DeepBluSea

Cornsnake

2006-08-22T14:49:00.000-05:00

I hold the sort of job little kids should dream of. My job allows me to be a grown up and effect change on a large group of people, but it also lets me learn how to handle animals and pick up the latest info on black-light insect hunting. I work at a Science Museum and boy, is it cool.

Among the animals I have learned to handle is the corn snake. Corn snakes are unequivically the coolest snake there is. They like to hang out in pine forests and ag fields, sit in the sun, make baby snakes and eat mice, rats, and any other small rodents they can find. They are non-venomous, but can put a hurtin' on a mouse. I've seen them do it--it's poetry in motion, I tell you. Plus, look at that color scheme! The one pictured here is darker, but they come in all variations of brown, red, orange, amber, etc. Every time I wear all black, I think a corn snake would make an excellent accessory, if I were into that sort of jewelry.

Corn snakes are also cool because of how they handle. I first learned to handle a corn snake several months ago. It was freaky, at first. I wasn't afraid of the snake, but I wasn't sure how I could make it feel comfortable and secure. If a snake feels like it's going to fall, snake phobia #1, apparently, it will freak out. It won't bite, necessarily, but it will slither around until it finds purchase and support. As it slithers, it's very easy to drop it, and no one, even where I work, wants a snake loose. Just look at Samuel Jackson--he made a whole movie about the hazards of loose snakes. It's bad for people, but it's even worse for the snake, in most instances.

Once I got the handling part down, something interesting happened. The snake was wrapped around my two arms and I held it about 4 inches down from its head with the thumb and first finger of my right hand. The snake totally chilled out. I realized it was perfectly still, not even flicking its tounge. The snake and I were calm and enjoying each other. The snake, for her part, was probably very glad to be wrapped around a 98 degree body. I was enchanted by her coolness and strength. This snake felt like pure, coiled power. It wasn't menacing, but impressive, this 3.5 foot body of muscle and bone. We sat together for about ten minutes. She didn't move once--just sat there, coiled, thinking whatever snake thoughts can fit into her snake brain. Probably about mice, but who am I to judge the thoughts of a noble serpent? Noble is the right word for this snake. She's lived her whole life in captivity, being the offspring of two others who have since gone onto the Great Snake Beyond, and is used to being handled, so maybe it was just my perspective, but she seemed totally in control of the situation. Of course she wasn't, but how can you not admire a creature for acting in control?

Whenever I need a moment away from my desk, I go hold a snake. Every time, I'm immediately plunged into a sense of calmness and introspection. The snakes make me think of life, at its most raw. I respect these snakes and what they stand for. Like most animals, they don't ask for much and find ways to thrive without complaining. I have to wonder if that's the price we pay for so-called higher intelligence-it allows us to complain about things. If a snake feels it isn't getting enough mice, it slithers somewhere else. If the mice were starting to disappear or get more risky to find, the snakes would deal with it by having less babies and looking for something different to eat. We could learn a lot about snakes--rather than bend our world to suit us, we could just slither somewhere else and find something different to do. And if nothing else, snakes don't have to worry about global warming.

Blogging, revisited

2006-08-21T09:13:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker, I know. No posts, no pictures, not even any inane one-liners about my being busy, abducted by aliens, blah, blah, blah. I will never get a full story out if I can't even blog, so here I am.

I was not abducted by aliens. I moved in with my boyfriend. He's well chronicled here, mostly because I love the joker and he's a big part of my life. My friend SmallTownDiva asked me if things were rough, these last few weeks, and the honest and truthful answer is no. It's as though we've been living together for months. I still make dinner most nights, he still does the dishes, we both clean and organize at will. We did paint a room and upgrade our cable package, but neither of those things are what I would classify as particularly stressful.

I spent so much of my life pre-boyfriend wondering what this sort of thing would be like. I clung to bits of information that I gleaned from others, from the movies, from books. Love was always some holy mist that enshrouded those in it. Their lives developed different meanings, their capacities for compromise improved, etc, etc ad naseum. You'll know it when you feel it--I put such faith in that. A high school chum loved to say I always wore rose-colored glasses. I hated it when she said that, but she was right to a certain point. I embraced my naivetee about love because it seems it was all I could do.

Thankfully, 99% of what I was told or took to be hard fact was a lot of crap. The knowing it when I saw it was unquestionably true. I remember the exact moment when i knew I was falling in love. It was a moment of pure calm and peace, which was wonderful as the decision to tell him I loved him was maddening and full of doubt. It's the best thing I've ever done, though. There is supreme bueaty all over this world, but I've yet to see anything that compares to truly loving another person. It's possible that the beauty of love is made even greater by the incredible gratefulness I feel to be able to experience such an emotion, because, Lord knows, I never thought I could be so lucky.

So we've moved in, continuing our trek across that Transvaal that a relationship is. The Transvaal was a district in old colonial South Africa that was filled with life and danger and Zulus and everything else one in South Africa in the 19th century could imagine. Zulu warriors and lions may lie in wait, but this Trek has exposed me to so much beauty and life that I don't mind. And the Hi-Def cable upgrade is pretty awesome, too.

Private Lives

2006-05-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

I have a good friend who started a blog after casually reading some of my favorite blogs. We worked together in the same office and had some days with more down time than others, so she would often ask me for some interesting web pages to check out. She is very computer savvy and has always beena wordsmith, so I thought she would enjoy the well-written musings of Petite Anglaise or EasyJetSetter, my two primary blog destinations. I was absolutely right, to the point where we began incorporating things from those two blogs in our daily conversations. She decided to start her own blog to become part of the general mass communication of private lives on the web. She conducts her blog anonymously, in order to give herself an outlet where she can say anything she likes. She lives in a small town where she has quite a bit of notariety. She is involved in more things than you can shake a stick at and has mentioned political aspirations as well. I have no doubt she would succeed, given how much the movers and shakers of said town rely on her expertise and opinion. The downside to this position of authority, however, is a lack of safe space in which to speak. She always has to temper how she says things, to prevent misquotes or hurt feelings. As lame as she and I both think that it, it's how the system works. It's to the point where I would lobby for renaming the sidewalks in said town 'eggshells', as that's what everyone has to walk on when they venture into public spaces.

