any photographs I have of my child at school activities for one final montage at the graduation program. Instead, as I gather together my collection of pictures, I notice a preponderance of shots of you. While your family may never show much interest in watching your thousands of hours of video, my kids will have to content themselves with multiple shots of your posterior.

I’m picking out the finest samples for the entire 5th grade to enjoy.

Yours,

Sheryl

Visit Sheryl’s personal site here.

Photo by Danilo Rizzuti

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia, Parenting Tagged With: camera, film, humor, kids, parenting, plays, school, videocamera

Aging gracefully

04/04/2011 By Darren Nethington 7 Comments

I’m telling you, old age sucks. I’m not old yet, I guess, in the strictest sense of the word. I still get around okay. My wife tells me I should dye my hair, maybe get rid of some of the gray. I say, who do I have to impress? I earned this gray hair. Three exes, three teenage daughters, 24 years with the Postal Service–I tell the wife, if I’m having a nightmare, don’t wake me up. I could be fighting off punk boyfriends with nose rings, grumpy supervisors, crabby lawyers, unsympathetic judges. It could be anything. I could start flailing around, who knows. Maybe I should see somebody.

I may not be old, per se. But things are happening. Little pains crop up. I got an ache in my knee last year. After a 300 dollar MRI adventure, the doctor says, hey, you have a spot of arthritis in your knees–take some ibuprofen when it acts up. Huh? 300 bucks for take two and call me in the morning? So I have to resign myself to some aches and pains. I have to do some self triage. Can whatever stabbing pain I’m experiencing at the moment wait? If I don’t break out, bleed out, or pass out, then chances are I will live and I don’t have to cough up a 400 dollar co-pay so I can get some Advil.

I have this inner dialogue going. I started telling myself things. Like when I do some heavy lifting at work that lasts maybe 20 seconds and I start breathing like I just ran 10 miles carrying a backpack full of rocks. Or when I swat at a fly and it feels like my shoulder popped out. Or when I raise my arms over my head and things start creaking. I’m not old, I say to myself. I’m just a little out of shape. I need to walk more.

I saw a friend of mine at work the other day. He’s about 70, 80 something. He said when you get old, things just start breaking down. One thing after another, every day it’s something else. Maybe it’s the power of suggestion, but lately I’ve been feeling some of that. My knees, my back, even my ears are falling apart. I know there are 90 year old guys who would read this and laugh out loud, if they had the wind. Some of them are on walkers; they can’t tie their shoes without falling down. Here I’m 47 and complaining about a little arthritis on my knee. It gets below 60 degrees outside and I’m grabbing my leg at the bottom of the stairs crying to my wife about my arthritis kicking in. It must be the drop in barometric pressure or something, I whine, and she says hurry up and get the garbage out before the rain starts. No sympathy.

There’s an upside to all this. Things are slower. Real drama is reserved for things like death and…well, just death. Everything else is negotiable and temporary. I appreciate things, like the sun on my face, a freshly mowed lawn, even a clean pair of socks warm from the dryer. As I age, life becomes simpler. And much more satisfying.

I’m getting older, but not old. Not yet, anyway. Besides, I hear the alternative really sucks.

t-shirt courtesy of http://images4.cpcache.com/product/78752764v5_480x480_Front_Color-White.jpg

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Nostalgia Tagged With: funny, humor, memories, seasons, smartly

The Christmas I Was Lucky to Survive

03/31/2011 By Laurie LaGrone 17 Comments

When I was about 23, my brothers and I were home from college for Christmas. Christmas Day found us just sitting around burping a lot, and we were bored. Three stir crazy college students and a golden retriever wanted something to do, so we hopped into my brother Bocci’s Bronco II, put Bucky the dog in the back, and drove off in search of snow. “Just be home in time for Christmas dinner,” were our mother’s parting words.

The family homestead lies in the center of northern California’s Sacramento Valley, and in 15 minutes one can be in the foothills of the Coast Range to the west, or the Sierra-Cascades to the east. Without a word Bocci turned the Bronco east. It seems we all had the same unspoken, idiotic idea: we were going to try to get to the slopes of Mt. Lassen, where our Uncle Mal and Aunt Shirley were snowed into their cabin home. They had planned to have Christmas with us, but weren’t able to get out, even with a 4-wheel drive. “Let’s just get to the snow, and see how close we can get to the cabin,” one of us said, once it became apparent that we were all thinking the same thing.

We turned off of Highway 36 at Dale’s Station in brilliant sunshine, smug in our collective lunacy. Winding uphill toward the tiny hamlet of Manton, not a patch of snow in sight, we must have doubted the reports of impassable roads at 4000 feet, where our destination lay. We zipped through Manton, up Schoolhouse Road, and beyond the PG&E substation that marks the end of paved road and civilization. We were in logging country now.

By this time there was snow on the ground, then in the trees. Soon we were in a winter wonderland. It was beautiful, and there were still tire tracks to follow. No problem, right? We can definitely do this.

Until the tires started losing traction. “Okay,” said Bocci, “I guess this is where we should turn around. He stopped and executed a three-point turn . . . which ended in a ditch. Well, not really a ditch, because who needs ditches in the heart of Roseburg Lumber country? No one, that’s who, and that’s exactly who was around to witness one of our wheels spinning in the air: No one.

We pushed. We rocked. We sat on the hood and gunned the engine and pushed some more. Almost . . . almost . . . nope. It was mid-afternoon by this point, and we could walk the 5-10 miles back toward people, hopefully, or the short distance forward toward a warm fire. We went forward.

At first it was easy going on the packed snow. Bucky bounded along and didn’t mind his cold paws. Soon we came to the tiny marker that identifies G-Line, which is as close to a street name as you find on company-owned, dirt logging roads. We turned . . . and our hearts sunk. Fresh powder. No more packed tire tracks.

By the time we got to the turn-off to the cabin, it was heavy dusk. We knew the way well, so we weren’t worried about getting lost, but we should have been. People get stranded in these snowy mountains every year, and not always with happy endings. Bucky was very tired from bounding through the deep snow, which was up to mid-thigh. We were cold.

Inside the cabin, Aunt Shirley was talking on the phone. Their dog kept barking at the window, so she went to see what on earth — people! People walking into the yard! “Gotta go,” she told the caller. “Someone just WALKED up to the house.”

