Wake up and be an adult, America.

“The secret is not to dream,” she whispered. “The secret is to wake up. Waking up is harder. I have woken up and I am real. I know where I come from and I know where I’m going. You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.” – Tiffany Aching, The Wee Free Men

For me it’s like this: I’m gonna check my privilege here first. I am a white cis gendered woman who grew up middle class. I didn’t have everything I wanted, but I never had to WORK for what I needed until well after high school. I may be queer and have a documented disability now (epilepsy), but those parts of me didn’t impact how I moved through the world until well into my adulthood.

When I reached the point in life where my parents no longer paid my bills, it dovetailed with us splitting on beliefs and ideology and sometimes really simple things, and I had this hard realization. My parents didn’t exist to take care of me. I existed to take care of me. My blood family is a good thing, but it involves a lot of negotiating and often because I’m queer and now married, they can be difficult negotiations. But nothing changes with them unless I stand up for myself.

I’m feeling this way about the US government, especially today, because through history we’ve (we = white people) expected the government to be our parents. We put presidents in power and expect them to take care of us. Presidents, senators, reps, governors, all the way down the line, and clearly that’s not going to work. It’s not how it’s ever worked. Those folks have abused their power. I, personally, have felt safe the last eight years, knowing that Obama is in the White House. And that’s just like letting my dad pay my rent. It’s passive and irresponsible. It’s me not taking care of my country or my rights or my future. It’s me putting all my trust in one guy.

And people of color have known this is how it works all along. They know the government isn’t their friend. Their protector. Their buddy. They’ve had to fight, protest, resist, organize, etc, all along to get any rights.

And now liberal, white folks, those of us who want to wake up instead of dream, we are learning the lessons of a young person meeting the real world. Daddy’s not gonna bail you out anymore. And honestly, Daddy wasn’t doing you any good bailing you out in the first place, because it made you believe that having your person in power meant you were going be taken care of. Like some spoiled college kid. That shit ain’t gonna cut it anymore it. Sorry.

Basically, all this is to say, is we gotta grow up. Americans need to be adults about self-governance. Because regardless how it was with cool Dad Obama, we don’t have parents now. We’re on our own. We’re gonna have bills to pay and have needs to address. You’re going to need to negotiate with that government. Local and state government, first. We are gonna have to step up and govern ourselves. Every damn day.

I’m not saying I want to be here. I am saying we have to be.

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Listening to Me Again

Does that sound good? It’s been years since I wrote on this blog. Did you even know it still existed? So much has changed. I won’t boooooore you with the details. You can find them other places. Or you can ask me. Well, I suppose, a cliff notes version won’t take too long.

• I started blogging with Kristl on Sustainably Queer in 2012.
• We got married in 2013. I also got diagnosed with epilepsy after a grand mal seizure.
• I quit my higher ed job to pursue Urban Agriculture in early 2014.
• I did an awesome internship at the Chicago Botanic Garden that summer.
• Kristl and I finally made it to Italy in the fall of 2014.
• In early 2015, I start to learn about entrepreneurship, coaching, social media marketing, fancy stuff, and I tried to monetize Sustainably Queer.
• In May of 2015, I had an emergency surgery because of a life threatening ear infection that went rogue, and it kind of turned our world upside down.
• In the fall of 2015, Kristl and I left Chicago for Chapel Hill, NC and have been here ever since.

That’s the briefest of the brief. Oh the internal work. Oh the lessons I’ve learned.

Dearest friends: career changes, working for yourself, life threatening illness, not knowing where your support system will come from or your next money to pay they bills. These are significant challenges. I’ve been through some excellent times in the last four years and I have been through some significant trauma.

I can safely say I am coming back to myself, now with the help of some healers, some wonderful friends, and my dear partner who has been by my side through it all.

Want to test a young marriage? Try all of the above. Especially the part where you move to a new state and don’t have any money, any support system to speak of, and any jobs. That’s a goooooood test. Try it.

I’m not bragging. I’ve got only my heart to show for it. I’ve only really kept myself through it all, and I lost part of that for a while. Well, I didn’t so much lose myself, as I wasn’t able to see and access myself. It wasn’t safe for me to be me.

But here I am again. Ready to share. Ready to be vulnerable. Ready to laugh and play. Ready to post, show you my thoughts and hear your feedback. Because life is a give and take. It’s gotta be both. Stay in the flow, my friends. May you be well.

