hey buddy, you got change?

I don't usually write posts in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, that's because I am usually at work. Not today. Today I am curled up in my bed trying not to die. Actually, I feel fine, except for one small thing... every time I move the world starts spinning. So as long as I am staying relatively still I am fine. I'm guessing I have some inflammation of the inner ear going on. It started when I woke up this morning to use the bathroom at 4:45. I stumbled into the bathroom. I had just woken up from a dream that I was back at Carleton about to start my junior year. In the dream Jamie and I were joking about how we didn't have much time left at college which in the dream seemed so funny to us because we still had two whole years left. Two years in terms of college time seemed like forever. I woke up from the dream so sad. I wish I could redo my entire senior year. What a waste.

Anyways, so I woke up, stumbled into the bathroom, nearly missed the toilet and had to grab onto the wall to stop myself from falling into the shower. "Whoa!" I thought to myself, "how much did I have to drink last night?" I thought about it and realized I had nothing to drink the night before. There was no reason for the world to be spinning like this.

I finally managed to make it back to sleep and had a dream that Carol Burnett was my shrink. That has nothing to do with this story other than that it was really funny.

So here I am, hours later, having successfully wasted most of the day but starting to get very bored. Still have a bit of a fever and am trying to entertain myself without moving.

During my many hours of laying pathetically in my bed today I thought about a question that a friend had recently asked me. Would I be willing to get back together with my ex-boyfriend if he changed for me? Would I want him to?

That's a tough question. I've only ever had one boyfriend who tried to change me (Brian) and I really resented him for it. Yet, I think there are times when people can change and want to change and just need to be given the opportunity to change or need to be given a nudge.

I have made changes for boyfriends in the past and they were positive changes that either I didn't realize I needed to make until they showed me or that I needed help with changing. I've gotten better with money, better with communicating, and I've dropped some of my more annoying habits. Change can be good. Other people can help us become better/improve ourselves.

But to change FOR somebody? I think it has to be a change that you WANT to happen in your life. If you change just to make somebody happy then you will end up resenting them.

You want somebody to love your for who you are, faults and all. So you should be willing to love somebody else for who they are, faults and all. If you need them to change for you to love them, maybe that's not really love.

On the other hand, I believe you can love somebody and just not be compatible with them. Does that diminish that love?

I guess my answer is no. I don't want my ex to change for me. People need to make changes for themselves. If those changes just so happen to make them into people that I would get along better with, well who knows...

Remember the times

Michael Jackson is dead. Michael Jackson. King of Pop. Wacko Jacko. Whatever you want to call him, you can't deny the impact that he has had on this world. He was a talented man and his music has brought joy to so many people.

When I was a little girl I asked for his Bad album for Christmas. I ended up getting three copies!

How many times did I lip sync to Man in the Mirror as I watched myself in the mirror?

He's gotten some bad press but I have to be honest with you, I liked the man. So he hung his baby out over a balcony. Big deal. It's not like he dropped it! And while I think he could have used some better judgement with those kids, I doubt that he molested them.

I, like so many others, was watching some of his old videos tonight. He was a star. He just got it. You can't teach that. He was a natural performer. When he was up there singing you could see the light and the energy pouring from him.

And he was cool. Daring. Think about the things he did! The moonwalk. The crotch grab. The white glove. All those crazy outfits. He was a trendsetter.

On a side note, did you know the Sheryl Crow was once his back up singer?

My biggest regret is that I never got to see him in concert. He will be missed but his music will live on.

too hot to handle

Yesterday was hot. Oh so hot. It was so hot out that when I stood next to the balcony window and huffed on the window, the glass didn't even fog up. I'd never seen that before! 

I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. That wouldn't have been that surprising seeing as how it was 80 degrees out but I had the air conditioner going full blast so I wasn't too hot. That's when I realized what it was- I had just broken a fever. No wonder I felt like such crap yesterday- I had a fever- but it was so hot out that I didn't even realize it! 

that's a first

I've written drunk emails before, it's true. Maybe even sent a drunk text or two. But last night was the first time I've ever written a drunk blog. 

I have to admit that upon waking up this morning, hungover as all get out, an image of myself plopped down in front of the computer popped into my mind. "Oh no!" I thought, "What did I write?"

I was pleasantly surprised to find the blogs that I wrote last night to be somewhat coherent. At least as coherent as the blogs I write sober in any case! 

What I find amusing though is that I didn't just write one drunk blog entry. I wrote three. What can I say, when you gotta blog you gotta blog. 

awesome book

I recently finished a book called Disabled Fables by Dan Montville. I highly recommend it. Don't just get it from the library. Go out and buy it. This man deserves your money.