I have never been so embarrassed and yet so happy to be alive to face the shame in all my life. It seemed as if Aunt Shirley had known we were coming, because she had prepared a feast: Beef Wellington, Yorkshire pudding, and all the trimmings. Somehow they fed three starving college students and a 100 pound dog with no trouble on a moment’s notice. We bunked upstairs in the loft, and I got the bed closest to the little window, from which I could see the bright moonlight on the frozen white world outside.

The next day my uncle fired up the tractor and we rode down to our car. The guys winched the Bronco out of the gully, which wasn’t easy, even with a come-along. When Uncle Mal saw where we had beached the Bronco, he remarked, “You guys hiked in three miles, you know.” We felt like the Donner Party, only full.

Our adventure was over, and we had had a fabulous time and a very rare white Christmas. The hard part was going home to our parents and grandfather, whose Christmas had been ruined — first with worry, then with disappointment. We have not to date tried something that dumb again, but there’s still time.

Originally published at Laurie’s personal blog, Fooleryland

(Original photo by Lars Falkdalen Lindahl at Wikimedia Commons)

Filed Under: MISC, Nostalgia Tagged With: Cascades, Christmas, mountains, Mt. Lassen, Sierras, snow, snowbound, stranded, stupidity

On the Bus

03/21/2011 By NumiKay 2 Comments

I was sitting on the 38 Geary Blvd. bus in San Francisco heading downtown for some holiday shopping and like to at least pretend I’m not checking out the people on the bus with me. I think it’s an unspoken rule called: “pretend everyone farted and don’t look”—no eye contact admitted. I like that rule since I can pretend I’m being incognito. Even though I am as obvious as a three year old, as long as no one catches me staring at them at that moment, I can claim adherence just as much as the next person.

I like the bus because it’s like a reenactment of weird news stories. When I read those in the newspaper I can dismiss it too easily: “this stuff is all lies. Who would be that obvious/nuts/stupid?” On the bus it’s all real.

The people that scare me the most on the bus are those that hit the extremes on the social comfort scale. More often they are far, far too comfortable. One afternoon a few years ago, on the same bus actually, I saw an older woman very meticulously lay down one sheet of tissue paper on the seat, presumably to protect her skirt from the seat germs. Then she dug around in her purse, pulled out a nail clipper and started clipping her nails as though she were in her private bathroom with a maid holding a trash can, leaping around to catch her flying objects. The older woman would hold her hands out in front of her to check her work, then clip, clip, clip. The nail shards and bits would fling out into the air while people would avert their eyes and pretend not to see.

Another example occurred on a Friday evening bus the week before Christmas. A woman got on holding one large department store bag and numerous smaller bags in each hand. She made her way toward the middle of the bus and stopped in front of the back door. Anyone who tried to get on or off inevitably tapped her bag and would get bellows of “I got PACKAGES!!” in their ear. One girl in her early twenties was trying to move out of the way but couldn’t and said, “Where would you like me to go?” The response was, “I don’t care! I got PACKAGES!”

While I’ve never in my life been comfortable enough to clip my nails or yell at strangers, I tend to think that’s a virtue when maybe it’s a sign of being too uptight. Even the thought of doing whatever I pleased feels a bit… refreshing, wild, nuts, a bit like a roller coaster.

On my last day in town I took the same bus to meet my sister for lunch and I saw a mother and little girl sitting across the aisle from me. The girl looked about four or five years old. She was next to the window and kept sitting up straighter to see as much as possible. As the bus went uphill slowly, it paused for a bit, then as it headed downhill the little girl raised up both arms and yelled, “Wheeeeeee! Mommy, look! Wheeeee!”

Filed Under: Entertainment, Nostalgia

Who’s afraid of the dark?

03/10/2011 By Darren Nethington 12 Comments

As a child, I remember summers at my Grandparent’s farm in Northern California. I remember thudding sprinklers, insects at dusk, and the smell of newly baled hay. It was a place of refuge for us kids. I don’t remember thinking back then that I was safer there, but I knew I was happier.

Our days would be filled with war games with wooden guns. The cows would chew their cud and watch us creep through the barn. Somebody would yell “bang!” and somebody else would die a horrible, stomach clutching, writhing death, and the cows would continue to chew without a hint of interest or sympathy. Sometimes we would play hide and seek, and sometimes we would test our bravery by jumping out of the hayloft into an old rusty trailer that sat just below. Once in awhile we would roughhouse in the living room until Grandma told us to get back outside before something broke.

At night we would lose ourselves in sun dried sheets and heavy home made quilts. Grandma Leva would kiss each one of us before tucking us in.

We would wake up late in the morning to the smell of buttermilk pancakes on the griddle, pancakes that didn’t come from a box. Grandma made maple syrup from maple extract, boiling it on the stove.

“Come on down or I’m going to throw it out,” Grandma would say quietly at the foot of the stairs. She never raised her voice, even when waking us. We never thought she would actually throw breakfast to the chickens, but we never tested her either.

Loved ones were always in and out of Grandpa’s farm house. Great aunts and uncles would oftentimes be seated around the big kitchen table, speaking quietly and drinking coffee. They would laugh with the familiarity of years. Uncle Wally would magically make coins appear from behind our ears, then regale us with the same ridiculous stories he had been telling since we were old enough to speak. We listened raptly and laughed like we had never heard them before, and it was wonderful.

One summer night we kids were having a hard time going to sleep after the lights were turned out. Earlier we had been sitting out in the living room in our jammies listening to the aunts and uncles talk. Now we lay snug in our beds while Grandma stood at the door, her hand poised over the light switch.

“There’s nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the light,” said Grandma softly.

“But Grandma,” we cried. “It’s scary in the dark.”

“Don’t be silly,” Grandma said, and out went the light.

She hadn’t gone 5 steps down the long hallway before our cries brought her back. The light came on again.

“Now kids, this really is silly,” said Grandma through tight lips and furrowed brows.

Now at this point most of us were more than willing to take our chances with whatever creatures we imagined lurking in the dark than with a very real and irritated Granny.

“But Grandma,” said Garth, “Why can’t we just have the hall light on?”

Good old Garth, the middle child, the constant agitator up and down both levels of the sibling food chain. He wasn’t two weeks removed from his now infamous cartwheel through Grandma’s prized china cabinet, and here he was back talking her. That must have been one hell of a monster residing under his bed.

