Archives for all about e

“And besides, feelings are totally full of shit.”

12 Comments

I woke up last Sunday adorned with the previous night’s glow sticks and feeling like someone had dropped a load of bricks on my chest. Such is the weight and effect of running into one’s own unhappiness.

The last two months have been endlessly stressful: holidays, moving to Chicago, moving out of our apartment, moving into my Unnamed Hippie House (which I’ve decided is its name, by the way), my uncle’s death, drunk people drama, sickness, job hunting, job interviews, the beginning of the semester, winding down a job, and living apart. It’s all fucking hard! Hard, hard, hard.

I’m a person who thrives in chaos, so times like these usually see me rising to the occasion. Five years ago, we launched Moodle at the beginning of the semester while I was also a full time doctoral student and a new gyne instructor – so I was essentially working two very demanding full-time jobs while taking on an emotionally and physically challenging part-time job while also maintaining a relationship and starting to focus on losing weight after four months away from the gym (and my bike) with a broken arm. Literally the day before Shane moved to DC, I had unexpected minor surgery after receiving scary lab results from an abnormal Pap and also got an estimate of $2400 to make the necessary repairs to my car so that I could move to join him – while also gearing up for the beginning of the semester and actively job-hunting. I’m not alone in my experience of shit stacking up in impossible ways, or of being able to put my head down and knock through it all to come out on the other side smarter and stronger.

But in and around the stress and stressors of the last two months, I’ve had a lot of time to think. The time and space and distance have allowed issues to rise to the surface that I’ve been ignoring or just haven’t been brave enough to face. And one of those is my unhappiness, a thread of pain through so many aspects of my life.

It’s no secret that I’ve been profoundly unhappy in my career in the last few years. In job interviews, I’ve spun it as “a series of right turns” – from instructional technology support at Illinois to reference librarianship at GW to web development at UM. From a position of authority and trust to the bottom rung of a soul-deadening bureaucracy to manual labor, working in a call center, finding ways of stretching 5-8 hours of work to fill 40, and then ending up in a position where I’m challenged and respected, but which is still tangential to any of the goals I can loosely define for myself.

I’ve been tremendously lonely in my relationships. I’ve focused my energies on my marriage to the detriment of my relationships with others – perhaps appropriately so, but still a stark thing to realize. I’ve been trying to change this in the last few months, but I know I have a long way to go.

I’ve tried to direct this loneliness and frustration into positive channels: running, the garden, cooking, blogging, teaching, and connecting with friends online. What I haven’t realized until recently is the extent to which my loneliness and frustration has been self-reinforcing. I’m lonely, so I go running alone. I like running alone, so I opt to continue with this solitary activity, even though it could be a great opportunity to meet other people and build relationships around running. Shane is often busy with hobbies or friends, and I respond by soaking up the much-desired solo time, which then leads me to support (rather than complain about) more time dedicated to hobbies, which then leads to more time alone.

Which leads me to this place: waking up on a Sunday morning feeling crippled by sadness. Grinding away on the track to meet a training goal but also to focus my mind on something other than the intractability of my feelings. Struggling to remember happiness, or to picture what happiness might look like. Knowing that the easy answer is more meds, or changing the meds, but being unwilling to accept that as an answer YET AGAIN.

I want to be happy.
I don’t know how to be happy.
I don’t know what has to change in my life for me to be happy.
I’m afraid of my own unhappiness.

Filed under +1, all about e, friends & relations, workity

Feb 19, 2012

2011, part 1

0 Comments

Does anyone have the patience to read another year-in-review post? Much less more than one? If not, sorry about that, as I apparently have more to say about the year gone by than can be reasonably accommodated by the checklist of sorts that is my resolution list.

First, though, what I intended to do in 2011:

Expand my bread repertoire by baking 2 new types per month.
The Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day technique led to a whole lot of delicious bread in the first half of 2011. Halfway through the year, however, we adopted a lower carb diet, and I haven’t baked a loaf since. I miss baking and also bread.

Knit socks.
Done! Except that I used cheap cotton yarn and didn’t finish the toes neatly, rendering my lovely handmade socks the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever put on my feet.