The book is about a family that raises a disabled child named Oscar. Granted, this book meant slightly more to me because for a brief time in high school I dated Oscar's brother, Alex, but this book can and will touch anyone who reads it. 

Have you given to charity this month? Go to Amazon.com right now and by a new copy of Disabled Fables. It's the least you can do. 

The book is funny. Granted, I am a sucker for a good pun, but the book is seriously laugh out loud funny. And sweet. I may be PMSing but that does not at all diminish the fact that tears came to my eyes while reading this book. 

My uncle is mentally handicapped. You may not know that because it didn't affect my life much. My uncle was put in a home before I was even born. I thought that he had been in a home since he was born. That is not true, he lived with my father's family for many years. My Uncle Tommy, unfortunately, hates being around a lot of people. He is the middle child in a family of 15 children. Being around a lot of people was sort of unavoidable. As he got older it got to be too much for him and they decided for his safety that he would be better off in a home.

I've never even met him. He doesn't like new people.

But Oscar still lives at home. Wreaking havoc and winning hearts all at the same time.

It is so interesting to read a book about your friend's life while they were growing up. When I was dating Alex, I knew that he had a disabled brother. When we were talking on the phone my freshman year of high school ("Hey, whatcha doing?") I knew that he was making his brother peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen but I never thought much of it. I also knew that he often had to call me back later because right then he had to go search for Oscar who had taken off again. 

I'm pretty glad that my parents haven't written a tell all book describing all the details of my pre-pubescent life.

But this book is very special and highlights the remarkable sacrifices that a family has to make when they have a child with disabilities. Yet at the same time it highlights the funnier side of it. 

On a side note, I was talking about this book with a client of mine who happened to have a brother with Downs Syndrome. She laughingly said, "Yeah, when I was growing up, I thought every family had a child with disabilities." 

This was because growing up her family not only belonged to, but started many support groups for parents with a child with disabilities. While the parents were at the meetings all the children were just thrown together. My client was even sent to the same summer camp as her brother. A camp for children with disabilities. All the children looked at her funny, because she was the weird one. 

I know that in this brief blog I haven't really captured what was so great about this book, but trust me, you should go out and  buy it. Come on, have I ever led you wrong in the past?

How much money is enough

Is there such thing as enough money?

Do you make enough money or do you wish you made more?

I often say that I have my dream job but I wish that they paid me 4x as much. I have enough to get by, but with 4x my salary I would have enough to take some awesome vacations, to put money in savings, help others in need and pay my taxes. What more would I need?

You sometimes hear about people who take jobs that they hate out of school just to pay their bills but once they get their bills under control they are going to find a job that they really like. 

For most people this is complete and utter bullshit. 

Once they get used to living at a life at $80,000 they can't imagine going down to a life at $40,000. You get used to living a certain way. 

I have a friend who I am proud to say took a job out of law school that he sort of hated. He didn't full on hate it. There were days that he enjoyed it, but for the most part it sucked. Yet, it paid a lot of money so he kept at it. Within two or three years he paid back ALL of his law school loans. And then what did he do? He quit that job and took a clerking position (at less that half his current salary) with regular 9-5 hours that he knew he would enjoy. I applaud that. 

Could you do that? Are you happy with the money you make? Would you cut your salary in half for a job that you loved?

I just waited twenty minutes for a cab. That might be an under estimation. I had, in fact, resigned myself to taking the #20 Madison bus at 12:20 AM.  To all of you non-Chicagoans that might not sound that bad, but to people in the know, that basically means that I had given up hope and resigned myself to riding through the ghetto in a trampy little black dress in the middle of the night. 

Let's just say, it would not have been good. But after the twentieth cab driver passed me up, I realized that the bus was not only a possibility, it was a probability.

And then... I saw it... a taxi cab... with its light on. A beacon of hope on this dark, humid summer night. 

When the driver saw that I was alone he decided to stop. He was sick of having groups of drunk kids in his cab. He drove me out to my house and we had a little chat. 

It was much different from the chat that I had with my cab driver in the beginning of the evening. My first cab driver was telling us one joke after another... Did you like the landscaping that they did in D.C. on inauguration day? Huh??? Yeah, didn't you see it? They got rid of all the Bushes! Ba-dum-bum!

This cab driver was a large black man who was a citizen of Israel. His people being sold into slavery was the last plague that they (the Bible) talked about. If you look in the records of Christopher Columbus and the like coming to America you will see that they called the land "New Egypt." And in West Africa in the jails where they held the slaves before they were shipped off you can see traces of the graffiti that the slaves wrote... in Hebrew! 

It was an interesting cab ride. 

movies vs. books

They make a lot of movies from books. And the book is almost always better than the movie. I acknowledge that there are a few exceptions but that is usually because the book wasn't that great to begin with. 

