There Are No Sidewalks Here

Ida Louise Marion Okun

2011-12-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

Was born on 11-11-11 at 6:30 PM, weighing 6 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 18.5 inches.

While there will continue to be no sidewalks here, the 3-week old has her own blog:

http://idalouisemarion.tumblr.com/

A few pics from her first 21 days:

Week 38.5: any. day. now.

2011-11-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Week 36.5 / Yup, it's a basketball

2011-10-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

S'more Belly: Week 34 1/2

2011-10-09T19:30:00.001-07:00

Week 29 1/2

2011-09-03T14:32:00.001-07:00

More weeks, more belly.

Does Fonzie know?

The Belly: Week 25

2011-08-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well, there's no good way to introduce it, so here it is:

2010: Year of the Pets

2011-01-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

As a childless, delinquent blogger, I'd like to take this opportunity to indulge myself holiday-card-style in catching you (Lee) up on my pets. It's been a big year for at least one, okay really only one, white pet.

Truly, this has been Fonzie's year, as he upgraded from a 15-foot, bright orange dog tie out to a large, partially-wooded, fenced-in backyard. It turns out that Fonzie is a digger, and 485 feet of reinforced fence and five escapes later, the backyard is secure.

The silver lining was making some friends in the neighborhood. I made friends with Deborah, who rescued Fonzie on escape #3, and Fonzie made friends with Lola, Deborah's dog.

And now Thursdays are spent with Lola, as she comes over to play during business hours. Yes, life is a little slower down in NC, but it is truly one of the most fun things in the world watching the two dogs play:

They're always on the look out for something.

Lola wasn't the only visitor to the backyard. We had a foster pet for a few days -- a groundhog who took up residence underneath our deck walkway.

Fonzie was all in a tizzy for the first day or so, and then the groundhog became just another feature of the backyard (before moving on to another backyard).

What more could a dog want? Perhaps a dog house, which our friend built just a few weeks ago. Fonzie is currently still scared of the dog house, but he'll go in to get his food, coming out for air / to check for danger every couple of gulps.

All of this, of course, would appear to be valid criticism that I favor one pet over the other. To these critics, I say that Scout will always be the O.G.

True, this past year, Scout didn't fare as well as Fonzie, as a) the number of Scout-only rooms was reduced from five to two, b) her new windows aren't as good for looking outside, c) we still have a dog, and d) we still haven't gotten rid of the dog.

As a result of a - d and possibly other factors, Scout only seems to get crankier.

But we still live in Scout's house, and she may or may not be dictating this portion of the blog.

If 2009 was the year I tried to make friends, 2010 was the year I realized how great it is to listen to my pets snore. And sitting in the same room with them, during those rare moments when Scout isn't trying to scratch Fonzie's eyes out -- those moments are (to quote Ted Danson on "Curb Your Enthusiasm") heaven.

Go West

2010-07-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

Over the 4th of July weekend, Willie and I took a little road trip to the western part of North Carolina and the eastern part of Tennessee.

After an overnight stay in Johnson City, where we stayed at Penny's house (Willie's dad's girlfriend) and heard some great bluegrass music, we drove a little north to Lake Watauga, where Penny has a boat house on the lake.

And although I had my first "Impeach Obama" bumper sticker sighting at the lake, it sure was pretty:

And exciting to sleep on a boat house complete with a toilet incinerator:

We then crossed over the NC border en route to Willie's grandma's mountain house.

Although I had been to the house a few times before, on this particular visit, I attended my very first rodeo.

I still regret not taking my first pony ride.

The cowboys pre-rodeo.

The opening credits of the rodeo came complete with lady cowboy riders, the Confederate flag, and about three different versions of "America the Beautiful."

After saying the Plede of Allegiance and singing the "Star Spangled Banner" ("the greatest song about the greatest country ever born," according to the rodeo MC), the audience stood and bowed their heads for the cowboy prayer. (My head was not bowed, but my mouth was gaping.)

And then it was time for the bareback riding event, where the cowboys attempt to stay on a bucking horse, holding on by just one hand tucked into the rigging (or whatever it's called), long enough to qualify past the buzzer.

Willie and I agreed that the bucking horses reminded us a little of Fonzie when he gets loose from the house.

And then it was time to go back up the mountain...

Visit some old friends...

(This cow would go nicely with my collection of white pets.)

And relax in the round house on Big Pine.

It was sad to leave,

But nothing that a little trip to Waffle House couldn't fix:

There Is No Pavement Here

2010-06-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the lack of sidewalks here has been trumped by the lack of paved streets. Willie and I have bought a house on a gravel dead-end road. In Durham, this exists about a mile north of downtown and fancy restaurants.

There was much discussion about the difference between a gravel road and a dirt road -- and which sounded better. But whatever you want to call it, this is our new street:

And this is our little house:

The house is cute and old and well rehabbed (by someone else, which was key). What sold us was the crazy two-thirds-of-an-acre backyard, which is partly wooded, fully fenced and backs up onto a wooded ravine.

Some shots of the main deck:

Our guardian fish:

My first vegetable garden:

Some blackberry bushes:

I used to make fun of people who compost (not really, but kinda), and, well, I take it all back, especially since composting turns out to be way more complicated than I thought:

The other crazy thing about the crazy backyard is that is has three out-buildings, complete with electricity, finished walls and floors, and AC units and space heaters:

That open structure to the right of the garage will eventually be a screened-in porch:

Fonzie is hot and happy running around like a semi-free dog in his backyard:

As for us, we've become instantly boring people to talk to, concerned about the standing water in the basement, the over-budget renovations, the cracks that just showed up in the ceiling in the second bedroom...and whether or not we live on a gravel road or a dirt road. We are boring but happy and really really darn lucky.

Last Night a Chicken Wing Saved My Life

2010-02-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

Chicken wings have played a very significant role in my life in the past couple of weeks.

Most recently, I ate too many of them at a Super Bowl viewing party at my neighbor's house. But is there really such a thing as too many chicken wings, you might be asking yourself. I fully agree.

In and of itself, this shouldn't have been a significant event. Many people eat chicken wings while watching the Super Bowl. However, the difference between many people and me is that I annoyingly talked it up for days beforehand. Whether it was to add to my always-open-invitation pity party ("It's the only thing I'm looking forward to in the next week!" I whined to Willie), or to have something to tell my co-workers about my exciting weekend plans ("Eating chicken wings!"), I wasn't messing around with the wings.

Five days pre-game, I began conducting research on where to get chicken wings in Durham. And then I put full responsibility onto Willie for my wing happiness. "You better make this happen," I threatened him. We both knew I wasn't kidding.

One day pre-game, we drove around to several potential chicken wings spots. A couple of them no longer existed. We finally took a gamble on a small shack with a hand written sign.

But once the order of wings had been placed, I transferred my wing anxiety to a new fear: Since there would be multiple people at the Super Bowl party, what measures were in place to ensure that I would get enough chicken wings? No, I'm not proud of this self-centered-particularly-when-it-comes-to-food trait, but, yes, it's real.

In the end, there were plenty of chicken wings, of course. (Turns out I had nothing to fear but greed itself.) And the wings were absolutely delicious -- everything I could have ever wanted in a deep-fried-and-smothered-in-tear-inducing-hot-sauce wing.

The Super Bowl wing event wasn't the only Festivus miracle this season, however. Just a week before the Super Bowl, Fonzie had his own memorable chicken wing experience.

It was an average Sunday afternoon, and I was leaving the house to go run an errand. Fonzie, who never tries to escape when the front door is opened, decided that this was his chance. Within seconds, he was a free naked dog, collar-less because I had been using the training collar, which I only put on when I take the dog out.

I grabbed the leash and some treats, and Willie got on his bike to help with the rescue effort. Fonzie seemed excited to be out and free, as he started making his way down the block, milling around in peoples' backyards, and darting off whenever I got close. The treats were no help, and without any collar with which to grab Fonzie, it didn't even matter how close you got.

After twenty-five minutes of playing chase on the block, the rescue effort was starting to feel futile and all too reminiscent of the night Fonzie got loose a little over a year ago. As he started running down a second block and a different street, the reality began to sink in: I was just going to have to wait for him to come home on his own, and that wasn't going to be a fun waiting period.

I watched Fonzie dart in front of a car and felt my stomach drop. Just then, a car approaching me slowed down, and the woman in the passenger seat rolled down her window. This was so not the time to give anyone directions! But as the car came to a stop, the woman stuck her arm out of the window to offer me a half-eaten plate of chicken wings.

"Here, use these to try to get your dog back. Your dog is probably headed down there where there are lots of dogs," she said as she pointed in the direction Fonzie was running. "That's where our dog goes when he gets loose. In fact, why don't you get in the car and we'll take you there."

Unsure of whether or not I was having an out-of-body experience, I got in the back seat of the car. The woman's husband drove us the two blocks to a dead-end, run-down block.

Chicken wing plate in hand, I thanked the couple profusely and got out of the car. There were several little puppies running wild and a few bigger dogs chained up, and there was Fonize. Without strategizing, I held the first wing out to Fonize. He grabbed it and ran away behind one of the houses.

I followed him behind the house, and for the second wing, I wised up. I held out his collar -- a loose and fairly wide fastened circle -- and held the chicken wing to the side of it, so that Fonzie would have to put his head through the collar to get the chicken wing. In pursuit of the wing, he stuck his head through the loop, and snap, he was back in his collar.

"Got him!" I shouted to Willie, who had followed on his bike. Thirty-five minutes after the adventure began, it was over.

I was unbelievably relieved, pissed at Fonzie, and awe-inspired by these angels disguised as chicken wing people who had helped me get my dog back.

Luckily the couple had pointed out where they lived, so I was able to thank them with a plate of brownies the following week -- a drop in the bucket of how much gratitude I felt for them. They had reaffirmed my faith that people were nice and good and helpful, and they had confirmed something else I had suspected all along: chicken wings really are the answer.

Snow Day. For Real.

2010-02-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

This time, I was down with the hype. Despite my mockery of the snow days in 2009 -- the ones where the state shut down but the streets were melted and clear by 11:00 AM -- I was bitten by the media buzz of this storm. I brought it up in every possible conversation, I planned my work day around going out and getting milk, and I stood in line for forty-five minutes at the video store, just hours before the storm was supposed to hit.

It was a Friday night, so staying home from work wasn't a carrot. But gosh darnit, it was exciting. It was an event. And this time, the event delivered.

By Saturday morning, we were blanketed with five inches of snow. It continued to snow on and off for twenty-four hours with not a plow or a salt or sand truck in sight.

Which meant plenty of time to play in the snow with Fonzie:

White dog in snow: Can you spot Fonzie?

The snow brought out the wild in Fonzie -- the husky that should be up in Alaska pulling sleds and running like the wind.

So we dug up the stake and 30-foot leash from under the snow and let him run semi-free in the backyard.

Fonzie does that dog thing where he gets so excited that he wants to play bite you.

But he's actually not so tough in a snow ball fight.

Four nights after it first began to snow, schools are still closed, many businesses have yet to reopen, and most side streets have not seen a plow. And tomorrow brings another weather advisory of icy rain, which will only refreeze the slushy unplowed streets.

Go ahead, North Carolina Storm of 2010. I'm down right proud of you.

Five Days on a Screen Saver

2010-01-24T09:18:00.000-08:00

For our honeymoon, Willie and I flew to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, where Willie's friend hooked us up with a room at the sold out Punta Cana resort.

He also hooked us up with VIP treatment at the airport, which reminded me why being rich and famous wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

We spent five days and six nights at the resort, with Christmas falling smack in the middle of the trip.

It was easy to forget it was Christmas, except when this guy showed up.

The views were not too terrible.

Nor was the pool on the sea option.

The resort hosts an ecological reserve, in case you get sick of seeing so much baby blue.

This was our morning and afternoon routine.

(About half-way through our stay, we realized that there were several workers whose job it was to rake up the unsightly seaweed that would accumulate every couple of hours along the shore. Thank goodness is all I can say.)

And this is La Chozo, the best lunch spot ever, and where we ate lunch every day.

And this is what we ate for lunch every day.

Our mode of transportation on the resort.

Pretty easy to be happy campers when you're on vacation in the Carribean:

But life looks alright, too, back home in our yellow-tinted glasses in North Carolina.

Is That You, FRIEND?

2010-01-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

Something about Jane caught my eye. With her curly brown hair, plain gray American Apparel t-shirt and vintage-looking leather purse, there was nothing necessarily distinctive about her, but she had a vibe like she'd been places. Urban places. Whatever it was, my friend-dar approved and willed me to follow her inside.

We were at a barbeque on a Sunday afternoon in mid-October, and having just moved with my boyfriend from Chicago to Durham, North Carolina, a place where I knew no one, I was on the friend prowl.

After following Jane inside, I tried to act all casual, and, while dishing out some chili, I struck up a conversation. Five minutes and one discovery that we lived a few blocks from each other later, I had her email address in my purse. My urban friend-dar had been correct: she had just moved to Durham from Brooklyn. In terms of my quest for FRIEND, a recently relocated city girl was jackpot.

Jane's wasn't the only email address I would get that day. The other belonged to a woman named Julie, an elementary school teacher. But it wasn't Julie I was after. It was her friend, Eliza, who had a cool punk haircut and over-sized hot pink earrings. Although it was subconscious at the time, I had definite superficial visions of FRIEND.

The following Sunday, having slyly obtained Eliza's email through Julie, my dance card was full: brunch with Jane and dinner with Eliza. It was on. Paris Hilton's reality show "My New BFF" had nothing on me.

My brunch with Jane felt eerily similar to an awkward first date. Our interactions were too polite and self-conscious, and in the middle of peppering her scrambled eggs, Jane realized she felt sick to her stomach and needed to use the bathroom. During the ten minutes that she was gone, I began to wonder if she had snuck out of the bathroom window.

The dinner several hours later with Eliza felt less awkward. The conversation flowed easily, and I felt comfortable sitting across from her. She ordered a burger with bacon on it. Total FRIEND potential.

For the next couple of months, Eliza, who seemed to know everyone under the age of 45 in Durham, would email me about this or that event. And I ran into Jane once or twice in the neighborhood -- literally once almost running her over with my car as she came barreling down the block on her daily run.

The three of us met up for a beer one night. Eliza and Jane had met at the barbeque, too, but, despite a myriad of things and people in common, had yet to hang out. We talked about starting a craft group and a "Wire" viewing party. Typical, white, yuppy, female empty promises. But I was still a believer.

After the holidays, the texting and emailing with Eliza slowed down, and we'd go months without being in touch. I'd bump into her occasionally, and although we were friendly, we stopped saying that we should get together. I decided that she just wasn't that into me, and that after a promising start, our relationship had fizzled.

I continued to see Jane, although each time I saw her, we didn't seem to be any more comfortable with each other than the last time. We were stuck in awkward not-quite-FRIEND zone.

As it turned out, Jane made plans to move to D.C. the following summer, and Eliza made plans to move to Seattle. 0 for 2.

So, I turned on my friend-dar at my new job. "Hi nice to meet you we should have lunch sometime," became how I introduced myself to any youngish looking woman who had any version of a smile on her face. For a couple of months, work began to interfere with my social lunch calendar.

There'd be the first date lunch -- getting the basic information out of the way. And then there would be follow up lunch dates, involving varying degrees of effort to come up with things to talk about. Around lunch date two or three, I'd realize that my friend-dar was off. One date turned out to be Debbie Downer, another super-super-into-her-work girl. Another lunch date came with a warning of caution from a fellow co-worker: "Be careful what you tell her," she said. "She'll use whatever you say against you."

Then there'd be the random stranger on the street. I'd like one woman's sneakers, another's tattoos. "Will you be my friend?" I had half a mind to ask.

Before I turned completely crazy, another possible FRIEND turned up. I had seen Maria in my dance class for several months, but we had never said anything to each other. I had assumed that she was a college student, and she had probably assumed the same about me. But when she wound up sitting behind me at the local documentary film fest, we introduced ourselves, asked each other which movies we had seen, and the following dance class, exchanged emails. She was a Boston transplant. One who had a nice smile and liked dance and film. Could this possibly be FRIEND?

In my musical montage, Maria and I met each other for wine-filled, leaning-into-the-table dinners on Friday nights, went on bike rides, combed through local thrift shops, bitched equally about our bosses. It was perfect.

Our actual lunch was on a Friday. And it was fine. Totally fine. But just fine. We found things to talk about. She was plenty nice. But I left feeling disappointed.

What was my problem? What had I been expecting? Fireworks? True, I had felt them a couple of times when I had first met a friend, although I knew it was not the norm. The problem, I feared, was me: in my rush to build a new life in the South, I was sure that with the right amount of effort, I could will an instant and exciting new friendship based on superficial criteria and first impression chemistry.

Of course I knew that's not how it worked. That you can't force it or prescribe it, that it has to be organic, that good friends are rare and often don't live in your city, et cetera, et cetera. What was worse, my quest for FRIEND was making me feel like judgmental Goldilocks: this was one was too all-about-composting, that one was too borderline conservative. With my narrow-minded vision and sky-high expectations, I started to wonder how I had ever managed to make a friend ever.

Besides, I realized, even if there was a spark, a chemistry, a shared love of disturbed pets, where would it go post-lunch date? I was usually asleep in front of my space heater by 8:00 on a Friday night anyway. At this age (okay, well, always), I was hardly exciting FRIEND material.

Turned off by my creepy, friend-dating ways and beginning to question the limits of new-found adult friendship, I turned down my friend-dar.

And then she showed up at a new session of dance class. She had reddish brown hair and freckles and looked like she had some life experience under her belt. We smiled at each other and introduced ourselves. Her name was Stephanie, and she was a local, born and raised.

After class, we walked to our cars together and figured out that we lived within five minutes of each other.

That was all I knew about her. But it was enough. It was back on.
I had found FRIEND.

Avie, the Beautiful

2009-10-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

My gorgeous niece, Avie Marion Kraut Bjerk, was born on August 22, 2009. She is one adorable baby:

And besides just looking pretty, she is starting to do things, like smile at her mama:

And go to her neighbor's one-year-old birthday party in the park:

But so much partying makes a girl tired:

And Avie is getting better and better at sleeping, especially in her hats:

I love my darling niece.

The Brief Wonderless Soccer Career of Tonya

2009-09-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

There were many names I could have given the perceived hole in my life: legitimate, excellent-sounding career, thrilling nighttime activity that made up for less-than-thrilling daytime cubicle job, group of friends who “got me” in new town in which I lived. The hole was there and when reality tv couldn’t fill it, my solution was to join a 30 plus women’s soccer league, an ad for which I found on Craig’s list. So what that I had never played soccer before and that the ad might have mentioned experience preferred. I so met the woman and 30 plus qualifications, and I figured that my thick-ish thighs and love of knee-high striped socks would make up for the rest.

Despite my eagerness to start my new life as a soccer player, I learned that you couldn’t just sign up for one of the five existing women’s 30 plus teams – you had to be chosen. And despite my Jewish ancestry, it took a fall and a spring season before one of the captains was desperate enough to take a player who had never before kicked a soccer ball.

