Our Terrible Stories

News comes in one ear and flies out the other, barely pausing to be filtered, to be thought about, to be noticed.

Is this a consequence of the 24-hour news cycle? There must be something to report every minute, even if that something is a story on how someone took offense to an earlier story: news about news.

Or is it a consequence of social media? By the meaning of its very words, we are all reporters—both of our lives (“Look at the pizza I’m eating right now!”) and of the world around us (“Look at my thoughts on the election!”).

Or is it that we live in a more connected era? Snaking deep in the oceans are the cables that carry all this information, like a belt cinching the earth together and squeezing every last bit out of it. Flying high above us are satellites that bounce all this information from one point to another, like a net cast over the earth to hold us all in place as we wriggle through our lives. An earthquake in India is instantly reported in Indiana as the cables and satellites ignite with information, always more information.

Our lives are filled with an ever-increasing stream of information, a trajectory that was set in motion the first time a caveman etched a drawing into the rock. We are made to communicate, to share our stories. We want to know more, be more, do more—and we know that we want more—and that’s what more or less sets us apart from the domesticated dog and the wild tiger.

Every generation has seen its technological advancement, and I sometimes wonder if, when telegrams first came to the masses, people were astounded.

“You mean I, from Chicago, can instantaneously tell my mother in Iowa which train I’ll arrive on so she knows when to come to the station?”

“You mean the New York Times can relay a story to the Los Angeles Times all the way across the county? From Atlantic to Pacific, we can all read the same news?”

It must’ve been astounding, this speed of communication, when they were used to writing letters and waiting—and waiting—for replies. (But let’s mourn just a small moment for the lost art of letter writing. The crisp paper! The formal questions and loopy handwriting! The charming sign-offs—“Always your most affectionate friend!” The proof that someone cared and that someone thought of you when that letter was delivered!)

In those early days of telegrams, it must’ve felt like the world was starting to spin faster and rush at humanity from all corners as trains picked up speed, ocean liners picked up speed—and then even saying hello picked up speed.

Now, not so many years later in the grand scheme of that little thing called history, we are not astounded by the speed of communication.

We are tired.

We are overloaded.

We are—it’s like when there’s a certain path you walk every day. You figured out that by cutting across the lawn here, you can save a few key seconds, so day after day, you cut across. A new path is worn down, and you forget that an old path ever existed. You trudge along, barely taking note of where you are, because you’re so used to where you’re going.

We are like that: we are in this time where everything new immediately feels old, and we barely notice. We keep moving forward as this news stream flies at us.

ISIS. (ISIL? DAESH?)
Black lives matter. All lives matter.
Avoid sugar to live longer. Avoid fat to live longer. No, eat fat, but only the good kind.
Killer cops. Cop killers.
Hillary’s a liar. Trump’s a demagogue. Bernie’s a sell-out.
Who is Taylor Swift dating?
Munich shooting. Orlando shooting. South Side shooting. Shooting. Shooting. Shooting.
110 dead in a suicide bombing in Syria.
Here’s a new cat video. Cats with cucumbers! Cats with lemons!
Russia has hacked us. China has hacked us. North Korea has hacked us.
The media is in the pocket of the politicians. The politicians are in the pocket of the corporations. That is a very large pocket.

On and on the news cycle goes, and I feel this urge rise up within me—like the urge to scream in a very quiet place. You know you shouldn’t do it, but you sense in a primal way that it would be so very satisfying. From deep inside as I listen to the news, the urge to bury my head in the proverbial sand rises.

I want to binge watch Friday Night Lights, where there’s anger and tension but also football and passion and Connie Britton’s enviable hair.

I want to listen to nothing but the Broadway cast recording of She Loves Me with its songs about vanilla ice cream and selling perfume and a surprising trip to the library. It is quotidian joy with Laura Benanti's coloratura soprano, and listening to it is the equivalent of a spring walk with the magnolias in bloom: you can’t help but be thrilled and content.

I want to read Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Sense & Sensibility—any book with a guaranteed happy ending.

I want to do anything but think about where the world is today, and then something like this happens: I woke up yesterday morning to the BBC World Service, as I do every morning. The announcer said, “We are now following the developing story of an attack at a church in Normandy. It’s believed that the priest has been stabbed.”

Normandy, where I used to live: what a way to wake up.

I reached for my phone—always on my bedside table overnight—and took advantage of those cables crisscrossing the oceans, the satellites in the sky, the instantaneous news world we live in, and the fact that my “phone” is really a small computer: I found out more in less time than it took to get my little pug out of her kennel for the day.

I learned this was happening in St-Etienne-du-Rouvray, just across the Seine from where I lived in Rouen. I learned that the priest’s throat had been slashed while he was saying mass. I learned that ISIS was claiming responsibility and that the French president was angry and sad.

Another tragic story, but this one hit close to home, and I stopped to pay attention to the news; I didn’t let it stream right past me. I was reminded by my very small personal connection to this that we have to pay attention to these stories; they are all personal to someone. We have to hear them because it’s only by listening to each other that we have any hope of getting through this.

It is easy to say this from the safety of my kitchen in Glen Ellyn as I make puff pastry and sing along to She Loves Me. But I don’t know what else to say, and I think it’s sometimes enough to simply say: I will listen. I will pay attention. I will be present to these terrible stories because while they are terrible, they are our stories and they must be told.

we would be best friends because of hot dogs

I just bought Kristin Chenoweth's newest CD—Coming Home. She recorded it at a live concert in Broken Arrow, OK, her hometown, and listening to it, I wish I had been her next door neighbor growing up. She's so familiar and so at ease telling stories of her little town (that isn't all that little, truth be told). As she sings "Hard Times Come Again No More," you can believe that all of America is this idyllic small town, this blend of River City, Pleasantville, and Stars Hollow.

It isn't, of course, but as I sing along with Kristin to "Over the Rainbow," I like to pretend.

As often happens in our very connected world now, listening led to googling, looking for videos of Kristin in concert. I stumbled on this clip of her on Conan O'Brien where she talks about how much she loves chain restaurants, fast food, and specifically Sonic. She giggles as she praises the cheese taters and how you can get a cranberry slushie if you want to be healthy, and Conan is convinced that Kristin is secretly being paid by Sonic to promote them.

"No, I wish they would call me! I just love them and would love to do a commercial for them!" she says so genuinely that I just know, should we ever meet, we will bond over how under these classy exteriors, all we really want is a hot dog.

63 Things I Think While Watching White Christmas

Every year, I watch White Christmas at least once before Christmas. It's a requirement for me to feel Christmas spirit. The war! The nostalgia! The singing! The dresses! The tiny waists! The plot holes! The dancing! The fur muffs!

And this is what I think nearly every time I watch White Christmas.