Run the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.
Done! Also two half marathons and a handful of shorter races, with 523.22 miles run in total.

Continue saving aggressively for a down-payment on a house.
The first part, yes. The second part, not so much. Instead we paid off our car a year early and built up a decent safety net.

Complete the 25 Recipes challenge.
If the convener of the challenge is treating it as a lifetime project, I think I can too. I did manage eight successful recipes, and a few unsuccessful attempts.

Learn to accessorize.
I don’t know that I’ve succeeded here, but I did embrace vintage dresses and big hair.

Make a decision about grad school.
In retrospect, I’m not even sure what this was about. Was I seriously considering grad school at this time last year? Huh.

Sock away 3 months’ worth of my half of the household budget (approx $4500).
Not quite there, but in good shape.

Survive my first semester of teaching.
Two semesters down, with my third starting on the 17th. I’m incredible thankful for the opportunity, as teaching has been both more challenging and more rewarding than I expected.

Take a solo trip and a vacation with SB.
I went to Philly and DC in the spring, where I gave a talk, went to a bibliodiscotheque, and ran the CB 10 Miler (see above):

New York in the summer, where I walked for hours and hours and hours:

and DC again in the fall, where I dressed up as a fancy lady for Halloween:

In addition to many weekends in Cleveland, Chicago, and Rockford for weddings, Shane and I took a Midwest road trip, where we rode a ferocious beast, hiked around a lake, ate a lot of ice cream, and laid on a beach long enough that I got a sunburn on my butt.

Filed under all about e

Jan 2, 2012

Mo-mo-more?

1 Comment

We’re in Rockford for the holiday, having moved the majority of our material possessions to Chicago three days ago. The last two days have been full of cookies and presents and traditions and relaxed family time. Max has been running around playing with trains and pointing at various delicious things and saying “mo-mo-more”, his voice lilting upward as he points at the object of his desire.

I mention this because as I look forward to 2012, what I want most is mo-mo-more. More time with friends and family. More travel. More flowers, more movies, and more amazing food. More miles. More love, more patience, and more connection in my relationships and with the world. So this post is me reaching my hands in the air and asking the universe for what I want in the next year:

This year was about running further. 2012 will be about running faster in at least two half marathons plus the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler.
I want to take better photos of more than just food, though better food photos would also be progress. I want to take a class, read a book, participate in an online workshop – in general learn more about the fancy DSLR we bought almost three years ago. And then apply that knowledge for good, not for evil.
I’m reasonably certain that the only movie I saw in the theater this year was the final Harry Potter installment. With two movie theaters within a mile of our new place, we should have no excuse – other than lousy offerings – to see fewer than 12 movies in the theater.
I want to write more letters – at least one per week. Do you want to be my pen pal?
I need to find a job in Chicago, as it will make many of these mores possible. More time with my family as they’ll be 75 minutes away instead of 5-7 hours. More time with many many Chicago friends (though less time with A2 friends). A new and exciting city life for the two of us. I’ve loved my MPub job, but I need to be in Chicago.
I wanted to bake 24 unique loaves this year. We made significant changes in our diet over the summer, and I haven’t really baked since then. I think, however, that one pie per month is a reasonable goal.
Bourbon and I got back together in 2012, but I need to have more in my cocktail repetoire than the trusty Manhattan. There will be many opportunities to drink fancy cocktails in our new ‘hood, but I want to master at least one new cocktail at home per month.
We took a fun road trip vacation over the summer, and I took solo trips to Philly, DC, and New York for work, races, and fun. I would like more of the same this year, beginning with my birthday weekend in California and possibly including a trip to Europe after the semester wraps up.
More books read: finish the 2/3 challenge, keep up with my book club, and hammer away at the To Read lists while reading at least two books per month.
Step up my game and learn to do alterations so that I can finally finish all of the half projects in my closet.
More feats of strength! More push-ups. More miles on Orange. And maybe, just maybe, a pull-up.
And, most importantly, more time connecting with the important people in my life. I’m not sure how to quantify this other than to say that I want to fight my introvert nature and say ‘yes’ more than ‘no’ for lunches with friends, dates with my husband, or visits to my family.