She fits into her role very nicely, but the bottom line is that no one can live like that. Her blog is an outlet for feelings about her family, her compatriots, and other things in her life which are running through her mind at any given time. Our relationship has always been such that she can say what she likes around me without fear of repercussion, but now that we don't work in the same office anymore, the daily bitch sessions just don't happen. She, like me, doesn't do too well on the phone. I'm glad for her that she can run her blog anonymously, becuase I think the outlet is important. Her blog is a perfect example of what personal blogging should be. She's not desperate to demonstrate her political views or win over the hearts of millions of readers. She just writes for release. If you happen to know her, you can take the things she writes aboiut more seriously, but most of her readers don't, so they just see her entries for their face value.

Her life is a lot more complicated than one would imagine, either from her blog or from personal knowledge. Her life, since she was born, has been characterized by heartache and abandonment. Trying to map out her family tree is an all day affair with branches growing in every direction, including downward into the ground. When I think of the specifics of her history and her current life, I marvel at how she puts up with it. Thinking about trying to handle the amount of complications she puts up with on a daily basis is enough to send me to the hills, screaming, into the night. I have heard her vent about the frustration of it all and have seen her cry when things have really become too much. She's blogged about some of the issues, but, for the most part, she just rolls with it. Her private life is the stuff of Sue Monk Kidd novels. I am fortunate enough to have an insiders view of it--fortunate, because I can understand what she means when she says something about her life and not judge her for it. We're both really grateful for our friendship with the other, and continue to stay friends despite the lack of daily contact.

When we choose to blog, we agree to bare ourselves for anyone who wants to see it but with severe limitations. It's not always the case that strangers know what we speak of, but they still can read about details of our lives. Often these are out of context and can lead to snap judgements about who we, the bloggers, really are. I choose to share things about my life, but there is no way anyone could put together a complete picture of me from this blog. My readers will never understand me the way my boyfriend or family does. This makes it safe for me to spill certain intimate details without fear of repercussion. My friend, who inspired this post, has shared a lot of her personal life, but only on the condition that it's anonymous. She came close to being busted not too long ago and the thought put the fear of God into her. She doesn't mind having an outlet for private information as long as it can stay private. She and I both need this to inspire some order or conversation with our own minds. I want to work on my fear of having others read my writings and she just likes to be anonymous but still say what she wants.

The argument of it being put out there so we should deal what comes from it is inane. The blogosphere is the one place where people can truly be anonymous if they want to but still say what they want. Call it chicken, but we are all so monitored these days, with so little room for privacy that I think it's perfectly healthy to want to say whatever the hell you want and publish it but still hide behind a pen name. Private lives are crucial to all of us, for a sense of personal space and individuality. My friend's blog won't change the world and neither will mine, but it gives us both a sense of satisfaction crafting these entries and leaving them somewhere anyone can read them. Call it hypocritical, but that's how it works. For us, anyway.

Other Side of the Fence

2006-05-17T12:05:00.000-05:00

When Sergio woke up, it took him a while to realize the severity of his situation. He woke up as he always did, slowly, stretching out the atrophy of a deep night's sleep and taking a deep breath. Waking up was the one time of day he really thought about the preciousness of his own life. Sleep to him was like death. He didn't understand it, but knew it was something he had to do. When he was asleep, he forgot about everything else, or maybe he just stopped caring. All day long he was alert for all of the dangers which may come his way. Even though he worried about danger, he never really thought about it in terms of his own death. If he had taken the time to really think about the consequences of some danger befalling him, he would probbaly have never gone outside. It was that lack of thought process which got him into his current predicament.

Sergio was lost. He had recently moved into a new neighborhood and was going for a walk when he saw a large fence. He decided to climb it and see what was on the other side. When you have an inquisitive mind that's accustomed to being on high alert, a fence presents a battle. On one hand, staying on the side of the fence you know is comforting. It's probably either keeping you in or keeping something bad for you out. On the other hand, the other side of the fence could hold a wonderful new world with all sorts of opportunities. Sergio had never seen anything like his new neighborhood or this fence and, in this case, the inquistivness won out. He climbed and jumped and got himself over the fence.

Touching down on the other side of the fence was so exciting! The first thing he noticied were the smells. He could still smell his old neighborhood, but it was intertwined with new scents--things like honeysuckle and pine, things that never stood out for him when he was on the other side. It also smelled like food. He always had plenty to eat in his old home, but this food smelled different somehow--better, riper, sweeter. It was all too much for him and he couldn't help it--he wandered from the fence. Before he even realized what was going on he was miles from his old neighborhood, in a dense forest.

As his conciousness came back to him upon waking up, he remembered climbing into the tree to see if he could see his home or his friends. He wasn't entriely comfortable in the tree, but it did make him feel taller and more aware of his surroundings. He had been out of his home before, but always when others could see him. Usually, they chased him around for a bit, but eventually he would tire of the chase and just go back where he was supposed to. Upon climbing the tree last night, he was ready to go back, but he didn't know how to do that. It was upsetting. The longer he stayed in the tree, as it got darker and darker, the more he began to connect the idea of danger with his current situation. He became acutely aware of the sounds of the forst he was in. Every sigh of wind became a predator sneaking up on him. He saw an enormous bird fly by with a huge rabbit in its talons and wondered if there was a bird that could carry him away. Everything that had seemed strange and exciting after he jumped the fence was now strange and scary. He only fell asleep after a long time listening to his heart jump at the slightest change in light or sound.

