You Should (Do Something With That)

I managed to terrify myself on Twitter today. I know what you’re thinking: that’s not that hard. But bear with me for a second and I’ll explain why this Squarespace ad had me spiraling down into a pretty dark place. 

If you live for your passion, you should share it with the world. Create a beautiful website for your photography. https://t.co/rL6xyZZKNs

— Squarespace (@squarespace) May 11, 2016

​On the surface, it’s a gorgeous ad. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s pretty freaking sweet graphic design. Take an awesome vista, in wide view, and frame the center of it with just the implication of a web browser (Squarespace is, after all, trying to sell you on making a website on their platform), coupled with the words, “You should.”

The design captured and captivated me. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been nearly so disturbed by the message.

The Kale and the Fury

Detox shakes. Health shakes. Drink your veggies courtesy of your blender. Sounds good in theory. Sounds so damn healthy that you can't completely ignore the possibility that the effort might be worthwhile--the effort of hording said veggies, blending them, and holding your nose as you choke them down.

I'm not a big fad dieter, but I've been known to dip my toes into a fad or two, maybe even wade in knee-deep.

That "Sacred Heart Diet" was one of the longest weeks of my life and it didn't even do that much in spite of the pounds my sorority sister claimed to have lost while eating only the prescribed veggie soup.

And I'm not EVER going to gulp down a raw egg, blended or otherwise. But the concept of a fresh, good for you, homemade beverage can lure me in like the glowy antenna of some deep water predator.

I chose the least scary detox shake recipe I could find on the internet. Okay, the second least scary as the one that called for dark chocolate powder and coconut milk I couldn't finish because I didn't have any strawberries . . . or coconut milk, actually.

So here I am blending frozen blueberries and soy milk and a bit o cucumber with water and probably something else, and I'm thinking how hard can it be? It's not like I'm doing a freaking kale infusion here.

So wrong. I was so wrong.

Read the rest of "The Kale and the Fury" #HiddenKaleFTW . . .

Hibernation 2015 - wherein I discuss stashing food supplies and what I achieved of my pre-hibernation goals, and perhaps, the dreams I will dream during said winter incubation period

I recently got asked to do a Thing in another city, and I very seriously replied that I was, in fact, in hibernation until the end of February. A conservative estimate. In truth, the end of hibernation depends on the end of Snow Season, which is different from the end of Winter. Although the two are not wholly unrelated.

Northern Michigan winters are not something I take lightly. Yes, there are places where winter is worse and/or more persistent. But this is nothing to be sneezed at. Unless you have the flu on top of being trapped in your own house and really we all should have just gotten flu shots. No, I'm not completely cut off from civilization -- see, I have the internet, I have all the civilization I need -- but when your means of getting to the grocery store or anywhere else in town is a tiny compact car, you reevaluate your ability to fight the terror in white.

And damn if road slush didn't nearly do me in the other day. It wasn't even snow! Or ice! Just the goofy slush! Argh.

So I don't travel between Christmas and the start of March. Not if I can help it and certainly not for any distance.

The cupboard shall not run bare.

I have a December through March worry, which becomes a full on January and February neurotic maxim, to always have several days worth of food on hand -- food that can be turned into meals, not just a box of Cheerios and a pound of butter. Shudder. Because we never know when the next big snow is going to hit.

Last year the weather forecasts were dead on. Then again it seemed like we got 2-5" every day last winter, so I guess it's not that hard to predict. But this year they predict 3" we get none. They predict 6" we get none. They predict 5" we get 12." Sigh. And even when a mild 5" fell earlier this week, and I had diligently shoveled out all the requisite paths -- clear sidewalk for school kids, clear steps for mail man, clear driveway for me to get the car out -- I slipped and slid all over the place courtesy of aforementioned slush. So I try to stay off the roads the day of snowfall if I can. (A home office is a brilliant thing.) But if it snows for three days . . . I'm screwed. Or at least stranded.

Which is fine. Because I prepare.

I like to have enough on hand that I could, if needed, wait it out for a week until a clear day afforded me passage to the market that did not land me in the ditch or making new friends and acquaintances of the let's trade insurance information variety. At the very least I can stretch things out by eating rice and kimchi until I realize that I'm not Korean enough -- even in my own mind -- to eat kimchi with every meal. (It should be noted that technically I'm not Korean at all, I just watch too much K-drama and it's been rubbing off on me.)

Read the rest of this post...

Rate Your Festive Feelings on a Scale of 1 to 10

Last year, my relations expressed their upset that I had no plans to erect a Christmas tree in my living room. I was finally living someplace that had the space for a tree. Actually, I had the space for an ungodly monster tree. And having the space meant I should do it, of course. But I couldn't justify the expense of it, even for a small tree that would look like a ridiculous toy tree in said monster-sized space. See, if you've never put up a tree there are start up costs; at the very least you have to get a tree-stand even if you get super creative with your decorations and string popcorn like Laura Ingalls Wilder and hang cat toys on the boughs.