Once I got the green light that I was on a team, I immediately went out and bought all the gear: shin guards, socks, cleats, shorts and a $7 youth soccer ball from Target. I googled tips and rules for playing soccer, rented highlights of the 2006 World Cup, and practiced dribbling in the parking lot near my house, wiping out and badly bruising my bottom only once.

No matter how many times I reviewed what the heck off-sides meant, I remained clueless and stressed before the first game. I showed up an hour early and sat in my car in the empty parking lot, trying desperately to look nonchalant. When a car finally pulled up, and a middle-aged, slightly overweight woman with a cigarette in her hand emerged, I breathed a sigh of relief. Teammate or opponent, I might just be okay.

But the woman with the cigarette in her hand was neither friend nor foe; she was the parks and recreation woman, there to open the gates, set up the flags, and take down injury reports in case any one was tempted to sue.

After sitting on the bleachers in the blazing late afternoon sun for quite some time, grateful that no one had been around to see me fumble with my shin guards, other players finally began to arrive. I knew my teammates by their red shirts, although each time I tried to catch someone’s eye or smile, I was either met by no acknowledgement or an expression that read, “Who the hell are you?”

These red shirts, however, were not even friendly with each other. Here they were, having not seen each other for several months, and yet their interactions were mild and almost unfriendly – certainly no excitement or hugs or how-the-heck-have-you-been’s.

The other team, on the other hand -- the orange team -- was all smiles and hugs and oh-my-god-how-was-your-summer-how-are-the-kids. I wondered how much of a faux-pas it would be to see if I could trade in my red shirt for an orange.

Friendly or not, most of the women looked the part: some had gray hair, many were stocky or athletic-looking with weathered faces. Some were clearly out of shape and some looked like they could have been soccer stars in their time. Either way, they all looked like badasses to me, me who had spent her prime soccer years in the orchestra pit.

Before I knew what was happening, the captain called everyone out on to the field. She looked at me and kind of pointed towards a general area and called out some position, but I couldn’t quite hear her, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known what it meant.

“Tell her what to do,” the captain shouted at a player near me. From the annoyed expression on her face, this player clearly did not want that responsibility.

The whistle blew, the ball was in motion, and I said a quick prayer / cuss word under my breath. I ran in the general direction of the ball – that way on offense, the other way on defense – and begged the ball to stay far away from me.

“Who are you marking?” the annoyed player near me yelled.

Marking? Marking? Shit, I didn’t’ remember reading about marking. I had an immediate vision of peeing on another player but was pretty sure that was not what she was talking about.

“Mark your player!” she yelled again when I had no acceptable response for her.

Despite all my prayers, the ball inevitably came towards me. I did my best to kick it –anywhere -- and was just glad when I didn’t full out miss with my foot. Never mind the fact that when I did manage to make contact, the ball went straight towards an orange shirt.

After what felt like eight hours but was probably more like eight minutes, I couldn’t breathe and felt like throwing up.

“How do you sub?” I yelled towards annoyed player.

“What, you’re tired?!”

For the rest of the first half, I was a mess. My lack of ability to make any kind of positive contribution to my team continued, and it wasn’t just annoyed player who was annoyed at me; there seemed to be a whole chorus of coaches shouting things in my direction, except most of the time I couldn’t hear what they were saying. So I’d just nod. What I really heard in their shouts were, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” or some version of “Who the hell let her on the field?”

As the minutes dragged on, half of me felt like crying and half of me felt tougher because of it. Despite my life-long effort of doing whatever was necessary to avoid people being mad at me or yelling at me, maybe there was something good about people letting you have it. Since I had never before played organized sports (minus pick-up, friendly, non-competitive basketball), I had never experienced -- for better or worse – the wrath of a coach or the anxiety of competitive athletic pressure.

Half-time lasted about thirty seconds, and the second half didn’t go any better than the first. At one point, one of my teammates kept yelling at a player named Tonya to do this or do that. Geez, I thought, after the eighth or ninth time, they’re really letting this Tonya girl have it. Sucks to be her. And then somehow, I caught on that the woman yelling was yelling at me. I was Tonya. A little later in the game, I realized that my new moniker was a blessing; the other rookie on the team had been dubbed “New Girl.”

Although there was not much time left in the game – a ref had told a player near me that there were three minutes left – there was still plenty of time for me to screw up. And screw up I did: while playing defense, I kicked the ball as hard as I could – towards the center of the field and straight towards an orange shirt, who kicked it straight into the goal. My first assist.

We lost 0-2. Afterwards I watched as my teammates packed up and the players for the next game did their twisty knee/torso exercises. I felt like crap.

I sat on the bleachers wondering how I had gotten myself into this mess. I made it to the car without crying but couldn’t hold it any longer. The tears only made me feel more pathetic. There was, I knew, no crying in soccer. At least not above the age of seven.

The worst part was that I knew I had to go back. That I couldn’t end my soccer career in a puddle of tears. I needed to give it one more chance – to make sure that it was the worst idea I had ever had – before officially calling it quits.

The six glorious days of not having to play soccer went way too quickly, and before I knew it, I was back sitting in the blazing late afternoon sun watching the parks and recreation chain smoker set up the flags. This time, however, I had nothing to lose: it couldn’t really go any worse than the first game, and the worse it was, the more it would confirm that this game would be my last.

But a terrible thing happened: this game went much better than the first. I got called by my actual name. I had more of a clue as to what was going on and where I should be on the field. I had learned to kick the ball towards the outside on defense. Most miraculously, I got a “good job” from annoyed player at half-time. She also told me that I looked like a chicken when I tried to avoid touching the ball with my arms, but still. The team was in a good mood and the other players didn’t seem to hate me. We ended up winning 2-0.

And at first, it felt so good. The game was over, I had survived, and I hadn’t caused my team another loss.

The euphoria, however, didn’t last. “Shit,” I realized on the drive home. “This means I have to go back.” This development messed up everything.

And now, the pressure was on. Now, what if they thought that maybe I didn’t completely and utterly suck? What if they actually passed me the ball? What if I had to play every game this season and every season for the rest of my life? This was a disaster, that’s what this was.

Despite my wish for the world to come to a fiery crashing end so that I wouldn’t have to play the next game, game three, in fact, arrived. My nerves were even worse than before: I was seriously nauseated, considered throwing myself in front of a bus, and felt a bitter sense of jealousy towards my cat. She didn’t have to go play in a soccer game that night. No fair. Why couldn’t I be her?

Game three, wouldn’t you know it, was somewhere in between. Not as bad as the first, not as good as the second, and yet, so not just right.

Sometime early in the first half, however, when the nauseated feeling in my stomach still hadn’t gone away, and while I was busy praying for the ball to stay on the other side of the field, I realized that maybe, in fact, this women’s 30 plus soccer league wasn’t for me. After all, I had survived middle school PE the first time -- why tempt fate?

I knew that if I didn’t go to the next game, that would be it – I wouldn’t go back ever.

So I tried to quiet the voice in my head for the rest of the game and then pretend like I needed to think about it. I had a week and a half to decide. But I knew.

True, there were things I liked about soccer – running around and sprinting, for one. There is so little reason to run really fast in normal life – save for maybe trying to catch a bus or a plane -- and soccer provided that adrenaline and urgency. And, like too many other things in my life, I was still attached to the way women’s 30 plus soccer league sounded and to what it could have been.

But, I knew that Tonya’s career was over.

And so, there I was on game four: dead smack in the middle of my couch in front of the television trying not to think about the soccer game that I was not at. I returned to my old ways -- it was the season premiere of “America’s Next Top Model” – and the new crop of contestants was 5’ 7” or under. Seriously good bad tv.

I crossed out all of the soccer games I had written down in my planner at work. I took down the highlighted schedule from both my fridge and my bulletin board in my cubicle. Soccer would be one of the only things I quit, and I hated the idea that I was a quitter. But, I figured that the over thirty part came with some kind of wisdom, even if it was the small pea that continuing to play wouldn’t prove anything to anybody.

So, I’m back to wondering what my career should be and when my new calling in life will call. I sometimes think about New Girl during the commercials of “America’s Next Top Model.” But, at least for the moment, I’m no longer jealous of my cat.

My Favorite 48 Hours of My Life

2009-08-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

(Photos generously taken and provided by our friends and family.)

Friday, July 10th at Westgrand Studios.

The view from the dance floor.

The set up begins. If the dance scene at the end of "Footloose" was part of my muse for the dance party, and it most certainly was, this photo is only missing those big sacks of corn or wheat or whatever they process in Beaumont.

Nothing says wedding like Wonder Woman plates and hot dog gum.

Claire, making me laugh, as per usual.

The mighty set up crew, minus Willie's mom, who was doing double duty as wedding photographer.

Friday night on the patio of Phyllis' Musical Inn. That's Willie's dad's girlfriend, Penny, with the fabulous hat.

Keira made sure I ate at all events. I still don't understand why she is not in North Carolina following me around with a plate of food.

My mom in her sexy dress.

Willie in his kickass new shirt, double fisting beer and pineapple.

Saturday afternoon in my parents' backyard, walking down the steps of the deck

as my brother played "Sharp Cutting Wings" by Lucinda Williams.

My hostesses-with-the-mostesses parents spoke first.

My dad outdid himself with the best rhyming poem I have ever heard in my life. He rhymed "screeching" with "teaching,"

which made me laugh.

Willie's mom and dad spoke next. Scout and Fonzie, as the "disturbed" pets, got a special shout out.

Although he is always hired for his music at weddings, turns out my brother writes a pretty killer reading.

Then Willie and I said our vows. Mine were typed, revised and printed on yellow paper that matched my nails and flower. Willie needed no such color coordination

to make me cry.

And then we were married. Really, truly married.

And it was time to eat: Pita Inn!

The ladies, looking very wedding serious.

My sister and I, doing the exact same thing at a 45 degree angle from each other.

Saturday night, July 11th at Westgrand Studios.

That's my cousin, Paul, in the background.

Our amazing DJ, Shawn.

Everyone got down with the wipe-your-sweat-on-the-dance-floor-and-feel-like-Wonder-Woman-party-favor wristbands, even Willie's 95-year-old Grandma, Melva.

Willie set up a do-it-yourself photo booth, which, of course, called for a Flying Buttresses alumni picture.

My beautiful sister gave an amazing toast, which made me cry some more.

As did Willie's brother, Joedan's toast.

Followed up by a super sweet song written by Willie's friend, J.R., who was there the night Willie and I met at the Hungry Brain.

And then it was time for the first dance.

What else but "1999"by Prince, Willie's alter ego.

I somehow worked the airplane into the routine.

It was kind of a surreal experience, like the end of a movie when the room spins around and the crowd cheers and the screen freezes on the hugging couple and the credits role. Kind of exactly like that.

And then Maggie got the breakdancing going.

And Kelsa got the house dancing going. (On a side note, Kelsa already had a wristband on when she showed up at the dance party. This is one of the many reasons why I love her.)

It wasn't long before a battle erupted between Maggie and Fausto, Willie's cousin's fiance.

Soon it was time for a shoe change.

How many wristbands can you find in the picture?

What is happiness? Having all of your friends and family on the same dance floor, including your dancing-in-the-womb niece.

The Heat is On

2009-06-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

They put the high for today at 100 degrees. In reality, it's only about 95, although my own personal heat index puts it at about 110 in the sun.

Mostly, my response to the heat has been to move slowly, be tired, act crabby, and not feel like doing much of anything.

But, just like I'm trying to adapt to the South by using all of my will power to not scratch my mosquito bites (yes, I'm also using many and frequent applications of Off and After Bite), I'm finding ways to cope with the heat. And I really do mean cope, as we have yet to turn on our central A/C.

A few of my strategies:

The fan outdoors? Who knew that that's the real reason why extension cords were invented.

If you get the sugar free kind, you have less guilt about eating six popsicles in a row.

Perhaps the best non-alcoholic summer beverage: DIY Gatorade in the packets. You are in total control of your sugary, sodium-filled Gatorade intake.

Of course, there's the learning-the-hard-way what is not such a good idea to do on a 95-degree day:

Repotting your hanging and potted porch plants would fall in this category.

And if you're Fonzie, your strategy for coping with the heat:

Play often and carry a big stick.

One in the column for North Carolina

2009-06-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

I miss water. I miss seeing it, biking to it, walking next to it, driving by it, and, when I'm lucky, swimming in it. I miss pretty much everything about living near Lake Michigan, especially because I have swapped it out for fairly landlocked central North Carolina. Sure, there's the Eno River and alleged swimming holes to be explored. But, that's not the beach, and I love beach.

Finally, after nine months of complaining about wanting to go to the coast of North Carolina, Willie and I hopped in the car yesterday and headed east. Two and a half hours later, we arrived in Wrightsville, a town on the beach right next to Wilmington.

It was a cloudy day -- 30% chance of rain -- and even a little chilly with the wind. We found a spot on the beach away from the not-too-big-crowd, settled in with our chairs and cooler and magazines...and chilled.

Willie got me to go in the water, which was a good thing, because it was just about the best time ever. Big waves, a strong undertow, salty water...I was not in Kansas anymore.

Before leaving Wrightsville, we saw three wedding parties (two ceremonies on the beach), heard lots of thick southern accents, and ate some fresh fish.

The day pretty much ruled.

So, now I've changed my geographical classification to living not-too-far-ish from the water.

And even though I was reminded about what part of the country we live in when we pulled up to a Shell station on the way home,

if the divine refers to the beach, holy moly, count me blessed.

I Heart London

2009-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

For starters, there is a direct flight from the Raleigh/Durham airport to London Heathrow. That's right, little ol' RDU will put you on a plane that goes straight to London.

So even before it began, my five-days-and-five-nights trip to Oxford and London was special. And after deplaning from the so-empty-you-had-your-own-row flight, the trip continued to be pretty freakin' wonderful:

- There was the all female cricket team playing in a park in Oxford.

- The two glorious meals of fish 'n chips, both consumed on the patio of a pub. (Why did I stop at two?)

- Can't leave out the cheese baguette sandwiches (four total) from Pret a Manger that I consumed during the trip. (And by cheese, I mean brie with basil and tomato, goat cheese with roasted asparagus, and cheddar with pickled, almost chutney-like relish.)

- Or the the two soft serve vanilla ice cream Flake cones I ate, the softest, most artificial vanilla ice cream with a truly delicious flaky piece of chocolate sticking out of the side. (Why did I stop at two? Especially when, as my dear friend Claire pointed out, it's kind of like eating air.)

- And even on the way home, the extra special-ness of the trip continued with my first alcoholic beverage on a plane.

(The story is that the little TV screen near me wasn't working and the flight attendants felt bad and comped me with some Baileys. Little did they know that if I angled my head a certain way and squinted, I could still make out most of "Marley and Me." Yes, it was god-awful. Yes, I cried at the end. Blame it on the 37,000 feet between me and the ground.)

And these are just a few of the things from my how-the-hell-did-I-get-so-lucky trip; the full report would include my first formal high table dinner at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, visiting the mecca that is Top Shop in London, and consuming the delicious mini cheese pizza they served on the plane ride home.

But, of course, like every trip, and like pretty much everything in life, it's all about the people that you're with:

The Only Time I Wished I Owned a Shotgun

2009-05-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

So, like all adolescents, the three baby birds that survived went through a kind of awkward stage; their still-forming spiky feathers and poop-covered nest just weren't that cute. But then they crossed over into the fluffy feather stage and looked all cuddly.

And then they were gone.

A real empty nest felt sad. But, as Willie said, you just gotta hope you raised them right and let them go.

Literally the very next day, as I was watering the hanging flower plants, there in the yellow one, just two plants down from the original Home Depot nest, was a brand new nest.

I couldn't believe my luck! Not only was my front porch a birdie nesting ground, but I was going to get another chance to watch the miracle of nest to egg to bird. And I was going to do it even better this time: daily photographs, proper research -- I wasn't going to make the same mistakes I made with my first baby birds.

Like the original, this one grew into a five-egg nest, complete with white fluffy cotton-looking padding for the eggs.

This picture was taken Thursday morning at about 8:00 AM.

An hour later, the nest would be empty.

That morning, as I was opening my front door to leave for work, I noticed a large crow perched on the roof of the porch near the yellow hanging flower plant. The big black crow promptly flew off as I closed the door and locked it behind me.

I made my way down the stairs to my car and looked back up at porch.

Before I knew what was happening, the crow flew back, perched on the yellow hanging flower plant, grabbed an egg in his mouth and flew away. The mother bird, who had been near the crow the first time I saw him, flew off behind him, chirping and trying to stop him.

My mouth and my stomach both dropped.

I rushed back up to the nest and looked inside: only two eggs.

I wanted to cry and scream and go find the crow and shoot it and remain guard in front of the nest to prevent any more egg snatching.

But there was nothing I could do. After waiting around for a little bit and feeling more distraught than I ever imagined I could feel about birds' eggs, I left for work.

At my desk, I couldn't get the image of the egg in the crow's beak or the sight of the mother bird flying off next to the crow out of my head. Feeling sickened and helpless, I googled as many things about crows and protecting birds' eggs as I could find. I wanted to find something to make me feel better, to remind me that this was all a part of nature, as cruel as it was. I even started looking up how often birds lay eggs, hoping I'd get lucky again, although I knew now that my porch was not safe. Finding nothing reassuring, I resorted to looking up sites about birds and emotions, wondering how the mother bird was coping.

When I got home, I didn't even want to look in the nest. When I eventually did, sure enough, it was empty.

Since then, I've thought about plastic owls and scarecrows and quitting my job to become a full time protector of the nest.

A musical montage would include me looking at birds on my walks and picturing their healthy successful growth from egg to baby to independent bird.

And my fifth grade response to the whole thing continues: I officially hate crows.

As Long as It's a Team Called the Bulls

2009-05-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sandwiched in between a triple overtime hells-yeah-mother-fucker Chicago Bulls win on Thursday night and a what-the-hell-happened-to-you second half of the Chicago Bulls loss on Saturday night, I went to two Bulls games here in Durham. The Durham Bulls, subject of one of the greatest baseball movies ever made. And as far as minor league baseball games go, it delivered on the good old fashioned fun.

Yeah, so maybe the Bulls lost 14 - 1 to the Columbus Clippers on Friday night. And maybe I didn't stick around to see what the final score was in their loss to the Clippers on Saturday afternoon.

But it's a pretty darn cool park. When a Bulls player hits a homerun, the eyes of the bull in the outfield light up, his tail wags and steam comes out of his nose. There's also one of those manual score boards in the outfield, which, of course, pulls on my Wrigley Field heart stings.

The hot dog was tasty, the pretzel was fresh, the beer choices were a-plenty (Fat Tire at a ballpark?), and my cousin, Ethan, confirmed that the pink flavor of the double flavor cotton candy is pretty much to die for. There was even an impressive fireworks show after the game on Friday night -- set off right in the middle of the field, complete with about five exciting finales.

While it's no St. Paul Saints game (the hands down best minor league game to go to -- it is just an all around hilarious experience, stand up comedian announcer and all), and while I really do miss living in a place with professional sports (sorry, Carolina Hurricanes, hockey will never be my bag), it's not bad for a $7 ticket.