“I’m going to show you kids once and for all,” said Grandma, eyeballing Garth, “that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.” Striding purposefully to the window, she peered out, her face practically touching the glass. “See, nothing to be afraid….” And then she screamed.

Outside, with his nose smashed up against the glass, was Uncle Wally, grinning evilly. He had snuck away and had been crouching under the bedroom window, listening to the whole exchange. His timing was perfect.

Grandma collected herself and stalked out of the bedroom, hitting the lights as she went. We went to sleep without another peep because now we knew for sure what lurked in the shadows when the lights went out—Uncle Wally.

And who was afraid of Uncle Wally?

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Nostalgia Tagged With: family, humor, love, memories, smartly

I Leaf Japanese Language Wo Learning Tight to Think.

03/09/2011 By Laurie LaGrone 10 Comments

The tiny room was stuffy. No breeze stirred the late afternoon air, heavy with humidity and pollen and expectations — for the weekend, two days away; for finals, just around the corner. The converted laundry room on the back of the shabby Victorian house had no air conditioning, no fans, no insulation. A half-hearted attempt at a college classroom, it abutted a campus parking lot, and waves of heat rising from the asphalt outside pulsed through the room.

Shoichi-san, a grad student, guided the four students through the lesson as they fought sleep, or restlessness, or both. Each took his or her turn reading the romanized text aloud; it looked sort of like English but, if pronounced correctly, it sounded sort of like Japanese.

Watashi wa toshokan ni irasshaimasu. I go to the library.

Janet read a few tortuous sentences until Shoichi-san was satisfied. Paula plodded through her assigned paragraph. Laurie approached the words dully, as if trying to read underwater. The stagnant air was getting to her; she cracked a smile and tried not to giggle.

Enpitsu ga arimasu ka? Do you have a pencil?

Joe’s turn. Joe’s learning curve was flatter than those of his classmates. Japanese did not come easily to Joe, and the warm room and fidgety girls around him didn’t make it any easier.

Joe looked at the page. The words swam before his eyes. Joe struggled through the sentence, syllable by syllable.

” . . . shi . . . ma . . . SHIT.”

Shta. Joe had wanted to say shta, but it was too late. The word hung in the poisonous air with ponderous finality, daring any of the students to say a word. No words were needed.

I don’t remember which of us started giggling first, but Janet and I were goners after that. Shoichi-san blinked at us through innocent eyes — and ears. “Eez ever’teeng . . . okayyy?” he asked. We assured him that we were just tired and punchy, that was all. Poor Joe was turning six shades of red and cursing the day he ever chose Japanese as an elective.

Class dismissed.

Laurie blogs in English, sort of, at her blog Fooleryland

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Nostalgia Tagged With: college, embarrassment, Japanese, languages, Laurie LaGrone, school, smartly

Not a Francophile

03/01/2011 By Kate Geiselman 8 Comments

I love the Oscars. I grew up watching them with my mom. Well before I was old enough to see or understand most of the nominated films, I loved the glitz and glam, the montages of eras gone by, the tributes to the Hollywood legends who’d died that year. Even in my thirties, when I was too surrounded by babies and too broke to go to first-run movies, I would brave sleep deprivation and my husband’s eye rolling to watch until the bitter end. It would never have occurred to me not to.

As a somewhat blind devotee, I’ve been an apologist for plenty of boring hosts over the years. I may have been the only person on the planet who didn’t notice how bad David Letterman was. It was the Oscars. I couldn’t not love it.

So last night, I snuggled up on the couch with my whole family and settled in for a night of snarking about dresses and cheering for underdogs. The opening montage with the much-ballyhooed fresh-faced hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, was clever enough. But when Franco came out shooting video with his iPhone, I should have known that things had nowhere to go but downhill.

I am not a crabby old traditionalist. I appreciate the fact that the Academy is trying to woo younger viewers. I was game for a change in format. I think both of the young hosts are talented, and I wanted to like them. But really, James Franco? Did it have to be all about you?

I get that he is the talk of the town, a Renaissance Man who writes fiction and gets his PhD and acts and paints and experiments in performance art. But apparently, he was so busy shooting video and Tweeting backstage and making everything very postmodern and ironically detached, he couldn’t be bothered to be entertaining. I think Annie was just overcompensating, poor thing. She came across as silly and cloying and trying too hard, but I can hardly blame her. I think I knew how she felt.

I had a boyfriend in college who was Mr. Cool. He was good looking and aloof and shunned anything remotely trendy. Why he wanted anything to do with me (trendy sorority girl, good student, former show choir member, slightly gawky) I’m not sure. But watching poor Annie Hathaway with the reluctant (or vacant? or absent?) Franco on her arm, I was reminded of the handful of times I took Mr. Cool to a sorority function, or to a family event, or well, basically any time when we weren’t alone together or with friends of his choosing. He’d be rude to my friends or make snide comments about the event or whatever, and I’d get exhausted trying to apologize for him and make everyone see what a great guy he was. (This begs the question why, if he was so great, he acted like such a jerk, but as every young gal with a Bad Boyfriend knows “he was different with me.” The grownup me cringes. I digress.)

Anyway, I’m sure Mr. Franco is talented. Perhaps I should blame the producers for selecting someone so ill-suited to the task. The fact that Billy Crystal, a 94- year-old stroke victim, and a digital Bob Hope were the highlights of the show pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Still, I find that I’m slightly irritated with Franco anyway.

What I loved about the Oscars when I was a kid was that it celebrated everything great about movie making. I would watch actors accept their awards and imagine doing the same one day. Last night, I watched with my 15-year-old daughter, who is just back from her first trip to New York and completely in love with the theater. I wonder if she imagined the same. Say what you will about Academy politics and Hollywood cynicism and promotional campaigns and whether the most deserving “art” wins. The Oscars, at their best, are a lovely fantasy, and they honor good work. For Franco to make the evening about anything other than the honorees was colossally self-indulgent. On Oscar night, I’m not interested in performance art or sly meta commentary that blurs the lines between audience and host, breaks the fourth wall, blah blah blah. I just want to be entertained. For the first time in my Oscar viewing years, I wasn’t. But then maybe I’m just grumpy because I stayed up too late, True Grit didn’t get a single award, and not even Annette Benning could stem the Portman tidal wave. Sigh.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Humor, MISC, Nostalgia, Opinion Tagged With: anne hathaway, james franco, movies, oscars

How many English majors does it take to change a light bulb?