There are many reasons why the books are better. They have to cut parts out of the movies to fit within time constraints or because they don't want to slow down the movie. They will portray things differently than how you imagined it which can make you not like it as much. 

My major problem with movies that were adapted from my favorite books is that no matter how good the actors are, they still can't portray everything that is going on inside the characters head. In the book, we know why the character is doing that. In the movie, we just know that the character is doing that. We don't know their motivation, unless of course they are muttering to themselves or if they tell another character what their motivation is. 

This got me thinking about life and the people around me. We can guess at people's motivations but there is so much more going on in people's heads than we can even imagine. 

Picture everything that goes in your head at any given time. The eighteen million things that you are worried about, thinking about, dreaming about, remembering during one day. And then just realize that that same thing is happening in everybody else's head too. 

Imagine that you are out at a bar and you see a man hit another man. We might think we know their motivation. We think, "He is angry because the man insulted his mother." But there can be a lot more to it than that. Maybe he is trying to earn the respect of his friends and show that he is a man because lately he had been too emotional. Maybe the person he punched looked like his father who had been abusive when he was a child. Maybe he was hoping that he would injure his hand when he punched the guy so that he wouldn't have to go into work the next day. Maybe he just found out that his wife was cheating on him. Maybe... maybe... maybe...

No matter how well we think we know someone, there is so much about them that we can never know. We are complicated beings. I think if we remember that it will help us treat other people with more respect and compassion. 

I don't get it

Clients come to me in ridiculous amounts of pain sometimes. They claim that it is making them miserable and that they would do anything to get rid of it. They would be willing to subject themselves to very expensive and painful surgeries if it would help alleviate their pain. 

Yet when you tell them that stretching for ten minutes a day or possibly doing a few strengthening exercises would make a huge difference, their eyes glaze over and you know that they aren't going to do it. 

Stretching: it's free, it's easy, it feels good, and it works- and yet you won't do it. What is wrong with you people?

farmer's market

Hooray! It's summer. Time for long, lazy days, warm sun and most importantly- the local farmer's market! 

The woman who runs our local farmer's market happens to live just a few doors down from us. She had a bit of a problem the other week when two of the farmers were fighting about green beans. Now, I didn't get the details of the fight, which is unfortunate because I really want to know exactly what about green beans was getting them so riled up. But something had to be done about this dispute. So my neighbor went to the "farmers' liason" at the farmer's market and told him about the problem. He told her, "Let me think about it and I'll get back to you later in the day."

So she comes back to him a few hours later and says, "What do you think?" His answer had nothing to do with the actual dispute.

He replied, "Well, Farmer A is an atheist. Whereas, Farmer B is a good Christian man, so I think we should side with Farmer B."

Really?!?

what is it about break rooms?

Apparently, Marie Claire is a better magazine than I gave it credit for because I found myself discussing another of their articles this morning while I was driving with my sister. I told her about this article they had about women who quit their jobs and became entrepreneurs. 

One of the women they talked about was the women who started Vosges chocolates. (Yum!) Her coworkers loved her chocolates and she thought, "Maybe I've got something here!" So she took her product to some big department store, Neiman Marcus, I believe, and pitched it to them. The man she talked to there basically told her, "Don't call us, we'll call you."

But then he put her chocolates in the break room and they were gone within minutes. He ended up calling her the next day and she has since grown to have annual sales in the millions. 

I told my sister about that and she said, "Yeah, but people will eat anything in break rooms." Which is so true. It doesn't matter what it is. If it is sitting there on the break room table, it suddenly becomes irresistible. 

My sister and her coworker wanted to test this theory. So they opened a box of croutons and put the croutons on a plate. Sure enough, within an hour, every last crouton was gone! 

What is it about break rooms?

who knew?

I was pleasantly surprised today when I was reading an issue of Marie Claire. I don't usually read that magazine. It doesn't have well written or informative articles, nor does it give you really good celebrity gossip, so what's the point? 

The magazine as a whole didn't really impress me but I stumbled across a two page spread that was titled, "What I Love About Me." They had interviewed women on the street in Iceland and asked them what feature they love about themselves. 

I love that. 

We all have things that we dislike about ourselves. Usually these magazines are all about how to change yourself or hide/cover the parts of yourself you don't like. Tone those abs! Hide those blemishes! 

But focusing on things that you actually like about yourself? What a concept! 

I could make a list of things I dislike about myself a mile long. My mom and I, who look exactly alike, have even joked about getting matching nose jobs so that we'd have noses we liked but still look exactly alike! 