What will you do in the new year?

Filed under all about e

Dec 25, 2011

“Energy is everything,” she says, “not emotion.”

0 Comments

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter – December 14, 2011

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Emotion is the resource we treasure when we’re young, says poet Naomi Shihab Nye, but eventually what we thrive on even more is energy. “Energy is everything,” she says, “not emotion.” And where does energy come from? Often, from juxtaposition, says Nye. “Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy; rubbing one image against another.” That’s what she loves about being a poet. Her specialty is to conjure magic through juxtaposition. “Our brains are desperate for that kind of energy,” she concludes. I mention this, Capricorn, because the coming weeks will be prime time for you to drum up the vigor and vitality that come from mixing and melding and merging, particularly in unexpected or uncommon ways.

This is feeling particularly timely as we approach the end of our time here. My time will continue for a while longer, but our life here as a couple, as a family unit, will end in a little over a week. It feels like every day we’re rubbing happy and sad together: solidifying friendships just in time to leave, revisiting favorite spots that won’t carry the same weight when we come back to visit, one last time for x or y or z.

Filed under all about e, ends & beginnings

Dec 14, 2011

Places I Have Lived: The E Haus, 12th St, Rockford, IL

1 Comment

August 1999 – August 2002

My first real apartment! It is also worth noting that the three years I spent here were the longest I’ve spent at a single address since my family moved out of the house on Pepper Drive.

I moved into the apartment on 12th Street in the fall of my junior year at RC, but I’d been a regular visitor for nearly a year at that point. The apartment was occupied by a rotating cast of coworkers from Barnes & Noble, so I have no idea who first lived there, or whose name was on the original lease, if there even was one. The circumstances – or, rather, the conversation – surrounding my first visit are subject to some debate, but the facts are these: I helped Eva do a bathtub full of dishes. She was living with Stu and Jessica at that point, Jeff and Steven having both moved out. I remember late nights in the apartment after closing, hanging out with my impossibly cool coworkers and hoping they’d like me as much as I liked them. In the spring, Stu and Jessica moved out, and Erin – another coworker – moved in. If we weren’t working, the three of us would order pizza (cheese and pineapple) and watch Must See TV. When I needed a place and there was an open room, it made sense for me to move in – and my boyfriend along with me.

Looking back, I can’t believe how insanely cheap the place was – we paid something like $450 for a three bedroom apartment, split four ways. Even split three and eventually two ways, this was worlds cheaper than any place where I’d lived before or since. We kept it up to exactly the degree of squalor that you’d expect from 3-4 early 20-somethings. Eva and Erin had a continual battle of wills over the dishes, and I wasn’t much better. At one point shortly before I moved in, they boxed up all of the dishes and stuck them in the attic, where I found them sometime later, still crusted in food, though miraculously not disgusting. We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for our friends, but had to farm out most of the cooking because we had one oven rack and zero counter space. We also had maybe three chairs, so everyone had to sit on the floor. We wanted to learn about wine, but did so with 2 bottles for $6 deals. We hosted a lot of parties. It was a very fun time.

Erin had the first room – large and sunny, with hardwood floors and giant windows. My boyfriend and I moved to this room when she moved out before Christmas. I had the second room, which had accordion doors and a walk-in closet, and which we later used as an office. Eva had the back room – tiny and painted in two different blues. When she moved out in the summer of the following year, we used the room for storage and for our cats!

I had never had a cat before, and I wasn’t the best cat owner, but good lord, did I love those furballs. We had hideous hand-me-down furniture, made worse by destructive cats and lots of parties. Our kitchen was big enough to dance in, and the bathroom had a claw-foot tub where I would often read entire books.

Our landlord was a 30-something guy who would come over to do maintenance – and would stay to drink beer and hang out with us. Our downstairs neighbor was an obsessive snow shoveler and griller, the two of which came together when he would clear a pathway to his charcoal grill at every snowfall. Our next-door neighbor fed squirrels and may or may not have been in a ladder cult.