In fact, when the weather is nice, and the beer cup is full, and you can ride your bike there in four minutes, you can pretty much take me out to the Durham Bulls ball game anytime ol' time.

When a National Geographic Special Shows Up On Your Front Porch OR When My New White Pets Turned Brown

2009-04-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

Back in the nest, the number of white eggs increased to five -- five blue speckled ovals that fit perfectly, with no room for more and no nest wasted.

And then a week later...

Four of the five eggs had hatched and formed a mash of pink flesh and gray feathers.

And soon there were all five babies

A ______-eye view of the nest

A visible beak, along with big black baby bird circles...

Another shot of a beak and a head

And since I couldn't invite them in for some pizza...

Durham: Land of the Movie Stars

2009-04-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I had my first celebrity sighting in Durham. And as much as "celebrity" and "Durham" don't belong in the same sentence, this one was for real: there in the bar of the downtown Marriott sat Colin Firth and Patricia Clarkson having drinks on a Friday night.

It was the second night of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, which is why I found myself in a hotel bar in the first place. And if it hadn't been for the New York producer who was staying with us that weekend, Colin Firth and Patricia Clarkson would have slipped by me unnoticed.

Granted, it wasn't a normal weekend in Durham. The annual Full Frame Festival meant that lots of out-of-towners and movie people and hipsters invaded a three block radius of deserted downtown for several days; for once you couldn't just leave your car in the middle of the street and call it a parking spot. People walked around with their giant VIP festival passes around their necks -- the volunteers, the pass holders, the people associated with the films.

By Sunday night, the hubbub had pretty much died down, and it was once again possible to walk down a main street in the evening and not see a single car.

Life returned to normal, and the celebrity sightings returned to the usual, "Hey, that's the woman who teaches the dance class right before the one I take," or, "There's my former neighbor who walks around with a lead pipe."

And then, this past week, a mere two blocks from my house, another celebrity showed up in Durham.

Vans and trucks and trailers had been filling up the empty lot of the vacated rice diet center located just down the street, and once or twice I spotted the bright film lights as I walked by on my way to work. I had assumed that they were filming a movie about rice or diets.

But then, this past normal Tuesday, as Fonzie took me on on our usual post-work walk, we passed by a closed-off section of Duke Street, where a couple of police officers were redirecting traffic to accommodate the film shooting.

I asked one of the cops what was being filmed.

"A film called Main Street," he said.

"Who's in it?" I asked.

"Orlando Bloom."

Yessiree. Orlando Bloom had been hanging out (or working, as it were) just blocks from my house.

The next day, word had caught on that Orlando was in town; a small but committed gaggle of girls and young women had planted themselves outside of the building where filming was taking place.

A little IMDB search later, and sure enough, Colin Firth and Patricia Clarkson are also in Main Street.

Willie said he would pay me $5 if I got a picture of Orlando Bloom, $10 if he was naked.

As of the posting of this blog, I am no richer than I was two days ago.

And even though I stupidly imagine that the film stars shooting in Durham are bored and eager to get out of this small Southern city, there's one more little feather in Durham's Hollywood cap.

My New White Pets

2009-04-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

For several weeks now, I've been trying to figure out how to best blog about spring. I certainly didn't want to rub it in the face of my dear Midwesterners and Northeasterners, oohing and ahhing about the spring flowers and the 70 degree days. That would just be mean.

But, I'm pretty sure that spring is where it's at in North Carolina, that spring is one reason to live here (especially if you're not a fan of the heat). And specifically because I'm not a fan of the heat, and because far too soon the bugs and humidity will arrive and stay, I'm actively forcing myself to acknowledge and appreciate spring, glorious, spring.

So with the aid of my little camera necklace, here is my homage to my first spring in North Carolina:

The new, and for real exciting, yuppie table and umbrella on the back deck. It is my new goal to sit at this table under this umbrella as much as possible until the mosquitos show up.

Willie putting gas in his one gallon jug that holds gas for the purpose of....

mowing the lawn half shirtless. (That lawnmower isn't ours, btw, but is very generously loaned by Willie's friend, Bobby G.)

Our mailbox actually has nothing to do with spring, but I've been trying to figure out how to work into some blog the fact that when you want the mail person to pick up a letter, you raise the little flag, and then he/she puts it back down after taking the piece of outgoing mail. To me, this is probably in the top five good things about living here, even if it's just as suburban-y as country. (P.S. That flag is just an actor; I actually have no outgoing mail at the moment.)

And, of course, the flowers. Oh, for a scratch 'n sniff blog...

The second I realized it was actually spring, I just had to have hanging flower baskets for the front porch as proof that I knew it was spring. At first, I felt a little guilty that they were from Home Depot, like I chose Walmart over the Farmer's Market.

But then, in one of the baskets that I brought home, I noticed a little bowl-like bulge sticking up above the dirt. I thought it was part of the dirt and tried to smush it back down.

In fact, that little bowl-like bulge turned out to be a bird's nest that some Home Depot bird had worked hard to build. It only took a week and a half before a bird on my street found this nest, kind of like a furnished apartment, and did her thing. Friday, when I went to water the plant, I finally caught on that the bowl-like bulge was, indeed, a bird's nest, when I found one little white egg inside of it.

This morning, there were two eggs.

Voila, spring.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know (and more!) About Getting Married at City Hall

2009-03-22T09:42:00.001-07:00

If you ever find yourself contemplating getting married at City Hall in Durham, NC, say, oh, for example,to speed up the whole health insurance privilege thing, here are a few tidbits that I wish I would have known going into the big day:

- If you're considering Veteran's Day as your wedding date, not because you feel particularly patriotic or veteran-like but because you need to fill out your health insurance forms on Thursday, which is only two days away, be aware that while you can't actually get married on Veteran's Day, as the courthouse is closed, you can get a head start by visiting the Register of Deeds to apply for a marriage license. While you are filling out information about how much education your parents received, you can enjoy that distinct Subway bread smell, as there is a Subway located right across the hall from the Register of Deeds.

- On the morning of your wedding day, although you might think that it's a good idea to wear that bulky white sweater and brown skirt (white: a nod to the whole bride thing; brown: conservative enough for the job you just started), it's really not. Trust me, you'll wish you had worn something entirely different.

- If you decide to get married the day after Veteran's Day, you should know that the sign on the door of the civil courtroom stating, "Weddings performed weekdays between 11:00 - 11:30 AM," is incorrect. What the sign should read is, "Look, yesterday was Veteran's Day and we were closed, okay? So, while you're ready to have your cute little wedding ceremony ala Jessica Alba and wore your bulky white sweater to mark the occasion (bad choice, by the way), you're just going to have to wait until we get through all of the cases that were backed up from the court being closed yesterday. And by cases, we mean real, actual court cases -- not cute little wedding ceremonies. That means we'll get to you when we get to you, got it?"

- When you enter the waiting room of the civil courtroom expecting to see other couples or even, in some fantasy world, a welcome-to-your-wedding committee, you will instead be greeted by a small crowded room full of crabby people. These crabby people, who have been waiting entirely too long to see one of the two judges, will look you up and down once and then go back to being crabby.

- You will pretty much be willing to bet your life savings, aka your American Apparel rainy day fund, that none of the crabby and tired people in the waiting room are there to get married.

- If you are unsure of what to do once you enter the crowded waiting room, whatever you do, do not try to open one of the two doors to the courtroom. You will automatically receive a "Oh, no you don't! You need to wait your turn!" from the standing-room-only waiting room.

- (At this point, you should go down the hall and pay the $20 fee to get married. Even though you will wish you could take a number or put your name on some sign-up sheet, all you can do is clutch your receipt for "Wedding: $20" as proof of the business you have come to take care of at the courthouse.)

- You should bring something to read to your wedding ceremony.

- It will take you about fifteen minutes to become agitated enough to become one with the crowded crabby waiting room. You will start eyeing the seats that occasionally become vacated, but you will not be quick enough to grab one.

- When you realize that your stomach is growling loudly enough for everyone to hear it, you can run across the street to the Subway, located right across the hall from the Register of Deeds.

- You should not, under any circumstances, eat your foot-long turkey sub, which you will share with the person you are marrying, in front of the crabby people in the waiting room. Instead, you and the person you are marrying will take turns inhaling six-inch halves in the hallway outside of the waiting room, and you will hope that you just sort of blend into the wall as the courthouse lunch traffic passes you by.

- If you are worried that what you thought would be a 45-minute lunch break is turning into a two-hours-and-counting lunch break on this, the third day of your new job, you should be.

- Even though you kind of knew that you needed two witnesses and didn't do anything about it, you, in fact, need two witnesses and should do something about it. (Note: people on their lunch break have a hard time saying no when you ask them to be in your wedding.)

- When the waiting room has finally finally cleared, and you and the person you are marrying enter the courtroom with your two new best friends -- random stranger witness #1 and random stranger witness #2 -- the judge won't quite be ready for you. She will need to shuffle papers around just long enough for you to start worrying about the dwindling lunch hour of random stranger witness #1 and #2.

- As your actual legal wedding ceremony begins, you will not really know what is happening. It will feel like a strange dream or an episode of Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd." When the judge asks you to hold hands with the person you are marrying and to look into each others' eyes, you will instead stare straight at the judge the entire time. You will regret this and will want a do-over.

- When you find yourself saying those words that people say when they get married, you will, out of nowhere, get a littler teary as you realize, "holy fucking shit."

- You will leave the courtroom, thank the two random strangers -- the only witnesses to your marriage ceremony -- and walk out of the courthouse in a daze. You will wonder if people are looking at you and thinking, "Oh my goodness -- they just got married!" Don't worry, they are not even noticing you.

- You will get back to your one-hour parking meter and find a bright orange parking ticket on your windshield -- a wedding gift from the City of Durham.

- You won't know whether to laugh or cry about this wedding gift.

- The person you married will drop you off back at work and you will be so grateful that the person with whom you share an office is still gone at meetings and is therefore unaware of your two hour and forty-five minute lunch break on this, the third day of your new job.

- You will secretly hope that the person with whom you share an office asks you, upon her return from meetings, what you did over your lunch break so that you can blurt out, "Oh, you know, grabbed a sandwich, got married." But she won't.

- And, anyways, you're not even sure how you feel about the whole thing so you make the person you married keep it a secret for two months until you remember that you're supposed to be planning a wedding.

- Four months after the fact, you won't remember what you did the night you got married.

- But you will remember the fact that when you went out to dinner the weekend following your wedding ceremony, the person you married will think you are out celebrating your first week of work.

- Four and a half months after your wedding ceremony, when your new hipster neighbors move in across the street, and the person you married goes over to bring them a six-pack, the hipster couple will think that you are there for their party to celebrate the fact that...they got married at City Hall that very day (no joke). When the person you married tells them that that's where you got married, the new hipster neighbors will respond, "Isn't it great? That's the place to do it!" Then you will look at the hipster neighbors' license plate and see that they are from New York, probably direct from Brooklyn.

- You will feel nothing close to married until you use the word "husband" for the first time when picking up a prescription for the person you married. And then you won't feel married so much as like a child in over-sized adult clothes on one of those Mini-Wheats commercials.

- And even though the do-it-yourself dance party that you are planning has turned into a series of questions and decisions you never thought you'd be asking yourself, such as, "Do I really need to use boxes and draped cloth so that the desserts are at different levels?" and even though you have tried for weeks to blog about your no-longer secret wedding with absolutely no success because you're still not entirely sure how you feel about it, because you married the person that you married, you wouldn't change a thing.

Snow Day: Part Two

2009-03-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it happened again. For the second time this winter, North Carolina was hit with a winter storm, dumping snow on the mid-section of the state. Everything, and I mean everything, came to a halt. No schools, no businesses, no doctors' offices, no YMCA. There was no risking it. After all, this was the scene outside this afternoon:

Yup. This one was a doozy.

This time around, however, I wised up. Although I could have easily walked to my office, it just wouldn't have been in the spirit of the day. As long as I am living in the South, land of the take-cover-it's-going-to-snow, I will take my snow day, thank you very much.

Hello, Kitty

2009-02-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

The stars were aligned last Wednesday. The Little Twin Stars, that is.

At the end of the day, Willie and I both had news to share:

A woman in my office had gone to McDonald's for lunch and had come back with a Hello Kitty watch in her Happy Meal. A perfectly plastic apple-themed Hello Kitty watch, complete with red apple shape and bright green band (and size three-year-old wrist).

Willie had gone to McDonald's that very morning to take advantage of their buy-one-get-one-free egg McMuffin day, and what did he spot in the display case but Hello Kitty watches. Lots of them.

It was done. We were going to McDonald's.

So, on Saturday night, after much anticipation, we hopped in the car and drove the six blocks to the McDonald's in downtown Durham. And there they were: the eight brightly-colored, ridiculously small-wristed plastic San Rio watches. They looked even better all together -- the punk style next to the rainbow style next to the leopard print style. I put both of my arms around the display case to study them more closely and decide which one I secretly hoped they had in stock. Not that it mattered. I was in heaven.

With much excitement, I went up to the counter to confirm that they were still giving away the watches in the Happy Meals. "Um, let me check," the teenager said.

After talking to someone, making a McFlurry, and rummaging around a box, he came back with the news: "Sorry, we're all out."

My stomach dropped. I told him that, in fact, they weren't out because there were eight perfectly good watches in the display case. "Um, let me check," he said.

He got his supervisor, who came up to the counter to see what the matter was. After I pleaded my Hello Kitty display case case, the supervisor told me that he didn't have the key for it -- it was with the manager.

"Well, what time does the manager work?" I asked. I don't believe I ever got an answer, but Willie and I stood lingering around the display case for a few minutes before we left. Not before Willie tried to pry it open with his fingers, though.

I was disappointed and couldn't hide it. I figured we'd try another McDonald's at some point during the week. But it was getting late and we were hungry.

After almost parking near a local bar with decent burgers, we decided to drive around for a minute in search of another McDonald's.

It didn't take long to find an even bigger and more crowded McDonald's. We parked and rushed inside.

The display case empty. A terrible sign.

Still, we went up to the counter to ask the gaggle of teenage girls working behind it if they still had the Hello Kitty watches. They looked at each other and checked with someone working the drive-through window and nodded. Yes, they still had them.

And then my McDonald's guardian angel worker emerged from the gaggle. She had long braids and a perfect gap between her two front teeth. She disappeared into the back for a minute, and when she returned, she was carrying a big box filled of every single variety of Hello Kitty watch.

She watched in amusement as I rummaged around the box to find all eight varieties. I laid them out on the counter to try to decide which ones to get. The other teenage workers behind the counter became more interested, and one of them said she'd be taking home the purple watch that night.

Willie was ordering and I had to decide. I started to panic. He paid for four watches plus a Happy Meal, and I stood there for too long trying to decide which five it would be.

I put the other three back and we left. And then as we were walking to the car, he could sense my not-quite-elated state.

"Why don't you go back and get the rest," he said. "I'll be in the car." If I hadn't already decided to marry him...

The girls behind the counter were not very surprised to see me. My same girl went and got the box, and I paid for the remaining three watches, the three that would complete my collection.

At home, before I even took the food out of the bag, I lined up all of my plastic-wrapped watches. At this point, I had no idea if they would fit me or if I could even wear them. But it didn't matter. They were mine.

I ripped one open to see just how small the band actually was. A tight fit around my wrist. But a fit, damnit.

As of this post, I have worn a different Hello Kitty watch each day.

And although it's either 12:21, 8:01 or 1:39 depending on which Kitty you ask,

my wrist couldn't be happier.

P.S. This post is dedicated to my dear friend, Claire, who, in addition to loving Hello Kitty, understands the need for all eight.

Bull

2009-02-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

Although Durham suffers from a lack of sidewalks (people on them), stores (American Apparel), and a solid spot to get carne asada and a margarita (Cafe El Tapatio), it does have a mighty fine selection of bulls. And partly because of the movie "Bull Durham," and partly because bulls remind me of bisons which remind me of Buffalo, NY (homeland of my mom's side of the family), I am quite fond of the bulls of Durham. In fact, you might even say that they might even be one of my favorite things about the bull city.

Within a mile radius of my house, here are some Durham bulls:

Blinking billboard near the new Durham Bulls ballpark

Just a half a block down the street

The old ballpark (under construction)

In the outfield of the new ballpark

Holding it down in the center of downtown

And my favorite. Although Durham doesn't have bike lanes,

it has the best bike racks.

Life is an '89 Cadillac

2009-01-24T09:55:00.000-08:00

There are entire websites devoted to songs about Cadillacs. One of these sites even lists bands named after Cadillacs (Caddydaddy's latest count was 11).

As for me, I didn't full appreciate the Cadillac (because it's not a car, it's a Cadillac) until I met Willie. And then three years after that.

Willie's '89 Sedan de Ville was the car in which he got continuously pulled over on the West side of Chicago (for being a white guy driving a Cadillac in a non-white neighborhood). It was the car that landed me (and not Willie) in handcuffs after Willie and I got pulled over in Uptown (for being white in a Cadillac while driving on Wilson Avenue). The cop's search of the car was cut short, however, when they spotted an actual drug bust opportunity not 20 yards away.

Willie's '89 Sedan de Ville was the car that made you look two feet taller since the interior fabric on the roof had come detached and hung lower and lower each month.

It was the car that Willie liked to joke was older than his students.

But, most impressively, it was the car -- and I mean Cadillac --that made it from Chicago to North Carolina in 14 hours straight last summer when everyone said it couldn't. Even though Willie had to refill the oil every 180 miles due to a leak, even though he had the windows rolled up (and no A/C) so that he wouldn't lose any aerodynamic-ness, and even though I was on-call to come get him if he broke down between Chicago and Indianapolis, the Carolina blue Caddy brought him home safe and sound.

Sadly, the state of North Carolina does not respect such feats. Willie's '89 Sedan de Ville, with it's rusted bottom and broken tail light, and lord knows what else, would not pass inspection. After sadly accepting this fact, Willie had trouble just giving his beauty away. Finally, Habitat for Humanity agreed to take it.

I'm glad I wasn't home to see it carted off yesterday. The Cadillac looked good parked in front, hanging out with my blue Fit, and I miss it already. Here are photos of the Caddy's last moments with us:

(You can kind of see the low-hanging ceiling in the center of the car.)

See that truck parked up ahead? Luckily, that's Willie's, too.

And although it's not a Cadillac, having this toothpaste green Ford truck parked out front is not too shabby. Although I don't know how to drive it yet, my dog sure looks good riding in it.

Let it Snow

2009-01-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

This morning, as if it weren't one of the best days ever anyway, we woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground in North Carolina. I. Was. Stoked.

North Carolina, on the other hand, was in a state of emergency. Literally. Schools, offices, businesses -- everything was closed.

This was what I had been waiting for, the freaking out, run-on-bread-and-milk weather that people had promised me. And the whatever-you-do-just-don't-leave-the-house response did not disappoint.

This is a picture of my street this morning: (That big old pinkish house on the right is the one that costs so damn much to heat.)

Not much to sneeze at, right? But I don't fault North Carolinians for making a big fuss. They're not snow people.

And even if I was one of two people at work today, I'm just glad that I still live in a state where I can wear boots and crunch around in the snow.