1. The war looks slightly dirty, I'll give you that, but overall much cleaner than I expected.
2. Who brought their saxophone to war? What did they think that would do for them? Fire bullets in very curvy paths?
3. Oh, let's all get nostalgic for the days when $6.60 or $8.80 was considered a steep price.
4. I mean, there was a war on, so maybe we shouldn't get too nostalgic, but hey, you could bring your band instruments to the front line, so at least band nerds could be a little more nostalgic.
5. Who was in charge of bringing the painted backdrop of New England to war?
6. General Waverly is using a stick as a cane—like, a branch that fell off a tree, perhaps during some bombing. Why doesn't he have a real cane? Is he being sent away from the front in order to find a new cane? Could someone fashion him a cane, maybe out of the saxophone? I realize that's a terrible thing to do to a musical instrument, but it's wartime. We all have to make sacrifices.
7. In "The Old Man," the song the men sing in farewell to General Waverly," they sing, "And we'll tell the kiddies we answered duty's call / With the grandest son of a soldier of them all!" So, General Waverly's dad was also a soldier, or am I being too literal? In any event, someone please explore the Waverly back story. It is ripe for more details. And while you're at it, please explain what he did for the rest of the war after the slam-bang send-off Bing Crosby gave him. More General Waverly all the time. That's all I'm asking.
8. Who else, when Danny Kaye tries to brush off the severity of his wound, wants him to say, "It's just a flesh wound!"? Is it just me?

9. I want to go back in time and write headlines for that Variety newspaper that reports on Wallace and Davis and other entertainment news. Oh, to work for a place that allows such alliteration as "Boffo Biz in Better Bistros."
10. Do we have levels of bistros still? Are there good ones and bad ones? How do I know if I'm at a better bistro?
11. I should work the word boffo into more conversations.
12. I should also start saying, "Mutual, I'm sure," when I'm introduced, just like that vapid, she-can't-even-spell-Smith chorus girl does. It will make people think I'm far ahead of them in the conversation.
13. I always have to cover my eyes when Bing Crosby is changing. Seeing him in his underwear, it's just so risque.
14. For me, one of the saddest lines in the whole movie is right after Bing explains to Danny that he doesn't think he'll find a girl in the music business who's ready to settle down. Danny says that that's the first time he's opened up like that, in all the time they've known each other. It's been 10 years since the war, and they've been singing and dancing and touring together that whole time—and this is the most they've ever shared? I am sad for their friendship and wonder what they do talk about. Better bistros? Where to buy more gray shoes that perfectly match their pants? Try to remember the name of the guy who brought a saxophone to war?
15. I wish we still lived in a world where people got so dressed up to go out to dinner and a show. Those people at the club where the Haynes sisters are performing—did you see the dresses? And the very tall heels?
16. I spend a lot of time while watching White Christmas either being nostalgic for a time I never experienced, or experiencing dress envy.
17. Now I'm looking at my jeans in disappointment: Why can't you be a teal flouncy dress?

18. Not that I want to be part of a sister act.
19. Although my sister and I were dressed alike to perform a few times, but this was at church. Singing about Jesus is a far cry from being a sister act in a nightclub in Florida.
20. Now I want to watch that movie Sister Act. You know, the one with Whoopi Goldberg as a nun and Maggie Smith as a mother superior {really, some of Maggie's best work—I don't know why people go on and on about that Prime of Miss Jean Brodie}. Because there's singing and nuns, it's basically The Sound of Music but without the kids. Or Nazis.

21. I do not agree that the best things happen while you're dancing. I think they happen while you're cooking. Or reading.
22. MY LORD, THAT VERA-ELLEN WAS SKINNY.
23. Also, why does her name have a hyphen? Did she not have a last name? Was she the Madonna of her day?
24. Freckle-Faced Haynes, the Dog-Faced Boy, is not all that bad looking. It seems a little unfair to be so judgmental of his looks, Danny Kaye.
25. That audience that got to see an impromptu performance from Wallace & Davis singing "Sisters" got a bargain: I am sure that tickets to their normal show would've cost $6.60 or even $8.80.
26. A snood, by the way, is an ornamental hairnet worn at the back of a woman's head. {Bing asks Danny if he left his money in his snood.} I am not nostalgic for the days when women wore these, partly because it's a silly word to say.

27. Every time I've travelled on the Amtrak, I have willed it to be like this train in White Christmas. A cafe car serving cocktails and with real silverware and napkins. Cozy beds. But as I sit in the cafe car eating warmed up pizza and drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup, I know that it is not the same.
28. Have these four never seen snow before? Why would you want to wash your hair in snow? Or your face? This all sounds very cold.
29. But I am on board with making models of snow-covered mountains with napkins. So cute! Pinterest-worthy, really.

30. I wonder what it would be like to try to sleep sitting up in a cafe car of a train. I've slept sitting up in a normal seat on a train before—on my way back from Morocco, but that is a story for another time—and of course that's comfortable enough. But the cafe car? What if the bartender kept trying to give you more of those creamy white drinks?
31. Speaking of which, what are those creamy white drinks that the four harmonizers look at so longingly while singing about snow? It looks like a milkshake, but why would you drink a milkshake in the winter?
32. Bing does mention a hot buttered rum—light on the butter. I want to make that happen, except I would double the butter.

33. Oh, maybe the milkshake drinking was foreshadowing to the summer-like temperatures in Vermont. But maybe I'm overanalyzing the movie. Maybe.
34. That lady who plays the housekeeper is in The Music Man. I would like to create a game that's like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but it'd be 6 Degrees of My Favorite Musical. I bet you I can work it in to any conversation. That is how 6 Degrees works, right?

35. BUT WAIT: That lady is also in Sister Act.
36. My thoughts on White Christmas are really becoming circular now, and mostly circling around Sister Act, it seems.
37. Third time hearing the "Sisters" song. I would like to volunteer now to sing it, unless I have to wear a snood.
38. I've never understood the General's finances. I know he sunk his whole pension and all his savings into the place, but it's still early in the ski season and there was snow at Thanksgiving. It's probably mid-December by the time Bing and Friends arrive, so that just a couple of weeks of no guests. I realize that I know zero about running ski lodges, but it just seems that he has a long ski season ahead of him and besides, there were people at dinner during the Haynes sisters' performance of "Sisters" {aka, their only number}. Where did those people come from? Are they townspeople who feel bad for the General and so get all dressed up on a random weeknight to come out an eat Emma's cooking?
39. Once the cast arrives, we enter the part of the movie I like to call: I Wish I Knew the Plot of Their Musical.
40. The title—Playing Around—gives no clues.
41. And don't get me started on "Mandy" and "Choreography." One looks back to the minstrel days and one bemoans the state of current theater. WHEN are you happy, fictitious musical-within-White Christmas?
42. BUT MY GOSH, VERA-ELLEN IS SKINNY.
43. Even wearing that white sparkly leotard in "Mandy" where she looks like she may have, I'm sorry to say, an adult diaper under that leotard {why is it so oddly puffy?}, Vera-Ellen is disturbingly skinny.