But I wasn't hosting any parties or celebrations that year, and more importantly, I didn't have kids. Trees are for people who have kids. Little kids, grown kids, kids at home, kids coming to visit, grandkids. Not only does tree trimming take an army or a ton of patience, it's a bit like cooking a whole turkey -- even if you get the small one, what's the point if there's only one or two people to enjoy it?

I still decorated. I hung garlands in the windows and ran some strategic strings of lights, stuck a couple nutcrackers on a shelf where the cat almost couldn't knock them down.

This year, not so much.

I asked my also-not-living-with-kids girlfriend if she had decorated:

Me: I have done zero decorating
Friend: Me too.
Me: And have only slightly more than zero impulse to do it.
Friend: I'm kind of pretending Christmas isn't happening. If I got a tree I think my cats would destroy it. Plus, what, I'm going to decorate a tree myself and then just look at it? what's the point?
Me: That's what I tried to tell my relations last year: trees are for people with offspring. I did get festive last year. Put up decorations. No tree, but knickknacks.
Friend: I have a cute wooden advent calendar up.
Me: Oh!!! I have a festive jar of candy canes! #TakeThatMarthaStewart Friend: LOL! Not just a jar of candy canes, a FESTIVE jar of candy canes!

Read the rest of this post...

Moving to a new site!

I'm continuing to blog sporadically at eileenwiedbrauk.com -- same address, new look. Hope you'll update your feeds and join me there!

Also you can catch me once a month at World Weaver Press, writing my "From the Editor's Desk" column.

Life Lesson #2049

Earlier this morning ... in a dire race against time, Eileen must dismantle a doorknob and break IN to her own bathroom, knowing it's only a matter of time before she feels the sudden urge to pee. ... The usual unlocking mechanism doesn't work -- oh no!

But what's this? The knob has been put on backwards, with the screws facing out! At last, our heroine scores a break in her hour of need!

---

Seriously. Most ridiculous moment all week. I must have pushed the button lock at some point before stepping outside and closing it and the rickety old knob just wouldn't release the lock. Good news is that it finally prompted the installation of the replacement knob (which was bought three weeks ago, ha).

Life Lesson #2048

The computer stopped recognizing the keyboard. No problem as I have a wireless keyboard I'm not using. But I didn't have the right kind of batteries for it. So I went to the store and got a pastry. And batteries. Boom. Wireless keyboard not recognized by the computer either. Except the function keys. Those all spit out a sequence of lowercase i's in different quantities when pushed. So I plugged the original keyboard back in. It's fine. Better than fine. The lesson here? Never go to the store without buying a pastry.

Good Cat, Bad Cat

And now to indulge in the internet's favorite past time, Cats. Recently, Good Cat went in to see the vet for some regularly scheduled feline maintenance.

She was quite vocal in her objections to going in the box, leaving the house, going in the car, leaving the car, and sitting in the vet's waiting room. The fuzzy brown puppy in the waiting room thought she was fascinating. But he was a very well behaved fuzzy brown puppy and just stare from across the room. Good Cat does not hiss. She cries. Short, plaintive bursts of noise that struck just the right acoustic balance to fill the entire waiting room and draw the attention of all three of the reception workers ... who were all more interested in how well the fuzzy brown puppy was handling everything. Sometimes cats can't get no love.

More vocal protests accompanied our move into the exam room. When I opened the door of the carrying box, she turned around, presenting her butt to the door. Clearly stating that while she by no stretch of the imagination did she want to be in the box to begin with, she would not be departing at the current locale. I'll get off at the next stop, thank you very much. So when the vet-tech up-ended the box, the result was a graceless but surprisingly funny rear-end first exit. More meowing. And some army crawling to the safest looking positions.

Vet examination proved that Good Cat is a Good Cat with no noticeable health problems, unlike Bad Cat who has had a bad tooth, urinary crystals and infections, eosinophilic granuloma complex, is so allergic to hard water that she'll lick the fur off her stomach if she gets too much, and last summer, got pneumonia. Oh and when she was a kitten she got a ball of infection pressing between bone and skin (there's a name for when an infection makes itself into a ball so that antibiotics don't work on it but I've forgotten it) which caused her paw to explode. Bad cat is expensive. But friendly. Everyone at the vet's office loves her.

Good Cat only ever sees vet for vaccinations.

I did however need to run by the vet my one concern about Good Cat's habits: she eats spinach. Loves it. She hears the baby spinach bag crinkle and she's there waiting next to me to see if I'll throw her a leaf which she then sniffs then hauls off to a new local to play with and eventually consume.

Of course, in fear of being considered an awful Pet Parent, I must downplay my enabling of Good Cat's spinach addiction. So I tell vet that Good Cat will steal spinach and snag dropped leaves off the floor ... which yes, she totally does, the fact that I regularly throw her a leaf is not mentioned. Vet nods. Asks if Good Cat might have a little bit of vomiting post-spinach-snag. Nope, no vom.