When you live your entire life in captivity, like Sergio, your natural instincts go dull, like a blade that rusts from not being used. Under the rust, you can still see the shape and understand the purpose, but it's hard to put it to use. Sergio had been watched like a hawk from his birth. His mother was part of a study that required her to conduct her entire life in captivity. Naturally, when he was born, he became part of the program as well. Everything that he ate, everything that he did, even everything that he thought was carefully measured and recorded. He had never been to school and had no learning besides what his mother taught him. Even the new neighborhood he moved to was part of his captivity, although in the new place he had more room to move around. It's a testament to the natural urges we all have that, despite not being used his whole life, Sergio's curiosity sprang to action as soon as he saw the fence. Unfortunately, his sense of confinement was so great that it never dawned on him that jumping that fence would put him in a place that wasn't confined. Imagine knowing your whole life that everywhere you turn is moderated and monitored. If it's all you know, you have no reason to think that places where that doesn't happen exist. Sergio found himself in a brave new world and was powerless to deal with it.

Sergio never really got a chance to think about the greater philosophical issues at stake with his escape. That's what the people who keep him confined called it--an escape. To Sergio, he was exploring, but to his captors it was escape. Sergio would have argued that it wasn't an escape, that it couldn't be an escape, because he doesn't even know what it means to escape. More than that, he never really realized he was a captive. It was just his life, his existence. To the people he escaped from, it was amazing that he managed to survive. Upon realizing he was gone, the worst was thought. He may have frozen to death, he may have been hit by a car, he may have been shot at by some nervous homeowner. Sergio knew he was in trouble, but he didn't exactly know why. He was scared but he didn't know why. He simply experienced these emotions without connecting greater meaning.

Sergio was found by his captors. They brought his friends who asked him why he had left. He couldn't think of a good reason and so returned to his new home. He resumed his natural existence and never thought about it again. He still sees the fence when he goes for his walks and is reminded of something because of it, but he would be hard pressed to tell you what it is he remembers. Living on his side of the fence is good enough for him.

The Idea Well

2006-05-08T15:22:00.000-05:00

Starting to write without knowing what you want to write about is like coming up to a sheer cliff face after a 10-mile walk in the desert heat and knowing that the only water is at the top. I feel that way sometimes when I know I want to add to this meager offering of words, but am not quite sure why. Sometimes blog entries rain down on me in a continual stream of conciousness. Other times, I'm brought up short by the cliff face. I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, but getting into the habit has been harder than I thought. I am a champion journaller and letter writer. I have relationships with people based entirely on letters, even in this modern world. Even the love notes I leave for my one true love are carefully crafted to contain the exact right emotion I am feeling at the time, which varies from playful to romantic to that special type of concern only we girlfriends are capable of. So then, enter the blog.

As I've said before, the blog isn't about my day to day life. I've tinkered with the idea of doing a daily photo blog, in the spirit of my favorite daily photo blogger Eric, but anonymity is more my thing. Besides, my daily life doesn't involve the treks through grand metropolises that his does and I think daily photos of the local interstates I traverse just wouldn't generate much interest. Some good friends read my blog and seem to enjoy it, but what is DeepBluSea to them but a distraction and procrastination effort? I think the appearance of the cliff is more about the sense that what I have to offer lacks meaning. Writing to me has always been about creating a connection, whether through thoughtful description of a place or time or through dialogue between wonderful characters and your own brain. Good writing to me doesn't have to be earth shattering, rather it has to envelope my brain and make me feel something. I want my writings to do the same.

I don't have a gold standard of what that is, which may be part of my problem. I thrive on process and order. It makes me very good at my job, but it's not what makes a good writer. I think it was Stephen King who said that good authors have to train their brains to misbehave or some such thing. I feel like somewhere, deep in the middle of my brain, is a well. I imagine that well to be filled with deep, blue water, cool and refreshing. That well has a source to the great unknown world of ideas. I tend to agree with the thought that all stories exist and it's just a matter of people uncovering them. I think of it as a flow of liquid, where things gets tumbled about and jostled, like blood cells in an artery. In my brain well are a few select ideas that would make lovely stories. I know it's there, deep in my brain, but I just haven't been able to find it. Perhaps if I was able to let my mind run free, I would plunge into the well face first, gasping at the pureness and depth of it and drinking deeply.

Until that happens, though, I've got the damn cliff in my way. It does me no good to curse it, I know, but it's still something that's there. Maybe if I look at the cliff closely, though, I'll be able to find a few handholds to pull myself up. In the meantime, however, you all are going to have to be patient. I never said I was doing it for you, but it is nice knowing that someone out there takes the time to read what I have to say, even if I am only a procrastination.

Nerd Alert

2006-05-04T08:11:00.000-05:00

Yes, I figured out how to upload pictures. That doesn't mean you'll see many images, but I thought it would be cool to experiment. This is a black bear, Ursus americanus. She is a native of where I live, although this one in particular came from another state. They're magnificent creatures and not nearly as scary as some people think. May 13th-19th is Bear Awareness Week in the U.S., so celebrate by thinking how lucky you are to live in a place where such cool creatures exist and stay the Hell away from them.

Milestones

2006-05-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

This Saturday, my beloved is graduating from college. When he came to America, about 5 and a half years ago, he thought he was on a holiday to visit his stepbrother and wife, taking a break from the day-to-day life of a white teenager in South Africa. He didn't realize that that trip would be a turning point for him in so many major ways. He fell in love with America and decided that he wanted to stay, so he applied for and received a student visa. Considering that he is an out-of-state student in the most serious of ways, tuition was very costly, but his parents agreed to support him and he did what he could to help, working on campus in various menial jobs that generated some income. Barring a year's sabbatical where he went home to deal with some visa issues, he has had his nose to the grindstone, working to acheive a degree in Grapic Design/Visual Arts Communication. When he walks this Saturday, it will be as Magna Cum Laude.

Degree aside, his move to America provided another turning point he never thought of. Almost two and a half years ago, just as he was moving back to the States to finish his degree, the wife of the couple he lives with started nattering on about her new co-worker, who she thought could be a great friend of his. Although extremely handsome and possesing a sharp mind and wit, he's never been the lady's man sort, so he just sort of went along with her. That coworker was me and now, a year and a half after our first date, we're talking marriage and kids. One of the things he is sure of (besides how lucky he is to have me for a girlfriend) is that he wants to live and raise his family in America. He loves South Africa and is tied there in many ways, but believes that the way that things are there make it a place inhospitable for raising good kids, his own family aside. That quick holiday all those years ago have resulted in many life decisions that have brought him to a strange land filled with strange people.