44. Where do all these cast members sleep? Exactly how big is this ski lodge? Does Emma do all the cooking and cleaning for this place? Or does Susan, General Waverly's granddaughter, help out?
45. And where are Susan's parents?
46. I still don't believe that the best things happen while you're dancing.
47. Betty's velour dress is pretty cool, though. More dress envy.
48. So much could be cleared up if only Betty would talk to Bob instead of believing all these rumors spread by that busybody of a housekeeper, Emma. Betty wouldn't have had to run away to New York to sing her sad, lonely, love/torch song. She and Bob could've sung their "Count Your Blessings" duet in the show because why not? Any song will fit into that musical's plot.
49. But confronting problems and saying to another person, "Hey, I heard this thing about you, and I want to know the truth behind it" works well as advice in a Dear Abby column; in many great love stories, it would stop the plot cold. What if Elizabeth had asked Darcy to explain his involvement in the twisted tale of Wickham? That would've cut Pride & Prejudice in half and cut out all the drama.
50. But I do love that in White Christmas, Betty learns the truth about Bob and his plan to surprise the General while watching TV on a break from performing "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me." This is proof that TV brings us together.
51. Judging from the number of men at the train station on Christmas Eve, it will be impossible to hide all these men from the General. It's his Inn, after all. Of course he'll notice a much more boisterous backstage crowd.
52. Or maybe there's a secret back road entrance we haven't seen? One that doesn't cross over the horseshoe game?
53. Do Bob and Phil have their Army uniforms with them whenever they travel?
54. Or did they have these sent from home?
55. Where is home for them? Do they have an apartment in New York City? Are they like Oscar and Felix, the Odd Couple, and live together as perfectly opposite roommates? Or do they have separate apartments in the same building?
56. One of my favorite lines in the whole movie: General Waverly tells Emma that he got along just fine in the Army without her, and she comes back with, "Yeah, and it took 15,000 men to take my place!" One million points to Emma.
57. Also, can there be a White Christmas sequel where Emma and the General get married? They clearly need to.
58. In this sequel, Emma can also apologize for nearly permanently breaking up Betty and Bob with her baseless gossip. It bothers me that the never addresses her fault in the whole hullabaloo, but she does have that whole "15,000 men" quip in her favor, so I might forgive her.
59. When the General is walking among the soldiers, shaking hands and looking touched, I like to watch this awkward moment: He reaches out for a soldier's hand but withdraws it before actually shaking. It's as if he saw whose hand he was about to shake and remembered how much he didn't like that guy. Perhaps this guy was a chef and couldn't do much with those rations. Or maybe he complained a lot about wearing a necktie during war. Or maybe he stole the General's cane.
60. Considering that Betty never rehearsed "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army," she is a quick study. She should do this professionally.

61. "White Christmas"! They're singing "White Christmas"! And it's not in front of a painted backdrop that somebody brought to war!
62. Why does Bob throw Betty's present in the tree? He should set it nicely under the tree to treasure later.
63. I applaud the person who was so quick to hitch up the sleigh and the horses when it started to snow. They look like a picture print from Currier and Ives.

for those moments in the woods

My friends Brenda, Beth, and I used to play a musicals games on gchat every day: one of us would change our status to a line from a musical {the more esoteric the line, the better: if you want to use Annie, it wouldn't be a very fun game if you posted "The sun'll come out tomorrow!"}, and then the other two, when they figured it out, would post another line from the same show.

It's the kind of game three friends who met in a class on musical theatre would play, and it's especially good if the three of you all work desk jobs now but still wish for that musical magic in your life.

Days at a desk can start to feel repetitive, like an homage to that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, and you start to think that your life isn't all that exciting, no matter how much you like your job.

This is where musicals come in. {Actually, if I try even a little smidge, I can get musicals into most conversations.}

Brenda, Beth, and I share a love for Into the Woods, a Stephen Sondheim show about the "ever after" in fairy tales: How did it work out for Cinderella? What about Jack and the Beanstalk? And Little Red Riding Hood: She's a spunky little thing, but what about after she has her run-in with the wolf?

One of my favorite songs from the show is "Moments in the Woods"—this song that talks straight to that longing we all, I think, sometimes get hit with: something thrilling has just happened, and you wish: Couldn't life always be like this?

Couldn't my life always be trips to glamorous places?

Couldn't every meal be French?

Couldn't I wake up every morning rested, no matter how late I stayed up reading?

Couldn't I always feel like I was being twirled around in a ballroom while wearing a pretty dress?

Couldn't my life be made up of highlights?

The Baker's Wife sings about just that thought in "Moments in the Woods." The Prince has just found her in the woods, and he kissed her! Her, the Baker's Wife! The lady who's usually covered in flour and trying to buck up her husband!

She's astounded at how just the Prince's kiss made her feel like a different person—but she knows that that kiss and that moment are not real life. You can't build a life on a kiss in the woods.

Real life is out of the woods, with her husband, working together to build a better life. That thing that happened in the woods—well, that was just a moment.

She sings:

Just a moment,
One peculiar passing moment—

Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always "or"?
Is it never "and"?

That's what woods are for:
For those moments in the woods.

Oh, if life were made of moments,
Even now and then a bad one!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.

[...]

Let the moment go!
Don't forget it for a moment, though.
Just remembering you've had an "and"
When you're back to "or"
Makes the "or" mean more
Than it did before.

Now I understand—
And it's time to leave the woods.

That part about how if life were only moments—these highlights {and lowlights} in the woods, away from our day-to-day joys {and struggles}—then we'd never be able to appreciate moments when they came along: That's the part that has stuck with me for years, the part that flits into my head every now and again when I'm sitting at my desk.

The day may be dull or frustrating, but it's my day, and I can appreciate its normalcy precisely because I also have days that are whirlwind curly-cues of joy.

Thank goodness for those moments in the woods.

Watch "Moments in the Woods" for yourself and see if you don't feel the same way I do. Ooh, you should tell me if you don't, and then we can talk on and on about musicals. I would love that.

esso: les parapluies de cherbourg

I am in Quebec City at the Hotel Le St-Paul on rue St-Paul. So many things about writing that sentence make me happy:

• getting to use a "le"
• hyphenating St-Paul
• saying "rue"
• trying to remember how to make the circumflex {you know, the accent that looks like a roof} over the "o" in "hotel" {I was clearly not successful}

I am somewhere where they speak French, and I am happy—no, more than happy. In French when you want to say, "I am happy," you can say, "Je suis contente." Contente. Content. That's what I am, here in this place that reminds me of France and what it feels like to be there.

Even this hotel, Le St-Paul {Le! Hyphen!}, looks like it was transplanted from Europe: barely a lobby, twisting staircase, and oh, my room.

My room has an exposed brick wall, no closet {but it does have an armoire}, huge windows, and a radiator. The bed takes up a good portion of the room, and if I purposely forget that it was just a couple hours in a plane to get here, I can trick myself into believing that this is France, I'm far from home, and I get to reconnect with that French part of me.

Isn't it amazing how simply being somewhere else—away from the known and the normal—can feel so alive? I realize, looking back at that sentence, that it's a rather obvious, silly sort of thing to say. I've essentially just said: Isn't it cool how, when you go somewhere else, it feels different?

But do you know what I mean? As soon as we step away from the day-to-day cares of the place where we pay the mortgage or the rent—as soon as we get away from the place where you have to go the grocery store and then put the groceries away and then figure out what sort of meals to make with all that food—as soon as we leave, there's a little more room to breathe.

And to think, and in my case, to write. Even though I'm here on business {I'll be spending most of my day at sessions for the American Thyroid Association Annual Meeting. If you have any questions about your thyroid, now is a good time to ask me}, the mere fact that I can run down a cobblestone street in the early morning and have a glass of wine with dinner in a tucked-away restaurant gets my heart and mind twitching with words to write.

Even this room makes me writerly. Not a word, I know, but in a room like this, in a place that feels like France, I can do whatever the heck I want.

I read a review of this hotel on TripAdvisor from someone who was clearly very displeased and not inspired by their room. They complained that the paint around the windows was chipping and that their view was of an Esso gas station. How banal! How ugly! To be forced to look at a place where people have to go to make sure they can get somewhere else! The symbolism of it all!