In the spirit of things, I am going to make a list of things that I like about my appearance:

1. My hair color is always changing (naturally, with the sun) with shades of red, gold and brown

2. The gap in b/w my front teeth- I can blow bubbles through it!

3. My eyes- I can make them express what I am feeling 

4. My coloring- I don't burn in the sun

5. I have a freckle/birth mark on my leg in the shape of a heart

6. My earlobes

7. My smile

8. My eyebrows

9. My body is very proportionate

10. My height

11. The size of my head

What do you love about your body?

a fleeting thought

I've been thinking about something lately. Do you know what we really appreciate? We appreciate the things that we know aren't going to last. That bowl of ice cream? Delicious. But it we had sixty gallons of ice cream in the freezer that we had to get through? Ugh. Tummy ache just thinking about it. 

What about summer? The warmth. The carefree days. (Who has ever heard of the carefree days of winter? No one.) Why do we love summer? Well, because it rocks, obviously. But also because we know that it won't be here forever. Blink your eyes and suddenly it is fall, with winter nipping closely at its heels. 

Childhood. It comes and goes so quickly. That's what makes it so special. If your child was going to be a two year old forever? Living hell. But knowing that soon they will be going off to preschool? Cherish these moments! 

When someone you know unexpectedly dies it can make you appreciate life. You realize just how short life can be and you take full advantage of it. But usually we forget that. We see our lives stretching out before us interminably. And so, since there is always tomorrow where we can change and improve things, we make do with what we have today. But all those tomorrows suddenly become yesterdays and before you know it, years have passed and you are still going to that job you hate or are putting off your dreams. 

So again, I am going back to this theory that we appreciate things that we know won't last. 

But what about relationships? And this could really apply to any relationship: significant others, friends, parent/child.

What if you were told that you only had two years to be with someone and that you should just make the most of it, enjoy it as much as you can, celebrate each other? It's an interesting idea. I think it would be easier to overlook the little, annoying things that a person does when you know that you won't have to put up with it forever. My habit of saying "Yo," at the end of a sentence goes from being annoying, to quirky and endearing when you know you'll never hear it again two months from now. 

I'd venture to say that in some ways you would probably be happier in a relationship that you knew would only last two years. You wouldn't feel the need to change each other. You wouldn't nit-pick as much. 

I don't know if it would work though. I think most people would say, "Why bother? What's the point?" Why would you put all that work and effort into getting to know someone, to love someone, if it is just going to end? 

Yet do you not enjoy summer because you know winter is coming? Or is it sweeter? 

Obviously we love people and enjoy our time with them. That's true. But looking back, the time you had with a loved one seems so much sweeter after they have died or, less morbidly, the relationship is over.  

So why doesn't the whole "two year long relationship and then it's over" idea work? Why hasn't that become the ideal relationship cycle for our society?

I guess it's the idea that you are building a life together. Sure you can love someone for a limited time, but after those two years, where are you? Sure you have grown as a person but in terms of your life, you are back to square one. 

We (and I can make these random generalizations because it's my blog. So sue me.) are looking for someone to share the rest of our lives with. We want a permanent relationship. But does having a relationship that lasts a really long time make you appreciate it less?

My parents are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary this year. Has some of the spark and sizzle gone out of their relationship? Has it been replaced with routine and comfort? Would their relationship have been dearer to them if it had only lasted two years? 

I would say no, because with that long term relationship comes something that you don't get with a two year relationship. There is love and trust, a lifetime of shared memories, there is growing together. And when that is gone it will be even more missed than a quick little two year relationship and will seem even sweeter. 

But that brings me full circle to my original point though- as you relax into the comfort of these long term relationships- you see them continuing forever and so you don't appreciate them (at the time) as much as you should. You don't cherish them as much as you should. 

So I don't think the answer is to actually have two year relationships that then end. I think the answer is to have long term relationships but treat them like the precious things they are. Remember that that person is a prize who can be taken away from you at a moment's notice and treat them as such. 

Wow, that's a whole lot of rambling for one night. I would erase it but that's against the rules. I could have just as easily summed it up by saying, "Life is short. Appreciate what you've got."

Now go tell someone that you love them. 

this is almost embarrassing

I obviously live a much different life than my friends who are married with children. That is a given. Their days consist of shuttling their kids around to daycare. Picking up toys. Dealing with temper tantrums. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really knocking it. I want that. 

Because their days also consist of watching their kids learn and grow and getting hugs from their kids and watching them sleep so peacefully.

But my life is very different from that. I'm young and single with nary a care in the world. I have a pretty simple lifestyle. Since graduating from college I have managed to keep my expenses really down by not having a mortgage, a land line, cable, internet, pets, a car (which means no insurance, repairs, gas, etc.) and as I already said in a previous post, I don't spend a lot on clothes/accessories. 