Space Heater: Woman's Best Friend

2009-01-17T08:27:00.000-08:00

For the record, the temperature is the same today in Durham, North Carolina as it is in Chicago, Illinois: a whopping 18 degrees.

For the record, my first winter heating bill in North Carolina was significantly higher than my highest winter heating bill in Chicago.

Both of these on-the-record facts prompt me to ask the question: what the fuck?

I could list about thirteen caveats and keep-in-minds here, including the fact that much of the Midwest and eastern parts of the country have experienced record-breaking cold this winter, that no matter how bad it is here, I know I can't complain because my poor midwestern brothers and sisters have it way worse for way longer, that of course my place costs more to heat now because a) it's a two-story, four-bedroom house, and b) it has just about the worst insulation you could imagine. The floors are especially freezing. Put your hand over an outlet and you can feel the cold air coming in.

True: two weeks ago, it was 50 degrees and sunny here. True: it's supposed to be 50 degrees and sunny here next weekend. And the biggest true is that I know I'm going to get my butt kicked this summer when I, as someone who hates being over-heated, endure my first North Carolina summer.

But still. My little pinky just about froze off as I stupidly tried to go running this morning with the dog. So, signing off from the South, woe-is-cold-is me.

P.S. After reading my Chicago friends' blogs, with the pictures and description of snow and minus seventeen degrees and shoveling and people saving parking spots with beat up old chairs, I take it back: I have no problems, nothing to complain about. Carry on.

A Lighter Shade of Blue

2009-01-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

When I was merely a visitor to the state of North Carolina, going to a men's basketball game at the Dean Dome was cool, like getting to sample the local culture. And a crazy "other" culture it was, what with everyone, and I mean everyone, in their Carolina blue gear, drinking out of their Carolina blue cups, following every single play like it was the last thirty seconds of a close game -- the cheers, the gasps, the chance to win a free Bojangles sausage biscuit if the Tar Heels scored over 100 points.

This, of course, is supposed to be their year, and since a championship would put many people I know in a very good mood, go Tar Heels go.

But now that I quote unquote live in North Carolina, going to a UNC basketball game reminds me that I'm not from here, that I didn't go to school here, that I'm not blond and preppy. Now when I go to the Dean Dome, I feel a little homesick. I miss my stinky lovable Cubs, say what you will about Northside Cubs fans, and the Bulls, even though I've only been to two games ever. Hell, I even miss the Bears, even though I don't know how to watch a football game.

Of course, it's Chicago and home that I miss, and I have no desire to change the color of my sports team blood.

I will, however, be happily fascinated by the cheerleaders, since my little college in Northfield, Minnesota didn't have any.

Between watching the girls pull down their skirts every time they finish a round-off, and trying to decide which pom poms girl is my favorite, there is plenty to distract me from my homesickness.

So, yes to good moods and free biscuits and this being the Tar Heels' year. But secretly, deep down, and always, go Bulls, Bears and especially Cubbies.

Bravo, Indeed

2009-01-02T18:30:00.000-08:00

This week, just when I was beginning to write the introduction to my heart-wrenching memoir called "Ha-ha-funny-joke-I've-had-an-interesting-four-months-in-an-anthropological-kind-of-way-and-now-I'm-ready-to-go-back-to-my-real-life," two television miracles happened to me.

The first was actually less miracle and more obsession; it was brought to my attention that I can watch "The Dog Whisperer" on channel 70 five nights a week. People had recommended the show to me, although I hadn't put two and two together that 1. the show is on National Geographic, and 2. we get that channel.

I had already developed a mild obsession with Cesar Millan after reading Cesar's Way. But, this week, after spending way too many hours in front of channel 70, it got bad.

I was tickled every time the National Geographic announcer called the channel "Nat Geo," as if the channel were named after a cute little talking gerbil. I marked on my calendar that this Sunday, I cannot miss the show "Inside the Dog's Womb" followed by "Inside the Cat's Womb." I found myself tearing up at the 100th anniversary episode of "The Dog Whisperer," where Cesar Millan gets to meet his childhood hero, Lassie. Yes, it got bad.

I'm now channeling all my energy into trying to assess what kind of energy I'm channeling to Fonzie (although Cesar would say, "Don't try, do.")

I've found myself starting a few too many sentences with, "But Cesar says," and wondering just how much Mr. Millan costs, as most of his clients seem to be rich as hell.

Luckily, another television miracle occurred this week, this one a real, true miracle, that might be able to balance out my channel 70 obsession. As of December 31, North Carolina cable now gets Bravo TV. That's right, just a mere two channels up from Nat Geo, I can now watch reruns of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," and, most importantly, catch up on Season 5 of "Top Chef." I'll ignore the fact that on the first day of Bravo TV on Time Warner Cable in North Carolina, the station ran a marathon of "The Biggest Loser," a show that doesn't even air on that channel. I mean, I can't be picky with my miracles.

But, between going inside the womb of a cat and seeing what Padma is wearing, you betcher bottom that I'll be watching what happens.

The Graduate

2008-12-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I'm risking pee on rugs and becoming one of those (gasp) dog people who talk about dogs like they are children. My reporting is becoming biased and unbalanced. But, I couldn't not blog about graduation day. That would be Fonzie's graduation from training classes at the local Petsmart. And here is the graduate... (Photos by Willie)

...contemplating the privileges and responsibilities of the hand-written paper certificate hanging on the fridge...

...realizing that commencement really means "beginning"....

...with Rhonda, the Petsmart trainer (who should have been a stand-up comedian)...

...and with proud-as-heck me. For the two minutes that Rhonda tested Fonzie on all of the things he learned over the course of the eight weeks -- things like sit and stay and sit-stay -- I felt myself doing one of those beaming-from-the-inside things where the giddiness and delight you feel results in smiling like an idiot.

But Fonzie was a crowd pleaser that night. "Wow, look at Fonzie," the two other people in the class said. One of them even asked if I had replaced Fonzie with another dog for the test. Because for those two minutes, Fonzie wasn't being his normal whining, barking, anxious-as-hell self. He was calm and focused, and well, just about the smartest dog ever.

By minute three, the real Fonzie returned and the whining began.

In truth, after about the fourth Petsmart class, I was kind of down on the course; I realized that we probably weren't going to learn much more beyond "give your dogs lots of treats." It took me a couple more weeks to discover that, no, Fonzie doesn't actually know what to do when I say "sit." But, he knows that when I reach into my pocket for the plastic baggie, he will probably get a treat if he sits, and that if he's been bad, he can probably make it better by sitting.

And maybe, along with the pictures worth the $108 price of tuition, that's good enough.

House of Pee

2008-12-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

This week, I was going to write about deep and profound things. Like how the political corruption in Illinois only makes me more homesick for Chicago. Or how the 70-degrees-on-Thursday-and-40-degrees-on-Friday winter here in North Carolina is just plain confusing. Or how I love my big bowl of cereal in the morning just a little too much. But then, something bigger came up and trumped my plan to wax poetic.

That something is cat pee.

This, of course, is Scout, the cat to whose pee I'm referring. Yes, she kind of resembles an alien, and true, she has ears big enough to replace wiretaps.

She looks like she couldn't care less that, with the addition of a giant white smelly beast in her house, it's becoming Old MacDonald had a farm around here. However....

This is the box where Scout should do her business.

This is the back-up box in case Scout gets picky and needs two separate boxes to do her business. (Note the unblemished litter.)

And this is Scout's new litter box, as evidenced by the giant pee stain taking up, oh, practically the whole rug.

Although Scout has been occasionally randomly picky about the where's and when's of going in her litter box, she has entered a new phase, going on six days in a row, of no-I-will-not-pee-in-my-box.

On Thursday, I got so worried that I took her to the vet. Two hours, $87, and a tested urine sample later, Scout was diagnosed as fine. Fine, with a behavior problem. The vet sent me home with a number for a pet therapist. I wasn't sure if it was for Scout or me.

Since then, I have promised Scout a new car, a trip to the Caribbean -- anything, if she will only go pee, once again, in her litter box.

And then I finally realized what was really going on. As far as blogs, the score was Fonzie: 3, Scout: 0.

So I type. And wait. And pray for pee in a box.

Running Away from Progress

2008-12-07T09:29:00.000-08:00

"It will get better," they said. "You're just starting out, it's just the beginning -- give it time."

Well, I'm here to report that it's past the beginning, I'm no longer just starting out, and it's still not better, even with time.

Yes, I think you know what I'm talking about. I officially suck at running. And my dog officially sucks at (or, wait, maybe he is good at it?) pulling. And so together, five mornings out of seven, he pulls like crazy and my calves pound in agony as we attempt to run around the gravel path of Duke's East Campus.

But let me break the two suckinesses down:

Before last year, I had lived with a certain amount of pride in not exercising on a regular basis and eating what I wanted. Although everyone in my immediate family ran, I was pretty sure that I hated running and that I wasn't missing anything.

And then I bought a car and started commuting to the suburbs. And as the year went on, whether it was real or imagined, I felt like crap -- slow and stationary and pent up with hatred of certain privileged teenagers.

So, as soon as the temperature got above 20 degrees -- you know, spring time in Chicago, the second half of May -- I made a running mix for my ipod and started my career as a non-runner. I began with the run a block / walk a block strategy, and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to shift the balance to more running. Sure, I tried to catch the stoplights, and yes, sometimes I just had to stop and walk. But I was on my way, dammit.

And then, by July, I wasn't. In fact, I felt like I was getting worse. How could it feel harder to do the exact same run? Although, as it turns out, I actually did like getting exercise on a regular basis, I never felt that runner's high, and I always always dreaded the run. "All I have to do to win is suffer," I'd tell myself -- a Muhammad Ali line that I learned from my old boxing teacher. But, although I had the suffering part down, there appeared to be no winning in my future.

Fast forward to a new state and a bunch of months later, and I'm still trudging along five out of seven days a week. When I first got Fonzie, I was so distracted by him, that I almost didn't notice the actual running. (True, there was not as much running going on, what with stopping and checking and picking up poop.) But that only lasted a couple of weeks before my focus returned to each insufferable block, insufferable until Fonzie went poop and the run came to a grinding heaven-sent halt.

Although Fonzie gave me a brilliant excuse to stop for a minute, he also gave me hell on the leash. And although I thought everything would be better when I got that genius, head collar, gentle leader, muzzle-looking thing, it hasn't stopped the pulling. Fonzie stills dashes from one side of the sidewalk to the other as if peeing on that particular bush was a matter of life and death. He still lags behind and occasionally goes on strike and stops moving all together. At other times, he is out in front pulling, wondering why the hell I'm so slow and why the hell he has this annoying thing on his snout.

Most days, between my lame stamina and his impressive stubbornness, our runs are a mess. He is always almost tripping me (and, yes, I have heard the horror stories involving broken legs and messed up pelvises from running with dogs), and yesterday, I think I actually tripped him. Either that or I kicked his leg. The poor dog let out a yelp and then actually started limping. He started limping! We pulled over to the side, and a man who had been walking behind us was kind enough to ask if the dog was okay. "Oh yeah, he's fine," I said, worrying that I had, in fact, broken some bone in Fonzie's body.

Yesterday was so all-around bad, that I deemed it "the worst run ever." And I'm sure it will be until the next worst run ever. Luckily it didn't happen today, as my calves trumped the pulling as the real unenthusiastic losers.

As much as I know that the perfect storm of a terrible run is and always will be out there, the fact remains that I do like being able to exercise outside and with Fonzie. I can't see myself ever joining a gym, especially in a state where it won't ever really be too cold to run outside (I'll get back to you about the heat next summer).

I guess for now I have a standing date with myself and six uncooperative legs each morning. So bring on the stoplights, crank up the "Footloose," and god bless the poop that interrupts my run.

Mr. Rogers Had it Right

2008-11-28T11:02:00.000-08:00

When I was still a high school teacher and had to dress all nice and professional, the first thing I'd do upon arriving home was change my clothes. And we're not just talking switching out the office pants for some jeans; I had to strip myself of all items that had been contaminated by school air, including jewelry, socks, and depending on how I was feeling, my bra. Even on the days when we could wear jeans to school, I had to change my jeans when I got home (because, of course, there are school jeans and non-school jeans). The only thing that could carry over from school day to night was maybe my underwear.

See, my school clothes were my costume, and the second I could stop pretending to be a put-together mature adult, it was imperative that I change back to my real self via my real clothes. This is not to say that I disliked my school clothes -- they were fine, for school clothes. But, I needed to keep the two identities separate, and the clothes were the medium for my transition.

For those long four years, I thought that this was a hating-school thing. I fantasized about a future far-off job where I could wear my crazy-colored sneakers and my sweatshirts and track jackets to work. I wondered what it would be like to live in a world where the work me and the non-work me were seamlessly merged into one.

Now, I'm not so sure. Two weeks into my new non-teaching job, I'm realizing that the changing-of-the-clothes has not stopped. The second I get home, I still need to take off my rings, switch out the pants, and take off the button down shirt. True, I might keep on the long sleeve shirt I was wearing underneath or even keep on the black socks, depending on how lazy I'm feeling. The cooties factor of my work clothes has definitely decreased now that I'm not breathing in the same air as teenagers and school administrators.

And now, as I ponder my fantasy of wearing my bright yellow Brazilian track jacket with matching bright yellow Mr. Happy shoes to work, I'm realizing that Mr. Rogers and Clark Kent were on to something. Granted, both men did have good reason to change their clothes: Clark Kent couldn't walk around all day in his Superman get-up, and Mr. Rogers had to change into his bum cardigan to comfortably check out the Neighborhood of Make Believe. But, maybe their wardrobe changes also helped them transition into their taking-care-of-business psyches.

As for me, having a clothing distinction between my work self and my normal self has become a concrete way for me to mark the distinction between the two. I still need to pretend to be a put-together rational adult at work, while I can spiral into a whiny self-centered kid who starts sentences with "dude" at home. (It's possible that some members of the house in which I live might wish that I would leave on my work clothes/adult identity a little longer, but this request has never been made official.)

When I ponder the deeper meaning of this work self v. real self distinction for too long (that would be right about now, for example), I'm soon wrapped up in the dilemma of how separate these two identities should be in the first place. Should I aspire to have one unified identity -- where work self is real self? Will I never fully a) either have a "career" or b) really like my job until there is no distinction? (Assuming that the only way to truly love your job is to get paid for doing your passion.)

But then I find myself at the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life question, and no one wants to think about that for too long. After all, even Tom Hanks in "Big" had to wear a suit to go to work and play with toys.

So, for now, I think I'm okay with my 5:30 p.m. phone booth wardrobe change. Then again, maybe the self that does my laundry will feel differently.

Homeward Bound

2008-11-23T10:49:00.000-08:00

I have a problem with going to work in the morning. The problem is: I don't want to go. Now, I know that most people don't want to go to work (see last blog), and that most people would rather stay home. However, what I'm not sure about is how normal or abnormal the sick-to-my-stomach feeling is -- the one I get when I leave home in the morning, where five pairs of legs and varying degrees of smells and hairiness remain.

But I guess I should start at the beginning, where my retardedness (and by retardness, I'm going to steal Sarah Silverman's definition of "I can do anything") begins. See, back in the third grade (my default grade for whenever I can't really remember when something happened), I had some issues with going to school in the morning. My family and I had just returned from spending a couple of weeks in London together, and I was used to spending every minute of every day with them. For some, going back to school might be a welcome relief. For me, it was cause for tears every morning before school. I was just too homesick to leave home in the morning.

This homesickness carried over to issues with sleep-overs and stuffed animals. For years and years, I could not do sleep-overs. I would get as far as, oh, say 10:00 p.m., and then, inevitably, I'd call home, claiming "sick" to my parents and my poor friend. I thought I'd never be able to go away for college, let alone the one-nighter at Camp Timberlee in the fifth grade (and, yes, it was actually the fifth grade).

With stuffed animals, it was similar feelings about leaving my family...except...right, they were stuffed. animals. But I felt bad leaving them in the morning, and I so looked forward to winter and summer break when I could spend all day and night with them. Yes, I could do anything.

So, therein lies my early weirdness, except I did go to Camp Timberlee and I did make it to college. And things seemed to be going along just fine. Until I got the brilliant idea to become a high school English teacher and no one stopped me. That's when my trouble with going to school in the morning began all over again.

Of course, there are many reasons to dread teaching, and that sick-to-the-stomach feeling, I think, is not completely abnormal when you have to perform in front of teenagers. The thing is, though, it never got easier. During my second year of teaching, I occasionally needed to call a lifeline on the way from the L to my school, just to get myself to go in. And then, by my third year, I needed anti-anxiety medication to get myself to go to school.

So, I switched schools. And I went off the medication. However, I still spent too many before-school minutes sitting in my car in the school parking lot on the phone with my mom or Willie, sniffling away tears, and hoping for some kind of miracle encouragement. Every morning when I locked my car, all I wanted was for it to be 3:15 so that I could return to my car, unlock it, and go home. (By the way, if you feel any pity for it, I have no problem with that. Please, pity away.)

So, I switched careers. And two weeks into my new job, I'm definitely not crying in the morning. The wishing it was the end of the day is definitely less than it was with teaching. (That was one of the reasons I got out of teaching: I wanted to stop wishing away my days -- hoping and praying that it was already 3:00 or June 15.)

And yet, although I don't need to make a call or ingest small white pills, that homesicky it's-time-to-go-to-work feeling has not completely gone away. True, the job is still brand new and so I'm still dealing with nerves and anxiety. And Fonzie's face at the window, which I can see all the way from the car, definitely doesn't help.

I know that, ultimately, I should feel very lucky that I have had and continue to have happy homes that I don't want to leave. And maybe, as I get more comfortable with the job, my morning homesick-y feeling will get better. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just a weirdo (who can do anything) with separation anxiety who will always want to stay home and play with her stuffed animals.

Well, at least I got the sleep-over part down.

Will Work For Fun

2008-11-15T11:05:00.000-08:00

As of last Monday, I am officially employed. Just when I was ready to reenter the world of food service, I got hired as the School Service Learning Coordinator at Duke, a nondescript mouthful of a job title.

On the first day of work, I learned that I work in three different offices at Duke (the Office of Community Affairs, the Program in Education and the Community Service Center), and that I am responsible for coordinating two different tutoring programs: America Reads / America Counts and the tutoring program required of students in service learning classes.

On the second day of work, I learned that the woman who I thought was my boss is not my boss. I was kind of bummed, because she would have been an awesome boss. And I'm still not positive who and how many bosses I have.

By the third day of work, I realized that I'm not sure how I feel about the word "coordinator." I'm learning that it's a euphemism for dealing with shit that goes wrong.

And by the fourth day of work, I realized that, for the first time in my life, I need a date book to keep track of all of the meetings and places I'm supposed to be, as the post-it note system I used to rely on will no longer suffice.

It's a given that starting a new job is stressful and that I have no idea what I'm doing. And I probably won't really know what I'm doing until I've messed everything up nice and good. My responsibilities seem like a foreign language at the moment, and I don't understand how anyone can keep the two tutoring programs straight, given that they seem to have just as many similarities as differences.

But, in this economy at this point in time, I feel lucky as hell to have a job -- a job that will get me out of the office and into schools once a week and where everyone, so far, has been super nice.