I will be meeting his parents for the first time this weekend, as they come from parts far flung to see their youngest son graduate. I grew up in a family where my parent's parents went to the same church and are friends, so it's been odd for me on one level to never have met his parents. His mom and I have exchanged emails on occasion and she sent me a gift thorugh him the last time he went home. They're all aware that I exist and that he is very serious about me, but we have never even had a conversation. I'm not nervous quite yet, but knowing that these people are to become part of my family is having a strange effect. They live thousands of miles away. The frequency of us seeing them depends very much on how much money we stand to make and how the political relationships of our respective countries are at any given time, which could be disrupted for a number of reasons. This gathering this weekend could very well be the only time I see them until our wedding or even after, so my window to make an impression is brief.

All of this aside, I am so incredibly proud of my love. His heart and his spirit are deep and strong, like the Deep Blue Sea he crossed to get here to his destiny and he has worked through a lot to get to this day. All of the noise and blather aside, this weekend will be a milestone for him and us. The glory and recognition are all his, but the promise of the future are ours.

Shame on Me

2006-04-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

So a recent extracurricular overtook lots of my time. To my friends who read these poor scribblings, I apologize. Suffice it to say that as I age, it seems I am much more concerned with things like my garden and making home cooked meals than spending large amounts of time in places know to have consumed the souls of other friends of mine. I'm happy to say that my soul is still intact and un-eaten, despite a long imprisonment. My garden could use some work, but as I haven't really exercised for the last 6 weeks, I can think of now better way to get active. Well, maybe at least one better way. But this is a family blog, so we'll keep it that way for now.

Quiet Places

2006-03-20T15:33:00.000-05:00

My life is extremely noisy. I work in a crowded office that I share with our IT guy and our servers. Going across the road to the main part of my place of employement, I hear construction equipment, children shrieking, roosters crowing, and the occasional boom of somebody who loves loud base driving by. My home whirrs and breathes its own special music, made by the things we have decided are necessary for a good life. When I drive I turn the music up really loud, to go above the loud wind that rushes past my car. From the second I awaken on a normal day until turn off the light, my life is filled with noise.

I, like most modern people, take all of this in stride. The noise becomes part of the sensory intake, just like colors and smells, is processed for its value and then either discarded or dealt with. Sometimes, if I'm in a relatively quiet atmosphere and tring to hear something in particular, I can close my eyes and literally stretch my sense of hearing beyond its normal boundaries until I land on the sound I'm searching for. It's a trick I learned when I was younger. Absence of one sense, even if only for a brief moment, heightens the others. It's a strange sensation, but one I don't use often, because usually I have more noise than I know what to do with. I like the noises of my life. It is comforting, on one level, to hear the same things every day. It's also a sort of running game I play with myself--identify that bird, what sort of airplane is that, do I know that person just by their walk? Absence of noise in my daily life is usually a signal that soemthing is wrong--something has stopped working, breathing, living, caring. The noise is as comfortable as my pajamas, always there and always telling me that things are ok.

I like noise, that is, until it goes away. Then I loathe it. Santini and I enjoy camping and try to get out to the woods when we can. He likes it because he gets to play with fire, go fishing, play with our cool camping gear and cook meat over an open flame (one of his many talents, I might add). I like it because the noise goes away. The noise is pushy--when it goes, I feel like the tide has finally stopped pulling. The noise reminds me of the thousand little things I need to remember--when it goes, I remember myself. Quiet places give noise a real run for its money in that it begs for me to be selfish, to think about the things in my life that are important to me. A quiet place can be the woods on the side of a green mountain or the small space between Santini and the back of the couch, where all I hear is breath and his heartbeat.

I spent some time on my birthday recently in a quiet place. In the middle of a forest, with nothing but a small bench, a big lake and the trail that brought us there, I allowed my brain to shut down as much as it can and still keep me alive and I just was. The lake was still, the trees were still, Santini was still--even I was still. Those who know me know that stillness isn't one of my qualities, but I acheived it that day. I offered my soul to the quiet and came back feeling more whole and at peace. It was a long drive to this place, but in my mind it was worth the moments of quiet I got. I hold those moments of calm and peace inside my core, around my lower back and spine, and keep them like tulip bulbs, warm and safe but still there and waiting for the right time to bloom. When they do, I'm reminded of the life I have and I become happy almost to tears.

Long Distance Relationships

2006-03-07T12:33:00.000-05:00

Today is my best friend's birthday. She is 23 and enjoying herself, no doubt, by having many colorful folks purchase her Adult beverages and just generally feeling loved. I've been thinking about her today more than I usually do, for the obvious reasons. I haven't seen her in almost a year and we haven't had a proper conversation in over 6 months. Normally, that wouldn't qualify as a best friend, but life circumstances and the INS require her to live in the UK and myself to live Stateside. It has absolutely no consequences on our friendship that we are miles apart--I lament that we can't cook together as we used to and that I can't take advantage of her incredible style by stealing her clothes and I'm sure she misses my handiness with small tools and ability to drive, but generally, the relationship is the same. I'm very lucky in that sense. All of my closest friends live miles from me, yet we have such deep relationships that a once-every-six-months conversation will do it.

I do miss my dear Wife, though, on a more daily basis. We call each other Wife because that's very much the nature of our relationship. Until I met Santini, the great love of my life, I didn't have very many successful male relationships--ok, any. Neither did my wife. We filled in all of the important emotional bits for each other in a time where we were both a long way from home in a strange land. We also happened to live in a very liberal community so, despite the lack of any sexual relationship, people often assumed we were dating. It became a joke with us for more than one reason, but there is quite a lot of truth in calling our relationship more than just friendship. My wife knew me better than anyone else in town. She was willing to call me on the carpet when the need arose but was always doing so out of love for me and wanting me to be the best person I could be. I treated her similarily. We had more than one knock down, drag out fight over something because of that. But we also shared a lot of love for each other. She is the woman who taught me that love can be all encompassing without sex in the picture.