So what do I do with all this extra money? I go to the theater. I can't get enough of the theater. I have no desire to be in the theater myself, but I love to watch it. All types. Big venues, small venues and really, really small venues (i.e., a guy's living room.) 

And I go see concerts. There is nothing like seeing live music. It transports you. 

And I see sporting events. I don't usually watch sports on TV. Yet I love going to actual live games. 

I am a pack rat and keep ticket stubs and the like. I came across my collection of stubs today as I was cleaning and the lists of things that I have seen is impressive and at the same time almost embarrassing to admit how often I treat myself to a show. I want to start out by saying that a lot of these tickets were gifts. I don't actually waste my entire salary on tickets. 

I long for the day when I will have children but I also know how sad it will be when I no longer get to see all these shows. Here is a list (though it is not complete) of the shows I have seen:

Musicals and plays:

Wicked- 6/24/05

The Santaland Diaries- Theater Building- 12/16/05

A Christmas Carol- The Goodman Theater- 12/05

A Year with Frog and Toad- Goodman Theater- 2/24/06

The Spelling Bee- Drury Lane Theater- 3/31/06

Spamalot- Cadillac Palace Theater- 4/21/06

Golda's Balcony- LaSalle Bank Theater- 6/2/06

The Golden Truffle- Redmoon Theater- 6/06

Seussical The Musical- Chicago Shakespeare Theater- 8/18/06

Annie- Lasalle Bank Theater- 9/22/06

Altar Boyz- LaSalle Bank Theater- 10/13/06

Betrayal- Steppenwolf- 3/23/07

Wicked- 6/16/07

LookingGlass Alice- Looking Glass Theater- 9/7/07

Phantom of the Opera- 11/3/07

Hephaestus- Looking Glass Theater- 1/18/08

Carter's Way- Steppenwolf- 3/15/08

Avenue Q- Cadillac Palace Theater- 5/23/08

Mass Appeal- Oil Lamp Theater- 2/27/08

Funk it up about nothing- Shakespeare Theater- 7/4/08

Jersey Boys- 9/26/08

Dirty Dancing- Cadillace Palace Theater- 1/9/09

The Producers- The Community House- 3/6/09

Mary Poppins- Cadillace Palace Theater- 5/29/09

Comedy shows:

(does not include the numerous improv shows I've been to)

Ron White, Drunk in Public- Genesee Theater- 10/13/05

Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show- Vic Theater- 10/11/05

George Carlin- Joliet- 6/1/07

Ron White- Rosemont Theater

Bob Saget- Genesee Theater

B/w Barack and a Hard Place- Second City- 8/26/07

No Country for Old White Men- Second City- 8/16/08

Moral Fixation- Second City- 11/7/08

Fart City- Stage Left Theater- 6/1/09

Dance, puppets, magic, opera and circuses:

R/evolve- Theater Building- 7/7/05

Cirque Shanghai- Navy Pier- 12/1/06

Marionette Macbeth- Chicago Shakespeare Theater- 3/16/07

Once Upon a Time- Red Moon Theater- 4/7/07

Ringling Bros Circus- United Center- 11/18/08

Blue Man Group- Briar Street Theater- 12/26/08

The Magic Cabaret- Greenhouse Theater- 4/1/09

A King's Journey- Theater Handgemenge (at Northwestern U.)- 5/13/09

Cavalerrie Rusticana & Pagliacci- Lyric Opera- 3/9/09

David Copperfield- Rosemont Theater

Cirque du Soleil (multiple shows, here and Vegas)

Dr. Egg and the Man with no ear- Redmoon Theater

Concerts:

The Rolling Stones- Soldier Field- 12/10/05

Paul McCartney- United Center- 10/18/05

Barenaked Ladies- Auditorium Theatre- 12/7/05

Citizen Cope- House of Blues- 11/06

Roger Waters- United Center- 6/9/07

Super Diamond- House of Blues- 8/11/07

KT Tunstall- Vic Theater- 5/16/08

Liz Phair- Vic Theater- 6/24/08

Scorpions (with Ratt)- Charter One Pavilion- 8/10/08

Mason Jennings and Zach Gill- House of Blues- 10/11/08

New Kids on the Block- Rosemont Horizon- 10/24/08

Spinal Tap, Unwigged and Unplugged- Chicago Theater- 5/30/09

Ben Harper

Ani Difranco

Kris Delmhorst

multiple blues bands at B.L.U.E.S.

Sporting events and outings:

Kane County Cougars vs. Peoria Chiefs-  5/6/05

White Sox vs. Red Sox- 8/26/07

Medieval Times- 8/31/07

Six Flags Great America- 9/29/07

Cubs vs. MIL - June 26th ?