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30 by 30 Lists

I will be turning 30 on September 26, 2014, and I am planning on doing 30 things this year that I have wanted to do for a while.  Included are items related to my work, my hobbies, my relationship, and other life stuff.  It’s a grand mixture, but hopefully you will encourage me as the year goes on.  I plan to blog about my experiences and I will strike through items on this list as I finish them AND my third decade.

Note: I have this list saved as a page, so we/I can refer to it easily!

1. Perfect home made tom yum soup

2. Make kimchi at home

3. Take a romantic moonlit lake walk with kristl

4. Write letters to my 5 best friends telling them why I love them

5. Write letters to my parents telling them why I love them

6. Volunteer with Chicago food depository

7. Write letter to self at 40

8. Master basic Italian in mindsnacks

9. Do the Whole 30 for one month

10. Complete 5 self portraits in 5 different mediums

11. Do yoga every day for one month

12. Buy nothing for a week (intentionally)

13. Create handwriting font

14. Learn basic html

15. Learn advanced squarespace/wordpress editing

16. Kayak in the Chicago river

17. Take a Chicago architecture boat tour

18. Go on a silent retreat (weekend of silence)

19. Take a photo a day and post it on a dedicated instagram

20. Launch my life coaching business

21. Study the … and put it into practice (shhh)

22. Get rid of everything I don’t use or need in my closet

23. Clean out the junk at my parent’s house

24. Go geocaching in Chicago with Kristl

25. Make our tabletops into tables

26. Finish current crochet blanket

27. Open an etsy shop for lino cut cards and chakra bracelets

28. Go to an outdoor fitness class (tai chi/qi qong)

29. DJ Dance Dance Party Party

30. Get engaged and plan wedding

(30 books to read by the time I’m 30 on the next page…)

30 books for 30 Years

I also plan to read thirty books while I’m 29 which were suggested by my friends.  I haven’t 100% solidified this list yet, but the suggestions so far are listed below.

Lamb by Christopher Moore

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball

The Snow Train by Joseph Cummins

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruis Zafon

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Book Store by Robin Sloan

When the Stars Fell to Earth by Rebecca Tinsley

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Harley Loco by Rayya Elias

The Guernsey Library and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows/Mary Ann Shaffer

Carry On, Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

Chinaman by Shehan Karuntil

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

The View from Saturday by EL Konigsburg

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

East of Eden by Steinbeck

Sexing the Cherry by Winterson

The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Native Speaker by Chang Rae-Lee

So Far from God by Ana Castillo

Revenant Road by Michael Boatman

 Bonuses: Dr. Sleep by Stephen King (because I have to)

Blankets by Craig Thompson

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Starting Off Serving: EQIL

Way back in January of this year, Kristl and I were discussing ways we could help fund our trip to the national GALA choir conference in June. We were very much new to fundraising and we didn’t really know where to start. Kickstarter seemed a little out of our scope of fundraising, but we came across Pledgie.com as a feasible alternative. We emailed our friends and posted on facebook and were able to raise about $1000 towards our trip. As part of our message to our donors, we promised to do one hour of service for every $10 we raised. We were hoping to start that service early in 2012 and complete our pledge by the end of the year, but as it often does, life got in the way. Today, finally we were able to start our “paying it forward” so to speak. Out of 100 hours of pledged service, we are 4 down, 96 to go! Woo!

That being said, this pledge to do service together to pay back by proxy our generous donors is not to meant to be an end all be all. The goal, really, is to start a tradition and a pattern of service in our household. We want to donate our time and our talents to organizations that we believe in and who need a couple extra hands every once in while. I have always admired those volunteers who were regulars in their organization. They were clearly there often enough to know the staff and patrons. They were established and invaluable. I want the spirit of service to be that ingrained in my life; that it is as much a part of my vocation as the work I do for money. It’s a long and lonely life to live for only your own gain. Serving others or working with others towards a common goals is the stuff the good life is made of. So, Kristl and I are committed to finding that part of the good life; to creating it and cultivating within our times of service.