But, the real kicker? It's not a teaching job. Which leads me to a preliminary list about what is in and out, good and bad, about going back to a normal non-teaching job:

Let's start with the bad:

No Christmas break. (I just found out yesterday that I only get December 24th and 25th off and that I am not entitled to any vacation days or sick days until I have worked for 90 days, which means, basically, that I am fucked for the holidays.)
No summer break means no end in sight.
The work day no longer ends at 2:55 p.m.
I can no longer claim that I can't stay after school because that would be over union time.

And now the good:

I can wear the same pants every day of the week without any teenagers noticing.
My day doesn't depend on the mood of 120 teenagers.
I no longer have to wake up at 5:00 a.m.
I could actually schedule a dentist appointment at, say 10:00 a.m. on a Wednesday in February.

I know that a job is a job and that 99.9% of people would rather be doing their life than their job. I will still get the Sunday blues and will still be tired.

But, I'm hoping that I won't be so exhausted by the end of the week that I want to kill myself. And that I'll still have time and energy to, say, start my own t-shirt making company (for example).

Having been employed for a stretch until this fall, I had forgotten how good it feels to get up in the morning and have somewhere to be, to know that you can pay your bills, and to be a part of whatever kind of community the job provides.

I had forgotten how great Friday late afternoon feels, when you've made it through the week and arrived at the weekend.

Yes, working sucks. But unemployment sucks more.

The Good, the Bad, and the Fonzie

2008-11-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

So, week three with dog. As the walks and plastic bags and failed attempts at "sit" accumulate, my complete ignorance of dog ownership has channeled itself into one doggie question: how good does my dog need to be?

Now, for the most part, Fonzie is a good dog (said in that universal dummy doggie voice where you raise your voice five octaves and add some guttural throaty "let's rough house" oomph to it). He doesn't bark in the house, he doesn't go to the bathroom in the house, he leaves the cat alone, and he has only chewed through one computer cord and one can of trash. (Translation: he has not touched the sneakers.) Outside of the house, however, Fonzie has a mixed track record. Again, for the most part, he is good. He walks well on a leash (whatever that means), and sometimes he runs well with me.

Other times, though, he pulls and pulls. The trainer at the dog obedience classes warned me about getting leash burn on my hand, and sure enough, there's some redness that I pretend I don't see. Fonzie has also taken to barking at other dogs and occasionally tries to jump up on me or others.

And then there's his PTSD. On a couple of occasions, Fonzie has completely lost his mind. At first I thought it was crowds or loud music, and that something traumatic must have happened to him in that kind of setting. But then, on a perfectly normal Sunday afternoon, while taking a perfectly normal walk on a path we walk almost every day, something clicked in Fonzie's brain. He began barking like mad and attempted (almost successfully) to jump over the wall enclosing the path where we were walking. It was a full twenty minutes before he calmed down. It was embarrassing as hell.

So, there's anxious/PTSD Fonzie, and then there's normal dog Fonzie. And the anxiety -- well, not sure what I can do about that except hope that it gets better. But it's the normal "bad" behavior that I'm unsure about. Is it bad that he barks at other dogs? Or is it okay and normal? Or does it depend on the bark, and somehow I'm supposed to distinguish between good bark and bad bark? I know that I do not want a dog that jumps up (or that sniffs human crotches), but the "ignore the jump" advice I was given does not seem to be working. Fonzie is responsive to getting squirted with a water bottle in class; do I just start carrying around a water bottle on a holster?

All of my issues and insecurities came down to a decision I had to make in this week's obedience class of whether or not to use this gentle leader leash that the trainer recommended I try on Fonzie. It goes around the dog's snout and head, so that he can't pull on the leash. It looks like a muzzle, but the trainer assured me it's not. "He can pant and chew and everything," she said. The trainer let me try it out during class to see if I wanted do purchase it. Fonzie, of course, hated it. He pawed and pawed at it, and we didn't learn a single thing in class. Finally, he was able to pull the gentle leader leash off of his mouth, after the trainer had loosened it slightly. I knew that the muzzle-looking leash wasn't cruel, and that it would help Fonzie not pull when we walk. But, I just couldn't do it. Partly it was watching him with it on, and partly I wasn't convinced (or ready to admit) that he needed it. Sensing my reluctance, the trainer showed me pictures of other dog graduates with the gentle leader / muzzle-looking leash on. "See?!" she said, except the dogs in the pictures were all pit bulls or other scary-looking breeds. Not like my sweet, female-looking, innocent Fonzie!

I know my question of what is acceptable dog behavior comes down to the question of what is acceptable to me. And I know that I do want a well behaved dog and that that requires me to be a disciplinarian, although I've been told that my "NO!" is way wimpy. To what extent do I accept that Fonzie is not a perfect dog (the Craig's list ad did say "near perfect," and now I understand the "near)" and to what extent do I insist on perfection?

Part of the problem is definitely me and my vanity about walking around in public with a squirt bottle or a dog who looks like he has a muzzle on. Will I appear vicious or cruel? And would that be worse than looking (accurately) like I can't control the dog?

Well, yesterday at 3:00 p.m., I had sided with my vanity about not using a leash that looks like a muzzle.

By 3:30, I had changed my mind. Oh, the difference a walk makes.

The freak-out was a Fonzie standard, and this time, it was prompted by a noise coming from the Just Tires store. "Really?" I asked him, "Just Tires?" After his panic attack kicked in, he pulled and pulled and barked and couldn't walk normal. It as a full 15 minutes home, and he pulled every step of the way.

By 4:45, I had purchased a gentle leader head collar. And by 5:45, I could have done an infomercial. Fonzie definitely does not like it, and I'm starting off really slow; so far, we've only been on shorter walks and we've gone at a snail's pace. I have to figure out how to properly use the thing so that it can effectively teach him not to pull. But the little instructional manual converted me to the belief that the leash will help with Fonzie's anxiety and freak-outs, and that his resistance to the leash means that he is the kind of dog who could use it.

The gentle leader leash still looks like a muzzle. And I interpreted a look we got from a lady on our walk today to mean, "how could you muzzle your dog!" But, worrying about what other people think is my problem, not Fonzie's. And if he can be fine with the muzzle-looking gentle leader leash (even if takes 57 treats to not get him to pull at it), then I should be, too.

Big Apple, Little Durham

2008-11-06T08:00:00.001-08:00

When I booked a plane ticket from Durham to New York a couple months ago, I was primarily going to see family. But, a small-to-medium part of me was very curious about what New York would feel like after Durham and what Durham would feel like after New York. Would the crazy crowdedness of New York make me feel good about coming back to deserted Durham? Or would I not want to leave the big city and return to the land of cars and crap parked on front lawns.

Disclaimers/caveats: now, of course, New York is an anomaly -- no other place feels like New York -- not even Chicago. And, of course, it's only been a couple months of residing in Durham. What was I expecting -- severe culture shock on either end like my college classmates who would return from their exotic, transcendent, 10-week trips abroad and describe their struggle to return to the culture of cows, colleges and contentment in Northfield, Minnesota? Puh-lease.

But still. The trip might offer a tiny glimpse of an answer to my big question: do I need to live in a big city? The subtitle being -- can I really live in Durham?

The first night in New York was all about family and getting to hang out with my sister -- walking the streets of the Upper West Side, eating at a Vietnamese spot and, of course, getting Tasti D-Lite. Yes, there were more people on a single New York block at any given moment than there were on all of Durham's (lack of) sidewalks in the entire two months that I've been there. But, so far, no major life realizations were coming to me. I was too busy looking into store windows and trying to tell if people were dressed in Halloween costumes or if that was just their normal get-up.

Then came Saturday morning. Everyone was out walking their dogs, getting their bagels and coffee, running in Central Park or walking down by the river. Walking the streets of New York that morning, I was accompanied by a loud voice in my head crying, "I want to live in New York! I can't live in Durham! There is nothing in Durham!" I felt panicked. Could the move be undone? Could I ever afford to live in New York? Could I sacrifice space and comfort? And would Fonzie be able to come along? (I couldn't believe how many dogs I saw walking around New York. And not just little dogs. Apparently, dogs go with New York as much as they go with North Carolina.)

I quieted the voice in my head by getting some pizza for breakfast (ah, the things you can do when you're on your own) and by mapping out my shopping for the afternoon. I had decided to hit some sneaker stores while I was in town. Although I love my sneakers, I had never made it a point to look for sneakers in New York on previous trips -- probably because I was living in Chicago (although the majority of my collection comes from the internet). But, now that I was a country bumpkin, I had to hit the big city to get my fill of civilization (aka colorful high tops and American Apparel). And get my fill I did. I spent the afternoon with my cousin and his wife in Soho and the East Village, first eating a $15 corned beef sandwich, and then fighting the crowds to walk down sidewalks to peak into packed music-blaring shoe stores. It was the deadly combination of being in store heaven and being on a budget. I'd blink and see a store I like and have to steer myself away from the entrance.

Luckily, after a few hours of what felt like shopping blob tag in Soho, I felt done for the day. I had drained my budget and had that raggedy blown-out feeling you get when you spend the entire day running around going places or when you spend too long at the Super Target. It was nice to go back to a home-cooked meal in my aunt and uncle's calm and beautiful Upper West Side apartment.

The next morning, while 40,000 people ran the marathon, I slept in and ate bagels and lox for breakfast. And then it was time to head to the airport and go back to that place where I live.

The planes I took to and from North Carolina were little -- so small, that, on the way there, they had to put sandbags in the cargo area to increase the plane's weight, and, on the way back, passengers had to move to empty seats in order to balance out the plane. Apparently, no big plane is needed to schlep the people to and from North Carolina. In fact, I was a little concerned that I had got on the wrong plane, as I had been on the phone when we boarded, and it was one of those small-commuter-Comair-no-sign-on-the-board-at-the-gate-we-don't-really-care-what-small-city-you're-flying-to-because-we-would-never-want-to-live-there planes. But, sure enough, I spotted a man in Tarheels Carolina blue gear sitting a couple seats ahead of me. I was on the right plane.

Willie picked me up from the airport, and it was a beautiful warm sunny day in North Carolina. I took Fonzie for a walk as soon as I got home. There were a couple people out -- it was a nice day after all -- but it was back to Deserted Durham.

DD keeps me out of stores, as there are few to go into that don't require a trip to the mall, and even fewer open past 5:00 p.m. It gets me outside, with the help of Fonzie and his ever-curious nose. But, one short trip to New York has not given me any answers to my big question. I still don't know if I need to live in a big city, and I probably won't for a while. What's more, I really have no clue how I feel about living in Durham. But, at least for the moment, there is a four-legged creature helping me to crowd the empty streets of this place where I live.

Epilogue

Last night Fonzie answered one of the questions for me. As we were taking our nightly walk, we came upon an outdoor music fest of the alternative variety. There was a small hipster crowd, and people were drinking beer and hanging out. (Interestingly enough, or maybe not interesting at all, a couple people have told me that Durham has been referred to lately as "Little Brooklyn." If that were indeed true, there would be an American Apparel here.)

I tried to get close enough to see what was going on while staying far enough away so that Fonzie wouldn't get freaked out. (He is not a fan of Petsmart or other chaotic places.) It took him only a minute before he started to lose it. We started heading away from the crowd and even crossed the street. It was too late; as the band started to play, all Fonzie hell broke loose. He began barking loudly and pulled hard at the leash as he tried to run free. I hung on tight as he pulled me for about a block. We passed people who were giving me disapproving looks and moving out of the way -- here came crazy dog and girl with no control over crazy dog. It was extremely embarrassing, although I also couldn't stop laughing.

Fonzie wouldn't last a second in New York at this point in his life; he needs the deserted in Deserted Durham.

Introducing: Fonzie!

2008-10-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. My family was not a dog family, however. We had fish at one point, a failed rabbit, and a hamster named Clinton (named by my brother before William Jefferson). No cats, as my brother and I are allergic, and certainly absolutely no dog. I identified with Vanessa from "The Cosby Show," whose response to everything was, "Well, then, can we get a dog?" But unlike Vanessa, I knew enough not to even ask.

***

Exactly one week and a day ago, I found an ad in the pets section of Craig's list advertising "Frosty, yellow lab/husky 1.5 yrs male with bobtail!" The ad went on to describe Frosty as low maintenance, crate and housetrained, "and the most loving of all. He likes to be loved on and adores children. He is very quiet and content looking out glass doors and windows just watching [...] He loves on kittens and bunnies and doesn't bother puppies and is not aggressive toward the bigger dogs. He is pretty close to perfect!" Needless to say, I was smitten. Mostly by the line "loves to be loved on" and by the allure of a "pretty close to perfect" dog.

Now, however close to perfect Frosty was, I had no business being in the pets section of Craig's list. Nor did I have any business filling out an application for adoption (he was in foster care). Within 24 hours, my application had been approved and his foster mom was emailing me about meeting up to get Frosty. What had I done?

The out-of-control-pursuing-a-dog person who had taken over my body drove into the country last Sunday, about 50 minutes away to Dogtoberfest. In a clearing of a large tree-filled park were a dozen or so tents -- some adoption and rescue, some pet services.

I found the 2pawsup tent and sure enough, there was Frosty. He was cuter than his picture, but after taking him on a walk, I was torn. He seemed great, but he was also hyper and energetic and not as low-maintenance as he had been described. I will spare you the details of the tears and the drive home without Frosty, and will jump to the part where I email his foster mom a couple hours later asking when and where I could come pick him up.

At 5:55 P.M. I was at Petsmart frantically buying dog food and a dog bowl because I was supposed to meet Frosty's foster mom in the parking lot at 6:00 except Petsmart closed at 6:00. I had no idea how to pick out food or a bowl or a leash, as I know next to nothing about owning a dog. Within five minutes, I had a basket full of food and was signing up for dog obedience training classes (waiting and seeing before purchasing has never been my strength). The nice man who was helping me took one look at my basket and said, "Yeah, that's not going to work." I had chosen puppy-sized bowls and food that would make Frosty poop big and often, he said. He replaced my food and bowls, and at 6:08, I was running out of Petsmart with my arms full of a two-hander bag of dog food.

Frosty's mom and I had not exchanged cell phone numbers (despite my request for hers); she had just told me to look for a green van. As I half-ran the food to my car, I saw a dirty old green van pulling away. "Wait!" I shouted as I started to run after it, the dog food falling out of my arms. But, the van kept going.

"Shit!" I was pissed that I had been late and pissed that I didn't have a number for the woman and pissed that Frosty had slipped through my hands. Again.

I put the stuff in my car and wandered around the Petsmart parking lot desperately looking for any sign of any green van. I called Willie frantically, who told me to wait until 6:30 before I left. A green van pulled into the parking lot, but a muscular man came out with no dog. And then I spotted the same old dirty green van that had pulled away and that I was convinced had Frosty in it. Except the van drove right by the parking lot and didn't stop. Finally, at about 6:25, a green mini van pulled into the parking lot, and I could see Frosty's foster mom at the wheel. She waved. Here was Frosty.

I wrote a check and signed my name and watched her put flea stuff on Frosty, and within a couple minutes and before I was able to ask her any questions like, "Um, how do you take care of a dog?" she had left and it was me and Frosty.

***

The first 48 hours went okay minus the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. When Frosty (whose permanent name I had not yet settled on) took me for a walk, I was literally tripping over the dog, as he would crisscross from one side of the sidewalk to the other. I had no idea how long to let him sniff, how hard to pull when he would just stop, or even how to pick up his poop. In my attempt to get the whole thing in the bag and leave no trace, I ended up spreading it around (sorry for the gross factor).

And, jumping way ahead of my skill level, I even tried to go running with him. He stopped frequently and stubbornly. He pulled me and got tangled up in the leash. I stepped on his paws more than a couple of times. He wanted to chase squirrels. There wasn't a whole lot of running going on. To make matters worse, we passed a woman running with her dog who had her leash tied around her waist, her dog dutifully trailing just slightly behind her as they both trotted at an equal pace. I hated that woman.

But Frosty was a good dog for the most part. He didn't bother my cat, Scout, when he saw her, although poor Scout hissed and growled and looked at me like, "Excuse me, I did not approve this." He was quiet and good about hanging out in the one room we were keeping him in for now, and he didn't tear anything or chew anything or go to the bathroom in the house.

In fact, except for some bursts of energetic jumping and play-biting, things were going pretty well. I was brainstorming names and was looking forward to our first training class the following day.

And then, on Tuesday night, when we were going on a walk, Frosty stopped in the middle of the street. He was smelling, and I pulled him. He pulled back -- hard enough so that he slipped out of his collar. And he took off. A group of six hipster guys in a van -- they had to be in a band on tour -- stopped and got out to help me. I got close to Frosty a couple times, but there was no way to grab him without a collar, and he had no desire to come to me. He wanted to run and be free. For a couple blocks and for a good five minutes, the guys in the band tried to help me corner Frosty and coax him, but to no avail. "What's his name?" they asked. "Um, I don't know -- I just got him," I said, feeling like the worst dog owner in the world.

After remaining in sight for a few minutes, the dog started to fun full speed, and I ran after him. This time, within seconds, he was gone. I had no idea which way he had gone and no idea what to do. I ran the few blocks back to where the van had stopped, but the van and the hipster band was gone. Frosty, whose name was not really Frosty, was gone, too. Just 48 hours and I had lost him. I was the one who had adjusted his collar to be looser, after reading on the web that most dog collars are too tight and that this is dangerous for the dog. I used to wonder how it was that so many people lost their dogs. My edification had come quick.

I ran home and cried and Willie quickly helped me print out signs. Within 10 minutes we were out looking for Frosty and plastering lost dog signs on light poles. The poor dog didn't have a name that he responded to or a tag. The most useful information we could put on the lost dog sign was that he had a distinct short stubby tail -- the history of which I have no idea.

The whole thing was kind of surreal; I had had a dog, and then I didn't. I would have to tell everyone I had told that I had lost the dog, that it was over. I was the worst dog person ever.

After the 25th sign, we returned home. And who came walking down the street? Frosty. Except he didn't stop, he kept going. We jumped in the car and tried to follow him, but he was gone. We spotted him a few blocks away. I got out and tried to coax him, but, again, to no avail. There was no way to grab him. We'd have to hope that now that he knew where he lived, he would choose to come home.

When we got back to the house, I sat on the porch for an hour. At midnight, I pushed the couch in the dog's room by the window. I left food outside on the porch, and hoped that if he came back home, I would hear him on the porch.

I didn't sleep much. Scout kept me company as I tossed and turned and kept my eyes peeled to the window. The role reversal was not lost on me: I was holed up in the dog's room, waiting for him to come home. I felt like the mom of a teenager, hoping that Frosty would choose home over his partying ways.

At 7:30 A.M., my phone rang. "Um, I saw the sign about your dog, and I think I just saw him," the nice nice man said. He had spotted the dog a block from the house. I thanked him and threw on some shoes and went outside. Within minutes, Frosty came bounding down the street. And this time, he came up the steps to the porch to greet me and walked in the door. He had come home. The dog that almost wasn't seemed meant to be. It was back on.