She also showed me what a relationship should be. I love my dear Santini with all of my heart, but the expectations I have, in terms of how to be treated, developed from my relationship with my Wife. She is the first person outside of my family who made me realize that you could fight with someone and still love them. She also made me see that it's good to have high expectations for the people closest to you, both for how they treat themselves and how they treat you. I know she feels the same way because, even though neither of us are the mushy type, we were able to discuss our feelings many times.

All of these things are still true about our relationship, we just live a few thousand miles and one deep blue sea apart from each other. She belongs in Europe and I belong in America. We each have challenging lives that we are slowly building to where we want them. It won't be long now until I start my family, though, and I really wish there was a way she could be there for it. I have two wonderful sisters who are going to make awesome aunts, but I really want my children to know their Auntie Wife. I also miss having girl talk and shopping days and rainy Saturdays attempting some incredibly complicated recipe. It's the sad thing about long distance relationships that things can fall apart as lives continue their daily movement. I know, however, that my Wife and I won't have that problem.

Before we each found our respective men, we used to joke about getting a house together somewhere with a shared kitchen and two seperate wings so we could escape each other when the need arose. I think about that occasionally. At the end of my life, there aren't going to be that many people I still know. It's a great comfort knowing, when it all comes to the end, she and I will be able to come back together and love each other just as we have for all these years.

My brain is going to explode.

2006-02-14T19:39:00.000-05:00

I have done something that would have killed an older Deep Blu Sea. I have switched jobs, going from one that had a staff of 4 and meandered its way through the annals of commerce to an 80-acre, 63 employee non-profit CAMPUS of science learning opportunities. It's my second day and I feel like I've been there for weeks. I said as much to my boss, who said that was normal. We are, for all of our implied grandeur, a 501(c)3 that operates on a very lean budget. We have what we need to get by, but the focus of the budget goes into bringing more money in, so the people who work there are expected to pump out as much work as humanly possible. It is greulling and intense--I've walked from building to building several times, taken approximately 45 minutes worth of breaks in the last two days, and face the very real possibility of having to be thrown up on by some random child. I absolutely, positively love it.

I've never been one to do things small. I like challenege, which may sound strange to faithful readers who've heard me mention anxiety at change several times before. I knew going into this job that this would happen, that people would smell the fresh blood and come sniffing. It's been a wonderful reception, as my fellow coworkers are thrilled to see me and my particular experience at work. They've been without someone like me for a while now and I think that people felt the hole stronger than they would another position. I got a project thrown my way today which is not a huge deal, but is definitely a test about my writing skills, coordination skills, and mulit-tasking skills. It's also something I've done before, which is nice, but they're wasting no time putting me through my paces.

It's taking me some time to get my sea legs. I have come home the last two days exhausted, physically and mentally. My boyfriend and I spent last night staring at the tv and saying maybe 4 things to each other. It's ok, though. I'm going to survive. I'm feeling neurons fire in the old grey matter that haven't woken up in a long time. My last job worked on auto-pilot for me, which was its eventual downfall. I'm extremely good at process and organization and once I get a system working, it basically takes care of itself. As annoying as it is that the person in the position before me apparently never heard of a computerized database and held on to papers WAY too long, it gives me the opportunity to install a system that will be so much better and that I will know better than anyone. I like this sort of challenge. I just have to find the time to do it.

I'm not complaining, now. My brain has been through worse challenges and it's really not the end of the world if a little bit leaks out when I lay down tonight. I just hope you all can forgive me my lapses, which may or may not continue, especially since I can't blog at work anymore. I'll come up for air again soon, when the stimulation becomes manageable and the seas calm once more.

Parkside Gangstas

2006-02-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

I count among my friends three teenage boys who we'll call Curly, Larry, and Moe. Curly is the 16-year-old son of my coworker and Larry and Moe are his close friends. I met Larry and Moe through various run-ins at Curly's house, as his mom and I have a really good friendship outside of our working relationship. I have been with this family to the coast several times and the three boys are often with us. I have also watched various sporting events with these three, as they are very typical in their love of all things competitve. It might seem strange to you that someone as sophisticated as myself would talk about her friendship with three 16-year-olds, but these guys are wonderful and have given me a lot to think about over the year and a half I have known them.

I wonder a lot about kids today. When I was growing up, I had very clear boundaries but was free to do as I liked, as long as I was respectful, kind, and stayed within the proscribed limits my parents put upon me. It seems today that a lot of people have trouble doing this with their own children. The news is full of stories of young men doing horrible things to each other and their peers, for seemingly no reason. I continue to be thrilled when people I know and like become pregnant with boys, because I feel like at least one good man will be raised as a result. I know that the world is a very tough place and growing up in it, particularly as a man, cannot be easy. So imagine my delight as I continue to develop my realtionship with Curly, Larry, and Moe and find out that they are really great people.

Curly is one of those guys who genuinley cares about other people, without caring what they think of him. He will do anything with no fear of repercussion. Moe is very intelligent and thinks about the things he says before he says them and always asks thoughful questions. And Larry is just plain hysterical. He has an incredible wit, which he can apply to any situation, but without being mean about it. All three of these boys have had difficult upbringings, but they cruise through their teen years with an open mind and a great attitude in general. There have been more times than I can count where I have thought what great husbands these chaps are going to be.

For all of their shining points, it must be said that these are teenage boys I'm talking about. They come complete with their awkward faults. One time, the boys were getting intoxicated because it was spring break and they still think alcohol is something only to be consumed in mass quantities. The drunker they got, the more they kept coming to me and conspiratorily confiding that one or the other of them thinks that I'm hot. They also have some mixed up ideas about what makes a good girlfriend and what a good time is, but, all of that said, they are still awesome guys. I love to hang out with them because of their qualities listed above, but also because I want them to see that they can be appreciated for who they are. I remember how awkward I felt around the opposite sex when I was that age and how I thought I needed to change things about myself to make myself attractive. I don't think these guys are quite as caught up in that, but I want them to see that who they are is really great and that they should embrace it.