I see chipping paint and think: How full of character!

And I see the Esso station out my room here {I think I have the same room as the dissatisfied person on TripAdvisor} and think: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.

That's a musical I watched in my film musicals senior seminar class at Truman. {How good it is to be an English major: my capstone project involved musicals with friends and then dissecting them, in the way that only 22-year-olds can do.} Every word—from hello to yes to important speeches—is sung, and it's in French.

It's quirky and beautiful in that way that movies shot in technicolor are: intense colors, deeper tones, and you think watching it that you've stepped into Oz and that nothing in our world could look so rich.

The last scene of the movie takes place in an Esso station in Cherbourg, and a gas station never looked so enticing and romantic. You see it and long to be part of the scene, of Genevieve and Guy's lives, of a world where you believe youthful idealism and passion will always reign.

Just see for yourself in the clip below {unless you want to watch the whole movie and not be spoiled by this from-the-end clip}.

Watching this, you may want to come hang out with a view of an Esso station, too, but I suggest you find your own Esso station: this one in Quebec is currently taken by me.

happy caucus day

Iowans are special, and just typing that made me think of that scene in The Help when Aiblileen the maid/nanny/self-esteem-instiller tells little Mae Mobley:

You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

Iowans, often overlooked {or flown-over} as we are, may need to chant a version of this to themselves in the years in between presidential elections.

Every four years, we are important come a cold night in January, and then every presidential hopeful and political analyst and journalist flies in—not over, for once—and tries to connect with the Iowa voter {and explain them to the rest of the nation}.

But in between those bouts of importance, Iowans may need to chant:

You is kind. You is smart. You is FIRST IN THE NATION: take that, New Hampshire!

Not that Iowans would be so combative, and actually, I'm doubting that many Iowans would see the need to chant this little self-esteem builder in non-election years.

We're not too concerned with puffing up our own importance; there are bigger things to think about than how other people see you.

I should get home now, not that I have a caucus to rush off to tonight. I live in Illinois now, in a state that doesn't caucus and is far from the first in the nation, but my Iowa roots run deep—so deep that I still use that inclusive "we" when talking about Iowans.

We're special, even in the years we aren't leading the charge into the presidential election season.

To honor Iowans and my inclusive "we," here's a video of the song "All I Owe Ioway" from State Fair. {Also to honor Iowa today, I'm wearing one of my Iowa shirts, but posting of picture of me in it is boring when compared to this technicolor wonder of singing about being Iowa corn-fed.}

how i developed a cleaning playlist

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That up there—that widget {who sounds tech-savvy now?}—that's my Cleaning Playlist. I've had it in mind to create one for awhile now, but a few weeks ago, I decided to make good on that idea because...well, read this story. It should explain why.

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A couple of Saturdays ago, my heating and air conditioning man was supposed to come at 10am to fix my humidifier, which, apparently, isn't working, a fact that may explain my dry lips and parched throat during winter.

This is the same heating and air conditioning man who was featured in my story "Some Like It Hot. I Do Not," so in some ways, I was looking forward to the visit.

Not wanting to be idle and awkward while he was there, I started a small cleaning project at 9:45ish. See, I live alone, and having someone else in my space throws me off.

What I mean is—before all my friends decide they're never really welcome and that I'm simply being polite when I ask them over—when there's another person in my apartment, 99% of the time, it's because I've asked them over for dinner or coffee or to watch a movie.

My heating and air conditioning man is the 1%—someone I have invited over but who's there to do a job. However, my brain works like this: "Someone else is in the apartment! You need to entertain him! Offer him pain au chocolat just out of the oven! See if he wants coffee! Stand and talk to him while he works!"

I'm not used to being in my apartment with someone else just being there quietly doing their own thing, so when heating and air conditioning man—who will forever afterward be referred to as HACM—comes over, I'm liable to break into a routine of "Let Me Entertain You," if only I knew how to tap dance.

This is why I was cleaning at 9:45ish: to control the urge to entertain. If you've found a better way to turn off your jazz-hands-big-finish personality, let me know.

Besides: idle hands do the devil's work, you know, and so I was cleaning the counters with Barkeeper's Friend, which is not a lonely drunk but a magical cream that takes away any stain with hardly any scrubbing.

Time tick-tocked closer to 10am as I wiped away whatever it was I let boil over on the stove. On my pristine white stove, these mars of dirtiness tend to look like burnt cheese, not that I recall letting cheese boil over, but there they were, scars of meal eaten, disappearing as I pretended to be a bartender, a job I wouldn't be good at.

It'd go like this: "You want what kind of drink? I've never heard of that. Can I just give you red wine instead? That I know and understand."

You know how it is: you get caught up in cleaning behind the canisters and time passes without you noticing it. After wiping down the sugar canister, I glanced at the clock: 10:12.

HACM {how are you pronouncing that in your head? Hack 'em? Because that's how I'm doing it.} definitely should've been there by 10:12, but time in that profession seems to run differently, as if handymen have created their own space-time continuum. That is to say: HACM has shown up late before, and he's stayed for more than an hour but charged me for only an hour's work before. I decided to embrace HACM's space-time continuum, a lesson I learned from Star Trek.

The counters clean, I moved on to the floor.

On my knees, I was cleaning the baseboards as it became 10:30 and then 10:41 and by the time it was 10:53, I was wiping down the cabinets, and I was fuming.

today, i'm grateful for...

I sporadically keep a Gratitude Journal, and judging from how it brings up my overall attitude, I think I should un-sporadically keep it.

Such a simple thing to do, really. In my planner on those weekly pages that Franklin-Covey tells me I'm supposed to use for prioritizing daily tasks—

Have you ever read the Franklin-Covey instructions for prioritizing tasks? No? It involves letters and numbers and a sorting system that makes even me a little overwhelmed, probably because it's a system I didn't come up with. My little/large independent streak comes out when someone tries to explain to me how to organize my life, so I read the Franklin-Covey explanation and say, "You think you're good, don't you? Well, just you watch what I do with your A1, B2, C-whatever system: I disregard it. Take that, F-C."

—So in the section for prioritizing daily tasks {and when I'm in a Gratitude Journal phase}, I write two kinds of things:

1. What I tres really want to accomplish that day: This I do in the morning after I've run {thinking time} and after I've walked baby pug {brain organization time, which includes the time for deciding what I'm going to wear to work that day}. I try to narrow down what would make me feel accomplished that day.
   
   Is it getting done that nagging life admin task, such as getting more stamps at the Post Office? {When it comes to managing your life, don't you find that it's the small tasks that can pester the most? Why is that? And then when you do them, you feel such relief and like you could take on the world. I know I'm not alone in this: read this post over at Pink of Perfection, this blog I stalk/read because I'm convinced the girl and I are kindred spirits.}
   
   Or maybe what I really want to accomplish is finishing a book or that big project at work. Whatever it is, I write it down in the morning to help focus my day.
2. Five things I'm grateful for: The next morning, I think back on the day before and write down five things that I'm glad happened.
   
   Could be a long talk with a friend or making a delicious eggplant dinner.
   
   Could be getting done that life admin task.
   
   Could be getting to bed early.
   
   Could be whatever, but it's the moments and interactions that made the day special and right.