Vet nods again. Tells me, "If she wants to enjoy the occasional leaf then I don't see any harm in it."

Best. Vet. Line. Ever. The occasional leaf, said the same way a doctor would explain the benefits the occasional glass of red wine. 

So I head home in pretty good spirits. But hey, I'm not the one that just got stuck in a little box, uncerimoniously dumped from said little box, then given a rabies vaccination in my hip. I let the cat out, take out the trash, run to the post office, come home and find Good Cat is happy but sleepy. More than willing to let me pet her. Bad Cat is under the bed.

Bad Cat is usually an attention whore. Needy. In your face. Friends with everyone. Pet me. Love me. Feed me if you must but I'd really rather you dangle a string for me to pounce on. Nope. None of that. Not today. Today she is under the bed. Try to pet her -- gone. Dangle string -- she eyes you suspiciously. Bad Cat knows where Good Cat has been and Bad Cat is waiting, waiting for her turn to be shoved in the box and carted off.

For the rest of the day she waits, waits for the other shoe to drop. Meanwhile, Good Cat gets her "occasional leaf."

The Handshake

A good college will teach you how to shake hands. This may sound totally stupid, but it's true. The basic extend hand, grasp other hand, let go of said other hand, social exchange does have to be taught. Moreover, it should  be taught.

In American culture, the handshake is a huuuuuuuge  part of meeting people and establishing the basis of your future relationship. Personally, I have a tendency to wait to see if someone's going to offer me their hand before sticking out mine when we're in a social gray area, particularly if the other person has more power in the situation / we're on their home turf -- and I'm always a bit disappointed in those who don't go right for the shake. Always.

In those shake-less situations, I'm left wondering -- in an academic capacity, mind you -- if the lack of offer was because I'm a chick and "women don't shake hands like men" and therefore there's a weird sort of sexual inequality going on in this person's lizard brain, or if the lack of offer was because the other person is a socially inept flake. Neither is a good impression.

I'm always ready to shake hands, and always sad when I don't get the offer.

There are two places where I can rely on to get the offer: job interviews and sorority rush. And here is where the whole college should teach you to shake hands thing comes into play:

Shaking hands is important. It's a physical demonstration of your personality, it's also a respectful means of broaching your personal bubble and establishing personal and communal space. I'm sure ethnographers would suggest it's a means of bringing respected individuals into a physical space of social acceptance while keeping unacceptable members of society outside of the group space.

Ethnographers aside, most people think it demonstrates personality: assertive types verses wimpy types. We've all heard of the clammy, dead fish handshake of doom. While near impossible to control how much you sweat without chemical interference, it is however, very easy to control how much pressure you do or don't apply to the other party's hand. I'm rarely more amused than I am by women who give the handshake equivalent of the golf clap: they sort of gingerly clasp your hand the way they would a raw egg using only first two fingers and thumb, then quickly let go, leaving the metaphorical eggshell still in tact. It's all very HRH. Worse is when you offer the whole palm and finger array and leave it there all limp. Fishy. Blah.

We practiced this in the sorority. Women were coming to our door to rush. Maybe not rush our house, maybe they'd never had contact with a single one of us, maybe they'd make friends and decide to join -- whatever the situation, the at-the-door greeting was the first official moment of contact. In so many ways, my experience of Greek life was absolutely nothing like the movies. What I can tell you about rush is that it was not a snippy, catty series of par-tays; it was instead an alcohol-free, highly choreographed, likely inefficient, social dance that the rushee was never supposed to catch on to. And we practiced all of it. From the handshake, to where we sat the girl, to the conversations we'd have, to how we'd offer her food, to the way we'd walk her out the door and what we said as she left. It took us months to prepare. Not to mention learning all the accompanying songs and chants -- don't ask. Among the prep work: we one by one walked up to a near-stranger adult rush adviser, grabbed her limp hand, shook it, and welcomed her. And if we didn't pass, we did it again.

I think we could all do with more handshakes and more handshake practice in our lives. No matter how silly you feel. Come on. Unless you're one of those types who wrap everyone up in a bear hug, shake my hand and do it like you mean it.

The Artistic Line Between 'Vulnerable' and 'Self-Destructive'

I've been watching The Voice this season. I tweet my live reactions @EileenWiedbrauk BTW, if you're interested in following those joys, disappointments, and uneducated immediate reactions as I have zero knowledge of the music business beyond that of avid radio station listener.

Here's the big question I've recently been pondering: why was Amy Winehouse such a huge success in such a short life? She had a fascinating voice and a hot body, yes. But so do so many of the young people who try to make it in the music business each year. So do so many of those who make it as contestants but don't win national shows such as The Voice.

Now I admittedly don't know much about the music business. But if I'm to believe what all of The Voice coaches repeatedly say, it's all about finding an emotional connection to the lyrics/song, and finding a way to connect that emotion to the audience that isn't show-tune-emoting. As the coaches say, it's about being vulnerable.

Let Your Flag Fly

It's time to talk about social justice in America. Not politics or religion, but justice.