Oh, the stories this apartment could tell. We stayed for the duration of my time at RC, and another year beyond that. On 9/11, I watched movies on that hideous couch in order to avoid the non-stop coverage of the towers going down. In this apartment, I started to learn how to cook, gave up my vegetarianism, and fell deeply and somewhat disastrously in love. I discovered yoga and Hello Kitty Cube Frenzy. I did a lot of things I regret, and many more than I don’t. It was in most ways an ideal college apartment, and I was very sad when we moved out, even though we weren’t going far – next door – and would visit often, as my sister and her best friend were the new tenants.

Filed under all about e

Dec 13, 2011

I needed to read this today.

0 Comments

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter – December 7, 2011

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There are 501 possible solutions to your current dilemma. At least ten of them would bring you a modicum of peace, a bit of relief, and a touch of satisfaction. Most of the rest wouldn’t feel fantastic, but would at least allow you to mostly put the angst behind you and move on with your life. But only one of those potential fixes can generate a purgative and purifying success that will extract the greatest possible learning from the situation and give you access to all of the motivational energy it has to offer. Be very choosy.

Filed under all about e

Dec 6, 2011

Places I Have Lived: Hampton Ridge Dr, Rockford, IL

1 Comment

January 1999 – August 1999

The apartment at Hampton Ridge wasn’t really mine. My name wasn’t on the lease, and I never received mail there. I don’t remember if I paid any rent, and if that’s the case, I probably owe the guys money. I stayed in the apartment on and off during the fall semester of my sophomore year at RC, but started staying there full time when my boyfriend and I got back together after Christmas.

We shared a very messy room in the ground floor apartment, clothes and magazines overflowing from the closet and the storage drawers under our waterbed. I was in charge of the newsstand at Barnes & Noble, so I brought home giant stacks of back issues, the covers removed. The guys both worked nights, and I got used to a semi-nocturnal schedule, getting up in the morning only when work (and, less frequently, class) required it. The upstairs neighbors’ kids seemed to never sleep, as someone was always running laps around the apartment or dropping things off their balcony onto our patio – yet we were always the scapegoat for noise complaints.

It’s really kind of amazing to me how little I remember about our life in this apartment. Other than the Thanksgiving dinner that we hosted for my boyfriend’s family, I don’t recall cooking in this apartment. I know that we had a mouse once, and that it died an ignoble death behind a cabinet. There was a pool and a fitness center, but I wasn’t able to use either on my own since I wasn’t technically a resident. We moved out at the end of the summer, shoving many of our possessions into the dumpster immediately behind the building, including the couch that Joe hefted in and then smashed to pieces.

Filed under all about e

Dec 2, 2011

Places I Have Lived: Olson Hall, Rockford College, Rockford, IL

Comments Off

August 1998 – January 1999

The summer on the farm ended in a flurry of activity. The guys had about a week to find an apartment and move out; I on the other hand was moving back into the dorms. My three friends and I had secured a suite in Olson Hall, a smaller and more centrally located dorm than freshman year’s McGaw. Olson had two single sex floors, each of which had somewhere around 10-12 suites housing four students. Kelley and I lucked out, however, as in the time between committing to our housing situation and the beginning of the school year, Mayra decided not to come back to RC, and Amanda accepted a job as an RA – leaving just the two of us in the suite.

There were pluses and minuses to this living situation – as, I’m sure, is the case for all dorms. RC didn’t have a football team, so baseball and soccer players filled in the rowdy partying gap – and we lived directly above a suite full of ‘em. The window below our living room window was both kicked out and kicked in several times throughout the semester. It was almost impossible to sleep after 25c wings night at the closest bar to campus. We made up for it by dragging furniture around our rooms very early the next morning.

Most of my memories of life in Olson are pretty vague. Kelley basically had the suite to herself. I stayed in my room for about half of the first semester, but after a brief break-up and reconciliation, I moved in with my boyfriend and only returned to our suite for parties and to move out at the end of the year. I remember getting my car stuck in a snow drift over Christmas break, and having to leave it there for a few days since no one was available to dig me out. I also remember many games of Trivial Pursuit, including one where Kelley’s boyfriend didn’t know the answer to a question about Little Women (?), and I replied – from the shower – with “C’mon! It’s a classic American novel!”. Cos that’s how I roll.