Wisconsin State Fair 8/8/2008

Kiddie Land- 8/15/08

Great America- 9/20/08

Enchanted Castle- 4/10/09

USA v. Honduras soccer- Soldier Field- 6/6/09

Sox vs. Detroit- 6/9/09

This doesn't include everything and this is just since 2005! Yikes! 

This is why, like my friend asked me lately, I don't go live and work at a bed and breakfast in Napa Valley. I love the city. I thrive in the city. I take full advantage of living in the city. 

Man, I've had a lot of fun! 

my biography

I seem to be reading a lot of memoirs or biographies/autobiographies lately. Or at least books about people writing biographies. Which got me thinking about my biography. 

If someone were to write a biography of your life, what would it look like? What are the major points that they would hit upon? What are the moments that made you into the person you are today? 

Has the really important stuff already happened? Or is it yet to come? Is everything I have done up to this point going to one day be summed up with a paragraph that reads:

Nikki B. was born in Oak Park, Illinois. The youngest of six children, she played many sports growing up and attended Carleton College. After college she worked as a massage therapist for many years before finding her real calling at the age of thirty.

I do hope that the really important stuff is yet to come. It would be sad to think I've already reached the pinnacle of my life. 

My childhood, my adolescence, my formative years are behind me. I didn't do anything particularly noteworthy in them. But those are called the formative years for a reason, they are what shaped and formed me into the person I am today. That's at least worth delving into a little bit, no?

Which leads me back to my original question which is what events from my childhood are worth mentioning? 

I guess it depends what I want the tone of my autobiography to be:

Funny? Do I mention the capers my brother and I used to cut? Do I mention lighting firecrackers off inside my Barbies' heads? 

Sad? Do I talk about the times when my mom had cancer?

Nostalgic? Do I talk about our family dinners at the dining room table? How we used to move the little eight inch TV into the dining room so that we could watch The Cosby Show and occasionally McGuyver during dinner? Not all the time, mind you, there was lots of quality family conversation too. 

I think that is the problem with autobiographies. They are too biased. You get to show your life the way you want it to be seen. On the one hand, nobody knows better than you what things were really important and shaped who you are. On the other hand, there may have been some VERY important things that you leave out because they make you look bad.

Is it better to have a biography rather than an autobiography? The biographer can have their own bias. They can't possibly have all the information. But they also gather information from multiple sources. If I were to write my autobiography, I wouldn't ask my siblings or friends what they thought of me growing up, that information, however, might really give a reader a much better view of who I am. 

I've toyed with the idea of writing an autobiography just for the fun of it and for writing practice. For some reason, the opening paragraph is what stumps me. How do I begin? 

go team!

I had all sorts of plans to just come straight home after work last night, do some writing, maybe read for a tiny bit and then go to bed early. But a friend ended up having an extra ticket to the USA v. Honduras World Cup qualifying match so I went to that instead. 

The game was awesome. It was at Soldier Field and we had the second highest attendance for a USA game there. Soccer is definitely gaining in popularity. Everyone was really getting into the game. There was lots of screaming and standing and clapping. But I have to admit that the Hondurans still know how to cheer a lot better than we do. I think it is sort of sad that our only cheer is "U-S-A! U-S-A!" That's all we can come up with? 

I was in England back in 2000 and was talking to a boy from Scotland. The Scots are big rivals of England and he was telling me some of their more colorful cheers that they would sing at games vs. England. One of the cheers involved the names of two of their better players: 

We've got Larson. We've got Fraducker. (sp?) Fuck your Queen cuz she's a hooker. 

I'm not saying we need cheers quite like that, but something a little more creative than U-S-A!

normal family? is there such thing?

We had a meeting of our family book club on Friday. The book we were discussing was The Glass Castle which I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. Basically the book is about a very poor and crazy family. What makes the book so powerful is that it is a memoir. The things that happened to this family!! As they say, "You can't make this stuff up!" 

We were sitting around discussing the book. There was me, my sister, my cousin, six of my aunts and my grandma. We were talking about how angry the parents in the book made us. My aunt Dorothy turned to my grandma and said, "Thank you, Mom, for giving me a normal childhood." Which made me laugh. I turned to Dorothy and said, "You are one of 15 children. You did not have a normal childhood!" She laughed and said, "True, but at the time it felt normal to us." 

I guess that's true, even if you know that other people are living a life that is different from yours, you get used to what you grow up with and that feels normal to you. So this family that we read about in the book, though they were dirt poor and knew other people had money, didn't think that much about being poor because that is what they grew up with.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

The man who has food has many problems. The man who does not have food has only one problem. 

Anyways, it's a good book. Go read it. 

But back to the issue of normalcy... my aunt felt that she had a normal childhood because they lived in a house where they were fed regular meals and had the necessities and had parents who worked and took care of them. Which is normal compared to what the people in the book went through. But even if your family has all those "normal" attributes, would you describe your family as normal? What is normal? Even if it were a Steppford family, even that would be so stereotypically normal that it would be abnormal. 