We started our journey tonight by doing data entry for Equality Illinois. We are gay and hope to be married someday, hopefully in the United States, specifically in Illinois. So this issue is near and dear to our hearts. Data entry hardly has the immediate emotional payoff that, say, making a meal for the homeless does, but the whole time I had our goal in mind. The best part of the evening, aside from the pizza and the silly jokes of the coordinator, was the content of some of the data cards. They, of course, included contact information from individuals supporting marriage equality in Illinois, pretty standard stuff. At the bottom of the card was the payoff. People were given an option to explain why they supported marriage equality. Some were very simple and straightforward, like “I am a gay male,” or “We have a civil union, but want the same rights as everyone else.” Some were more personal, like “my brother should be able to marry his partner” or “my grandchild should be able to marry whomever she loves” or “our child should be able to see her parents legally married.” Some were a little funny, like “it’s not that bad” or “everyone should have equal rights no matter how they sex”. But most were moving and simply stated that they saw it as a matter of civil rights, equality, and at the base, fairness. The best part for me was that the majority of the cards we were entering were from Central and Southern Illinois, which are known to be much more conservative parts of the state. Honestly, if the question of gay marriage were put up to Chicago right now, I could assure you the measure would be passed. To change the law of a whole state, however, it will take a lot more movement and explaining, campaigning and changing minds.

As I was sitting there typing, I realized that I would do as much as was possible for me to do to make this a reality. Not only for myself, or for other gay couples in Illinois, but as an act of social justice. The comments on the cards made it clear to me that the people who support gay marriage are not merely making a concession; they see it as a necessary stop on the course of history. It is a destination on the arc of justice Dr. King envisioned. People should be set aside because of who they are or how they were born. I want to believe that even if I weren’t gay I would see this as a matter of justice and not misconstrue it as a matter of religion.

My mom always bristles when I tell her about one friend of mine or another who doesn’t get married in the church or doesn’t have a pastor do the ceremony. She very clearly sees the institution of marriage as a Christian institution. I hope that she is willing to open her mind to the reality of marriage as a civil institution outside of the church. I have no doubt that I would be able to find a pastor to marry Kristl and me, but for that marriage to come along with some real rights, we need to have the law of the land behind us. I grew up feeling like I would never be able to get married because I kinda already knew I was gay. Every straight child can spend their childhood dreaming in some way about their fabulous wedding day; gay children should also have that option. The goal Equality Illinois is working towards has been realized in other states and none of those states have dissolved. It’s going to happen and when the work is done, the solution is going to be relatively painless. In the mean time, we will continue to do the work. I am totally willing to head back to EQIL and do more data entry, or whatever they need me to do. If you are interested in helping too, I will include the contact info for the organization below.

One final note, we are going to start a separate blog to keep track of our volunteering activities. Please keep an eye out for when we create that blog and switch over so you add it to your reader and subscribe. Both Kristl and I will be posting on the service blog. The only holdup right now is deciding on the best name for the blog. Nothing has really jumped out at us yet. More updates soon! Lakeview Pantry is next! Thanks for reading!

Info for Equality Illinois:

Equality Illinois

Address: 3318 N. Halsted – Chicago 60657

Phone: 773-477-7173

Website: www.equalityilllinois.org

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/equalityillinois

Twitter: @EqualityILL

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Prosperity from Simplicity

Welcome all to 2012!  I am feeling pretty inspired by my life at the moment.  Or, at least, I am ready to make more of it.  In the last year, I have done a lot of recovery and cleanup from pain in my past.  I’ve spent time under the care of many beautiful friends, an incredible doctor of Chinese medicine, and a new love.  I feel so much more myself than I have in years.  I also don’t feel like I’m regressing to a previous self, but rather the pain and rejection I’ve endured has given me perspective and a jump off point for growth.  I’m feeling pretty focused, grounded, and prepared for a new challenge.  I’m still healing and letting things go, but I am pretty focused on the future.

So, what of the future? And how to make it as bright at possible?  I like things the way they are, but I feel like I could do more.  In the last 6 months, I’ve been way busier than I ever thought I could be.  Every non-sleeping or non-working hour has been planned out or filled with content. I don’t have many hours to just sit with myself, read, and breathe.  I feel like the busyness is good to a point, but I do start to lose myself in it.  And when I lose myself in the busyness, I become irritable, bitchy, and just unpleasant to be around.  I see myself going down this path and I feel powerless to stop it.  My introverted side starts to whimper and curl up.  It’s a slippery slope.  I see this as an imbalance that throws off my whole way of living.  I overschedule myself, so then I don’t have time to exercise and I’m forced to eat take out instead of cooking for myself.  I stop really enjoying what I’m doing and I spend my busy time daydreaming about what I would be doing if I weren’t at dinner with friends, or at the club, or at whatever other activity you could imagine up for me.  All this is to say that I’m feeling the need to simplify.  Simplify my social schedule.  Simplify my exercise routine.  Simplify my diet.  Simplify my possessions.  Simplify my ways of communicating with the ones I love.