The whole process, the thinking ahead to the day in front of me and the thinking back on the day behind me, takes about five minutes.

And what a difference it makes. Even if I had a very bad, no good, horrible, rotten day, I can usually find five bright spots, and that helps keep life in perspective.

Nothing is all bad. Bright spots count no matter how small they are. This five minute exercise brings calm to my day before it even begins.

So I'm going to jump ahead a bit here and list my five things for today here, right now. {Because I'm me, I'll probably copy them into my planner later.}

Today, I'm grateful for:

1. a fast morning run
2. the little desk fan I bought at Walgreen's: no air circulation, AC that I'm convinced in broken, and a heat wave outside pushing up against the windows makes for an uncomfortable work environment. I'd consider worshiping this little fan, with its white noise and steady stream of cool, if I believed in idol worship.
3. an email from a friend who lives far, far away
4. listening to my musicals playlist that right now involves selections from White Christmas, just so that I remember that it's not always this hot. {I talk about the heat a lot recently, don't I?}
5. cupcakes—frosted with leftover vanilla buttercream from the gateau a l'orange—for dessert after dinner {okay, I haven't had dinner yet, so I'm being pre-emptively grateful for these because I'm sure they'll be good. And I'll be eating them with a friend, so that makes them doubly good.}
   

singing in the car

A few weeks ago, my mama emailed me this article from the American Express OPEN Forum, which proves that American Express really is everywhere you want to be: they're even on the Internet.

And on the Internet, they're helping small business owners with articles like "5 Reasons to Keep a Work Diary" and "The Toll Financial Stress Takes on Your Employees."

So I don't own a business, but I do keep a diary—I prefer the term journal—so my mama thought I'd find that article on keeping a work diary interesting.

As a sidenote, I'm very picky about my journals. I do not like there to be any label on the front, saying that it's a Diary or a Journal or My Thoughts. This same rule applies to photo albums: no Photos or Memories or Special Times or Dang, I Should've Taken More Pictures labelling. It's too obvious, this labelling, and while I know it sounds like a ridiculous rule to have, it's one I'm sticking by.

I like it when my mama sends me articles. Often the come in the mail with Post-it Notes attached.

Found this interesting!
Mama

Thought you'd like to see this!
Mama

See you Friday!
Mama
{I like this one—when she doesn't explain why I'm getting a particular clipping since it's just that obvious, like the wedding announcement of a girl I went to high school with.}

I once got a fat envelope from her that contained articles on:

• my grandpa—about how happy he was to be living at Sunnybrook, the retirement community in Burlington. After reading it, I wanted to move there.
• my high school cheerleading coach, who'd been named Iowa Cheer Coach of the Year.
• the Aldo Leopold movie that premiered in Burlington. You don't know who Aldo Leopold is? I'm shocked. And saddened. Go Google him now. Then come back here and tell me what you've learned.

So an emailed article from a website is the logical next step for my mama, and I appreciated an article all on journalling.

Then, in that way that happens on the Internet, I ended up on another article called "8 Ways to Get More Time for Yourself." The article suggested things like exercising and reading and having coffee dates, all things I already do, so I felt pretty good about my me-time.

{Although interestingly enough, even though I do most of the things in the article, I still felt drawn to this article about getting more time for me, me, me, me. Why is it that no matter how much time we have, we still long for more? That's a big question to tackle another day, another time.}

And then the last tip was this:

hosanna, hey-sanna, sanna, sanna-ho

At Palm Sunday, I always want to sing this:
Hosanna, hey, sanna, sanna sanna ho
Sanna, hey, sanna, hosanna
Hey, JC, JC, you're all right by me
Sanna hosanna, hey superstar!

But seeing as it's from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, I don't think it'd be the most worshipful beginning to Holy Week.

It's catchy, though, and that's why, as I watched the procession go past today, I wanted to belt it out as I waved my palm branch.

It includes that rather accessible way of praising Jesus: Hey, Jesus, you're all right.

It's like saying casually to him, "Oh, hey, Jesus, you're pretty cool, you know. Nice, friendly, good listener, really a giver. Yeah, you're all right."

And while all that's true, of course, it's not enough for me—not enough recognition of his kingship and how he is the Lord and how he was there when God created light and flowers.

But I must confess, that "Oh, hey, Jesus" is more how I live my life and my faith.

I say every week at church that I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light.

I profess my faith in that way on a Sunday, but come a normal Wednesday afternoon, Jesus is in the back of my mind.

We mostly have a casual relationship, Jesus and I, one where I usually think of him as a really good friend who does stuff for me when I ask and who also listens to me when I have something to process.

Oh, and he died for my sins and loves me despite my sins.

Although I'm well-aware of his sovereignty and although I often pause to marvel at his creation {oh, how a tiny bud on a tree can make me praise him for his goodness}, I don't take time every day to marvel at his kingship.

So that's why I like Palm Sunday. That's why I like Holy Week.

It is time to worship him for his sacrifice and kingship.

Sometimes, I need help being guided through emotions. Any emotions, not just faith-related ones—I'm not a natural crier, so if I need to cry, I will watch Rudy, which has the peculiar effect of making me cry every time I watch plucky Rudy run onto the field to play for Notre Dame. I don't understand this, but I will take what emotional release I can.

Holy Week guides me through the emotions of recognizing what Jesus has done for me and then worshiping him for that. It starts with the joy of Palm Sunday—and it's not hard for me to get swept up in joy when the procession goes past, banners flying, kids dancing, everyone singing about the King of Glory.

I like to say Palm Sunday is a pep rally for Jesus, the kick-off to Holy Week. That may seem a bit glib, especially coming after this "I need to recognize his kingship" talk, but it's true.

The whole point of pep rallies are to get you fired up, and Palm Sunday does that. It lets me dance with joy, wave a palm branch with abandon, sing hosanna to the Son of David.

It gives me the words to praise him, a deep praise welling up from knowing what will happen in just a few days, when we remember his crucifixion.

Hey JC, JC, you're more than all right by me: you're the King of Glory for me.

so normandy is where we'll go

France—France has a particularly deep smell to it, and I know I'm romanticizing France again. An entire country can't smell good; sometimes, not even an entire city block can smell good.

But to anyone charmed with France—and especially to anyone who's been lucky to live there and knows that France isn't always charming—it has a particularly deep smell, and there are many words I considered using instead of deep.

Nostalgic. Inspiring. Full. Rich. Spring-like {even when it's not spring}.

But deep is what I mean. The smell of France always makes me want to drink deep, write deep, think deep, and live deep.

It makes me want more from a day; it makes me want to be more present in a day.

To me, it's the smell of France that's so intoxicating, so deep with possibilities. Americans have tried for years—and will continue to try—to figure out why France is so appealing to so many of us.

History? Pain au chocolat? Cafes? Literature? Architecture? Art? Rolling hills covered in vineyards? Cheese?

There are so many reasons to be charmed with France, but for me, all the reasons are held in the smell of France. {So much so that I once wrote an entire piece on the smell of France, back when I lived in Normandy.}

Spring in America usually brings moments of France back to me, and it happened this morning.

I stepped outside with little pug at 7am, and the air had a bite of France to it. For the entire walk, I hummed the song "Normandy" from Once Upon a Mattress, which is about spring moments in France.