As they say, "The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."

living in a material world

I've decided to stay put in my parents' house for the time being. I originally was going to stay here for a couple of months and then find an apartment in May or June back in the city. But I keep finding more and more reasons to stay:

1) The economy is still bad. I could lose my job at any time.

2) With the money I am saving on rent I get to take tennis lessons. 

3) I really like having roommates, but because they are my brother and sister I don't have to worry about if we are going to get along or step on each other's toes.

4) My sister is a really good cook. 

5) I have a great balcony and yard where I can hang out outside.

6) I am only a block and a half from the el. 

7) All my stuff is at one place. Even when I wasn't living here I was coming out here at least one day a week and so was constantly either having to bring my stuff with me or just make do with what I had.

8) I have cable and internet here which I am getting for a fraction of what I would have to pay on my own. 

9) Now that I download podcasts to my ipod, the commute isn't even bad.

10) I like it here.

11) I hate moving and don't want to go through that again. 

My parents moved out a couple of years ago (and will be moving back in a couple of years when they retire.) They took a lot of their stuff with them so the house sort of has a deserted feel to it. I decided that if I was going to really live here that I should try to spruce up the place a bit, make it feel more like home, hence why I have repainted the kitchen and unpacked a few of my boxes. 

The living room was looking particularly bleak. I had all sorts of ideas of things I could do to furnish it and make it look amazing. And then I stopped myself. The point of living at home is to save money, not to spend a fortune on decorations and furniture and paintings. So I decided to make do with what I have. I went up to the attic to see what I could see. 

Attics are some of my favorite places in the world. I love to rummage through old stuff and discover little treasures- like the autograph book from my dad's 8th grade year that all of his classmates and teachers (mostly nuns) signed. I also found a set of shelves and my mom's old collection of elephants (stuffed, porcelain, etc.) from the 1970s. Very funky and weird and perfect for the empty corner in the living room. Sure, if I were to go out and spend a lot of money I could find something that looked better, but I wouldn't be able to find something with as much personality and history and meaning to me. 

So I settled for that and for some of my old maps to decorate the walls. It's a marked improvement from what it looked like before and I am proud of myself for not caving in and buying unnecessary stuff. 

It's hard living in this material world and not getting sucked into it. But do I really need all that crap? No. 

It's also something that I notice when I go out with my friends. My friends are beautiful, sexy, stylish ladies. When we go out they look adorable. So trendy. So hot. And I dig it. 

There are times when I get jealous of their things. There are times when I think that I should try to be more stylish. I'm typically the frumpy one in the group. So I think about changing. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is just not something that is important to me. And that's not such a bad thing. Cuz it's just stuff. I don't have a lot of money so do I want to spend that money on a shirt that is going to be out of fashion in six months? Not really. It is just stuff. Repeat after me- it is just stuff. 

I'm definitely a Libra. I see things from every possible position. On the one hand, we are born, live and die. Just a little blip in the big cosmic swing of things. Does all of this material bullshit and the jobs that we have matter at all? Should we be trying to find more meaning in life? If I die tomorrow is the outfit that I am wearing today going to matter at all? 

But on the other hand, if this is it, if this is what our lives are, shouldn't we celebrate that and surround ourselves with beautiful things that make us happy like gourmet dinners and cute little outfits? 

So what' a girl to do? I'm not ready to go join the Tibetan monks and give up my worldly possessions as I search for higher meaning in this crazy world. But I also don't want to be sucked into capitalist America where we are always wanting what our neighbor has, never content with what we have. 

I don't know that I'll ever have it quite figured out. For now I will just try to enjoy what I already have and I'll try to get my pleasure from things like the company of my friends and the warmth of the sun rather than from stuff. 

race relations

Race can be a touchy subject. It's not something that I talk about very often because somehow even just admitting that you notice things having to do with race can get you labeled as a racist. But here we go...

I was riding the el yesterday (seriously, why does every one of my stories start this way?!) and I noticed that I was the only white person on the el. It's pretty rare that I will be in a group of about thirty people and be the only white person. I'm trying to think of situations (other than riding on the el, where it does happen somewhat frequently) where I am the only white person. I don't think I've ever been in a movie theater, or restaurant or classroom where I was the only white person. 

It made me think about college and high school (though not my grade school, because that was actually very diverse) where there were only one or two black kids in my classes. I often wondered how they felt about that. Did it make them feel awkward? Did they feel like they had to prove themselves more? Did they not even care?