***

After I put on his collar on the smallest hole, I knew I had to name him and get him a tag right quick. I spent the day trying out names. By the 7:00 P.M. obedience training class, I had settled on "Fonzie" -- somewhat close to Frosty, but without the snowman and with the added benefit of "Fonz" or "the Fonz."

Name and all, we showed up at the class early. I was excited, Fonzie was freaked out. Upon entering the Petsmart, he barked and whined and pulled and jumped. We watched the other dogs coming out of the puppy training class. They were small and demure and just cute as buttons. Fonzie and I were big and loud and out of control.

We had gotten approval to sign up for the puppy training class because the class for dogs five months and older wasn't starting for another month. So, it was Fonzie and two other puppies, one who truly looked like a baby Ewok. Fonzie would not stop barking and jumping, and upon taking a seat in the class, the trainer sprayed both of us with a water bottle. Fonzie got quiet.

The trainer began the class. "Did you bring the rabies information?" she wanted to know. The two other dog owners had theirs; I did not. "You will need to bring treats for your dog every week. Did you bring treats?" she wanted to know. The two other people had treats; I did not. So far, we were failing dog obedience class. A few barks and squirts of water later, Fonzie calmed down for a minute. We only learned a few training techniques -- all treat based, except Fonzie wasn't interested in the treats. "Bring him hungry next time," the trainer said. I hadn't fed him since morning but nodded in agreement.

The class was mostly lecture, but effective enough to instill in me that I am responsible for making Fonzie's behavior what I want it to be. I learned that I had been holding the leash incorrectly. We got our homework for the week, and we left Petsmart, none too soon for poor Fonzie.

***

The run this morning was the same tangled up mess. I definitely got some looks from other walkers/runners. And Fonzie has taken to jumping up on me and chewing things (luckily not the sneakers). He is a dog after all, not a robot.

But, I was a little better at cleaning up the poop today (although I still need two plastic bags), and Fonzie mastered the three little training techniques we learned. He's fast asleep and snoring on the couch in my room, where we are both holed up. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to my dog, Fonzie:

My State Fair is Better than Yours

2008-10-25T16:30:00.000-07:00

Before last week, I had been to one state fair in my life: the Minnesota State Fair, of which, with it's busts of pageant girls carved out of butter and the cheese curds and the absolutely everything on a stick, I'm a big fan. So, I wasn't sure if the North Carolina State Fair had a chance. Certainly, the abundance of McCain and Dole buttons and stickers that was evident just on the walk through the parking lot to the fair didn't bode well. Nor did the high cost of everything -- $5 for a ferris wheel ride? In fact, it took me a little while to let my judgmental fair guard down.

True, we were greeted at the entry way by the Weinermobile.

And, yes, there were the old men beating little kids at the classic game of who can get the bear up the ladder the fastest.

But then we came across "Tiny Tina: The World's Smallest Woman Alive," who was advertised to be 29 inches, wear a size two shoe, and to hail from Haiti. "She's here, she's real, and she's alive," the booming male voice kept repeating. I had no idea that freak shows were here and real and alive and was further saddened by the fact that the 29-inch woman was the biggest bargain at the fair -- a mere fifty cents.

But Tiny Tina was soon trumped by the "Museum of World Oddities: Nature's Mistakes." This exhibit advertised all kinds of "freaks," including Three-Eyed Bill, Horrifying Man, Mule-Face Woman, Frog Girl, Two-Headed Baby and Elephant Skin Baby. Just seeing the signs made me feel icky.

"Nature's Mistakes" was the low point of the fair -- that and the $3.50 price for an ear of corn.

But then, once the sun went down, and Tiny Tina was replaced by exhibits of baby pigs and giant pumpkins, I made a little space for the possibility that there were good things at the North Carolina State Fair.

Like the BMX bike show. I had never seen one in person, and maybe because we were seated in the second row and I was worried about the bikers hurting themselves, I felt obliged to scream so loud and often that I made myself hoarse. I can't even get myself up on a curb on my bike, let alone get up a ramp, let alone do a full flip while on bike off of ramp.

And as I finally gave into a $3.00 ear of roasted corn (you just had to look for the competitive prices), I also settled on some if-not-now-then-when food: fried mac and cheese, apple fries, a turkey leg, fried pecan pie, hot apple cider and some good old fashioned kettle corn.

(Although the turkey leg took me back to the Renaissance Fair that my friend and I went to in high school (shhh), it was both really tasty and really disgusting.)

Along with fair food indigestion, I couldn't stomach throwing away money on a game that I would probably lose (like those "skill" games involving basketballs and fishing poles). But, I decided that I wouldn't leave the fair without trying my hand at the guess-my-age/weight/birthday month game. If the man or woman running the game guesses your age within two years, your weight within seven pounds, or your birthday month within two months, you lose. If he or she is wrong, you get to pick a prize.

Although it's a pretty sure bet that when I get carded for alcohol, the response of the person doing the carding is some variation of "you look like you're 12" (not helped by the usual barrette in my hair and a Snuffleupagus t-shirt), I've never had the opportunity to actually win something by looking like I'm not old enough to be doing whatever it is I'm doing. (And by "win," I mean pay $3 for a stuffed lion that sheds.) So, I plotted carefully. We walked by man after man after woman after man who were mc-ing the game. It couldn't be a woman, we decided; she might catch on. But a man on the youngish side? That just might do.

After a couple laps around the midway, I found my guy. Willie hid so that he wouldn't give anything away. I wasn't wearing anything too unusual for me -- barrette, bright green jacket, bright orange scarf, Wonder Woman t-shirt costume, high tops -- but I girl-ied up my act. I smiled and tilted my head and asked the man if he wanted my money. The guy wasn't stupid. He could see right through my Wonder Woman t-shirt costume act. But I waited in anticipation for him to be way off with my age.

"28," he said. (Okay, so at 32, he wan't far off. At all.) But, I had WON. I jumped and cheered and screamed. "You dress like a little girl," he said lightheartedly, "You should dress your age." Not if I want to win, buddy, not if I want to win.

Long after the man was onto guessing someone else's weight, I was beaming at my choice of prizes. For $3, they really weren't that great. But the stuffed flammable lion who sheds? Priceless.

I thought that was it, and that the fair had redeemed itself, and just as we were licking the fried pecan pie off of our fingers and thinking about the exit gate, my cousin, who had showed up after the BMX bike show, suggested that I shoot my first gun. After all, would it be the North Carolina State Fair if I didn't?

So, we lined up at the turkey shoot, and my cousin and his wife assured me that anyone above the age of 12 could participate. Given that I dress like a little girl, this wasn't especially comforting.

When it came time for us to head into the turkey shoot cage, we were asked if anyone there had never shot a gun before. My hand was the only one up, so a nice young lady came over and showed me what to do: put on your sound-proof earphones attached to a string, put on your goggles attached to a string, raise your gun attached to the counter like so, put the thingy in the thingy, click back and shoot! I did and it was loud and I screamed. I had no idea if we were actually shooting at turkeys or not, and, for better or worse, I didn't hit anything.

By the time we left, full bag of kettle corn and shedding lion in tow, we were tired and it was dark and cold. We didn't stay for the fireworks. And we hadn't seen any pageant busts made of butter. But I had done the North Carolina State Fair and had a flammable stuffed toy and a paper target with no holes in it to prove it.

Teamster Fever: One Temp's Story

2008-10-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

Part One: The Preparation

The job would last 3 days at 14 hours a day and $15 an hour. As monitors of a union election in Raleigh, a job we got through Willie's dad, all Willie and I had to do was check people's i.d.'s, have them sign their name on a list, hand them a ballot, and show them the box where the ballot goes. Stuff that a monkey could do.

But, that's where the monkey's job ends and a professional's begins. A professional food packer, that is.

Now, if my parents reared me for anything in life, it was to never be outside of your home without something to eat. (Never being outside of your home without something to read was either tied for first or a very close second.) I had grown up seeing my parents pack food for car trips as if the possibility existed that we could get trapped in our car for three months; no matter how short the ride, the number of food bags almost always trumped the amount of luggage. Even as I type this, my mom has several recycled water bottles in the fridge ready to go in plastic bags, so that at a moment's notice, she can slide down the ladder, grab the water and go. Hunger and thirst outside the home are not matters to be taken lightly.

So, ala the very hungry caterpillar, in true Kraut form, this is what I packed for Day One of the temp job: two bananas, two granola bars, a large bag of pretzels, two little bags of cookies, two turkey sandwiches, four pieces of celery with peanut butter on them, two apples, two oranges, four little chocolate mints, one bag of sourpatch kids, two rootbeers, a large bottle of water and a big bag of grapes. That was the lunch and the snacks; I assumed we would buy dinner.

In between feeding times, for reading or other activities, this is what I brought: three books, two New Yorkers, one dictionary, a pad of Wonder Woman stationery, a sketching notebook, pencils to sketch with, beads and thread to make bracelets (including a small scissors), and my computer. For the computer, I had five letters of recommendation to write, two television shows and one movie to watch.

I was ready to feed and entertain a family of five.

Part Two: Chillin'

Although we knew we were monitoring a union election, this didn't mean much until we pulled into Teamsters Local Union No. 391, cool sign and all. Yes, we had arrived at a photo op.

And although I had technically belonged to a teachers union in Chicago, this had meant nothing to me. But the Teamsters? UPS and DHL drivers and cops? Much cooler. Maybe it's the uniforms or maybe it's that anything UPS makes me excited because someone, somewhere -- hopefully me someday -- is receiving a package. For whatever reason, I got into the Teamsters theme of the temp job. Even the union hall seemed cool.

The easy work was made even easier by the few numbers that turned out: the first day we had 11 voters, the second day we had 5 voters, and the third day we had 7. (We didn't work over the weekend, when most people showed up for Teamster appreciation day and voted since they were already there.)

Despite my big activity bag, the things I actually accomplished during those three days were:

- Faux voting

- Finishing one of the long articles in The New Yorker

- Going to the mall down the street to buy my first cooler

- Taking a nap in the car

- Watching a lot of "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

No bracelets were made, no sketches were sketched, and no correspondence was conducted on my Wonder Woman stationery.

But, we did get to be around the higher-up's of Teamster Local No. 391, who were easy-going and friendly and unconcerned with what we did to pass the time. One guy offered me his pocket knife each morning after he saw me trying to cut a slit in that day's ballot box with a scissors. Another guy went out and brought back biscuits for everyone from Bojangles.

To make the voting festive, the Teamster heads-of-the-office set up a tent each morning right outside, where they served complimentary chili dogs and potato chips. They sat under the tent and talked and ate and smoked an occasional cigar up until 9:00 PM, when voting ended. Other Teamster members who came to vote joined them under the tent. On the second day, when the temperature dropped by 30 degrees and it rained on and off, one of the guys went out and bought some shower curtains and rods and made a walled-in tent, complete with heater and all. These guys weren't messing around.

And they could talk. One older fellow stood in the doorway of the voting room and chatted up Willie and me for awhile one afternoon. His accent was so thick and mumbly that I only caught about every other sentence, but I'm pretty sure I learned why you can't change a man and how you can tell the difference between male and female corn.

Part Three: Election Fever

Once the voting ended, our final duty was to drive the ballots an hour away to Greensboro and to help count all of the ballots from the three different polling sites. I was anticipating a couple more hours of light work; little did I know that I would catch Teamster fever.

When we showed up, there was a lot of activity at the Greensboro office. All of the Teamsters on the ballot and then some were there to watch the results come in and to help monitor the counting process. And many of them had on their Teamster gear -- jackets and t-shirts with the union logo or with "Teamsters for Obama" on them. Right away I coveted the Teamster paraphernalia and not-so-secretly hoped for some swag.

Willie and I were part of a team of six -- the other four being lawyers -- who were helping to count the ballots. The process was very tight and organized -- from making piles of slate votes or non-slate votes, to counting out the ballots into piles of 25, to recounting the piles of 25, to clipping them, and finally to marking on official tally sheets the numbers of votes each candidate received as the ballots were read out. We made tick marks in columns and called out "slash" whenever we marked the fifth tick. The crowd of Teamsters watched our every move, monitoring the process and making sure everything looked clean. I was taken aback by how serious and closely observed the counting was, but it was a good kind of serious. A sanctity of the voting process serious. A kind of seriousness that the bright blue nail polish I had applied the night before, unfortunately, did not convey.

Once our tallying was done and Willie and I were no longer being monitored, I could relax and fully take in the atmosphere. As the numbers from the three sites started to be tallied, the Teamsters waiting for the results huddled around either the woman working the adding machine or around a computer which kept an updated tally on the numbers. Even though I had been told that the incumbents running were all but guaranteed to win, I felt nervous and excited for them. Nervous and excited for them and for Obama and for elections everywhere. I had democracy fever.

When the numbers were finally in, there were cheers and hugs and high fives and thank you's and lots of congratulations. Here is a photo of the winning Teamster candidates:

I got so into it that I didn't want to leave. I wanted to hang out with the Teamsters, the reelected Board of Trustees and the Business Agents and their Teamster friends. I wanted to find out who was who, to put faces to names. I wanted a Teamster jacket and I wanted to work for the Teamsters.

Willie and I didn't go home empty-handed. We got a Teamsters for Obama sign as well as a lot of leftover pizza.

Part Four: Epilogue

This morning, as I began my daily job search, I typed in "Teamster jobs" on the computer, just for the hell of it. Yes, they are mostly if not exclusively truck driving jobs, and seeing as I hate driving and am afraid of trucks, I realized it is probably not the union for me.

So, I suppose I'll stick to applying to snotty-ish or self-important organizations because that is the "respectable" thing to do with $150,000 worth of education.

But, I still have Teamster fever and am thinking about investing in my own pocket knife.

Suburban Outfitters

2008-10-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

When the possibility of moving to Durham first came up, one of my very first acts was to look up whether or not there was an Urban Outfitters in the area. There was. So I told Willie I'd consider the move.

Now, I know that Urban Outfitters is over-priced and overly-trendy and that their whole look, as illustrated in their catalogs, is the coked-out waif who lives in a forest with her rocker grunge boyfriend and and that they spend their time typing on their vintage typewriter and eating off of plates in the shape of birds. And it's not even that most of my wardrobe comes from there. I'm a much more equal opportunity shopper than that.

But, somehow knowing that I could make the 20 minute drive to Urban Outfitters if necessary was comforting. Like finding your same brand of rice in another state.

Well, yesterday, the trek to Urban was necessary. Necessary because I had plotted it out two weeks ago and had been looking forward to it ever since. I wasn't going to go crazy; I had a little list of possible things I "needed" and was mostly excited to see what kind of Urban Outfitters it would be (as there are better and worse ones).

Because of the chickenshit bingo law of high expectations, my giddiness was checked soon after the trip began. First of all, driving to a giant suburban mall on some country-ish roads to go to "Urban" Outfitters felt somehow wrong. There was a traffic jam just driving into the mall (what recession?), and I had to drive around to find a parking spot. It was so un-waif-in-the-forest like.

Then, like in any Urban Outfitters, I had to contend with the gaggles of teenagers and their moms who are buying them clothes. Where was my mom, I wondered.

Of course, I spent way too long in the store, picking something up, deciding I couldn't live without it, carrying it around, and putting it back. I changed my mind about 37 times and stayed long enough so that I heard the mix cd one-and-a-half times and saw the staff do at least a couple rotations of greeter to dressing rooms to cash register.

As I finally made my way to the cash register to get only what I needed (Wonder Woman t-shirt costume, thermal shirt, plastic bracelet with saints on it, yellow scarf), I felt tired and dirty and lonely amidst the southern suburban teenagers. I longed for the Urban Outfitters in Chicago situated on streets in neighborhoods with sidewalks accessible by bike or public transportation. I started composing invitations to my UO pity party.

And then she appeared. Her name was Karina, and she was the employee at the end of the register counter. It started with a conversation about a scarf which led to layers which led to cold which led to Chicago which led to her hailing from Texas and moving here a year ago just for the adventure which led to me wanting to get her phone number and ask her to hang out all the time but that's weird, so I didn't.

In the two minutes that I spent with Karina, she wasn't too preppy, and she wasn't too hippie -- she was just right.

Who knows if I'll see her again, who knows how often I'll go back to the mall, but all it took was one normal-seeming person working in a store I hate to love in the middle of some giant suburban mall in South Durham to feel like maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.

Gambling with Poop

2008-10-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

The invitation read "Chicken Shit Bingo." That was all I needed to know. I was psyched. A girlfriend of a guy Willie kind of knows was putting it on as a fundraiser for her trip to Italy. I told anyone and everyone I talked to that I was going to Chicken Shit Bingo on Sunday. This was it -- that weird stuff that goes on in the South -- the stuff that was just screaming to be blogged about. My expectations couldn't have been higher.

Which is never good.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon, and at 2:15, I told Willie we had to leave right then for Chicken Shit Bingo. The first round started at 2:30. We couldn't miss it.

We showed up at 2:30, beating the chickens there by half an hour. When they did arrive, and the set-up was complete, I realized that the bingo part of Chicken Shit Bingo is actually not really true -- it should be called Chicken Shit Gambling. This is how it works: there are two chickens in a chicken coop, standing on a board divided up into 20 numbers and then covered with seed to help the pooping along. You don't spell anything out -- you just pick a number out of a bag and hope that the chicken goes poop on your number.

There were only a few people there for the first round, so we each got to pull two numbers. We gathered around the chicken coop and watched as the chickens pecked at the seed. We held our collective breaths, and sure enough, three minutes in, one of the chickens went poop -- twice -- on square #3. I was not a winner.

That was the end of the first round. When the second round got underway forty-five minutes later, the crowd had grown. So we only got one number this time.

This go-around, the chickens were not in a pooping mood. Everyone sat and stood around looking at the chickens who, this time, took 30 minutes before doing any business. It was square #17 this time, and, given that it was not my number and that I had spent most of those 30 minutes inside the house trying to sneak cookies, it was a bit anti-climatic. Here is a picture of what waiting around for a chicken to poop looks like:

Two hours after showing up, Willie and I were out of money and covered in mosquito bites. It wasn't Chicken Shit Bingo's fault; with my sky high expectations, I suppose there was no way that the actual game could live up to the sheer joy of the name.

And it did get me thinking about my own cat's pooping abilities, and if I can't figure out how to parlay her talents into a little money around here.

Preppy to Hippie and Back Again

2008-10-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Willie and I left the house. And I mean left the house. We started off at noon for a tailgating gathering that his friend's company was hosting before the UNC v. Notre Dame football game. Willie spent the week trying to get tickets to the game, but given that Carolina is good in football for the first time in a long time, and that they were playing Notre Dame, we had no luck. But we decided not to forgo the free food and festivities.

Walking around the area near the stadium, we passed by many a tailgating party in the parking lots surrounding the field. And holy buckets, if it was more preppiness than I have ever witnessed. Not only was everyone in Carolina blue, but a lot of the gear was Polo shirts and Izods, guys in khaki shorts and women with their Coach purses. People had Carolina tents and flags and chairs and beer cozies and seat cushions. We saw a woman who was so dressed up that she looked like she was going to a wedding (she was actually one of the few not in Carolina blue). I assumed she was going to a wedding until Willie mentioned that some of the sorority sisters get way dressed up for the football games. After that, the Polo shirts and white shorts and braided belts looked pragmatic.