I’m hoping and dreaming of more prosperity.  Thinking of ways I could possibly disentangle myself from a 9-5 and travel the world.  Thinking of ways to make money on the side and create helpful things people have never even considered before.  I’m dreaming.  It’s my way to dream.  In the past, I’ve been pretty effective at making those dreams a reality. But the unnecessary complexity of my life has distracted me from busting it to the next level.  Realizing this, I’ve decided to take steps towards simplicity and thus steps towards new prosperity of thought, laughter, and cash.

I’ve never been someone to seek after money in an aggressive way.  Being an only child, I got enough allowance growing up to waylay my need to get a job until I got to college.  But currently, I’ve been seeing my paycheck disappear in an alarming way each month.  I want to have the financial freedom to travel at will (e.g. fly to the west coast for the weekend just for fun), I want to have the financial freedom to keep my body at it’s healthiest (e.g. good shoes, the best organic food, massage, acupuncture, etc.), I want to have the financial freedom to support the causes I believe in (Chicago Food Depository, WCPA, Doctors Without Borders, Lambda Legal, etc.).  How will simplicity get me to these goals?  Hopefully, I will be able to find a path to prosperity by clearing my mind of clutter, by then thinking clearly, by waylaying laziness, and by updating my personal assessment of my own strengths and weaknesses.  Sometimes, I still forget that I am a autonomous adult.

Another thing I’ve realized I’ve set aside for more “fun” activities is church.  Church, I think, takes different forms for me, but I have been out of the practice of church for about a year.  I’ve gone on Sunday mornings still, but only rarely, and I’ve jumped around a lot between congregations, denominations, and expressions of spirituality.  I have forgotten many of my spiritual strengths and I have forgotten my ability to lead competently (a spiritual gift).  I have ignored my intuition and my connection with the natural world.  I have been pretty off kilter because of it.  I do find choir is like church for me, but the community of choir does not challenge me the way church does.  Being gay and being godly are not mutually exclusive, but there is some tension there as well.  Luckily, the two churches I’ve been considering being more involved in are accepting of folks of all sexualities.  My thought is that I will vacillate between the two.  One is a ECLA Lutheran Church (a congregation committed to the reconciliation with the LGBT community).  This church is similar in many ways to the church I grew up in.  I know most of the hymns, I am familiar with the liturgy and the rites and sacrements practiced there.  The pastors seem kind and loving; the practitioners welcoming.  I would like to get involved.  It’s a 7 minute walk from my house. It’s pretty perfect.

But I am also convinced that Lutherans (and Christians for that matter) miss a lot in the world going on around them.  Also, at the height of my spiritual practice in the past, I leaned more towards mysticism than most of my peers.  So, I am also engaging with a transdenominational spiritual center in the area.  Sounds kinda like a cult, but it’s more associated with the teachings of The Science of Mind.  The Science of Mind is a little off putting to me, in its description, but the followthrough of their spiritual practice is not unlike what I sought after and experienced in my most meaningful moments as a fiery young christian.   It’s fresh, challenging, and affirmative.  Services there keep me alert and learning more than I do in Lutheran church, because I am a little on guard and not complacent.  All this is to say, Church makes me a better person, I’m sure of it, even at the very least it reminds me this life is not all about me.

The other thing I’m doing is creating a vision board.  http://christinekane.com/how-to-make-a-vision-board/  I think it’ll give me a better focus on what I want out of the next year of my life.  Goals are so 2011.  Vision boards are the future thinking tools of the future.  I’ll let you all know how it goes.  (I will do my best to keep the blog updated this year.  My posts were so sparse last year that I lost a lot of readership.)  I also read The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris, which I found pretty vocationally inspiring.  There may be a startup in my future.  Who knows, gotta do some market research first.

Please feel free to post a response if the Spirit moves you. I’ll be right here.  Living life by wandering.