I couldn't help it; I had smelled France and I think if you listen to this song, you'll be able to smell the possibilities of a French moment, too.

what lent is teaching me about distraction

For once, there was no music or radio going in my car. And in that silence, I heard a noise. A whir? A ping? {Is ping a word used to describe car noises?} Perhaps it's a scraping, metal-on-metal sort of noise?

After listening for awhile, I've decided it's really more of a creaking noise coming from the back of my car.

Is that a normal noise? Does my car always do that?

And here's where the panic/self-reassurance cycle sets in.

Panic: My tire is going to fall off, omg.

Self-reassurance: I'm sure that's a normal noise, and you've just never heard it because you always have some other noise distracting you.

Maybe it's Robert Segal on NPR explaining why the economy is recovering even though jobless claims are up for the millionth month in a row.

Or maybe you're distracted by singing along with Carol Burnett in Once Upon a Mattress. "Though a lady may be dripping with glamour / As often as not, she will stumble and stammer / When suddenly confronted with romance..." Don't you kind of want to sing with me now and forget your panic?

Panic: Remember that one time you went to the mechanic, and he said, "Now, I don't want to alarm you, but your hose {internal side note from the past: what hose? How many hoses are in my car?} could be corroding right now. And you'd never know it until something bad happens"? Remember that time? Your hose, one of them, all of them, could be about to explode. Or something.

Self-reassurance: But remember, too, how you figured out that that mechanic was just trying to take advantage of you? You with your 'girl alone in a new town and unsure of what hose he's talking about' look on your face? If there was something wrong with your car, your new mechanic would've told you when you got your car checked recently. You are all right; the car is all right.

Panic: My tire is going to fall off, omg.

Self-reassurance: Sigh.

My internal voices are no help when it comes to my car because my car is a mystery to me. A mystery that came with a very long instruction manual explaining everything, but still a mystery because I haven't read that manual.

When something goes wrong with my car, I do what any typical 20something with a liberal arts degree would do: I take it to someone who knows what a chassis is.

{Case in point: When I hear the word "chassis," I think of the Irish play Juno and the Paycock, where Captain Boyle, drunk and confusing his words, declares, "Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis..." This is useful knowledge, I guess, when wanting to dig into literature, but it does nothing for trying to figure out my car.}

In short, when I'm in my car, I'm not paying attention to my car. It does its job, and I fill the time and space with noise, a little bubble of entertainment.

Except for right now.

Right now, I'm halfway through Lent, and for Lent, I have given up distraction.

Sounds deep, eh? I can make it sound deeper and more spiritual: I have given up what is distracting me from a fuller communion with God.

I'm not trying to be flippant {all internal dialogue above aside}.

I really am seeking a more connected time with God this Lent.

But it's one thing to sound deep, and it's another, more challenging thing to take a look at your day and pinpoint distraction so that you can figure out how to break the deep into the practical.

For this big Lenten idea to work, I broke the pretty rhetoric into practicalities {necessary for a perfectly practical girl like me}:

• no TV or movies when I'm alone
• no music or radio in the car

And so this leaves me in silence. A lot.

Ostensibly, this silence is to focus on God, to pray, to sing random church-y songs that are in my head {I have many of those}.

But as you can see, my brain usually takes the silence in the car as an opportunity to panic, which I wish it wouldn't do.

-----

I have more to say on this Lenten distraction fast, and I'll say it soon. In the meantime, I'll reassure you: my tire did not fall off. Yet.

springtime for...

Today, I begin my spring countdown.

While running this morning—on the indoor track {darn you time change and making it dark again at 6am}—I was thinking about songs that make me feel springy.

And this one came to mind: "Springtime for Hitler." I didn't want it to come to mind. And then get stuck there. I wanted something more about fields of flowers or the excitement of new growth in the spring.

I wanted something, you know, charming and appropriate for Disney.

But no, I get this song from The Producers. I know it's tongue-in-cheek. I know that's the point of it. But do you ever want to be asked, as you sprint around the track, "What is that you're humming? Such a fun tune!"

And then you have to answer, "Oh, it's 'Springtime for Hitler'. It's catchy, isn't it? The tune, I mean. I don't actually mean the concept of Nazism. No, that I'm against. Shall I sing some of it for you?"

Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for Poland and France...

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!

I have tried all day to replace this song. But now, here I am about to go home to make tater tot casserole, and I'm still singing about Hitler. This is not a problem I ever thought I'd have.

For fun: a video! I've never put a video in here before, and it annoys me that whoever posted this video on YouTube made a typo in the title. That is not my doing. My doing is making you think about Hitler on a lovely almost-spring day.

You're welcome.

in which my life becomes a lifetime movie {part 1}

I lied to Mohammed.

He was my cab driver in the early evening on a winter Sunday, and I was going from the North Side to Ogilvie Transportation Center, where a train would take me out of the city and back to the suburbs.

I'd just had one of those particularly charmed city afternoons. Coffee with a good friend: a double espresso at Julius Meinl, the cafe that replicates the European cafe experience so precisely that just seeing the elongated sugar packet and picking up the demi-tasse spoon makes my heart twinge for France.

Jessie and I sat by a big, practically floor-to-ceiling window in these deep, burnt orange arm chairs with a small round table in between us, enjoying the winter sunshine. When the sun shines in the Midwest in the winter, it's that much brighter because you've gotten used to gray days. But then there's a sunny—and usually crystal cold—day, and it's brighter also because the sun is reflecting off all that snow.

As she and I talked about books and people we knew and holiday plans, a homeless man stood outside the window holding up a Christmas tree. Where he got the tree I will never know. Was he trying to sell it? Perhaps, but as I told Jessie about Gone with the Windsors, this book I'd just started that fictionalizes the story of King Edward and Mrs. Simpson, the homeless man lost interest in the tree.

He let it fall against the building and then began imitating me. I'm a somewhat imitable {and yet also inimitable} person, I will admit, when I'm talking. There's lots of swirling of hands and expanding of eyes and raising of eyebrows. And when talking about how the King of England abdicated for an American divorcee, I got especially swirling and expanding and raising.

The Music Man is not real life

"It is a well-known principle that if you keep the flint in one drawer and the steel in another, you'll never strike much of a fire."

I said this with authority.

I said this with the attitude of a woman who'd been married for 38 years to her high school sweetheart, giving her the freedom to lecture whoever she wants on the way to get married and conduct relationships and not end up an old maid.

I said it to my co-worker Christy, who was about to go on a date and was having those doubts. The stealthy ones that sneak up like lions, low to the ground and hidden by the grass—you don't know they're even there until the last possible moment.

Then, just as you're ready to go meet this person, pounce. The doubts come out of the grass, and you suddenly feel you'll be mauled if you go to the restaurant. The idea of spending an hour or so making small talk and trying to smile at this person you barely know makes you go wild. And feel hunted, or perhaps like a hunter.

That is the feeling Christy had, and I was trying to reassure her. I wanted to get her through the door and to the table. She needed to see that just because you're meeting someone for drinks, that doesn't mean you have to fall madly in love with them, nor does it mean that you even have to like them.

However, the tactic I took was not as helpful as I intended.

the sound of music

I came home from home yesterday, the kind of sentence that makes sense at the holidays. I went home for the holidays, but of course my home, the one where my Christmas decorations are and the one where I pay the bills, is no longer in Burlington.