Earlier this week, I changed my Facebook icon to a red-and-pink equals sign. Why? Because I support marriage between consenting adults in America. And then I saw a number -- a handful -- too many! -- supposedly thoughtful individuals poo-poo on that choice of mine to act. These weren't even individuals who disagreed with my politics, if you want to call marriage a type of politics, which (for the record) I've believed for the past decade that government should get out of marriage and leave it to religion, handing out only civil unions to deal with the intricacies of health care, custodial, and survivorship rights.

These were people who decided to poo-poo on my choice to fly a flag because that flag appeared on Facebook and Facebook flags can only be "empty gestures." In some cases going so far as to say they are "liberal empty gestures." Implying that conservatives somehow don't use Facebook in a similarly empty manner.

If anyone wants to poo-poo on my flag-flying actions, then you have my pity, but not my admiration.

Is it an "empty" social media gesture? No. It's not. I vote -- and have voted regularly since I was 18. I take action to educate on the issues before I go to the polling station. I donate money to political/social causes even though I'm in such a position courtesy of grad school and teaching at a large university without a Full Faculty position as to qualify me for public health care assistance -- which I don't accept. I've stood up for my gay and lesbian friends since I was a teenager in high school when I told my social group that it was not right to "out" one of our friends no matter what they "thought" him to be; that we should respect what he vocalized, not repeat our own assumptions, because he had his reasons for choosing to say what he did no matter what we "suspected." (Something which he later, personally, thanked me for. Something which I wish I could have done for so many other young men and women in this country had I had the chance.)

Or are my flag-flying actions, as others say, a "worthless" gesture because so many people "don't know what it means"? I hope that action + ignorance, generates discussion and awareness among those who don't know. Who want to know. Who need to know. Who need to see their walls turn pink and red and ask, what the heck is that? NPR news reports statistics that claim, based on population age, in ten years the majority of eligible American voters will favor gay marriage. (And youth have registered and voted in OVERWHELMING numbers for the past five years. I don't expect that to change.) It's time to talk about the inevitable.

And for all of those who continue to think that my actions -- my delight in seeing the majority of my FB wall turn pink and red -- is "empty." I say three things: (1) You're cynical and pessimistic: how can I possibly hold you in my heart the way I hold hope for the future in my heart? (2) When George Takei asks you to do something that is within your means and abilities, you do it; you wear your nerd-badge with pride. And (3) you're wrong. You're wrong because you assume. You aren't willing to look case-by-case, you're only willing to make assumptions based on the lowest common denominator of human behavior. This individual act, my actions, are a truth. If you can't see that based on your assumptions or cynicism, or pessimism, then you are, simply, wrong about me.

If you want to send me a Facebook friend request, I'm https://www.facebook.com/eileen.wiedbrauk.

February Is the Longest Month of the Year

There it is, the conundrum wrapped in a paradox that I really wish was wrapped in bacon: February is both the shortest and the longest month of the year. A short, painful 28 days that lasts forever. February begins when winter has gotten old and oppressive, and doesn't end until spring arrives. It's still February in my world. Never mind that it's already mid-March.

Seasonal affective disorder? Perhaps. Perhaps I just miss all the people whom I've loss contact with because the general ick-feeling produced by the weather has separated us since Christmas. Perhaps I'm just sick of the people with whom I'm forced to have regular contact in spite of the weather. (Teachers of the world, is it just me or do classes that begin in second semester always have lower morale than those that begin at Labor Day?) Many of my colleagues are citing Spring Fever or perhaps that no man's land between the Known Drinking Holidays of Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day as the reason for students checking out. But how many of them every really "checked in" this semester? I see moments like this from Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares, and -- while I constantly see similar issues, never have they been so pyrotechnic -- it makes me wonder if the answer isn't just to raise one of your own and don't let them get away with shit like that.

Perhaps the past six weeks have seen the pendulum swing too drastically, too fast. Great news followed by devastating news. Again and again. Sometimes within hours of one another. Including the loss of my grandmother and putting some tough questions to myself, the answers to which would drastically change my day-to-day life.

Perhaps I just wish you were a dragon.

Like the above cartoon from exocomics.com says, Sometimes I look at you and I'm sad because you're not a dragon. I want you to be a dragon. I want  you to be fabulous and fascinating. Bring a little bit of danger and a whole lot of wonder into my life.

Displace my desire for change onto someone else? Gladly!

Perhaps sometimes I look at myself and I'm sad because I'm not a dragon. After all, isn't that the basic life goal for all of us? Not power or money or an ass-kicking 401K. What we really want: to be awesome. Like a dragon. Dude. That's it. Be a dragon.

(Oh, and just in case you found this post too sad, I give you the top canines of sci-fi. Puppies!)

Pick Yourself Up and Start Again

This essay (article, post, whatever you may call it) is going to be about writer's hope, direction, perhaps even the implementation of  some self-discipline. It's about embarking on a new project -- or more precisely, embarking on the finishing of a project, the project itself isn't exactly new just the stirring desire to finish -- with positive, patient persistence. (For hopefulness about writing, read on...)