02/18/2011 By Rima Tessman 14 Comments

I suspected from an early age that I wasn’t cut out for “work,” yet the summer after my junior year of college, I found myself sitting in the plant-studded grayscale office of a temp agency talking up my “skill set,” desperate for a job.

It was 1994 and my liberal arts education hadn’t taught me how to turn on a computer, type, or answer a multi-line phone, but I cleaned up good and could file things more or less alphabetically. Plus, having just returned from a year abroad, I had excellent oral and written intercultural communication skills, which I was sure to mention anytime you turned around.

Somehow I managed to land an assignment with an Italian builder who worked out of a trailer on the edge of the forest he was razing. But don’t let the visual connotations associated with “trailer” fool you – old Mr. Roma had some tricked out digs, complete with cherry wood furnishings, granite countertops, and state-of-the-art office equipment. It was just he and his daughter running the biz, and he needed a girl to answer phones, make photocopies, and cater to his every beck and call.

That girl was me.

I showed up for work bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of anxiety that my utter and complete lack of practical life skills was about to be exposed. And sure enough, Roma’s office was equipped with a computer, a fax machine/copier, and a multi-line phone. Which is to say that if I was talking to a person on line one and another line rang, I would have to somehow pick up the second line without hanging up the first. There was also a remote possibility that a third or fourth line would ring while one and two were tied up, in which case I would have no choice but to cut and run. Not only that, but I was expected, using instinct alone, to know which calls to take a message for and which calls to put through.

Soon it became apparent that though I had no problems hunting and pecking my way to a 4.0 grade point average on my Brother word processor at school, I was not mentally capable of formatting a Word Perfect document or keeping two phone calls in the air at once. I also had a knack for putting disgruntled customers through to Mr. Roma but hanging up on his wife. So you might say I was “on notice” from the very start.

On the second morning of my tenure as I sat composing poetry at my desk, old man Roma started bellowing at me from the inner sanctum.

“Rini!” he hollered, because he thought that was my name, “Get in here right now!”

When I materialized at his side, he made a grand yet vague gesture toward the picture window behind him and said, “What, is this?”

To venture a guess would have been suicide, like the time in fourth grade when Sister Carmella tricked me into fathoming the place where my perpetually misplaced milk ticket should be stored. After burning through three wrong answers in a row (lunch box? pencil case? leg warmer?) she released me from my misery by revealing the answer I could never have hoped to guess. (“Inside your front uniform pocket.”)

Clearly, if I’d known where I was supposed to keep my milk ticket or what was up Mister Roma’s ass, neither of us would have been there in the first place. But being all too familiar with the way grade school teachers and members of organized crime families like to assert their authority, I was prepared to play along.

My error, as it turned out, was that I’d slanted the vertical blinds in the wrong direction when I’d opened them that morning – a grievous mistake that old man Roma was sure I would never make again. From that point forward, my time in the office was spent alternating between boredom and the sheer terror of being asked to do work of any kind.

Later that day, I had to “put a fax through.” It was like being asked to program a SCUD missile. I waited until Mister Roma had retreated into his lair before circling the FASCIMILE MACHINE to look for clues as to how it might work. What I found was all manner of blinking controls and no clear way to pinpoint the vacuum powered chute that would propel my document out of the trailer and to its final destination in space.

After a time, I went ahead and crammed the sheaf of papers – staples and all – through a vice-like orifice which promptly sucked them in, causing the whole FASCIMILE MACHINE to make an awful choking sound, sputter and die. Though common sense dictated that I come clean to old man Roma about the demise of his apparatus at once, I chose to shield him from the knowledge for as long as I possibly could (less than one day.)

Coincidentally, the temp agency called that evening to inform me with regret that Roma Builders no longer required my services. It was a crushing blow, and proof that my mother had been on to something when she said, “How can a person go to college and not even learn how to type?”

I did eventually learn to operate not only office equipment, but also factory automation software and later got a job (this is the truth) writing technical manuals for oil refineries and nuclear power plants.

I live in fear of the phone call I’ll get the day one of them blows up, but at least I’ll know how to photocopy and laminate a fake passport so I could get the hell out of Dodge.

You can read more from Rima on her personal website, Rimarama.com.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia, Tech

Five years

02/09/2011 By JennyT 9 Comments

This year will mark my fifth year as a divorcee. I remember back when the wounds were still fresh, when I used to scour bookstores and online articles for some beacon of hope that one day I would walk amongst the human race again, I stumbled upon a little website.

It was a website for women who had recently divorced. I’ve long since forgotten 99% of the content, most of which gave financial advice, but retained one tiny morsel. It was a quote that said: “It takes the average woman approximately five years to get over a divorce.”

For the first few years post-divorce, I clung to those words like a life preserver. “Five years. You can do it” I’d say to myself on the most arduous of days. “Five years? Ha!” I’d say to myself on my confident days.

As the half-decade mark approaches, I ask myself: Am I over it?

Yes.

And no.

Five years ago I could still look at my ex, still talk to him and maintain some semblance of a “relationship”. A choppy and somewhat chilly one, but a relationship nevertheless. That was before I learned of the affair. Before he tied the knot mere months after the divorce was final. Before he stopped paying child support.

Now, almost five years in, the very sight of his car in my driveway causes a cold dagger to run down my spine. I feel my cheeks get hot and forget to breathe. I am torn between wanting to plead with him to have some compassion, to help support his kids; and wanting to run out to his car like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, blue paint on my face and a flaming medieval weapon in hand. Our communication has devolved into terse, punctuation-free texts and emails. It’s hard to believe we’re the same two people who used to sit on the same side of a restaurant booth and draw pictures of our dream house on napkins.

Five years ago I was a shy, fat stay at home mom with few friends. My world had been my husband and my kids. When I got divorced, I was forced to reach out. The loneliness you feel after the divorce dust settles can be stifling, so you find yourself making friends. Find yourself overcoming the fear of rejection and eventually, basking in the gorgeous warm glow of friendship. I have a support system now that the pre-divorce me could have never fathomed.

Five years ago, I wanted nothing to do with men. The thought of getting married again, hell…the thought of even dating again made me cringe. Since then, I’ve been wavering in and out of the dating scene, even had one serious relationship. That one ended because I wasn’t ready to commit. This year, I’m feeling like committing wouldn’t be so bad.