Being the only white person on the train was no big deal. I decided that I couldn't really use that as a comparison to how it would feel to be the only white person in a classroom because I really wasn't interacting with anyone on the train, whereas you have to interact with the people in your class. 

On this particular train ride it didn't matter at all and the only reason I am writing about it is because it was something that popped into my head. But there have been times on the el where it has mattered. Like when the crazy guy was ranting about wanting to kill white people. That was not the most comfortable ride I've ever been on. 

The train I take goes straight through the ghetto. And when I say ghetto, I mean ghetto. It has one of the highest murder rates in the United States. Which is kind of mind boggling. People who live just miles away from me are living a completely different life from me. It's like it's not even the same city. They wear different clothes, eat some different foods (if I told them that my favorite food was Chevre Chaud, AKA hot goat cheese salad, I am guessing they would look at me funny) talk with different slang, and have a whole different set of rules to live by. Seriously, picture Season One of The Wire. 

So I was on the train yesterday. I had my ipod on and was staring out the window, minding my own business and trying to not attract any attention to myself. I've found that this is a good way to survive train rides. Because did I mention that I am going through the murder capital of the country? You never know when you are going to have a crazy person on the train with you.

It was a fairly crowded train. There was a pregnant woman sitting across the aisle from me, she was talking to her friend who was sitting behind her. And apparently there was a third girl sitting behind me. 

The pregnant woman and her friend were talking somewhat loudly but I had my earphones in and was ignoring them, it was actually at this point in time that I was having the thought that being the only white person on the train wasn't the same as the classroom because there aren't interactions between the train riders. Silly me. The pregnant woman started yelling at the woman behind me. 

Why is she yelling at her, you ask. That's a fair question. Apparently the woman behind me looked at the pregnant woman funny. "What you lookin' at? Why you lookin' at me all funny? What the fuck's your problem? You better watch it, I'll fuckin' kick your ass!" 

The woman behind me tried to explain that she was not looking at her funny, that she was just sort of looking around and spacing out. But the pregnant woman was having none of it. I can't blame her, she got looked at funny. She can't just sit there and take that! 

Did I mention that I often wear sunglasses on the train as well, so that I can avoid situations like these? I should seriously write a travel brochure, "Tips for not getting your ass kicked while on the El."

Anyways, so the pregnant woman was extremely upset and hostile and kept yelling at the woman behind me. When someone is all in your face and yelling at you for no reason, it is hard to stay calm so of course the woman behind me started yelling too. This led to one of my favorite arguing techniques which is to talk louder, faster and continuously so that the other person can't get a word in edgewise. "Uh-uh, shut up, oh no you didn't, talk to the cell (?), I'm not even listening to you, talk to the cell, you are so ignorant, it's ignorant asses like you that give black people a bad name..." This was all coming from the pregnant lady. The pregnant lady then continued, "I feel sorry for you. You obviously have man problems." 

By this point I had turned off my music so I could hear better, though I left the earphones in and continued to stare out the window. I was learning new things, like "talk to the cell." I'd never heard that before. Also, saying that someone has man problems is apparently a real insult because the woman behind me got all up in arms when she said that.

But it led to an interesting exchange where the woman behind me said something to the pregnant woman about how she was probably on welfare. 

The pregnant woman admitted that she was on government assistance and rebutted that the woman behind me "probably doesn't even have a shorty (referring to having a child.)" 

The woman behind me admitted to not having a child and said something about how she plans to graduate. 

If I hadn't been a French major I would have been a sociology/anthropology major. I find different societies fascinating. And the great thing is that you don't have to go down to the Amazon and find some hidden tribe, there are all these different societies all around us. The importance of having a child and a man (though there was no wedding ring on the woman's hand) obviously heavily impacted the pregnant woman's decisions. 

She then said something that I found really interesting. She accused the woman behind me of taking birth control pills. "You probably taking birth control pills. Those drugs make you crazy. That's probably why you looking at me so crazy. Those pills make you crazy. You crazy. There ain't no drugs in this body. (pointing to her very pregnant belly) That's what's wrong with you. You crazy. I'll fucking kick your ass. And I'll tell you right now, I don't fight fair. That's right. Ummm, hmmm." 

The woman behind me got off two stops later and there was no actual fighting. Though the pregnant woman continued to tell her friend how she would have kicked the girl's ass and reiterated just how crazy that girl was, for about the next ten minutes. 

I had just never heard someone who lives in a normal, civilized society and who is not super religious ever go off about birth control pills like that. Like I said, it's fascinating how people live just a few miles from me, but their life is so different from mine! 

This exchange also proved that it's not really a race issue because you have the one black woman saying, "I'm actually going to graduate. I'm going to better my life." And the other black woman who felt that having children was the best way for her to establish her role in society. How you are raised and the culture you grow up in makes a huge impact.