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Commitment to Myself

If you are a loyal reader, you may have noticed I haven’t posted in a while.  You’ve noticed, or you haven’t. I’m not sure I have more than a handful of loyal readers.  Probably because  I can’t seem to get into a habit on this blog.  I should force myself to take up daily posts for a while, even if the content is reduced to what I’ve been reading in the New Yorker lately.  Or my random thoughts about the real draw of late night dance parties.  Or my feelings about the cost of living in Chicago and how your spending rises to the cost and you just forget how much other people might not be spending elsewhere.  I could also post the terse little poems I write on the L platforms while waiting for trains that seem to never come, until they do.  They are short, self-centered and patently unimaginative, but they are something.  There’s a lot I could be doing with the time between waking and sleeping that I don’t seem to be getting around to doing.  I have been busy, however: working out, singing, networking, cooking, dancing, reading, traveling.  Let’s hit on some of those topics.  Hit it, yeah.

About working out, I think maybe, finally, I am growing up in this regard.  Or maybe I’m making friends who prioritize physical fitness and inspire me to do the same.  Basically, I’m tired of looking at my body and thinking, this could be so much better if I did x, y, z.  So, now I’m doing x and y, at least.  We’ll see about z.  I’ve started working out during my lunch break, attending the core class, and pitched an idea to the fitness coordinator to do a summer fitness competition, which she picked up.  So, 40 days of fitness starts June 1st.  It’s like lent for my lazy ass.  I’m excited and not just about the prizes.  I’m also working on my jump shot.  I want to be a constant contributor to my bball team next year.  I want them to trust me with the ball.  It’s a nice thought, but what this all comes down to is my refusing to accept that the best I ever was was in high school or college.  Sure, I have some injuries that will make things more difficult, but there’s no reason for me or any human to believe that they’ve topped out, that they’ve hit the peak and are doing down indefinitely.  Improvement is always possible, as well as new growth.  Giving up is the only insurmountable flaw.  You can overcome anything else.  The best book I’ve read in the last 2 years is called The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.  It tells some incredible stories about stroke victims and paraplegics regaining use of their body parts and all kinds crazy ways people and doctors have figured out to rewire the brain.  At any rate, it makes me want to ask more of my body in my brain.  I don’t want to have to lose something to appreciate what I still have. Anyone who is human and has at least a high school reading level should read this book.  I will keep recommending it you until you do.

This spring, I decided to buy a subscription to The New Yorker. This has proved to be an excellent use of my money.  It gives me something less heavy than a book to carry on the L.  It gives me articles of the highest quality on current events.  First hand reporting on events I only heard about vaguely in the news.  It tells me about things I’ve never even considered: turkish soccer fans, the psychology of high fashion, laugh yoga, etc.  And the fiction is edgy and there’s poetry.  I’m really in heaven here.  I feel bad for neglecting my books, but seriously, I read 4 out of 5 days and I’m still two issues behind.  It’s great, I feel smarter, better informed, and I have conversation starters galore.  Conversation starters which likely will come in handy at speed dating next week, (wink,wink).

I went to New York a couple weeks ago.  It was the culmination of a year long plan to go there with some of my friends from Ravelry and eat a lot of delicious food and enjoy each others’ company.  It amazes me still that people you meet and converse with mostly online can be excellent friends with you in person.  It also could just be this specific group of people who are most delightful.  Anyways, I could tell you all about the food I ate there, and really some of the flavors keep coming back to me, like the full sour pickle, the pork fat based ramen broth, the blackout donut and so forth.  Good stuff.  But the reason I brought it up is because I wanted to compare New York to Chicago.  My expectation was that I would find New York kind of dirty and too busy compared to Chicago.  I thought the busyness would overwhelm me, but what I found overwhelming was the sheer size of the city.  It’s like 5 or 6 cities all linked to one another.  I never feel like Chicago is overwhelming because I can calculate exactly how long it would take me to get to the lake or the suburbs I grew up in from pretty much anywhere in the city.  Those are calm easy places for me.  So if I know that I am within a 20 minute walk to the lake or a 45 minute train ride to the burbs, I don’t feel the need to escape.  Escape is always there.  Always available.  So, I’m not sure I could live in New York. But visiting, visiting is nice.  Real nice.  I’m also supposed to visit D.C., San Francisco, and Rome in the coming year.  I thought I was going to make it to Argentina, but I’m not confident it’s going to happen.  Living in Chicago, while not madly expensive, does not leave a lot for the savings.  I do what I can.  I do what I can.

I guess this has been more of an update than a typical, inspiring post from yours truly.  Well, the part about fitness and not accepting limits was kind of inspiring, right?  Sure.  My next post is going to be a music post, so you audiophiles can get exited about that.  Also, I get a lot of publicity when I post and tag about music.  And what blogger doesn’t like publicity? Until then, don’t let anyone, especially not your own doubts, tell you that you can’t do something you want to do.  You can do whatever you want.  Do it.