"Do you have the fever yet?" Willie asked.

"What fever?" I answered. It felt like seeing a big game of preppy blue blob tag that I couldn't quite get excited about it.

What I could get excited about was the free bbq spread at his friend's tailgating spot. Lots of pork and mac and cheese and hush puppies. Willie and I ate so much that our stomachs hurt. He was sad we couldn't go to the game, and, even without the fever, I knew that it would have been a good time.

But, sans tickets, we went with Option #2, which was the Shakori Hills bluegrass festival at a farm about 30 minutes from Chapel Hill. The festival happens twice a year and lasts four days, and people are invited to bring their tents and camp for the weekend.

Driving out to the country and seeing cows made me a little giddy after all the preppy blue. In 30 minutes, we had driven to the opposite end of the spectrum (echoing the car show to pride fest jump a few weekends ago), and 19-year-old women with their stomachs painted "U," "N," "C" were replaced by middle-aged women with full-length tie-dye dresses.

Walking into the festival, the tie-dye increased exponentially, as did the dreadlocks and the clogs and the crocs. There were hula hoops and a drum circle and a poetry slam and face painting and ethereal clothing for sale. The food vendors were selling Indian food and fry bread tacos and Middle Eastern fare.

The people watching was overwhelming, and after a couple hours, I was actually a little blown out. But we did hear some good music, and below are some pictures Willie took:

A painted face

The Carolina Chocolate Drops

This member of the group seemed to play about 3o different instruments, sometimes all at once.

The Del McCoury Band

The drum circle

And the hula-hoopers

While the rest of the hippie crowd kept on beating their drums and hooping their hulas, Willie and I headed back to Chapel Hill to meet up with some of his friends after the game. First we hit the football game traffic, and then we hit the preppies. All along Franklin Street -- the main drag in Chapel Hill -- were crowds and crowds of Carolina blue college students -- gaggles of drunk girls and guys walking in threes and sevens, getting their slices of pizza and their pints as an early Saturday night of partying got underway.

Willie and I lasted about 10 minutes before we headed back to deserted Durham. After our preppy-hippie-preppy sandwich, our quiet former-crack-house block didn't seem so bad.

And what do you do?

2008-10-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

is a question I have hated for years, even though I am certainly guilty of asking it. You = your job, your life is your job, you are defined by your job, I will put you in a box based on your job is everything that question implies.

I remember being publicly opposed to this question after college, as I struggled to find a job that would allow me to answer it with pride. It's half the reason I answered an ad to become a ballroom dance teacher my first year out of school -- it sure sounded better than "consultant," which is the job every other college grad seemed to be doing.

And that question is half the reason I went to grad school (the other half being that working sucks). Going to grad school and becoming a teacher, no matter how long I lasted, was a way to answer the question, to get a "career," to finally decide what I was going to do with my life. Well, we all know how that turned out.

Last night, at my hip hop dance class that I'm taking here in Durham, I struck up a conversation with a young woman in the class. I was sitting with another woman I had already met a couple weeks ago, a woman named Marissa, who, as a Master's of Public Health student, has a purpose and a schedule and a cohort and all of those things that seem so great and so elusive at the moment. This other woman introduced herself as Amy and asked Marissa and me if we were students. When I answered no, she asked me, "What are you?"

I froze. What am I. I had panicked enough when Marissa asked me what I did a couple weeks ago, and I had given her a long mumbled answer of just-moved-from-Chicago-was-teaching-high-school-boyfriend-is-from-here-um-don't-know-yet.

But what am I. My first impulse was to say, "Nothing," but I knew that was too existential or sadsack. "I don't know," I said, and we got past the awkward moment by laughing it off. Kind of.

It wasn't this poor woman's fault -- she was sweet and friendly and one year out of school. But since she asked me that question, it has been circling around my head. In response, I could make one of those touchy-feely identity charts and list my personality traits and things I like to do - yay! (Barf.) Or, I could get all mad at American society for placing so much emphasis on your job being your identity/purpose. (Snoozeville.) Or, I could muster up some resentment towards my family, for providing such unrealistic role models as people who actually do what they love for a living. Damn them! (Totally kidding, especially as they account for 87% readership of this blog.)

Blah, blah, blah, right? And some more blah blah about how the pressure is really all me and how that darn over-achieving / make-something-of-yourself impulse that is supposedly a good thing when you're in school or doing something respectable comes back to bite you when you don't choose a "path."

What am I? At the moment, I'm a little sleepy and am contemplating a nap. And after that? I think I'll be a little hungry. Who knows what I'll be by dinner time.

Here's the church, and here's the steeple, open the door -- where are all the people?

2008-10-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

When I was little, we had those Richard Scarry books in our house -- with all of the scenes and pictures of everything from airport tarmacs to life on the farm. There were no words -- just hundreds of things to look at in each scene -- details and colors and busy-ness. What I remember most fondly about the books is, in fact, the airport scene, because I thought that the bear who had the job of directing the planes to the terminals was holding giant lollipops as signals. How did I get that job, I wanted to know, and, more specifically, those lollipops?

I'm still on that same quest for job with giant lollipops. And I hadn't thought about those Richard Scarry books for years until I was driving through Wicker Park one Saturday afternoon with my friend, Dave, on our way back from beloved Saturday basketball. We came to a stoplight at the intersections of all intersections -- North, Damen and Milwaukee -- and had a few moments to look around. Here, in adult incarnation, was a Richard Scarry scene! This one was hipster meets Lincoln Park, with the bikers and the faux-homeless and the short skirts and the heels with jeans and the boots with skirts and the little dogs and all of those shopping bags filled with more boots and heels and short skirts. I remarked to Dave that the scene was Richard Scarry-esque, and we probably laughed and made some judgmental comments at the expense of the folks of Wicker Park.

In my attempt to figure out where the hell I currently am and what the hell I'm presently doing here, I go back to Richard Scarry, to his depictions of everyday people and places. And if Richard Scarry were to draw scenes from Durham, I'm not quite sure what he would draw. So far as I can tell, his scenes might be on the empty side.

Take, for starters, downtown. Now, my very first reaction upon seeing downtown Durham just a mere couple months ago was: okay, now take me to downtown. There was nothing there -- just empty storefronts and a couple of banks and one-way streets and a few people crossing those streets. But who were those few people? And why the heck were they downtown? Were they going to the bank?

(The upside of this emptiness is that you can pretty much bike, drive or walk around downtown blindfolded and ears-plugged and not worry about getting hit by a car.)

Along with the empty downtown, Richard Scarry would have to include hills in his scenes of Durham. In the eight years that I owned a bike in Chicago, I don't believe I ever shifted my bike gears. In fact, I didn't really know why I needed bike gears. No, it wasn't until Durham that I appreciated the gears on my bike or the fact that an incline, no matter how small, is an incline. And in climbing this incline, whether on bike or foot, I only need a sidewalk square to feel like an out-of-shape huffing and puffing old woman.

In his scenes of Durham, Richard Scarry could not draw bike lanes, as they don't exist. This is occasionally a problem for a biker, as Richard Scarry could also not draw sidewalks on which his biker could ride (see title of blog). What's a biker to do? Especially when the streets are narrow and curvy and hilly and when cars are not necessarily used to bikers. Well, lucky for Richard Scarry and the biker, he doesn't have to draw too many cars in his scenes of Durham. (One way to achieve bike safety.)

And yet, aside from the emptiness, there are a few things that I would tell Richard Scarry to include in his scenes of Durham, a few of my favorite things, if you will. For one, there are solid well-functioning blue mailboxes with large signs on the side that tell you what time the last pick-up is. And these pick-up times actually vary, allowing someone without a job or anywhere to go to schedule her afternoon walks based around the 3:00, 4:00 and 5:oo mailboxes.

And although most of the storefronts downtown are empty, Richard Scarry could slightly expand his downtown radius to include my new favorite store, Dolly's -- a cool, vintage, they-carry-some-of-the-same-stuff-as-Strange-Cargo shop with an even cooler owner, a place called the Scrap Exchange, which is where the Durham hipsters hang out, as far as I can tell (it really is a place of scraps -- from paper to science to sewing), and LocoPop, a store that sells exotic ice and cream-based popsicles with flavors like mojito and apple mint.

On the other hand, Durham probably isn't Richard Scarry material, and some days the deserted-ness is downright depressing. I don't know how I feel about the fact that I can drive backwards down a one-way street when I've realized I've gone the wrong way and not encounter any car for a solid 3.7 minutes.

But, even if the job of holding up giant lollipop still eludes me, at least I know where to go for a pomegranate chocolate chip popsicle, some small beakers and a hooded sweatshirt that says: Durham - Love Yourself. And, who knows, maybe that bear directing the planes has retired anyway. Perhaps he spends his days walking to the bank and mailing letters.

DMV Part Deux

2008-10-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

There were no tests to pass this time. Just a line to wait in at the Northgate mall, where the nearest NC License Plate Agency lives.

Compared to the last 48 DMV hours, this one was nothing. The woman who helped me was only slightly crabby. The best part was that the whole thing of her sitting behind the counter and writing and asking me to sign things and looking at all of my different forms took awhile, allowing me ample time to study the back wall.

And on this back wall were a whole lot of fake license plates that you could get for the front of your car, North Carolina being a state that only requires a rear license plate. Between God and fishing, I didn't know how to choose. Here were just some of my options:

Buckle Up With Jesus

I live with DANGER and sometimes she lets me go FISHING

World's Sexiest Grandmother

Life is Precious / Handle with Prayer

A Woman and her Truck: It's a Beautiful Thing

No Riders / Except blondes, brunettes or redheads

Laugher is God's Sunshine

Git-R-Done

Fish tremble at the mention of my name

Wild Woman

Girls Rule

John Deere Logo (that one was actually kind of cool -- a nice shade of green)

It takes a lot of balls to play golf the way I do

Get in. Shut up. Buckle up. Hang on!

I'd rather be shopping (okay, maybe that one is true)

Ain't Skeered

Heaven Bound

There were even more options involving angels and heaven and fishing and trucks. As I sat there in judgement at the North Carolina plates, I wondered how this boded for me and my new state of residency. True, there are lots of people in Illinois who like to fish and pray and ride in trucks. And perhaps their DMV's back wall would look similar if the front plate was anything goes.

Perhaps the craziest part of my time at the License Plate Agency was that at the end, the woman just reached down from behind the counter and handed me my First in Flight license plate. What? I was expecting a yellowish/orange temporary one and for the new one to arrive in the mail in 6 - 8 weeks. But, no, they just store those bad boys at their feet.

In the end, the good people at Jiffy Lube, who inspected my car and put on my back plate, offered me the perfect option: they let me keep my Land of Lincoln plate on the front, allowing part of me, the front part that is, to still emotionally reside in the great state of Illinois.

The Real Biggest Loser

2008-10-01T11:25:00.001-07:00

So, because I am a nerd who finds meaning in life by taking care of business, I knew I needed to get a North Carolina drivers license in order to get a North Carolina license plate, which is required after 60 days of residency. Now, a few things you need to know in order to fully appreciate my most recent trip to the DMV:

a) I had no desire to get a North Carolina license. Not only am I not emotionally ready to be a resident of this state, but I don't even feel like I live here for real. Why would I give up my cute little REAL license from my REAL state of residency?

b) Why? Because I am a nerd and that is what you're supposed to do. In fact, the second day I was in the state, I switched my State Farm insurance to NC. (Yes, I had called State Farm back in May to find out what I needed to do to transfer insurance, and, yes, I had mapquested and printed out directions to the nearest State Farm insurance back in Chicago.) Is Willie worried about any of this stuff? No. And will it matter? Mostly like not. Another example of the fact that all of the worry and headache devoted to doing what you're supposed to do in life really puts you at no advantage.

c) Since I live in permanent nerd-dom, I remember all of the times in life when I didn't get that A+ (still pissed about that science test in 4th grade). In fact, I still remember how I did on the drivers test that I took at age 16. I only got one wrong and it was about whether or not you should treat motorcycles as cars. I interpreted it to be more of an opinion question.

d) I have always had a sneaking suspicion that there's a chance that I'm actually kind of dumb. This statement is in no way, shape or form meant to illicit sympathy or to cue the world's smallest violins. But, it's true and I know it comes in part from having the most ridiculously smart family and from being a terrible terrible test taker. I'm serious -- those SAT, ACT, GRE scores? Embarrassing. I would never tell you.

So, this is the context in which I start the process of getting a North Carolina drivers license. First of all, I start worrying about it weeks ago. And then I start complaining about it (especially because completing the process involves three steps of drivers license, license plate agency and inspection test). "License stuff" turns up on all of my to-do lists. I start printing out all of the information I need. Pages upon pages of the driving handbook and the rules and what I need to bring and where I need to go. And then, of course, I start studying. I have my highlighter out and three different colored pens and I'm marking things up and practicing the hand signals and testing myself on the signs. I stop just short of making flashcards.

I finally set the date: Tuesday, Sept. 29. That will be the day I get my North Carolina license. I pack my bag (two books, two snacks, water, tissues, gum, pen and paper, all of my required documents paper-clipped and organized -- including multiple forms of proof of residency and proof of insurance), mapquest the directions to the DMV, and wear my Wonder Woman t-shirt and Superman socks. I'm so damn organized that it borders on cockiness.

The DMV is an easy seven minute drive from my house, but I'm nervous about the line and the wait and about mean people, and so my heart is already pounding when I show up at the small building that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 1950's. Luckily, there is hardly a line and within minutes I'm sitting in front of a -- get this -- really nice woman! She's all "honey this" and "sweetheart that," and even though I'm still nervous, she is really helping me out here. They don't require your weight on your license in NC (I was all set to lie), and I thankfully pass the vision test. Now all I need to do is to pass the written test on the computer.

It's a 25 question test. You need to correctly answer 20 questions. The computer tells you right away if you got a question right or wrong. If you miss 6, you fail, and you go home and come back another day to retest.

Some of the questions are easy -- yes, you should rest every 100 miles when you travel a long distance, some questions I recognize from the booklet, and some I just have to guess on. I get one wrong -- something about how to not wear out brakes or how to dry out wet brakes or something like that, and then I start to panic. I get another one wrong about how long your license is suspended for if you refuse to take a breathalyzer test. And then, when I get my third one wrong about what percentage of deaths in NC are caused by drunk driving, I really start to freak out. I screw up a couple more questions, and before I know it, I have missed five and can't miss anymore. I start to feel sick to my stomach and like I'm having an out-of-body experience. It's my last question. I have to get it right. It's another question about the DWI laws and I'm not sure. My heart is pounding. I guess. I get it wrong. I have gotten six wrong. I fail. I have just failed the test. I look at the computer with anguish -- this can't be right. Even though I'm a poor test taker, I do not get F's, especially when it's a stupid driving test. I stare at it hoping it will give me another chance. How could I be so stupid? How could I have actually studied for this test and still failed? I don't know what to do and slowly stand up. A different DMV woman looks at me and asks if I passed. I shake my head and she tells me, with some sympathy, I might add, "Aw, just come back another day. Do you need a book?" Another shake of my head.

I feel like complete and utter shit as I walk to my car. And when I get home and show up sans license, I lose it. I cry and bawl and sob and through my tears tell Willie things like, "Now we know it's true that I'm really stupid! How can I be so stupid?" I believe I even verbalize, "I'm a worthless piece of shit." Yes, that's how bad I feel. He tells me that it's funny -- or will be --and that it took him four times to get his boating license. I still don't feel better. All I want to do is go back to the DMV and pass the stupid test. And hopefully reclaim a smidgeon of my self-worth.

That afternoon I reopen the booklet and, with very low self-esteem, mark it up in a different color. I try to remember the questions I got wrong. As much as I want to blame the test, I know that it's all me. But what exactly went wrong? Was I over-confident wearing my Wonder Woman shirt? Did I go too fast on the test? Do I just have no none negative testing capability whatsoever? Or, deep gulp, am I really truly (shhhh)...dumb?

This morning, I drive back to the DMV. This time, I wear the same shirt I wore when I got my most recent IL license, hoping to give the situation some good midwestern karma. I beat the line again and it's a matter of minutes before I'm back in front of a computer. However nervous I was yesterday, I'm ten times as nervous today. If I fail again, I worry that I might no longer have a reason to live.

I start the test. I get one wrong about whether or not to use high beams in fog. Shit! I get another one wrong about stopping vs. honking and slowing down when you think other cars can't see you (that one, truly, seems to be a matter of opinion). I start to panic. And then I wise up. I remember that you can skip questions and come back to them later. So I slow down and just answer the ones I know for sure. And then, it happens. I get the 20th one right and the test ends. I have passed. And I could not be happier. Not only do I not have to come back tomorrow, but I don't have to kill myself.

Five minutes later, I'm staring at my North Carolina license. The picture is terrible, no part of the karma shirt shows up, and it still makes absolute no sense why I would not have an IL license. But this tiny piece of plastic is a gem -- something I worked for and cried over, and even though I hate it, I can't stop staring at it and smiling as I drive myself home.

One Big Saturday in Durham

2008-09-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Occonnechee Speedway Car Show

It was just a matter of time before I went to my first car show in North Carolina. And even though I knew we were going to a car show yesterday morning, I somehow didn't realize until we got there...that this was Nascar. But, it wasn't gaudy Nascar. It was an old historic dirt track, now hidden in the woods, and lots of cool old cars on display. The uniform of the crowd was jeans and t-shirts (mainly racing t-shirts), and there was an especially high concentration of men's denim shorts and cell phones on belts. And thick accents galore.

Here are some of the photos that Willie took:

(This truck is dedicated to JoJo.)

But, like any event, the real excitement was the food. I had a tasty $2 bbq sandwich (which was eaten before any photo could be snapped), some homemade ice cream (made right there from a John Deere ice cream maker) and some homemade fries. I did not sample the fried bologna sandwich but was still impressed by the display.

(Food photos dedicated to Evan, food photographer extraordinaire)
There are those fries. Mmmmmm.

This was the entertainment -- The Castaways -- who must be a great wedding band, as their second song was "At Last." Although the crowd listening to the music could be counted on one hand, Ramsey, the Tarheels mascot, was there to make sure that someone was dancing.

From McCain to Obama

From the car show, we drove to the opposite end of the spectrum -- North Carolina Pride Day in Durham, which was held at the Duke Campus. Men's denim shorts and cell phones on belts were replaced by all kinds of rainbows, skin, Converse, and teenagers.

You can't have a Pride Day celebration without your drag queens.

Willie spotted this priceless t-shirt.

But wait, there's more....

As if our day wasn't full enough, we went out to our second Durham dinner -- this time to an expensive yuppy Thai place. Very tasty, but since when does Pad Thai cost $12 in Durham? (and portions so small that there were no leftovers -- WTF?) At least I know that when I need Thai food, it does exist if I'm willing to cough up the cash.