Five years ago, not a day passed that I didn’t spend at least a few furtive moments dissecting my marriage and its ultimate demise. I used to lay in bed at night and wonder what happened, what I could have done. What I shouldn’t have done. Now, when I manage to stay awake for more than five seconds after falling into bed, I think of things like my future. Things like how proud I am of my kids, all four of them, for how they’ve thrived and grown and survived. I think of what I’m going to do the next weekend. I think about my job working with special education kids and how I might have never found it or them if I hadn’t gone through the divorce.

Am I over it?

I think I’m over it enough for now.

Find more from Jenny here.

Filed Under: Motivate, Nostalgia Tagged With: divorce, getting over it, life after divorce, moving on, smartly

The Spider and the Writer

01/18/2011 By Kate Geiselman 9 Comments

The first time I read Charlotte’s Web, I was six. My first grade teacher had pointed it out to me in the Scholastic Book order form, and when I begged my mom to order it, she smiled, disappeared for a few minutes, and returned with a worn hardback she had been saving for me. I grinned and headed straight for my favorite wingback chair in the living room.

I don’t know how long it took me to read it, but one evening not too much later, my mother found me in the same chair sniffling and wiping away tears. I had had no idea that a book could have anything but a happy ending—Charlotte’s death was just too much to bear. It was the first time I had been utterly transported by reading. I must have read it half a dozen times over the next few years—my own effort to resurrect my friend Charlotte. I could recite the first three lines from memory.

Almost thirty years later, my four-year-old daughter picked up the animated video of Charlotte’s Web at the library and wanted to check it out. I couldn’t stand the idea of having her see it on screen before reading the book, so I promised to read it to her instead.

Over the next few weeks, I read a chapter to her each night at bedtime. I had forgotten (or had I taken for granted?) how eloquent the prose was and how unsentimental the message. Just like old times, (and much to my daughter’s puzzlement), I blubbered through the last two chapters.

Charlotte’s Web is a book about friendship, about wonder, and about the power of the written word. When I was a little girl, I was hooked from the first line: ”Where’s Papa going with that ax?” I worried about that sweet pig and hoped desperately that Charlotte would save him. But now, it’s not the first sentence, but the last that stays with me: “It’s not often in life that someone comes along who is a true friend and a great writer. Charlotte was both.” Indeed.

Wilbur may have made me a reader, but it was Charlotte who made me a writer.

Filed Under: Entertainment, MISC, Motivate, Nostalgia Tagged With: Charlotte's Web, E. B. White, memories, parenting, reading, writing

Vince

01/04/2011 By Darren Nethington 8 Comments

My cousin died today. It wasn’t unexpected. He had been suffering from cancer for the last few years. We’ve all been through that cancer watch. You get the news, the beginning of it, and then the watch begins. Doctor visits. Chemo. Disbelief. Hope. Resignation. Late night scares and unexpected trips to the hospital. Is this it? But this time it isn’t, and the vigil begins anew.

I got a text from my brother. We lost our cousin today, it said. This may sound silly, but I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t feel like I deserved to because I wasn’t there for him. Vince’s brother Scott and the rest of our cousins went through this battle with him from the beginning. Distance and obligations made it impossible for me to be in the trenches with them. So I wasn’t a part of all that.

When I was 13, we moved to Canon City, Colorado. Vince was living there at the time. He was a few years my senior–the older brother I never had. We rode our bikes to school together. We spent afternoons playing Gin with his Uncle Phil. One day Vince and my brother and I were moving a couch into the house. The couch fell on my foot and for some reason I blamed Vincent. I chased him around the sofa trying to get him to fight with me. He wouldn’t, not because he was afraid. He just thought fighting was silly. We did a few laps before I gave up and sat heavily on the back porch steps, gasping for breath.

“Are you tired yet?” Vince had asked me, laughing.

“Yes,” I said, grinning back. It was impossible to stay angry at Vince.

My cousins live 5 hours away these days. We don’t see each other much. In fact, I had only seen Vincent a few times in the last 30 years. That’s horrible, isn’t it? We were children together, my cousins and I. I remember rainy Saturday afternoons where Susie, the oldest cousin, would put on American Bandstand and move the furniture out of the way, and make us dance. I remember hanging like monkeys out of the gnarled tree that stood in the middle of their backyard. You would think we would keep in touch.

I saw him once more, last summer. He was the same Vince. Except now he was dying. I was emotional. I wanted to talk about it.

“How are things going?” I asked him.

“I’m alive,” he said.

We talked about old times. We talked about the future—maybe we could hook up in Reno sometime, or Vegas. We would drink beer and play Blackjack and stay up late. We laughed. There was no talk of this disease, or of death.

Death would get his due. He always does. But until proven irrevocably otherwise, as far as Vince was concerned the future was as rosy and full of possibility as always. He wasted no time crying about what might be. Here and now, was life. And it would be lived.

My cousin died today. I wasn’t there for him, but I cried anyway.

Filed Under: MISC, Nostalgia, Spirituality Tagged With: cancer, chemo, cousins, death, family, love

What I Wish They’d Told Me About Motherhood

12/17/2010 By JulieOrdonez 12 Comments

Recently I visited a friend of mine who just had a baby to visit. We chatted about how things were going for her, how she was adjusting, sleeping, etc. While sitting with her, I kept thinking of all the things I was told about motherhood when I was pregnant, and all the things I wish people told me.

During pregnancy we’re bombarded with stories, pearls of wisdom, well wishes, and bits of advice from friends, relatives, in-laws, co-workers, and any person who’s ever had, been around, or seen a child. Breastfeeding is the ideal, the gold standard, they say, and any mom in her right mind must do it, it’s the most natural thing on Earth. Best for baby, best for mom, and you do want to have an eternal bond with your baby, now, don’t you?

No broccoli, coffee, chocolate, or spicy food, or cursing, it gives the baby gas.

Make sure you play with baby 2.5 hours each day with developmentally stimulating toys, and play Baby Mozart DVDs to make sure those neurons develop right.

Organic sheepskin bibs and burp cloths only, please, and get that kid on a sleep schedule!

Then we’re given this picture of absolute joy, and are told motherhood is the most amazing experience, an almost heart-stopping surge of happiness and love about to hit us like a tsunami. I imagined just falling into my new role seamlessly. I pictured the post-birth scene endlessly, holding my warm bundle, instantly bonding with him then and there.