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Luck be a Lady.

I used to put a lot of faith in coincidence.  I used to believe that serendipity was a sign.  I used to believe that things happened for a reason, in an order, with a driving force behind them.  I also used to be almost paralyzed by superstition, by the idea that certain physical things that happened to me reflected on my spiritual state and my personal fate.

Por exemplo, in college I was in a psychological turmoil about a relationship I was starting.  I was pretty convinced that it was a bad idea, but also I couldn’t tear myself away.  One night, I was walking down the hallway (in the res hall) after most people had gone to bed.  I wasn’t wearing my glasses, probably returning from asking someone something or going to the bathroom.  I was trailing my hand along the wall and looked down a moment before I almost touched a huge ugly spider sitting on the wall outside my room.  I was afraid of spiders at the time, and sort of pushed myself up against the other wall in shock.  While recovering (and working up the courage to get past the spider and into my room) I thought to myself:  This is just like my situation.  I am blinded (no glasses) by what I want and I can’t see the huge ugly trap I’m falling into.  It was sobering.  I believed that the ‘sign’ pointed to my need to avoid this relationship, to seek healthier things to do with my time.  And now, looking back, it seems completely crazy.  First, because I would wander around sans glasses frequently, it wasn’t an auspicious occasion.  Second, because spiders are everywhere and I should have just smashed the damn thing and gone to bed (sorry to those of you sensitive to the lives of all animals, it’s how I overcame my fear… smashing them). Third, because that relationship was happening, no matter how many spiders showed up.

I managed to torture myself with these real life metaphors for a while until I realized that it was just superstition and life isn’t really that directed.  It is what you make of it, and I was making a box for myself.  So, I threw out the box, and started fresh.  I discarded mysticism, I discarded the signs and the symbols; I embraced my post modern life, where signs and signals stand for nothing at all.  Seeing a rare animal in the woods was just that, not an event to glean any meaning from.  It meant there were animals in the woods.

Now, I’m starting to believe, however that I may have gone too far to into the pragmatists camp.  I am saying this because I have seen some people very close to me speak things into being.  I have seen signs and wonders in these last days.  And I’m still trying to figure it out (and figure myself out), but I have a feeling that luck might be turning my way.

Luck.  What is it worth? Do some people have it and others don’t?  How does luck play a roll in our society?  How much is luck and how much is cold hard statistics?  Today I was asking my friend how she got exactly what she wanted.  She said that two years ago she wrote down what she wanted (to live in a foreign country, become fluent in another language, meet a good partner) very specifically on a sheet of paper and then threw it away.  I was like, why did you throw it away?  She said it was her sign to the Universe that she trusted those things would come to her.  And they have.

She certainly attributes her success to the Universe at large, but within that she said luck played a factor.  She considers herself lucky to have gotten what she asked for, and I guess that means I am unlucky.  I haven’t sat down and made a written request to the Universe.  I haven’t prayed for specific things.  I just have a general idea of what I want from this life, where I want to do, who I want to meet, who I want to love.  I don’t think in specifics.  But maybe I should.

This evening, after my conversation with my friend, I was pawing through my bag trying to find a pen or some such junk and happened upon a fortune cookie fortune (actually a fortune, not a complement or a statement).  I don’t usually keep them, but this one was waiting for me.  It reads: You will be showered with good luck.

Showered with good luck, eh?  Do I have to define it?  Should I made a list for the sake of Luck?  I always get what I want at Christmas when I make a list.  But how do I know what I want is what I really need?  And how do I really know what I want?  If luck is going to play with me, don’t I still have to know when to roll the dice?  Or maybe I’m overthinking it (likely).  Maybe I just need to wait and see.  To get exactly what you’ve asked for from life, that is a blessing.  It’s lucky.  But others say you get what you make of it.  So it’s both.  You decide what you want and you ask for the blessing.

I have committed myself to writing out specifically what I want from the next 3 years.  Not career goals, but life hopes and dreams.  There’s no reason not to dream big, why not believe the best will come to you.  It’s positive visualization,  it’s forward thinking.  It’s the stuff of fantasy and religion.

We’ll see if Luck is a lady. The best is yet to come.

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Things my father shouldn’t say, but does anyway.