How I'm going to convey that feeling isn't something I've planned out. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that I've not much planned my project -- all I have is a feeling to spur me on. But I try to think of these posts as short essays (blog posts are always better when they draw some sort of conclusion that echos the opening, no?), and as I try to implore my writing students, essays are nothing more lofty than an attempt to communicate your personal thinking on some subject, the term "essay" coming from the French essayer (v), to try. Or essai (n) a try.

An essay is an attempt at expression. It may meander, it may be cut and edited, but it shouldn't be overly rigid in construction and planning, otherwise how can you make great discoveries of self and thought while you essay? Save your structure and fact and organization for editing, well after you've essayed your way to some truths.

And so I am trying.

At this precise moment, I'm trying to stay positive, not sick to my stomach as I watch the pest control guy spray just part of the nearby apartment building. Just part? I understand how that's cost effective, but not how that's get-rid-of-the-pest effective. Ug. Another great reason to keep cats: they find the pests before you do and, usually, eat it before you're the wiser.

But the man with a can of pressurized chemical spray isn't the only thing which should be dragging on my sense of direction and hope, yet isn't. For starters, the Attack of the Back has devastated my past week.

The non-compliance of my body to respond to my commands in a useful manner meant that on this past Saturday it took me twenty minutes to go from reclining to standing, unassisted. And then once I was standing it was less than twenty minutes before Attack of the Back protested so loudly that I was forced back into the previous, reclined posture. I am currently on the mend. Mend-ish. I may actually have to give in and go see a chiropractor. You know, get over that aversion/advice I was previously given that once you start going to a chiropractor you can't ever stop. Because hey, isn't that also true for dentists? And because hey, these Attacks of the Back are painful and they don't look like they're ever gonna stop coming to visit me either.

So I'm upright again. Sorta. I had big 2013 dreams of punching out a lot of words starting on January 1 and not stopping until ... okay, just not stopping. But the reality is that the punching out hasn't started. Half-way through the month and I'm still working to get my feet under me (figuratively) from the whirlwind end of 2012 and (literally) from the Attack of the Back. Newyness aside, there's no reason that my self-discipline and goals have to be pegged to calendar start and end points. So sally forth! I say. And tallyho! Cowabunga! And other similar cries which indicate a rush of activity!

No, no, that's not what I want.

If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I am prone to manic writing. Followed by furloughs of no writing. Some of which is deadline driven -- oh baby, there ain't nothing like the sound of a deadline whooshing past to get me on task! -- but some of it is an intensity issue. Frenzied activity in general is easy  to get on board with. It's Day One of the exercise routine/diet where you're super good, followed by week two when you can't even remember that you're on a routine/diet because you just can't take the super good intensity anymore. You're like, dude, chill out with this craziness and get me a cupcake. I need moderation and discipline. Not a celery stick and ice cream pendulum. Not the frenzy that follows the cry of tallyho, but the deliberate fox-stalking which precedes it.

Instead, a gentle push to get me started:

Today I received a lovely, personal letter from a magazine which I respect telling me that my story was well written and interesting, and then telling me all the reasons why it wasn't going to be published by them. What a great big happy-sad feeling that produces. I adore the fact that they took the time to talk to me about the story. I'm pleased with their compliments. But I'm sad to have failed in the endeavor of getting them to publish the story.

"Bittersweet" doesn't really begin to describe the conflicting emotions this particular letter invokes. "Bittersweet" describes previous such letters I've received -- letters which I usually don't blog about because I don't usually feel the desire to make such things public. This time I'm far too happy and far too sad, simultaneously, to reconcile the two into any nameable emotion.

It is however a spur. A gentle push to get me started. Along with all the things the letter said, I take away this: they're eager to see what I send them next. So on to the next. A brilliant nudge to get me to complete edits on a short story I've let languish for eighteen months. And get it done now. Using the short goal to achieve a sense of action and purpose, to garner momentum, enough to pick myself up and start again.

---

Note: I couldn't find a way to work it into the above essay, though I did try, but I wanted to point out another lovely post on writer's hope, direction, and discipline that I read today. Rebecca Enzor's "Give Them a Chance to Say Yes" inspired by a beautiful tweet by Amalia Dillin. Her direction is more focused on submissions than creation, but still terribly hopeful. Autumn MacArthur's blog is also great for these sort of inner-looking hopeful-writer-rants which I love.
Top photo credit: "by Stik" By Feral78 via Flickr.

Newyness

I've got this theory. It's not about resolutions, or the tradition of breaking them. It's not about the slew of weight loss commercials on TV or all the fliers for gym memberships showing up in my mail. It's not even about our adherence to planetary rotation cycles which dictate we buy new calendars every December and hang them on our walls every January -- not directly at least. It's about the newyness.

New-y-ness. Better known as the shiny-new-toy syndrome. The great desire to take the gadget out of the box and play play play with it. Tell all our friends about it. Use it to improve our lives because we just spent ... well, actually we don't want to talk about how much we spent on it. Newyness.