I wish they’d been more honest with me.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my child more than anything. Never doubt it for a minute. But I just wish someone had been a little more honest about the frustrations, the fears, the chaos that comes with becoming a mom. It would have made the transition a lot easier.

For instance, no one ever told me that postpartum depression is real. I mean, really real.

As I struggled to adapt to a new baby, new schedule, new body, and not being able to sleep, eat, or pee whenever I wanted, I unknowingly slipped into a dark cloud of despair. Is it always going to be like this? I wondered. Am I always going to be held to 3 hour time increments, be tied to this house, or struggle to get a decent shower? Am I ever going to feel pretty again? How does everyone else do it??I was angry that my world was turned so completely upside down, taking my sense of self along with it. I kept thinking of what my life was like before, and intensely envied all those around me who weren’t tied to a breast pump. But I couldn’t tell anyone that. What kind of mom would they think I was if they knew what I was feeling, what I was thinking?

There were moments where I was so overwhelmed by the fact that my life had changed so drastically beyond my control that I often refused to pick up my crying baby, and I’d beg my husband to take care of him. I’m too tired, I’d say, when I wasn’t. I just thought, maybe if I ignore it all, it will all go away. I’d be back to my old life and have some control back, some familiarity. I’d be me again. I’ll wake up from this surreal dream and have my life back.

I reached my breaking point one night after a massive poop blowout at 2 am where exhausted hubby and I had to change an entire crib bedding with a cranky 3-week-old in tow. I broke down into tears, painful, gut-wrenching tears, and curled up into a pitiful ball on the floor in front of his crib after my husband realized I couldn’t handle it right then. I sobbed so hard I couldn’t catch my breath, and I screamed at myself for being so weak, and so selfish. I apologized over and over to him for being stuck with me as his mother. I told him I was sorry I didn’t bond with him right away, sorry that I thought about giving him up because I was so afraid of him, sorry I wasn’t the mom he deserved.

Eventually I got over my depression. Literally. After being on Prozac for all of two days, I realized one morning that I could do the laundry with my son in the Baby Bjorn, and just like an epiphany, it hit me that I could manage my life just fine with a baby. Something as mundane as laundry was so familiar, so part of my old routine, yet gave me the reassurance that I could do all that I used to before baby. I could enjoy showers normally, I could eat meals at the table without jumping at every little sniffle he made, I could exercise again, wear stylish clothes, listen to music, watch movies with my husband, be me, and still be a good mom.

See what no one told me is that the transition is hard. You expect to jump back into your same old routine after the birth, but the thing is, it’ll never be the same routine again. Everything’s changed, and it’s all about letting yourself have time to adjust to this new life, this new person. It takes time, but once you do, you feel like yourself again, and you realize you’re still you; just with an added blessing.

Two years later I’m still learning to be a mom. You never stop, and nothing makes you take a good, hard look at who you really are like having a child. I may never have it all perfectly together, and that’s okay. I’ve let go of the pressure to be the ideal mom and I just do my best, and I love him so much my heart feels like it will burst out of my chest.

I wish someone had told me before that that’s more than okay.

Filed Under: Entertainment, MISC, Motivate, Nostalgia, Parenting

Friends Don’t Give Friends Fruitcake (But Family Does)

12/11/2010 By Rima Tessman 6 Comments

A few years ago, in the spirit of simplification, my extended family decided to do a “Secret Santa” style Christmas gift exchange.

I was all for it. After all, who wouldn’t rather receive a single, high quality Soap-on-a-Rope than an assortment of seasonal appliqué dish towels, a pair of foot gloves, a pocket book of inspirational quotes, and a fruitcake? (For instance.)

Problem was, the clan was clueless when it came to the rules of the game. While sitting around the table digesting turkey and finishing off the wine on Thanksgiving night, we set to the task of drawing names. It’s possible that Middle East peace accords have been negotiated more swiftly and efficiently than our gift exchange procedures:

“Do couples count as one person?”

“Hell, no. Couples gifts su-uh-uck! Do you really want another coffee table book?”

“Seriously, you guys. I’d rather go giftless than get another throw rug.”

“You didn’t like the throw rug?”

“Bygones! Let’s calm down and focus, everybody!”

“Are we supposed to keep our person secret?”

“It’s called ‘SECRET Santa.’ Gawd.”

“But how will the people who aren’t here today know who to buy for?”

“Someone will give them their slip.”

“What slip?”

“The SECRET SANTA SLIP.”

“But who? Who can we trust?”

“I don’t know.”

“If someone draws for another person, that person will know who they got!!!”

“You put the names in an envelope, numchuck.”

“Is there a price range?”

“Fifty bucks? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, it has to be more than five. I draw the line at five.”

“Okay, but can we each go around and say what we want so nobody gets an umbrella this year?”

“What if I pick myself?”

And so it went.

A few hours later, after the UN representatives had left, the following conclusions were reached:

•   Each person receives a present. No couples gifts!
•   It’s a secret.
•   Those not present for the drawing will receive their giftee’s name in a sealed envelope.
•   It will be delivered by armored vehicle.
•   Price range is $20-$50.
•   No one is allowed to go to Big Lots or the Dollar Store.
•   If you pick yourself, Merry Christmas.
•   Oh yeah, and for God’s sake, don’t open your envelopes here in front of everyone.

Five minutes later:

“What are these envelopes for?” (My Dad.)

“Can someone read mine out to me, I’m not wearing my bifocals.” (Grandma, passing her opened slip of paper around the table.)

“Darn it, this person is impossible to shop for, do you want to trade?” (Mom, showing her name to Grandma.)

“I don’t care, honey, but how will the person I picked know they’re supposed to buy me a gift if I’m not allowed to tell?” (Grandma to Mom.)

A few days later, my mom called me up. She couldn’t remember who her person was and had misplaced the envelope. She’d already contacted all the other family members to ask who they got, she just needed to know who my husband and I were buying for in order to glean the name by process of elimination.

“You called everybody?”

“What else could I do?” she said. “Don’t worry, it will all work out in the end.”

And it did. Somehow, on Christmas Day everyone went home with their sanity and a gift. Including my jubilant husband, who had picked himself.

It was a Christmas miracle.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia

Happy whatever

12/06/2010 By Sheryl Stein 7 Comments

December in our house is something of a blur.