I like to think of myself as a two home sort of person. {Note: It is a dream of mine to one day be able to say "my summer cottage." I guess I could say it now; it just wouldn't be true. My summer cottage. There, a dream come true.}

But before I went back to paying the bills and work, I took yesterday as a last stretch of vacation.

Conveniently enough, ABC seemed to be aware of my plan and showed The Sound of Music last night, which is one of those movies that flits through the back of my memory at all times.

I see a fountain, I think of The Sound of Music.

I sing the solfege {do re mi fa so la ti do}, I think of The Sound of Music.

I wear a pretty dress, I think of The Sound of Music.

It's not that I watched it much when I was growing up; I was more obsessed with the Annette Funicello Babes in Toyland. I really just think it's imprinted in my memory because it's one of those epic, everyone-has-seen-it kinds of movies. It's part of our collective memory, collective culture, collective experience {as Americans pretending we were European, perhaps}.

When I was flipping through the channels last night, trying to find something to watch while I sewed, I came across "16 Going on 17," and I immediately wanted to dance on benches.

Because of that song, I have always wanted to dance on benches, leaping from stone bench to stone bench in the rain.

When I was little, I used to make do in the living room, where we had no stone benches. I would jump up and down on the couch and pretend that I was a very grown-up 16 {almost 17} and that someone was singing about how much he wanted to take care of me.

Last night, at a very grown-up 29, I did not jump on the couch, most likely because it is my couch and I want to take good care of it.

Instead, I cut out fabric and sang loudly, which is like dancing on benches in your heart.

november conundrums

On my drive home to Iowa tonight, there was a thunderstorm, a crackling good one, making me think for a second that it was late summer and I was headed home to boat rides on the Mississippi and sweet corn on the deck.

But no, it's late November. I had a scarf wrapped around my neck, wrapped in just the way my French friend taught me.

It's Thanksgiving. Fall is coiling around itself, pulling us closer to winter when we all, at some point, feel that primal urge to burrow. We usually satisfy that urge with sweaters and down comforters and the kind of hot chocolate that's so thick, you have to use a spoon to drink it.

The thunder and lightning flashed me back to August, hot, stifling, can't-breathe August when you have the whole of fall to look forward to. When I remembered that oh no, the glory of colors is gone, the leaves are down, the ground is turning hard and cold—when I remembered that, I got a bit hard and cold myself.

I do like winter, but fall—fall is a showy season. Winter teaches lessons of perseverance, but fall teaches us to marvel. Every year, when I realize that fall is over, that I'll be seeing the bare branches of the trees for the next few months, I want to go back to October and try really hard to appreciate every moment. I want a do-over.

-----

That isn't what I thought I'd write about tonight. It's past 11, and I'm in my bedroom in my parents' house. I wanted to write quickly to say: I had two experiences tonight on my drive that were emotional conundrums and quick changes.

The first was the whole thunderstorm in November thing.

The second was this: In one of the small towns I drove through, a few of the houses were already decorated for Christmas.

'Come on, people!' I thought. 'It's not even Thanksgiving yet. How do you think this makes the turkey feel? Like the overlooked second cousin of the holiday season? Would you want to feel like that?'

It was odd to feel indignant on behalf of a pilgrim holiday, but I went with it.

And then I realized that I had no right to be so upset: I was singing along to "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

I've been listening to Christmas music for two weeks; I blame the early start on my choir. We've been practicing for our Christmas concert since October, and when "Angels We Have Heard on High" gets in your head, you may as well hum along {don't do this too loudly in stores, fyi}. And then pull out the Time-Life Treasury of Christmas Classics, just to give your head something else to sing along to.

I don't know where I developed this belief that you shouldn't decorate for Christmas until the Sunday after Thanksgving, but it is firmly in me, so much so that I judge other people for breaking what they didn't know was a rule.

How dare they rush ahead. We must be thankful for every season, for every holiday, for every chance to see our family. We must not always be pushing ahead to the next thing.

But if you do that by singing, I'm totally okay with it, perhaps because it makes life more of a musical.

faced with a choice, i choose chicken

Today, I am faced with a choice: write a little or eat fried chicken.

When it comes down to it, there are always things to do instead of write. What those things are changes on a day-by-day basis, and they change as you go through different chunks of your life.

Sometimes it's the dust on top of the bookshelf that keeps you from writing; other times it's reading a book with someone else's writing {that sounds better and truer than your writing} that keeps you from writing.

You know all the right advice: to get better at writing, you must do it consistently. You must do it when you don't feel like it. You must do it when you cringe at every word that comes out of your head. You must do it when it's easy, and you must not be daunted by the enormity of the task, this getting yourself or your idea or that pesky character who's been running circles in your head onto paper.

But still.

There will always be things that are more appealing than writing. For me this morning, it's fried chicken.

A Chick-Fil-A just opened down the street from my office, and I'm reminded how much this suburb of mine works like a small town. Ever since we heard the rumor that Chick-Fil-A was moving in, this has been prime conversation around town. I've talked about it at church, at choir practice, at the gym, at the office.

I'm reminded of a line from The Music Man: Prof. Harold Hill, who's just arrived in little River City, Iowa, asks his friend Marcellus, "What do people talk about around here? What's new in town?"

And Marcellus answers, "Well, there's the weather. When it's in season."

For months, it seemed that Chick-Fil-A came up whenever someone was asked, "What's new in town?" As if we had nothing else interesting going on in our own lives, but hey, did you hear that soon we'll have another fried chicken option?

Chick-Fil-A officially opened last week, and so this week, they're giving away free breakfasts. If I time it right, I can swing by there before heading into work for the day, but in order to make it on time, I'll need to forgo my plan of having a concentrated, long-ish time of writing.

But right now, eating a chicken sandwich sounds more appealing, and so off I go, leaving you with two poems: one by Tess Gallagher and one by me {one written kind of in response to Tess Gallagher's poem. The idea of her poem, the feeling it evoked in me, was floating around my head one day, and this is the poem that came out.}

First, the not-mine one.

i stop writing the poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.

And now mine.

what i do instead of write

I make coffee. Drink it.
Watch TV.
Vacuum with the TV on in the background, even though I can't hear it over the vroooom of cleanliness.

I paint. (That's creativity at work!)
Read. (Getting inspiration!)

I tweeze my chin hairs.
Look for gray hairs.
I figure out what to wear.

I do not go on dates.

I bite my nails.

I wait for inspiration, thankful for the distraction from the silence.

a question i shouldn't have to ask

This is the beginning of a story for my writing class.  I've actually written more of it, but I thought I'd start with this sneak peek intro.

Since it's part of my writing class, that means I'm opening it up for critique.  Not that everything else on here isn't open for critique.  Critique away, really.

Just please remember the Oreo theory of critiquing:  make your criticism as yummy as possible and sandwich it between two nicer, chocolate-y things.  I think I just made that up, but you know what I mean—go for constructive criticism and eat a lot of Oreos.  They're very good with peanut butter.
 
****
There my mother stood in the bathroom at the Walnut Room of Macy's on State Street with her skirt hiked up.

There I stood, skirt thoroughly unhiked, staring at my mother's thigh.

“You got a tattoo?!?”

****
It was a Sunday in late June, and downtown Chicago was sweating.  Or at least everyone there was sweating, me included as I power-walked down Randolph as efficiently—yet gracefully—as my strappy gold heels would allow.