I'm titling this post 'Parkside Gangstas' because of something these boys have done. Another of their friends has a digital video camera and has taken video of these guys beating each other up with boxing gloves. Nothing overtly malicious is going on, it's just boys working out their fight lust on each other. The video is edited quite cleverly and set to some rap song and posted on the internet as 'Parkside Gangsta'z 2'. It's pretty funny, but it also indidcates to me that for all of their good points, these boys have some frustrations about their lives that makes random beat downs of their friends an activity worth capturing for posterity. Parkside Gangstas they may be, but they're also young men trying to make their way in the world and find their identities. I'm just glad they can laugh about it.

On Writing

2006-02-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

I am one of the last people in the world to qualify as shy. I will go up to anyone and strike up a conversation, sometimes meaningful, other times just chatting. I have had more than one row with my European traveling buddy about how 'Europe is different' and 'You shouldn't talk to random strangers, they might try to eat your soul', etc. She even gets angry at my lack of 'city face', that blank, neutral expression people (in her opinion) are supposed to don whenever they step into the world at large that will protect you from the scaries. Excuse me for living, but I like to smile at other people, regardless of whether or not I know them. I don't assault anyone on the street with unnecessary conversation, but I just like to be who I am and who I am is a friendly, open individual. I think my face should express that. Besides, her neutral face didn't prevent her from getting clocked by a local in the nose as he was hailing a taxi in Paris, and neglected to find my short friend at his side before he thrust his arm into the sky. (As soon as I realized she was ok, I promptly dissolved into laughter, which I'm sure was even less acceptable, but it was pretty funny.) All of this is to say, I'm not exactly a wallflower.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I came to the conclusion about 10 years ago that I am incredibly shy about my writing. I couldn't even let my mother, a teacher, proofread my book reports for school. Thank God I was blessed with a big enough brain to absorb all of the writing instruction I was given, because otherwise, I would have been screwed. It wasn't until college that I could even proofread my own writings, for fear of thinking the whole thing was stupid and chucking it out the window to start over. I'm talking specifically about scholarly or fictional writings, now. I will dash off a letter to the editor at the drop of a hat--in fact, my hometown paper, which I still read daily, seems to either love my writing or else thinks it's cool they can print something from a reader outside of the state, because they have printed everything I have written to them over the past 5 years. But anything beyond that stays trapped on the various pages it was written on, usually only perused once a year, when I'm reorganizing.

This shyness is something that I have decided I really need to overcome. As I mentioned in my first post, I really feel an ache in my body when I think of something to write about that doesn't go away until it's been committed to paper. I've got a huge pile of journals scattered about my house that contain everything from anxiety-driven musings to lists of who I'm going to invite to my presidential inauguration (seriously, although that was written when I was 16 and thought I could be the female Thomas Jefferson). Writing to me has always been about opening the faucet that my brain is attached to and just letting whatever is in there flow out. It's not a catharsis every time, but there is a quality of that to my writing. One of the comments I get consistently on my writings, when I do let a select club read them, is that I write exactly like I talk. That, to me, is a huge complement, because I'm very proud of my oral communication skills. Besides, my favorite writers have always been able to connect me with their characters and stories, mostly because they sound like some of my friends. It's part of why I started this blog as well. I have let a few people know about this and whether or not they actually read everything, the possibility exists that someone will read it and comment on it.

I think the shyness exists for a few reasons. I loathe plagiarism, and am afraid that something I write will end up reading just like someone else that I have read and unconsciously incorporated into what I write. I think my shyness also comes from too much time spent in a Top Ten University. My education was wonderful, but it has impressed upon me that glaring difference between Scholarly Writing and Beach Reads. I guess part of me feels like if it's not the great American novel, it's a waste of recycled paper. I have read some lame stuff in my day and don't want to accidentally end up in the same place. Having a few friends in the business, I understand that publishing like everything else these days--it's got to make money. JK Rowling has written a lovely story with some incredible characters that sells like hotcakes, but it's not exactly The Catcher in the Rye she's produced. If I'm going to write for the world at large, I want it to touch people in a real sense. I, like everyone else, felt like I had been slapped when Dumbledor bit it in the most recent book, but there's nothing real about what's going on there. I want my writing to have the grain of truth in it, something human that people can connect to and apply in their own lives.

This might be a bit much to expect, I know. Part of my self-induced twelve step program to get over these hangups is admitting that all I can do is write as best I know how. I also know that, published or not, I need to only do the writing for myself. If others are willing to pay for it, that's awesome, but ultimately, everything I produce is only for me. When I do stop dithering and actually get to work on something that I will try to get published, it will be with characters I like and a story that I like. Hopefully, what I like will be what everyone else likes too, but it's not the end of the world if they don't. Writing is a part of who I am. The older I get, the less I can deny it.

My Best Friends' Boyfriends

2006-02-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

I have been blessed in my life to make the acquaintance of some truly remarkable women. The ones who I count among my best friends, for some odd reason, mostly have names starting with the letter 'K', and, even stranger, a vast majority of them have the name Katherine in some form or another. Don't get me wrong--the rest of my girlfriends with names from A to Z are all equally fabulous, it's just my K girls who know me the best and have been with me through Hell and back again. I got to know all of my K girls in my single days. Most of them were single through that time too, excepting a few dalliances here and there with monogamy. We always had a good time, cooking, laughing, harassing each other and dealing with the turmoil that is being a young woman in America. As we matured, my K girls and I, we started to change our ideas of what the ideal man is. We all dealt with our share of frogs and rats in our days. Some of those cretins caused us more pain than we ever imagined we could endure, but ultimately, they made us stronger. Rather than run screaming from the sight of a rat, we now have the ability to sniff him out before he drops his debonair costume and scare him off with our stength and vicious wit.