My husband is pretty much a-religious; he apparently had any spirituality beaten out of him in parochial school. I, on the other hand, am a solid, culturally-identifying Jew. While I’m not the girl you’ll see behind the pew every Shabbat, I have seen most Woody Allen movies and know my knishes from my kishkes. Before we married, we knew that we would need to make some serious decisions about religion before kids were a glimmer in our collective four eyes. How we made that decision is a story unto itself; but the upshot of the decision means that we celebrate Chanukah… and we celebrate a rather secular Christmas.

Every night for eight nights, my husband graciously stands with me while I light the menorah and recite some Hebrew prayers that, for all he knows, might consist of my fondest request to the heavens for a new bread machine. He politely pretends not to hear when I set off the smoke alarm while burning latkes in a frying pan. (At times, I wonder whether he fears I will set the house ablaze, giving new meaning to the term festival of lights.) While he doesn’t really have any interest in the actual holiday, he participates in a mild sort of way because the holiday matters to me.

And in return, I help out with Christmas.

While I appreciate the reason for the season, that Reason never enters the equation in our house. Here, it’s all about the tree, Santa, and the joy of waking up at Ungodly-O’Clock with kids to see what the jolly old guy brought. Of course, over the years, the jolly old guy, c’est moi, along with my beloved spouse. How a nice Jewish girl ended up as Santa (and the Easter Bunny) would probably make my grandmother cluck her tongue, may she rest in peace. But while my grandmother might not be thrilled with my holiday antics, my mother tells the story of how my grandfather, a product of new US immigrants, loved having a Christmas tree in his home. It made him feel like he was part of America, she once told me. So I, too, assuage any lingering guilt, deciding that I am continuing the American tradition in our home. It’s slightly weird (and completely areligious), with plenty of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Winnie the Pooh ornaments scattered all over it; but it is our tree. And because this continuation of tradition, albeit a bit altered from the holidays of his youth, is so important to my husband, it is important to me, too.

Lo and behold — a child was born unto us — in early December. So for those of you keeping track, we had eight days of small presents for Chanukah, one day of bigger presents for Christmas — and now, we have The Girl’s birthday. When she was old enough to take it all in, The Girl began to refer to December as My Big Bonanza Month! So we throw in a birthday party, cupcakes for school, a cake for home, and a cake for a birthday party plus the birthday present and, in short, December makes my bank account sigh and my head spin.

There’s plenty to celebrate from so many cultures in December. Throw in birthdays, and the world seems confusing. My best friend, puzzled by her inability to know what to say this time of year, has nailed it. And so, whatever you celebrate this time of year, may I share with you her seasonal wish: Appropriate Greetings to You!

Visit Sheryl’s personal site here.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia, Spirituality Tagged With: chanukah, Christmas, Holiday humor, holidays, humor, marriage, smartly

Logistics of heartbreak

12/02/2010 By Meg Stivison 8 Comments

I’m single now, after 6 years as a partner, a word slightly stronger than girlfriend and slightly less than wife. The end wasn’t angry, more a whimper than a bang, an engine stalling or failing to turnover instead of a crash. Sad, dragging closure, months when I thought if I could just be better, do more, change my attitude, change something, then things would work out. We’ve shared so much, my boyfriend and I, over six years, it seemed impossible that this could be more than a rough patch.

Our breakup was as amicable, as kind and as respectful as the end of six years together could be. Friends tell me that’s a blessing, but anyone who says that didn’t see him, with his internal monologue turned external, as always, wandering around the wreckage of our life, asking aloud what it is that makes the apartment so bare? Is it the pictures gone from the walls? Was it really, he wonders aloud, that my possessions made his bachelor pad our home?

I was prepared for the tragedy of wanting different things, and for the loneliness of being newly single, but I wasn’t prepared for the endless logistics of separating our lives. Eating on his plates, that last night, because my plates were in the dishwasher, getting ready to be packed and stored at my parents. (And what I have done wrong in my life, to be thirty years old, and have my kitchen in boxes in my parents’ garage?) Canceling accounts, switching bills from my name to his, the undoing of everything we’d done so excitedly when we first moved in together. Calling the car insurance company, to explain over and over to the confused, unhelpful clerk that we both wanted to keep our insurance with them, just no longer as a household.

I wish, at times, that it could be an angry, bitter breakup. I daydream, when I’m lying in my new bed, unable to sleep, about a split where I could have taken my stuff while he was out, leaving a Dear John on the kitchen table that is mine no longer. I wish I had that anger to separate my thoughts of him, instead, it’s a phantom pain of what he would say if he were here. Finding his shirt as I unpack my possessions in a new state, or seeing his favorite pad Thai on a menu, or finally watching a film we’d been meaning to see.

Beginning my new life, I recall the endless logistics of sharing a life with two last names. The constant hassle when one of us wanted to pay a bill or buy an airline ticket in the other person’s name, forced to recite social security numbers, birthdays, and his numerical passwords, burned just as firmly into my brain as my own. But it was constantly hilarious to find that I could get his credit card balance just by claiming to be his wife.

The morning I left, he came out to check the oil in my car and make sure my boxes were securely wrapped for a nine-hour drive. The tradeoffs of a shared life never seemed as sweet or as distant as that morning.

And this separation process, these mature, civilized discussions of who takes the printer, is the last thing we’ll share.

Meg Stivison blogs at SimpsonsParadox.com

Filed Under: Nostalgia, Opinion

Letters

11/29/2010 By Kellyn MacQuarrie 6 Comments

In the winter of 1991 my dad went to the FBI Academy for three months. That was the longest he was ever away from home, and it was very difficult on my mom, my brother and me.

We had little contact with him while he was away. In 1991 there was no internet, so no email obviously, and we didn’t have cell phones. My parents couldn’t afford to pay the costs of long-distance phone calls, (we lived in Washington state while he was in Washington, D.C.), so they only talked once a week by phone. Other than that, their only means of communicating was through snail mail. They wrote letters to each other, back and forth. A few months ago I was going through a closet in their house looking for photographs and I came across a large manila envelope, stuffed full. On the outside it read, “Letters to Tom at FBI Academy”. It made me smile, knowing that they saved them. What a treasure they have.

Even though that was only a short 19 years ago, it may as well have been decades. Communication is so vastly different now, it’s impossible to overstate how much things have changed.