Whether you make resolutions on January 1, or shun the practice, it's impossible not to stare into the dark of night after the ball's dropped and drunken people are singing and kissing and you absolutely can't take another moment of Ryan Seacrest pretending to be as cool as Dick Clark -- and as you stare into the sky you can't help but think this year will be better.

There's no box, no bag, no forgotten assembly instructions for this shiny-new-toy, but we feel it, feel it deep in our bones: this is something new. Something we should treat with great respect. Something we want to plan for and talk about. Something we want to use to improve our lives. And so we make resolutions. Even if they're not aloud. Even if we put them on the shelf and forget about them after the shiny-new has worn off. We can't help it. Newyness is born of a combination of curiosity and propensity to dream. Which makes it -- if I dare to go there -- part of the human condition.

It's comforting to know that as I make detailed goal lists for 2013 wherein I plot to lose x pounds and write x words, to return to handwriting the morning pages a la The Artist's Way which saved my sanity previously, and do a major house cleaning at the start of each month (although this last item may be more a healthy/sanitary concern than a case of newyness), that I am participating in a very human activity. Not a lost cause or an optimist's pipe dream, but by my means of celebrating this exordium I am affirming my humanity.

Whereas that nap I was contemplating this evening would have affirmed my cathood. Good thing I resisted.

Muppet Lessons

This week I caught on TV a Muppet Christmas special that I hadn't seen before, the 2010, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. It follows the pattern of many other Muppet plots, the theater is in trouble ... again! With a fun mirroring of It's a Wonderful Life and -- best part -- many, many, many pop culture movie references thrown in. Those little references made my night. As did that deep voice meep meep from a muscled up Beaker.

The Muppets are the perpetual underdogs. They're continuously in jeopardy of losing that theater, whether it's to Scooter's uncle, big oil men who want to drill beneath the theater, or evil bank mavens. But of course, they always pull through. Lovably, harried Kermit dreams big and makes things work. Of course, hitting their themes this hard for going on fifty years, really hammers home the Muppet lessons.

Muppet Lesson One: There's great value in the arts ... even though the arts are filled with weirdos. Whether it's actors putting on a stage show, the members of the band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the avant guard performance artistes, or the stage managers and the set-costume-props guys -- artists are eccentric and frequently outrageous enough to worry an average mild mannered joe frog. But while your mother might despair that  you're hanging out with googly eyed blue-faced weirdos, the Muppets teach us that the arts are important. They are filled with heart and soul. Being a part of the arts community may seem strange to the main stream communities, but it's the arts community that can bring so much joy, wonder, hope, happiness, and beauty to the world.

Over the half-century of Muppets, belief in the value of the arts and acceptance of arts weirdos has grown phenomenally. If you look at the courses of study American students take in college, we're churning out many more arts, English, creative, and humanities majors than we are math, science, and engineering majors. Have we moved too far away from valuing industry such as factory jobs, or valuing science and technology? The Muppets don't have anything to say on that argument, not thematically at least.

Muppet Lesson Two: There's no money in the arts. If there was, the main crisis of so many Muppet movies would not be the potential loss of the theater or the breaking up of the show. Kermit would not work as a buss boy in Muppets Take Manhattan. The gang wouldn't constantly be at the mercy of swindlers and thieves preying on their dreams and meager funds. Of course, there's always talk of getting the much needed "big break." But the Muppets are much more likely to do it for friendship, or because they love what they're doing too much not to do it. Perhaps that is the more important lesson: There's limited money in the arts, so you better love the act of doing it more than the act of getting paid to do it.

Muppet Lesson Three: Beware big banks, big business, and people in powersuits who are only concerned with the bottom line. This is why Fox News decries the Muppets as un-American. However, there's something innately American about embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and starting a small business. And given the predatorial lending practices which left so many Americans in foreclosure and bankruptcy, which in turn led to the Great Recession, it's hard to argue that this Muppet Lesson is misguided.

Not that I need to stick up for the Muppets, they're perfectly capable of doing that themselves. Miss Piggy, a push-over? Puh-leez.


Muppet Lesson Four: Dream big. The biggest and most important lesson the Muppets taught us is that dreaming is inherent to the human condition. Everybody dreams, but not everybody dreams big. And fewer still have the courage to act on their dreams. Sure, I might just be a shrimp or a frog, a pig, a bear, a whatever -- but that doesn't make me any less entitled to having dreams than anyone else. And you don't have to have money or celebrity or political sway to see those dreams become reality. The only capital you need is strength of character and determination -- the rest will come.

Hurricane Finger Food

As Hurricane Sandy smacks down into the eastern seaboard of the United States, I can't help my overwhelming urge for finger foods. Snacky-snacks. Should I go out and buy chips and salsa? Should I make peanut butter cookies? Banana bread?

There's a rational reason behind this desire: should the power go out, I'd need foodstuffs that do not require heat to prepare or refrigeration to keep.