I’ve committed to telling a 5- minute story next month at this local story telling night in Bucktown (?), Chicago. To prepare, I’ve been thinking over my life, recent and past, to come up with a story befitting the general feel of the event.  We went in November and it was a lot of stories about drunken hi-jinx, family events, unbelievable happenings, but all humorous for the most part.  So, I guess I’ve been trying to think of a story in that genre.  I think the best stories are barely believable.  I think I’ve been through some barely believable events in my life, but I’m not sure any of them are solidly hilarious or equaling right ’round 5 minutes.

Since I’m having trouble coming up with one solid story, I’ve started thinking about some triptychs of shorter stories I could tell from my life.  Examples would be: three stories about dramatic injuries I’ve gotten in non-dramatic ways, three insane things which have happened to me on public transit, or three instances of my parents doing something that makes me cringe.  I’ve landed on “Things my father shouldn’t say, but does anyway” for the month of January.  And since I pretty much write like I talk and talk like I write, I thought I should write it out first for the 3-4 people who actually read this blog on a regular basis (you know who you are!)

My father is a 60-something ex-marine, ham-radio operator, and part time church leader.  He was in the marines in the early 70’s, was a navigator on one of the planes which could have dropped a nuclear bomb on Moscow, if the cold war had gone hot.  His way of communicating is a hodge podge of 70’s marine jargon, downhome country boy drawl, educated blather, and the occasional clever pun.  He usually entertains the friends I bring home to no end, because he is nothing if not gregarious and always has something to show off or embarrass me with.  He is set in his ways and likes to recount to me all the brainwash runoff he learns from FoxNews whenever the conversation goes even a little political (or sociological or economical).  While I find that aspect of his rhetoric irritating, I do love talking with him in the moments where he’s being real and honest and not trying to multi-task while talking to me.  We’ve had some good talks, Dad and I.

However, there are times when my dear father says things he should never say, especially not to or around his only daughter.  The first example of this goes back to my grade school years, where, befitting a man of his background, my father would use the word “hump” in place of the word “carry.”  This is not unique to my situation, I realize, but imagine how mortifying, upon reaching puberty and the understanding of what “hump” can mean and hearing your dad say, “hey, you want me to hump this bag home for you?” “I’m going to hump this downstairs.”  “You shouldn’t hump this all the way home if you don’t have to.”  No, no, no… no one is humping anything; especially right now, especially not my book bag.  I think I might have explained its meaning to the modern ear at some point, because he doesn’t hump my bags anymore.

Just the other day, we were driving in the city, and we were on a north-south street, trying to find an east-west street to go west on.  We found one, and upon making the left, my father said, “ah, yes, penetration.”  Ah, yes, penetration, because that’s not awkward and sexual at all.  But of course, in his mind, he was thinking about flying a plane in the military.  I can guarantee it, 100%.  But there I am in the back seat, exchanging flustered glances with no one, shaking my head.

The last, and perhaps best, example I have for you happened sometime in my early college years.  My dad and I were having a heart to heart about life and the future and such things.  I was, for some reason, inspired to gripe about about my cup size (maybe a sign that I am my father’s daughter).  I was concerned that my less-than-abundant endowment would make me less attractive to likely suitors.  And I’m sure Dad started off with some uninspiring platitudes about that not mattering and what being inside counting… and then without any warning, he provided me with what ended up being the take-away message: more than a mouthful is wasted.  More than a mouthful is wasted, sort of a flat-chest centric belief, wouldn’t you say?  I mean C and D breasted women seem to be pretty attractive to a lot of people.  People who likes curves in particular.  I guess maybe this pronouncement by my father was more than a friendly encouragement to a daughter sans boobs.  It may be the closest thing to a sex talk we’ve had.  And at that time, I still had a virginal understanding of the world.  I can’t even say that those kind words from my father were not well placed and gave me a little more confidence when faced with a world full of enormous boobs.  However, when I recount this story to my friends, they are almost always flabbergasted that a father would say that to his daughter.  I shrug my shoulders; what can I say, it’s something my father said.  There’s no stopping that train.

Anyways, that’s the basic gist.  I don’t know if it’ll ever make it to the streets.  I’ve been really into talking about my father lately, for whatever reason.  Maybe by the third thursday in January, I would have thought of a better story to recount.  In other news, merry christmas.  I have a few days off, so I’m going to try to get a few more posts in before the beginning of 2011.

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