I was late for meeting up with my mom, grandma, and aunt.  They'd all taken the 7:30 train in from Iowa that morning—leaving Burlington at 6:00 to allow plenty of time for the 45-minute drive to the station.  You always want to have a time cushion; this is one of my mother's travelling rules.

Another travelling rule is:  always take way more underwear than you'll need.  They can be shoved in the corner of your suitcase, barely taking up any room, and wouldn't you rather have them than need to turn an already-worn pair inside-out in the event of an underwear emergency?

So—even if it's just a day trip, consider putting underwear in your purse.

The time cushion rule is a family joke.  It's one of those reliable, comforting yet overdone conversations that families can fall into.  Everyone knows their lines.  No one strays from their part, and we all laugh.

It goes like this:  my dad will say, “Melodee, our flight is at 10 tomorrow morning.  What time do you want to leave for the airport?  How about we get there 2 hours ahead?”

When it comes to schedules, my family typically plays by the rules. If the airline says to be there two hours in advance, we like to be there. Even if we've checked-in online and aren't checking any bags.  You never know what can happen; this, perhaps, is an unspoken family mantra that leads us to do things such as bringing seven pairs of underwear for an overnight trip.

My mother answers, “So that'd be leaving at 7:15, if we want to be there two hours ahead.  What if we aimed to leave at 6:30?”

“If we leave at 6:30, there won't be any traffic, and we'll be there three hours ahead,” my dad explains.

Three hours early starts to sound very appealing and safe to my mom, so she expands it.  “Maybe we should shoot for 6:00.  Even if there isn't usually traffic, there could be tomorrow.  You never know what can happen.”

The time gets pushed back and back until my dad says, “Oh, why don't we just leave now?  If your mother had her way, we would've left for the airport right after breakfast today.”

That's when we all laugh.

****
Even though I hadn't confirmed this with my mother, I was pretty sure she'd made everyone leave for Chicago by 6:00 this morning.  Maybe even 5:45.

And here I was, rushing, but I wouldn't make the deadline—12:00 under the clock at Macy's. I should've worn more practical shoes, but the strappy gold sandals go perfectly with the brown dress I got for my brother's wedding and then only wore the one time.

Dresses should always be worn more than once.  Except a wedding dress, of course, but other dresses you should try to get good use out of.  It justifies buying them.

Seeing Fiddler on the Roof (with the original Tevye!) on a girls' day out was a fine justification to pull out my brown dress.  First, though, we were meeting at Macy's to ogle all the fancy things but certainly not buy any of them, a worthwhile and cheap way to pass the time before curtain.

“You're late!” my mother greeted me.  She had on very comfortable shoes and khaki skirt, a more matronly choice, to be sure, but I looked longingly at her cushy sandals and tried to imagine my feet in them.  She always dresses so practically, which means she's never worried if she'll be able to walk all the way back to the train station from the theatre.

“I know I'm late!” I greeted her back.  I launched into an explanation about sneaking out of church early to catch the train, but she cut me off.

“Well, you're here now.  We thought we'd go up to the Walnut Room, and you can eat.  You're probably hungry.”

She was right.  I'd had a banana on the Metra into the city, but it wouldn't be enough to get me through the show.

“That sounds good, Mommy.” I don't normally call her that, but it slipped out, I think because I felt taken care of and anytime somebody does that, you're bound to become more relaxed and a little childlike.
And then in the bathroom of the Walnut Room not too long later, my practical, comfortable-shoe-wearing mother hiked up her skirt and said, “Do you want to see my tattoo?”

****
More to come soon, including what exactly her tattoo is and my very grown-up reaction to my mother's complete departure from everything I ever knew about her.

If you want to know more now, right now, you can jump ahead in the story here:

• Part II
• Part III

oh, there's nothing halfway about the iowa way to treat you...

I'm headed home to Iowa for Memorial Day weekend, and there are two things you should know about me:

1. I adore Iowa, as you'll read about below.
2. I'm quoting a musical about Iowa in the subject line.  In fact, I often quote musicals.  Name the musical I'm quoting, and you'll get a prize.  A really cool one.  No, I don't know what it is.  Yes, it might be imaginary. 

To celebrate my return to Iowa {I haven't been back since New Year's}, I thought I'd take a minute to explain my intense love for this little fly-over state...

Bt-dubs.  Don't ever call it a fly-over state to my face.

iowa
I come from a place that is important to the outside world only every four years, or every 500 years, depending on what you’re measuring by.

Every four years, my state—Iowa, the great Hawkeye State—is the first in the nation to vote in the presidential primaries.  Technically, we don’t vote in the traditional cast-your-ballot style; we caucus because we not only must be first, but we must be different.

Actually, that’s not the real reason we caucus, and that’s not the way Iowa is normally described—first and different.

I think the real reason we caucus is because we like the idea of being together with neighbors on an icy January night in an elementary school classroom, discussing and debating Big Topics with people we normally just talk about the weather with.

We also like to caucus because often, people bring baked goods, and that adds a cozy touch to our snippet of democracy.

No, Iowans aren’t usually called different, and that’s fine by us.  We’re more likely to go by “salt of the earth,” a phrase I’ve never understood because wouldn’t a lot of salt be bad for the land and the crops?

Iowans, by the way, are usually concerned with and maybe even semi-informed about The Crops.

This is because:

1. someone in the family is a farmer {my uncle Tom farms—corn, beans, and pigs}
2. someone in the family used to be a farmer {my grandpa and generations before him farmed}
3. crops are a safe topic, along with the humidity {summer} and how it never really gets as cold as it used to {winter, and especially appropriate at a caucus when people are just mingling around before the real caucusing starts}.

If you happen to live along a river, the water level is also an acceptable and worthwhile discussion point, which brings me to the other time that Iowa is important:  during 500-year floods.

Now, these monumental floods happen every 15 years or so {I can explain later why this is, if you'd like}.

The last big flood was the summer of 2008—also a caucus year, making 2008 a bumper crop year for Iowa and the news.

This is an actual conversation I had while watching NBC with some friends:

“Oh my gosh, that’s my parents’ house!  There, up on the river bluff above Brian Williams’ head!  With the blue roof and the decks and wall of windows looking out over the ridiculously flooded Mississippi—see?”

“Why did you people build your town on a flood plain?” someone asked, their whole face scrunched up in disbelief as they watched the water trickle closer to the Dairy Queen on Main.

“Because that’s where the good farmland is.”

That was a very sensible answer, spoken like a truly practical Iowan, but I’m not just a practical Iowan:  I’m an Iowan who feels an intense desire to defend her state against people who just don’t get it.

Why did we build along the river?

Have you ever been on the Mississippi at 7:30 on a June evening, just as dusk is starting to turn?

I have—many times, in a wooden boat my grandpa built in 1954.

There’s a spot just upriver from Burlington, my hometown, where the water always looks like satin, orange satin as the sun slides down the sky.

Another boat passes by, headed back to the marina, and my dad squints to try to see them better:  “Who is that?  Is it Steve?  Looks like Steve’s boat.”

He raises his hand in the silent Mississippi wave, and from the other boat—whether it’s Steve or not—a hand shoots up in return, as if to say, “I see you.  We’re here together on this quiet, unimportant evening.”

And that is why we built along the river, in this place that’s important to the outside world only every now and again.