Filed under all about e

Nov 16, 2011

“We are beginning to make friends with the water.”

Comments Off

Rob Brezsny’s Astrology Newsletter – November 15, 2011

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): A great deal of land in the Netherlands has been reclaimed from the sea by human effort. But the system of dikes that holds back the primal flow is not a foolproof or permanent guarantee against flooding. That’s why more and more people are building homes that can float if they have to. “We are actually trying to move away from fighting against the water,” says architect Koen Olthuis. “We are beginning to make friends with the water.” I recommend you adopt this as a useful metaphor, Capricorn. During the coming months, you should be doing a lot of foundation work. What can you do to add buoyancy?

Filed under all about e

Nov 15, 2011

Things I Miss About Champaign

Comments Off

I’ve been meaning to make this list for a long time, but Gemma’s recent photos have pushed me to actually writing it up. My feelings for Champaign are all wrapped up in my grad school experience, my first really fulfilling (and challenging) professional job, and a prolonged period of personal growth and experimentation between the end of my marriage and the beginning of my relationship with Shane – so lots of complicated, complicating things factor into my relationship with that little city in the corn.

Riding my bike down University towards GSLIS early in the morning in the summer – empty roads and the sun coming up through the trees. A 7 minute commute on a good day. And then the long months when I couldn’t ride because my arm was in a cast.
West Side Park. Living across from West Side Park. Walking home through West Side Park after a long shift at Aroma or a movie at the Art or a too-late night at Mike & Molly’s.
Coffee and sandwiches at Paradiso. Consistently good music on the stereo. The smoking section at Paradiso, barely partitioned off by a row of ficus trees. Books or homework on the “patio”. Paradiso’s perfect imperfectness.
Living near downtown Champaign, where I never paid more than $500 for a one bedroom apartment, and even that included utilities. My first solo apartment directly across from the park. My studio apartment that never really got above 50 degrees in the winter, but that in the summer offered the most fabulous porch for parties. The apartment with the Wild Things on the wall and the yellow kitchen. Our last place on Clark, where we rented the entire ground floor for around $750, planted our first garden, spent $300+ on heat in the winter, and enjoyed the mixed blessing of a screened-in entryway – great for cats in the sun, not great for cats escaping.
Saturday mornings at the Urbana farmers’ market, bringing home things I didn’t recognize and that would eventually go bad in the fridge. Splurging on fancy cheese, meat, and a croissant from Art Mart. Riding our bikes to the market and bringing a dedicated backpack for watermelon or canteloupe.
Friday afternoon Revolution Lunch at Jerusalem Restaurant with my favorite nutters. The food was fine, but the company was effing crazy. I’m glad to hear that it hasn’t changed.
French toast at Sam’s, where Shane and I went for breakfast one of the first times he spent the night. We drew maps of our hometowns on the rectangular napkins. In case you ever forget, the special is at the top.
Late nights studying at Merry Ann’s with Sarah and Nicole, drinking TERRIBLE coffee and eating fries and goofing around with the servers. Going to Merry Ann’s at bar time, ordering a grilled cheese sandwich, and being in and out in under 10 minutes. Greg and I standing on the booth and singing happy birthday to Mark, who brought us screwdrivers mixed in the back. Hanging out with Shane for the first time after Carl and I had gone to see 2046, all three of us wasted but on totally different things (exhaustion, alcohol, an emotionally weighty movie). Many many plates of fries before Subversion.
Boltini bingo. We went almost every week the last summer we lived there, but I didn’t win ANYTHING until my very last card on my very last bingo. Marv gave me his oversized clapper, which I kept until we moved to Michigan.
Aroma. Working at Aroma. Drinking mojitos outside Aroma in the spring of 2003. Working 20 hour days (Aroma + Carle) in the fall of 2004 when it was easier to not sleep than to deal with my heartbreak. 10 hour kitchen shifts with all New Order all the time, getting fake engaged to Sam, smoking out front with Carl and Erich and Leah in the summer. Ryan’s shark mug and Dave catching flies out the air. Flirting with customers who became friends. Coffee grounds permanently under my fingernails. A good place and a good time, though definitely not the best coffee in the world.