Humping Unicorns

By 10:00 PM, I thought the big day must be done. However, we had run into two of Willie's mom's friends (a couple our age) at the Pride festival, and they had told us about a performance not to be missed that evening: the Cuntry Kings -- women who dress up as men. Partly because their logo was one unicorn humping another, we dragged ourselves back out at 10:45 to a night club (there was parking right across the street -- it is Durham, after all), where we were just in time to catch the Kings' performance. I thought it would be a band or something, but it was a group of women lip syncing to a variety of songs -- complete with costumes and dance moves and all. Some acts were better than others, and it kind of felt like an underground talent show. The crowd of mostly women loved it. Below is a picture from one of the acts, which was about what happens in the locker room after "fag football":

There was a dance party after the show, and we stuck around and danced for for a few songs.

Yes, it was a crazy day in Dirty Durham.

32-Year-Old Jealousy

2008-09-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time again. When the weather turns cooler (even in North Carolina), football takes over many lives, talk turns to Halloween costumes...and the little rascals come asking for college letters of recommendation. It's funny how during the fall of their senior year, students who had you for junior year English suddenly and finally realize just how amazing a teacher you were and how no one else had as much of an impact on them as you did. Huh. Interesting.

As the requests roll in from the land of Glenbrook North, I've considered charging $50 per letter. I mean no skin off their backs, right?

I've written quite a few letters of recommendation in my short career as a teacher, since I taught juniors for three out of the four years of teaching. When I'd write letters at Payton (translation: when I was still employed), I felt a slight longing and jealousy directed toward all of the amazing things these cream-of-the-crop students would accomplish, toward how much more money they would make than me, and I felt woe-as-me over the fact that I would remain this lowly English teacher while they took over the world. How did all of that money and time spent on my education lead me to a career writing letters for young people to actually make money and a name for themselves? Yeah, yeah, yeah, teaching is important work and all of that crap.

I would joke with these students at the end of the year that I hoped they would remember me...and hire me one day. I was only partly joking.

Well, now it's worse. Way worse. I am writing letters of recommendation for students from Glenbrook North -- students who will mostly go on to big state universities and who will join sororities and fraternities and land high-paying jobs based on all of the connections that they had before they were born. Not that these aren't nice kids or that I don't wish them the best. The real difference in writing the letters this time around is that I am no longer a lowly English teacher who decided to take all of that education and turn it into a job that political candidates often put in the same category as nurses and truck drivers (not that there's anything wrong with those professions, but you know what I mean). No, this time around, I am 100% unemployed. Looking into jobs that I am as qualified for as a 23-year-old, or, worse, an 18-year-old. I know, I know -- it's all part of this move and figuring out how I want my life to be and trying new things and getting out of teaching. But, holy crap, right now, it sucks. Right now, I hate that I am jealous of these almost college kids who have their whole lives ahead of them. I know I sound like a bitter old crotchedy person who should have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. (BTW, I just googled the word "crotchedy" to make sure I was spelling it correctly, and wouldn't you know it, here is the definition and sample usage according to the online urban dictionary: "Crotchedy: A grumpy person who has no life. That teacher is a crotchedy old lady." Well, fuck me.

Maybe I should start stripping like Diablo Cody. Maybe I should change my name like Diablo Cody did. Oh, wait, does that mean I'm now jealous of Diablo Cody? At least she's out of college.

Dress for Success: A Sartorial Conundrum

2008-09-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

When I was a sucker and teaching teenagers every day, I was very careful about what I wore. Sure, there was the need to look professional, to appear older, to not have the administration grimace at my "artsy-ness." But, the real reason to carefully craft what I wore were the 120 teenagers who would be staring at me all day -- 240 adolescent eyeballs on me within a six hour time period. Here were some of my rules:

Anything that was too revealing of my personality was out. That meant that some colorful rings were acceptable and some were not. Big translucent yellow bubble ring? Out, as Heidi would say. Carved plastic green flower ring? That was fine. These two rings might sound comparable, except for the fact that the green flower ring didn't really represent who I was. The oversized yellow one, on the other hand? That's who I would be if I was reincarnated as a ring. Therefore, it was like naked me as a ring. This went for belts, too. The slightly funky white ones were okay, but definitely no color allowed.
Things that made it look like you were trying too hard (and therefore possibly failing) were out. For example, the couple of times that I wore nail polish were mistakes. (Perhaps if I had actually had my nails done, that might have been okay -- but this was my shoddy don't-look-too-close polish job, and it wasn't pretty. Just waiting for some girl in the front row to raise one side of her upper lip.)
Forget anything that could even possibly for one second be considered sexy. Now, I know plenty of teachers wear plenty of this stuff -- ranging from totally appropriate to totally not, but I wore no skirts, no v-necks or scoop-necks, and nothing too tight. Feeling in any way attractive around teenage boys? No thanks. I preferred to feel like a librarian (the non-sexy kind from the movies, because I know plenty of sexy librarians in real life.)
All bets were off when it came to my watches. There was no way around this one. My "conservative" watch -- my red calculator watch -- would receive comments when students noticed it was a calculator. But I made the mistake one day of wearing my weird yellow one with dots and ticks as the time markers. That took about a half hour of class time to explain.
Pray that you never had on the same outfit as the students. This was more of a problem at Walter Payton, where many students shopped at Urban Outfitters (as I found out the first time I shopped at the one three blocks from school). Luckily, in the suburbs, the uniform for the girls were leggings, Uggs, a North Face fleece, and a t-shirt (usually a men's white v-neck undershirt tee -- emphasis on the "v"). I let them have this outfit.

Of course, I recognize the paradox in this: although, in theory, you should want the students to look at you and pay attention to you (your words, of course, not the floral pattern on your shirt), most of the time, most students were not paying any attention to anything that wasn't themselves. What ring I was wearing? Please, if I was naked with my hair on fire, half of them wouldn't notice.

I also recognize that it was both a challenge and a blessing to have a different wardrobe for school. In some ways, marking the difference between work and non-work (ala Mr. Rogers) is a good thing. But, there is definitely a fine line between dressing professionally and dressing in a way that conceals your personality.

Fast forward to being unemployed in a city where I know no one / see no one:

These days, I have the opposite problem. I have rid myself of the teenagers staring at me or ignoring me. I could wear my brightest belts with my biggest rings and not even my cat would notice. But that's also the problem: not even my cat would notice, and she is one of two living beings I see every day. What's the point of wearing anything besides a potato sack?

Conceivably, at least until I get a job, I could wear my pajamas every day. I could adopt the who-cares attitude and put no effort into what I wear. But, where's the fun in that? Instead, and partly out of boredom, I've started to dress a little weirder than I did in Chicago -- such as wearing my socks pulled up to my knees, a look I contemplated but never executed before now. And I'm starting to realize the possibilities here. Since I am essentially an outsider and a weirdo in Durham ("a loner, Dottie, a rebel"), I might as well do it up. Why not start wearing crazy hats or jump suits or dye my hair a different color every week? In fact, right now, I'm realizing that the outfit I have on is too boring. Gotta go find my pimp hat to go with it....

Overnight Camp

2008-09-17T09:43:00.001-07:00

Last night, we had our first out-of-town visitor. Naka, Willie's friend from his Africa trip with the New York Times, was in town (specifically Cary) visiting his wife's family. So, we took him out. Meaning, we took him on our 5 minute driving tour of Durham (the Duke Lacrosse house is included on the tour), and made too many snarky comments about the "booming" downtown.

Anyway, we had a good time with Naka. We went to a restaurant in the American Tobacco Historical District complex (that will definitely be on your tour, too), and got burgers and played pool. (As if I know how to play pool -- I was in the corner playing Ms. Pac-Man.) The burgers were no Jury's burgers (see, that is the very thing I need to not do), but the fries did have ample garlic on them.

After our first real night out kind of, we drove back to our house where Naka's car was parked. As we said our goodbyes, I got that feeling in my stomach -- that distinct sleepover/summer camp/how will I make it through the night feeling. The feeling that cries, "Don't leave me here!" See, growing up, I couldn't do sleepovers (so sleep away camps were definitely out). I'd occasionally attempt one, but then I would ultimately call home at about 10:00 PM and feign illness. I'm not quite sure what my problem was, but it was real, and everyone knew. In 5th grade, I spent months dreading the one night I was to spend at Camp Timberlee, a sleepaway retreat for all 5th graders. To my big astonishment, I went and actually survived. And I made one of those leather cuff bracelets that you stamp your name into. I may have conquered Camp Timberlee, but I was sure college would be out of the question.

Well, last night, Naka did leave us here, and my stomach did hurt for a little while. And then it dawned on me that, in a sense, I am facing a really long sleepover here in Durham. Granted, I have Willie. And without a job, I have lots of time to make leather cuff bracelets with my name stamped into them. With any luck, I'll muster up that Camp Timberlee courage and make it at least through orientation.

C & T

2008-09-16T15:05:00.001-07:00

I rarely leave the house these days. And it's amazing to find just how quickly time passes without really doing anything. As a full time shut-in, what I have to show for my time are my emotional states, which have been primarily crabbiness or tiredness or some combination of tired crabby or crabby tired. In fact, I think I'm partly tired from being crabby, and crabby from being tired.

Why crabby?

Well, for one thing, it was hotter than tar this weekend (phrase courtesy of Willie). The actual temperature was somewhere in the 90's, but when you factor in the humidity, oy vey. Our A/C was broken, and with our open windows limited to one (the rest were painted shut or screen-less), there was absolutely no air movement. I'd like to pretend that I put on a brave sweaty face and worked through it. But, no, I was crabby.

(Pause: I do need to give lots of credit to the management company we're renting from because they had a guy out here Monday morning fixing the air conditioning. And fix it he did. In fact, he was here on and off for the past two days -- kind of like a roommate -- working on our list of non-functioning things. He and I had a bit of a language barrier when he tried to explain what he needed or the status of something -- I would guess wrong or nod or smile and feel like a super dumb non-Spanish speaking white unemployed yuppie. For example, on several occasions he seemed to be referring to another guy doing work at the house. "He" had allegedly fixed our toilet and "he" had unclogged our drain. And yet, there had been no sighting of he unless he was a small elf who worked in the wee hours of the morning.

Why tired?

Well, it's a funny thing how having nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to call, and receiving emails mostly from former students requesting letters of recommendation (file that under crabby, too) is just plain exhausting. Makes me want to take a nap.

If I could push through the C & T, I could list the good things (like that the management company is fixing lots of things in the house, like that the weather is cooler, like that I know how to get to two more places even if they're right next to each other, like that yesterday I saw about 15 school buses come bounding out of a nearby high school at 4:00 and almost threw up and instead said all of my prayers that I am not teaching right now). However, at the moment, there is an open invitation to my pity party, where I will be serving C & T's.

My Pet Roach

2008-09-12T15:44:00.001-07:00

So, if I've ever wondered if I would have a different scream for a mouse and a giant roach, and I mean GIANT (I swear it had wings), the answer is no, they are very much the same scream. This roach was so big and grossed me out so much, that I couldn't even look at it. It went down something like this: Last night I'm sitting on the toilet with the door open (sorry, TMI), spot GIANT roach (3 inches? Is that possible? 2.5?) just outside the bathroom, scream, call Willie's name, and shut the bathroom door. That's right, I hide from the roach. That way, the roach can't get me. See no roach, no roach exist. Well, surprise, surprise, when Willie comes back to look for it, it's gone. I don't know how something that large moves that fast, but I was SO jumpy and freaked out that all I could do was go to bed. The brand new off-the-ground bed I just got seemed to be much safer than my old on-the-ground futon, so that was some comfort. However, I couldn't go pee (what's with the TMI?) last night because I was so afraid of running into my new friend. As I lay in bed thinking about how in the hell I'm going to deal with all of these new pets, I wondered if, like my migraines, naming them might help. Ted, the roach? Would that make it less scary? But, that's the thing -- in the moment, there is no Ted. There is only the scariest biggest grossest thing I've seen since the last scariest biggest grossest thing I've seen.

Everything is sunnier in the morning. Today there was no sign of Ted, and I carelessly unpacked as if there wasn't a roach in the world.

On my first day in Durham, my true love gave to me....

2008-09-11T11:20:00.001-07:00

So, after the first 48 hours in Durham, here are the stats so far: (mostly in 3's and 4's)

3 awesome family/friend movers who helped us move in in about 2.5 hours.

3 guys who turned on, delivered, and installed our power, bed, and cable on the day we moved in.

3 visitors later that afternoon, each bearing gifts:

Willie's mom and 10-year old mentee brought us pizza.

A friend of Wille's aunt and fellow Durham resident brought us fried chicken and beer. She also gave us the advice to find a safe space in our house in case of danger. At first, I thought she was talking about a place to hide in the house when an intruder enters, and I near about lost my mind. Then, I realized she was talking about a safe space for our stuff -- not us. "Lock up that camera equipment," she said, "because it's fine for a junkie to steal your tv, but not your camera." Um, right, so a junkie will be visiting my house? And that's fine as long as my valuables are locked up?

Willie's aunt, who also lives in Durham, brought us flowers. And she tried to dispel the safe space / junkie myth and said that there was probably just a crack house down the street. This unsettled me a little until I realized, "Wait a second, I grew up with a crack house down the street! I know how to do crack house down the street!" That's right, the cold hard streets of Evanston toughened me up in ways that are still just now making themselves known. (True story: the summer before I left for college, as I was backing out of my parents' driveway, I saw a car turning the corner onto my street, and so I waited for it to pass. This car was followed by -- and I counted -- 1o undercover cop cars. A whole bunch of SWAT guys got out to storm the house across the street. Later that week, when I looked in the Evanston paper under the police blotter, sure enough, included in the listing was the raid of the house on Ashland Ave. -- "a reputed drug house."

4 meals that have involved cold fried chicken and/or cold pizza.

3 sightings of a mouse. Did I scream? Hells, yeah, I screamed.

1 major 24-hour-plus migraine. And as I lay awake last night, my head pounding like crazy, I started to think about how helpful it would be to name and measure my migraines like they do hurricanes. I'm always trying to compare and contrast them anyway, thinking, "Well, this is better than the one on the 4th of July, but longer and more intense than the one in Vermont." How much easier would it be if I could say, "Migraine Mimi was more severe than Migraine Lorraine -- since it was a category 4."

Since I still have no idea what I'm doing here in Durham (and probably won't for a while), I suppose I'll just keep finding things to count, starting with all of those boxes waiting to be unpacked....

So, this is blogging....

2008-09-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

One of my goals in life, or so I've said, is to never send out a mass email. I've unachieved this goal a couple of times (hard to get around the change of email address email), and when I've had to send something out to my entire grad school program or to all of the teachers at school, I've panicked and deliberated and rewritten and proofread to no end.

Somehow, even though I'm not even sure who will read this, blogging feels like a mass email, like a "LOOK AT ME/I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY" thing to do. Like, who cares what I have to say? Well, there's a good chance my mom does, or at least pretends to, so that's something.

But, in the week that I've been in North Carolina, I have a) started a list in my head of WTF things (sorry for swearing, Ma), b) come to find nothing more depressing than searching for jobs and therefore want to avoid that activity at all costs, and c) found myself completely unsure of how to get myself to write on a regular basis. Voila, le blog.

I'd like to avoid the cheesy "midwestern girl in the south" thing, although I suppose that's what I am. And I know the Triangle area in NC is not quite Jeff Foxworthy "you know you're a redneck when..." territory. But, here are my observations, questions, concerns of being some kind of a resident of North Carolina so far -- be they cliche or stereotypical or generalized or stupid or even untrue:

Southern Hospitality vs. Minnesota Nice. In my very first trip to Target on my very first day here, two groups of people in the parking lot asked/offered help. Granted, stools were toppling out of my cart, and I lost a mattress pad somewhere in between two of those large red Target balls that I really wish were for sale. "Wow, they really are nice in the South!" my mom and I exclaimed, although we probably would have said this in response to a "you dropped something." Of course, I'm trying to assess after a minute, but I want to know if people at registers will call me "honey" and what Southern hospitality's translation of Minnesota's "you betcha" is and if it's possible that the people at the DMV here might not make me cry.
No, for real, there really are no sidewalks here. In the interest of full disclosure, a) I made this realization several trips to North Carolina ago, and b) I know there are some sidewalks. But seriously, the streets on which Willie's parents live in Carrboro, and the street on which we'll live in Durham have NO sidewalks. None. Zero. Just the street. And those country mailboxes on the street. Put this in the category of not being in Kansas anymore.
Deers are like squirrels. At least in Carrboro, and, well, I'm sure billions of other places in the country. But not in Chicago near the Popeye's Chicken at California and Diversey! But, the deer are still way cuter than squirrels -- especially those babies with their Bambi spots -- and there have been at least two times in the past week when I have considered going to live with the deer. They never have to look for jobs.
There are so many friggin' bugs, jesus christ. Okay, I know I haven't even scratched the surface of this one (um, pun intended?), but at any give time of day, at any given location, I just get a bite. Just like that. My legs are now polka-dotted, and I don't leave the house without my After Bite. It's the new Chapstick. Willie has been watching this black and yellow spider who has been residing in a large web right outside his dad's living room window. "So cool," he says. And I'm only not freaking out because it's on the outside.
People pee outside. Well, at least Willie does, and I'm sure he's thrilled that I revealed that. But, hey, when it's only you and the deer....
There is a conspiracy going on in North Carolina. Unless you live in Fayetteville or Carrboro, you cannot get the channel Bravo with any cable package. If I had known this before we moved, I might not have agreed to this whole life change thing. And since we are not allowed to install a dish in the house that we're renting in Durham (this after spending an hour on the phone with my new BFF Cynthia at ProntoDish), I seriously don't know what I will do. It's like Time Warner Cable found out the one thing I watch on tv, and laughed evilly as they did away with it. Hate Time Warner Cable.
There's a flea problem here. And now my poor white cat has these little black bugs crawling all over and under her hairless hair. Poor Scouty. Damn fleas.
It's too hot. And everyone else calls this humid sunny 90's-ish weather beautiful. Oh dear and deer.
Some things are a little cheaper. So far, gas is a little cheaper, movies are $8, insurance premiums are a little less, and staying at your boyfriend's dad's place while you wait to move into your house with the weird Sept. 9 lease date is a huge savings (especially when meals are included).
Everything is housed in a house. Such as all businesses. Such as the Statefarm agency in Durham. It seems sooooo Southern.
Does slower pace of life really just translate into old computer equipment? This topic, like the how-are-things-cheaper question and the Southern hospitality inquiry, is one of the big ones for me. So far, my only evidence is Barry at the Statefarm agency. I was told I needed to come in to sign some forms about transferring my insurance from Chicago to here. Signing forms turned into an hour with super nice Barry, and then phone calls from him later that day, the next day, and the day after that. I learned about Barry's best friends who live in LaPorte Indiana, and especially about Peggy, who couldn't get used to those cold winters. Barry was definitely super nice and definitely not in any hurry. But, then there was the issue that the Statefarm agency in the house in Durham had no evidence of my renters insurance in Chicago (and that would take another chunk of time to figure out) and that the computer Barry was using had a screen that reminded me of my dad's Kaypro (is that what it was called?) computer from the 80's. Huh.

So, this is probably way too long for a blog entry -- me and my blogging naivete. But, if you've read this far, thanks so much for reading. And please send me bootlegged copies of "Project Runway."

Now time to go apply more After Bite....