There's an irrational reason too: Hurricane Sandy is the best reality TV of the season. All consuming drama. Infinite outcome possibilities. Occurring in real time. With chance of interactivity should the storm reach where you live. This sort of drama needs snacks.

Or at the very least we can all tweet #HurricaneSandy again and again.

I thought that, seeing as I'm hunkered down in the Midwest, that the hurricane posed no issue for me. Then I saw the Weather Channel's map of "likely power outages" (not me) and "possible power outages" (holy crap, that's me!) and I decided it couldn't hurt to take a trip to the store, stock up on essential snack food, get some fresh batteries, and fill a couple pitchers with drinking water.

They've not said if the power outages are possible all the way as far inland as Chicago and Wisconsin because of the winds alone (they're gonna be doozies) or if it's going to be because of rolling outages and demands on the grid. I remember all too well the rolling blackout of 2003 that darkened New York to Detroit. That was actually the first time in my life I'd ever seen a "brown out" before the blackout. My mother later told me that "brown outs" were common when she was a kid -- the television, which was on at the time,  got dim, then came back, then dimmed to almost nothing, then came back, then ... nothing. Four days worth of nothing.

President Obama got on air and made a very calm, very presidential, very rambling statement that people need to follow evacuation orders so that the first responders we have in place won't be unnecessarily put in harm's way. Reading between the lines: don't be selfish.

New Jersey's governor -- and I know very little about New Jersey's governor but this statement fits with everything I know of him -- says simply: "Don't be stupid. Get out."

Their concern is well founded. My New Yorker friend reposted this link to a Hurricane Irene cartoon today on Facebook. The fear among public officials, weather forecasters, and FEMA is always that when we predict a bad storm and it doesn't happen, that the next prediction will be seen as crying wolf.

Of course, all it takes is looking at the water mark in Battery Park. Today, four hours before the storm makes landfall, the water mark is only an inch below its height during Irene.

I'm not terribly worried for me, but being prepared never hurts.

Prepared. Like buying tortilla chips.

Twitter abounds with pictures of people's preparedness bounty. Namely beer. Practical for multiple reasons -- passing the time and, should the power go out, having all that cold beer filling the fridge will help keep the entire contents from rapid spoilage. (Not that we need more reasons for beer.)

Prepared. Like laying in supplies of brie and water crackers, Swiss Roll Cakes and salsa.

Prepared. Like checking the flashlight, finding it dead, then being responsible and purchasing new batteries for it, only to put in said new batteries and have the light bulb pop and die. So I have no flashlight. The good news is that I have plenty of candles and those at least give off heat -- important for someone looking to be prepared for a Midwestern windstorm and/or winter. Unfortunately, they also give off scent.

Scented candles: ready to stink up blackouts in pastel colors and high class holders. And banana bread (it's cooling on the rack). Yep. We're prepared.

Not running, just groaning

A little over three weeks ago I decided I was going to run a 5k in October. This would mean a lot of training as I was in 5k-walk shape but not 5k-run shape. I promised  running updates.

I found a map of the course and the very next day I did the entire course. I walked most of it, but I started the interval training that had worked so well for me six years ago doing short spurts of jogging to gain strength and stamina.

By the end of that first run/walk, I was a full of emotional contradictions. As I wrapped up after pushing myself, all I could think was: Running sucks. But it's so awesome.

I was ready to do it all again.

Then disaster struck.

Okay, maybe not disaster, but it is painful and it is keeping me from running.

I've injured or aggravated the muscles in my lower back the first week I was back to teaching. Standing on a cement floor in crappy shoes (honestly, you'd think that we would have evolved to be able to stand flatfooted without any shoe-support, but nope, crappy flat-as-pancakes dress flats are more pain than promise).

During week one of The Pain In The Back Saga, my back seized while I was trying to get off the couch where I thought I'd been calmly resting and relaxing my poor, battered body. Nope. Not resting. Having a muscle seize is a bit like localized electrocution. There's pain, then the muscle stops moving. I'm told by athletic trainer types that this is known as "muscle guardianship," your body's means of preventing  you from doing any more injury to already injured or aggravated muscles. Yes, I have muscle guardians! The moniker is way cooler than the reality.

The reality was that there was no one else home to help me at the time. Since I'd been trying to stand when the muscle went into guardianship, I was now in a position where going back to sitting wasn't an option. Instead I wiggled. I managed to get myself flat on my back on the couch, then used my legs and arms to roll off onto my hands and knees. Once on the floor, I could use my legs to get myself into a standing position.

The whole thing is quite funny in retrospect -- I think it would be terribly funny to watch a video of me wiggling around without moving my back/stomach muscles -- although at the time, the experience was tinged with terror. Namely the fact that as I was alone, it wasn't like I could just holler for help until someone gave me a hand and/or put my sad ass into a gurney and cart me off to the doctor.