Symposium at the Esquire, and the Esquire in general. For at least the first year after we left Champaign, I would often sigh and say that I just wanted to go the Esquire for dinner – cheap beer, cheap bar food, endless bowls of peanuts. Always the same, never disappointing – just a solid townie bar.
The Blind Pig in the winter of 2004-2005. Holding hands with Carl on my 25th birthday. A snowball fight in the middle of the night in the middle of Walnut Street. It’s still a great bar, and I know Shane misses it greatly, but (oh this is so hipster) I stopped truly loving it when the sign went up.
Swimming laps in the outside pool at IMPE in the summer of 2005. I had started exercising that spring, but realized after my first botched length that Curves had nothing on laps in the 50 meter pool. Sunshine, chlorine, hard work, bliss.
Sunday nights at Bentley’s – our Local Neighborhood Bar – with the GSLIS crew. Beth’s Bloody Marys and Blue Moons adorned with loads of snacks. So many games of Bohnanza that we bought a second copy – one for the bar, another for occasions when we were less likely to spill drinks. Planning our first Bonnaroo, celebrating our first NYE, eating a whole lot of miniature pizzas.
Gyne instruction totally changed my understanding of my own body, and of the range of what constitutes ‘normal’. I am so thankful for having the opportunity to work with such a remarkable group of women and to become empowered to advocate for my own health. In the years since, a number of friends have felt comfortable asking me about gyne health stuff because they knew I had this experience and was willing to talk about it openly. What a remarkable gift.
Porch parties at my place on Springfield. There weren’t many of them, but oh, they were wonderful.
So much enduring love for Cafe Kopi. I can’t believe I lived in Champaign almost a year before I found it, and can’t believe I haven’t found a comparable spot since. Actually, I can believe it. Kopi has something really special going on. The coffee and food aren’t remarkable, but they’re solidly good, as are the staff and the ambiance. I spent way too many nights doing my grad school reading over their cafe miels and tuna salad salads – and swatting away the ever-present flies on the patio. Those things will survive the apocalypse, I swear.
Mike & Molly’s may be my most favorite bar ever. Shane preferred the Blind Pig, but my heart belongs to M&M. Lots of nights reading with a beer, hanging out with townie friends, dancing to music played in the loft by friends. Someone – Tim? Steve? – trying to explain darts to me. The chalkboard in the bathroom. Knowing that I was a regular when I forgot my ID and the bartender vouched for me to the doorman. The bar’s vignette in Tell Me Do You Miss Me. Carl arranging for my induction into Pi Omega Omega on my next-to-last night in town.
Nox/Subversion and the year that saw me on the dance floor almost every week. I told Shane recently that I missed out on being a raver girl because I didn’t live in a big city in my early 20s. Instead, I had Tuesday nights at the High Dive with Emily and Jim playing the music I always wanted to listen to but didn’t know how to discover on my own. Saturday nights with Tim in the booth and reciprocal pants protection with Shane and Karin. Meeting Brian and Ben and Kristina and so many others. Dancing when I was sick, dancing when my heart was breaking, dancing when I’d had too much to drink, dancing on the patio in the pouring rain.
And then there’s everything about GSLIS: getting my job, making my friends, meeting Shane, finding a career path, getting a real job, discovering and falling in love with and then hating and then loving research. All the wonderful, remarkable, challenging, and exceptional people who over the years became friends, colleagues, trusted associates, and family. I can’t even begin to articulate the ways that this school changed my life.

Ultimately, though, what I miss is being able to walk everywhere – and the fact that wherever I went, I would run into someone I knew. Hell, it’s been four years and that is still often the case. And it goes without saying that the people and relationships made Champaign my home, but there are far too many of them to list here.

Filed under all about e, ends & beginnings, friends & relations, in the neighborhood

Nov 12, 2011

← Older posts