My husband is currently deployed with the Navy. We “talk” through email multiple times a day. I send him pictures and videos of our children. Even though he is thousands of miles away, he is able to see what our children are doing mere minutes after they do it. Whenever his ship pulls into port – anywhere in the world – we are able to talk to each other on our cell phones, and a couple weeks ago I got to experience the joy of video chatting with him.

Communication these days is lightning speed, and it is truly a blessing. It keeps us connected, even when we can’t physically be together.

Still, I can’t help but feel a little sadness over the lack of snail mail. I would give anything for my husband to hand-write me a long letter that I could hold and keep close to me; knowing that he touched it at one point.

I am grateful for every email I get, but email spoils us. I get long emails from him here and there, but most of our emails are quick snippets from our day. He’ll write simply to say hi and complain that his favorite football team – the Redskins – lost, and I’ll email to tell him that I just put our oldest son in time out.

I have saved every email we’ve ever exchanged, but it’s not the same as real letters. What am I supposed to do, print off hundreds of pages of emails? Even though the words and the conversations within those emails are special to me, it’s just not the same.

We live in a world where we are updated by the second. While I long for the personal touch of an actual letter, I also lack the patience to wait the weeks it would take to get one. In my three years as a Navy wife, I just haven’t found a way for snail mail to fit into this lifestyle; it’s an outdated tool that has been replaced by fancier and faster technology.

I’m afraid that it is a custom that is becoming irrelevant with all the advancements we’ve made. Still, for me, there will always be magic in receiving a hand-written letter, and maybe the fact that it is such a rare practice is what makes it that much more special. My parents may have had to wait several days before they would get their letters from each other, but I’m sure that after all these years, they wouldn’t trade those precious mementos for any email or phone call.

Photo by Luigi Diamanti for freedigitalphotos.net

Filed Under: Nostalgia, Tech

Vanity isn’t always a bad thing. Really.

11/24/2010 By JulieOrdonez 8 Comments

130…132…135…stop! stop! I thought to myself as I watched the little green digital numbers creep their way up in front of my eyes. When the numbers finally stopped I uttered more than a few four letter words at the scale and drew in a deep sigh as I leapt off of it, eager to see those numbers disappear forever. I then looked at my morose expression in the mirror, my large nose, my blah-colored hair, and all the other flaws that only I truly see stare back at me. When are you going to stop this? I thought to myself. Why can’t I just be happy being me and with what I look like?

As long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to look like someone else. When I was in the second grade I wanted to have straight brown hair (mine is darker and wavier) and glasses (I have 20/20 vision), because the object of my affection’s object of affection had straight brown hair and wore glasses. In middle school I wanted to wear knee-high socks and hoop earrings because I remember how two gorgeous seventh-graders in my class wore just that to PE class every day and looked like goddesses (or what it seemed like to me at the time). In high school I wanted to be rail thin and eat whatever I wanted (I’m not and I can’t), because one of the most popular girls in school could eat all the junk she wanted, still fit into a size two, and always had a string of boys in tow. This led to a years-long nasty relationship with food that I eventually broke free from. I even used to pray when I was little that God would make me beautiful when I grew up; something along the lines of “and please make me look just like Jennifer Connelly when I get older ” was what I said, because I remember having watched The Labyrinth some ten times, having been so enchanted and jealous that someone could be so pretty. It was like she hogged all the “pretty” in the world for herself and left none for me. I prayed and asked to be transformed, like some ugly duckling turning into a swan.

Being women many of us are used to this kind of thinking. We always wish to change things about ourselves, and desire what we don’t have; if we have straight hair we curl it, if we have curly hair we get a Brazilian blowout, if we’re stick thin we get crazy butt injections, and if we’re curvier we diet and exercise like crazy to lose it all. This type of vanity can become a crazy desire to be something we’re not, to look like someone we aren’t.

For years I wished I were rail thin/had a smaller waist/ had blonde hair/had blue eyes/had a smaller nose, etc. I remember thinking as I looked at some of my gorgeous friends that wow, I wonder what it would be like to look like her? Wouldn’t life be so much easier? Thing is, I’ve never been told by anyone that I’m completely hideous or anything. In fact, I’m probably fairly decent looking and am petite, with a curvier, more athletic build. But we know how that goes; we’re our own worst critics, our own worst enemies. To me I was never enough. Never thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough. I would always think to myself, if I just had the face of a Victoria’s Secret model and a J.Lo body, my life would be SET. I mean, it would be SET! I wouldn’t have to worry about anything!

After a recent ride on the weight loss/weight gain/self doubt train in which I vowed yet again to metamorphose into a completely different version of myself, I asked a male friend whose opinion I really value what he thought of “curvier” women like Mariah Carey, because I land more on her end of the spectrum than the oh, say, Keira Knightley end. I mean, let’s face it, Miss Carey is gorgeous, but not tiny. What threw me was that the same guy who once told me he was into “teeny tiny girls” then said with enthusiasm ,“oh, she looks goooood!”. Huh? When I questioned him on it, he said that every girl is different, and it’s the girl who makes herself sexy, not where her curves, or lack thereof, sit.

I became frustrated as I thought, so one minute men want some model-thin girl, the next they want a girl with junk in the trunk? Standing there on that scale I then came to a realization: if I’m always chasing an another person’s ideal, it will never be attainable and I will never be satisfied, because one day that ideal will be a thin, Gwyneth Paltrow-like body that people want, the next it’s Kim Kardashian’s curves that are all the rage. I will always chase after someone else’s look and never learn to appreciate my own, which I should do because ultimately I can never look like anyone else because I’m not anyone else. I’m only me. You can’t waste precious time obsessing or bemoaning the fact that you don’t look like some celebrity or someone else in a pair of jeans, because life is too short to obsess over something so trivial. Sure, I still want to look my best and be proud of what I look like, but I’ll continue to workout and dress myself up to play up my hair, my body, my features, my personality, my traits. Women need to take pride in what they look like, what they have to bring to the table, and not lament the fact that they don’t look like someone else. Impose a little of that type of vanity on themselves, in a good way, to bring out that self-respect and pride in what they have to offer.

I thought of the way my son runs up to me after a long day at work, with nothing but love and adoration in his eyes. He doesn’t see the back fat, the stretch marks from carrying him, the way I think my nose appears bigger when I smile too widely. He just sees his mama, who he sees as completely perfect in his eyes. Stooping down to pick up that scale, I made my way to the closet to put it away and I thought, maybe it’s time I view myself the same way.

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Motivate, Nostalgia, Opinion