Rats dispensed with, my K girls have found, in their own rights, men worthy of their fabulousness. The Original Katherine (OK) will be marrying hers this coming spring. The Katharine v 2.0 (Kv2) is currently conducting her relationship as she continues her fabulous, jetsetting lifestyle. I give these boys credit for many things, but one thing they have in common is the acceptance of the importance of my K girls' friends in their lives. Each has made a real attempt to engage me in conversation that has nothing to do with the K girls. Each has the habit of heaping shameless flattery on me, which I accept with girlish glee. Each respects my opinions, laughs at my jokes, and accepts me for who I am. It's arguable that these fellows are just good natured in general, but I think it goes deeper than that. These rarities of the male species have such deep love and respect for my K girls, that they want to revere the special place the we ladies have for each other. I think the boys understand that they cannot ever fully understand their ladies' relationships with their best friends, but they still try. For this, I love them.

I am not the sort of person who has a huge circle of friends. It is generally accepted that I am a very kind person, a good listener and never afraid to meet a freindly face, but my innermost circle is precious to me. These K girls own a part of my soul. I love them like my sisters and would trust them with my life. Their happiness is my happiness. Therefore it gives me inexplicable joy to have these relationships with their significant others. Among all other things, I respect these men that they have chosen to have in their lives. I can call them scum when they are crass and play devil's advocate when I feel like my K girls are being unreasonable, but I respect them for who they are and the happiness they provide the most dear people in my life.

I myself have also found a worthy man. He exhibits the same traits as my K girls' boyfriends, putting up with a cell phone shoved in his face with the demand to say hi to this Katherine or that Katharine. He asks me how they are doing, is excited when they have good news, and, if I don't mention them for a while, asks me if I have spoken to them recently. He understands that these girls are my lifesavers. He understands that they will be the ones responsible for getting me drunk before our wedding and that one of them might show up at our doorstep in the future with the need for safe refuge when the world gets to be too much. Dealing with my best friends' boyfriends has given me an expectation for how my fellow treats my K girls, and he has done well.

It's also possible that these guys are nice to me because they suspect, on some level, that I know every intimate detail of their relationships. They would, of course, be right. Believe me, I know these girls--I know they have gotten things out of you that you've never told anyone else. It's part of the benefit of best friends to have someone to discuss those things with. I'm here to tell them, though, that my respect for them includes keeping everything I know about their back hair and weird snoring will stay locked up in a secret vault forever. When I laugh at them, it will only be for some witticism or another, never because I'm secretly reliving some soul-baring statement they made while in the throwes of passion. It probably wouldn't hurt to keep up the flattery, though, just in case.

Waiting, she sucks, yes?

2006-01-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

My significant other is an exceedingly patient man. He is wonderful about waiting for things. He gets excited about upcoming events and I've even seen him jump up and down in anticipation of some imminent event that he has been looking forward to, but overall, he is willing to let time run its course and allow things to happen as they may. It's a perfect example of how opposites attract. I hate waiting. I can't stand it--if something is on the horizon, I want it to happen now. My inner child is two years old and made of pure Id. It's strange, too, because I'm not a petulant person. I have many times been complimented on my maturity and poise in handling my life or work situations. People who really know me, however, know that patience is not one of my virtues.

I've been thinking about this lately due to an imminent change in my work situation. Seemingly effortlessley, a fabulous job has dropped into my lap. I was offered this position last Wednesday, unofficially, awaiting the results of a criminal background check which I know will come back clean as a whistle, barring some unfortunate incidents involving what the state decided was excessive velocity, when I was younger and not paying my own car insurance. My current job requires me to run background checks occasionally, so I have first hand experience on the amount of time it takes to get the results. Also, once I have the official offer, I plan on giving two weeks' notice to my current employer, so it's not like once I have the offer I'll start tomorrow. Yet I am driving myself crazy waiting for this! I feel like all normal reason and expectation has abandoned my mind and been replaced with the words NOW NOW NOW!!!! I am so anxious over this, I reorganized my filing system and hand-wrote my recipe collection this weekend, two very uncharacteristic things for me to do. I'm more of a let-it-pile-up-until-it's-a-fire-hazard sort of gal.

The main reason I wonder about impatience is because I don't do well with change. I'm one of millions of Americans who suffer from anxiety disorder, one way or another. My particular brand of anxiety comes when I sense major change going on. It has taken years of therapy to get me to the point where I can say to myself, in an anxiety-ridden state, "It's ok, you wanted this change to happen, remember?" Even that doesn't always work. So why then would I also be the impatient type? One suggestion is that I am some sort of seratonin reuptake inhibitor junkie and I pursue activities that cause my brain to make more of those suckers. Another, slightly more plausible reason, is that years of evolution on my particular DNA have started to punch through the anxiety and the impatience is merely a symptom of that.

Consider this--my mother, aunt, grandfather, grandmother, and probably anyone in my family before those folks who were alcoholics, all suffer/ed from anxiety. Crippling anxiety, to the point where suicide became a viable option or, barring that, hermitage life became the norm. I, like all of us, am nothing more than a product of my genetics, so it's totally understandable that I would suffer the same malady. Yet I have actively pursued change my whole life. I'm the one who left Home on the Range to strike out on my own hundreds of miles away. I'm the one who takes financial risks. I'm the one who seeks out friendships with people who live all over God's creation. And finally, I'm the one in love with a foreigner--not some neighborly Canadian, mind you, but someone from a country so remote that many people I speak to about it don't even know that his country exists whose status in this country is not always guaranteed. I have continually taken risks in my life, pursuing the things I want ruthlessley, knowing that when the come close to my grasp, they are going to blow my mess out and leave me a shivering, sobbing mass.

The nice thing about that, though, is that I've come to accept it. It's not easy to deal with, but I have a very steadfast determination that when the things I want come to fruition, they are usually what's best for me. This man in my life is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. He has brought out things in me that I didn't know existed and made me enjoy my life so much more, but I was this close to abandoning it early on because I was scared of the change. Thank the Good Lord I didn't meet him until after the therapy!