It's been going on for almost three weeks now. Some days are better than others. Some days I'm smarter than others. When I had a bad flare up, relapse, not-quite-a-guardian-muscle-but-you-can-bet-I-was-afraid-it-would-turn-out-that-way incident, I finally stopped taking ibuprofen sporadically to cope with the pain and started taking it methodically to address the inflammation.

It's made me appreciative of the ease of movement I usually have. Simple tasks like laundry and vacuuming become giant mountains of pain and tall spiky shards of stress. I start humming that "there's so many things your hands back can do" tune that's used in the Delta faucet commercial which might be a Sesame Street original* every time I twist, turn, bend, list, sway, reach, lean, and rollover.

It's also made me really appreciate of the headboard on my bed; more than one time, the only reason I've been able to roll over without sipping from that long, cold, drink of pain is by hanging on to the headboard and using my arms to rotate my body. ... I have to have been hilarious to watch for the past few weeks.

* (I have no proof of where the original came from and if it really is a Sesame Street original or a Sesame Street remake, but I did find a recording of Jerry Nelson as Count von Count singing the full song.)

Updated blogging schedule

The summer doldrums have struck this blog hard. Although I've been working all summer on World Weaver Press (working and summer being concepts that rarely produce fruit for a grad student / college instructor), Speak Coffee to Me has sadly languished. Therefore I'm announcing a new blogging schedule!

On Tuesdays I will have some sort of post! Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 4, 2012, will feature "Jumping the Shark." Oh yes, it will.

On weekends I will continue with Ad of the Week, as per request of the Jud -- my longest running and most faithful comment-maker. (Dear Jud, please note, you now have a title. This does not come with a knighting ceremony, but could with some fanagling.)

And intermittently, I will have RUN POSTs. Because after an almost six year hiatus, I'm a runner again. Who knew? But I'm also a reluctant runner. In short: this is bound to be humorous.

So that's the new blog schedule. Be seeing ya, folks!

The thing about summer is that it's hot

Heat and I don't mix. I get heat sick fairly easily. Increased water consumption helps, but I'm still miserable until my body cools back down. And while I love summer, the long days, the (false) sense of freedom, the sunlight and color -- the thing about summer is that it's hot.

Shocking, I know.

Which is why, at 9:30 this morning, I was fixing a roasting chicken for the oven. While I'm not in the habit of fixing an entire chicken for lunch, I knew full well that roasting this bird for the dinner hour would result in heat stroke or a rather alarming strain on the air conditioner.

Why bother roasting a chicken when the temp all week is in the mid-90s?

It was on sale.

Sale! Entire roasting chicken, only $0.89 per pound! It called my name. It called to my budget. It called out, "Hey baby, I'd taste so good if you took me home and cooked me up."

Catcalling poultry aside, I also find myself doing laundry and running the dryer in the AM now. I used to wait until night to do such things, but the heat build up this year is tough. It hangs around and doesn't let me out of its grip until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. It's completely foreign to me to have a load of laundry going before 10:00 AM, but there it is, spinning round and round in the suds.

Right now, as I type, the heat's still manageable. Maybe I'll get in another load before the heat gets oppressive and I shut down appliances in favor of a cool house.

Group activities I don't understand

Here's a male activity that I don't understand: the collective cleaning of the car.

Every few months, My neighbor and his friends roll a baby shopvac out of his apartment, the cord trailing fifteen feet to his front door, and proceed to vacuum, dust and polish the car's interior. I've never seen them wash the outside of the car, presumably because there aren't any water hookups on the parkinglot side of the building. But the inside of this guy's car gets top at-home treatment.

Now in the nine years I've been driving my current vehicle, I think I've vacuumed it out twice. I probably have wiped down the dashboard a few more times, but that's mostly because when you transport cats over distance, they deposit fuzz, cage or no cage.

Would it be nice if the interior of my car was cleaner? Yes.

Do I feel the need to clean it? No.

I'd much rather exert cleaning effort on clothes, dishes, and hard to reach surfaces like the area behind my headboard which may be the cause of some of my nighttime stuffiness. Breathe Right strips, myass.

I understand that my cleanliness priorities don't line up with everyone else's. And I understand that there's just something about the bond between a dude and his car that invokes this sort of monthly activity. Yes, yes, grunting manly noises. Agreed.

Here's what I really don't get: all the dude's friends that help clean the car. 

Last week, there were four dudes out there cleaning. Willingly. It wasn't that they were being punished or that they wouldn't see their allowance if they didn't help. These were just four dudes, out there cleaning a sedan that last year sat in the same spot for four weeks with a flat tire. They didn't bring their own cars to clean, so it wasn't a "having a crew gets a big job done quicker" thing and it wasn't about being close to a super cool sports car -- although the rims on this thing could blind someone if the light hits them right. It was just an "I'm going to help my friend clean his car" thing. And I don't get it. I've volunteered my help to many friends many times -- sometimes even for cleaning -- but never have I helped a friend clean the inside of a car. Nor have I been asked to help. Sure, my parents made me when I was younger, but that's a wholly different power structure.