Anxiety sucks. A lot. It makes people do things they would never normally do when they are not anxious. Mine has been a real foil for me these last few years. Given the chance, I would wrap the whole thing up in a tarp and send it plummeting to the bottom of the deep blue sea, never to be seen again, excpet by maybe some of those worms who live in total darkness down there. But I really feel that something stronger than it is waking up in my genes. I don't know what to call it, but I definitely feel the inpatience is symptomatic of what's to come. I am excited about life and honored to be a part of it. Anxiety be damned--I can't wait to see what's next!

Sharks and Stuff

2006-01-28T20:08:00.000-05:00

I have a thing for sharks. Not in a kinky, unwholesome way, but I really do have a thing for them. I grew up in a coastal community, less than 10 minutes from a beach that led directly to the intercoastal waterway. My grandparents, relocated Yankees who have never lost the idea that the beach is the pinnacle of heaven on earth, took my sisters and I to the beach as much as humanly possible. We always went early, usually around 8:30 am, and stayed until lunchtime, when the sun got really hot and the tourists finally decided to mosey on down from the comforts of their hotels. My grandfather won a photo contest one time with a picture of me at 18 months old, crouched in the waves, completely naked. It graced the walls of his medical practice, an office approximately 5 minutes away from the beach where it was taken. Needless to say, the ocean and its wonders were a crucial part of my upbringing. I decided from a very early age I wanted to be a marine biologist and make my living studying the wonders of the sea.

Flash forward a few years. I began working as a volunteer at an aquarium in our community which boasted, among others creaturs, a big pool of sharks--nurse sharks, leopard sharks, the occasional baby hammerhead which was always released before it got too big and started eating its tank mates. All the other animals were wonderful in their own speacial ways, but those sharks fascinted me. I learned that sharks are older than dinosaurs. I learned that their skin rubbed one way felt like satin, but rubbed the opposite way would tear through a wet skin glove like razor wire. I learned that they have sonar all over their bodies, and multiple layers of teeth, and the ability to smell blood in the water over 20 miles away. Everything I learned pointed to one fact--that sharks are the perfect creature of destruction. They have evolved over the millenia with one thing in mind--kill.

Now I am not a sadist. I don't like to see things get killed or even hurt. I can barely stand it when people have hurt feelings, let alone hurt bodies. But sharks as killers fascinate me! And there are so many of them! Sharks are literally everywhere--in every ocean of the world. So why the fascination? I think it boils down to some very simple facts. First of all, sharks are simple minded. Hooper from Jaws says it perfectly: "What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine . . . all this machine does it eat and swim and make little sharks." It doesn't try to make a home for itself. It's not territorial, trying to scare away other sharks in a particularly good swath of feeding ground. Sharks are not in the tiniest way political. They live to eat and swim and make sweet fish love. Even the fish love part is uncomplicated. Sperm in and I'm out. You have to admire a creature with that sort of singlemindedness. Secondly, as a by product of their singlemindedness, they don't apologize for anything. A shark doesn't have regrets. It doesn't worry or stress or get caught up in cares. It does its thing simply. You have to respect a creature like that.

Beyond that, I like sharks because of their power. Think about this for a minute. You're much more likey to get struck by lightning that bit by a shark. They are big fish. Our brains are something like 500 time bigger than theirs. Yet you ask people who don't swim in the ocean (and there are a lot of them) why they don't go and more often then not you get the same answer: SHARKS. C'mon, now. It's a GIANT FISH in a mass over 3/4 of the total mass of the world. That's like being afraid to go to Africa, anywhere in Africa, because a rhino might trample you. You see people running through thunderstorms everyday. These creatures have struck fear into the heart of man to the point that he is willing to give up part of God's creation altogether, rather than risk a run-in.

Sharks are deserving of our respect, no doubt about that. A lot of the species who aren't the big monsters are seriously threatened by things like overfishing and pollution. They are the garbage collectors of the sea as well, cleaning up all kinds of dead matter and even pollution that would have otherwise choked the seas long ago. They'll eat anything, like a junk yard dog, but with no one around to take them to the vet. They don't care, though. They keep doing their jobs, swimming around, scaring the occasionally snorkler and just enjoying life in general. That's another thing--sharks have an incredibly slow metabolism. Most sharks only eat once a month. The rest of the time they just cruise around and see what's going on. I appreciate that lifestyle. The most bad-ass mofos in the ocean are really just drinking it all in with their fishy, lidless eyes. Shame they don't have bigger brains. I bet they could tell some great stories.
yet another reaosn to love sharks. I do love a great story from the depths of the Deep Blue Sea.

Damn you, Scarlett!

2006-01-27T11:23:00.000-05:00

If you really follow back the inspiration for this blog all the way to its dark, warm core, you'll come out to my Junior English class in high school. The year prior, I had started to think that perhaps not all books we were forced to read were awful--maybe not the Baby'sitters Club, but altogether not awful. Then came Scarlett, the best-damn English teacher the public school system has ever seen. It was up to her to teach us everything from Gawain and the Green Knight to poetry to the marvels of modern American literature. Putting it mildly, I was hooked, like a 12-year-old feeling the power of progesterone for the first time. The main culprit was the first novel of an American female writer called The Bean Trees. This 336 page bolt of lightning dropped into my hot little hands with the force of a good smack across the face. I loved it. I still love it, and have come to the conclusion, through devouring every other thing this author has written, that my inspiration was a combination of the author's own life experiences and stories, blended with a dash of imagination. Rereading a collection of autobiographical essays by this same person enforces this notion, as the details she chooses to share in essays from 1991 show up in her masterwork, published 7 years later. Not only did I gain a favorite author, I discovered what writing style was. I have since closed many books and thought, "I could write something like this." After having countless article ideas, novel ideas, and just a general ache in my fingers whenever I see a blank page, I decided, to hell with this. I'm going to start a blog. I'm not some hardcore tech person, I can recognize HTML but I couldn't write it if I had to, so I don't know that I'll be starting my own domain or anything, but this is good enough for now. I simply plan on writing what comes to my brain. Some of it will be poignant, some of it stupid, some of it outright false, but it will be mine. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it, but I'm not really doing it for that either.

Thanks, Scarlett. You're awesome.