looking back, moving forward

You know how people who have gotten really successful at something give speeches at fancy events and say things like: It all started when I (fill in the blank) and I'm so glad I did! And the (fill in the blank) is something like:
- I signed up for a class.
- I asked that girl for her number.
- I decided to keep sending out my manuscript despite the 32 rejections.
- So and so told me that I was really on to something and that gave me the energy to continue.
- I didn't take no for an answer. . .

It is so much easier to know what those moments are in retrospect, n'est-ce pas?

I keep looking at the last few months of my life and how different I feel in my skin. None of the moments or decisions that I've made feel like anything that will propel me into a different orbit, but . . . they all do.

Nonfiction writing is all about squeezing as many drops of insight possible from our most human experiences. Why is that so compelling? Why do I want to condense the where I am and the how I got here into a series of lists and snapshots?

Is there a way to widen the view around here?

Dear all of the Madame-Google-ing darlings

Hey! You found me. Good job. Madame does have a life on the innerweb and she's not trying to hide it.

Just so y'all know, however - this is my creative writing workspace, my social network, my grownupy mud puddle. You might find a couple of things that are fun to gossip about, but you won't really find anything about you on here, or about the things going on in the back dusty corners of my brain. At least, not anything that will explain what you might want to know about me. 

Student of Madame C or of the school where Madame C teaches, if you're thinking about writing down the puzzlements and emotions and WTF moments that life has served you on its styrofoam lunch tray, here's your permission. If you want to write and have someone who writes read your ideas and give you a whack to the behind to write more, you've got me. If you are tired or frustrated or annoyed or excited or wild happy or just plain befuddled, throw your ideas through your fingers onto a page, make it anonymous if you want to, protect it if you want to, and show me. Or show someone. But do it - write. Write until you are tired of writing. Write until you can't think of anything else to say. Write because you can't not spill your guts, finally, about that thing that's on your mind that you've been dying to get out of your system.

That's why I write. That's why this five years worth of blog is here for you to Google. This little corner of the internet is another part of what I'm like when I'm not in front of you. But if I weren't in front of you, none of this writing would have happened. Being a teacher taught me how to be a writer.

Darlings, I have a deep affection for you that you might not understand. You guys are great. You make it easy for me to show up to work every day. You're usually pretty authentic with me, you tell me the truth, and you do what I ask. Well, you mostly do what I ask. I couldn't ask for a better batch of students. Thanks for showing up and thanks for being curious and thanks for respecting my boundaries. Stuff that's on here isn't for discussion in the classroom, and you know that, but I thought I'd just give you a gentle reminder anyway since it seems like there is more traffic than usual from school.

I don't have anything to hide. But there's no reason to make a big deal out of this blog. Please respect that. Merci!

Announcement for my friend Katie

Adorable S. Mpls condo for sale: Check it out and share around, what?

Love: Things that are true

1. Love is a process, not a product.
2. He sometimes inspires twirling.
3. Love makes your heart bigger.
4. Being in love is like waking up every day for a while not minding that light snow and 16 degrees are between you and getting to your desk.
5. Facets of love that are less awesome: uncertainty. Anxiety about whether or not love is being reciprocated. Fear that now you've got something good, it'll go away and never return again.
6. Love blows everything out of proportion.
7. Love carries hope in one pocket and dark chocolate caramel squares in the other. I don't know how love doesn't melt the chocolate in his pocket.
8. Love is also a fan of peanut butter - Peter Pan, creamy. He knows it goes really well with bananas and toasted English muffins. That's because he's smart, that Love. He knows how to get a morning going.
9. Love sometimes reaches behind your eyes and drags your face over there and makes you look at someone who's been there all the time with totally different looking and then you get confused like someone just gave you a big thump on the top of your head.
10. Then Love runs around the corner to hide and giggles at what you do next.
11. Love really enjoys foolishness. That's what he's made for: inspiring foolishness.
12. But also, Love is really good at showing up when you're stranded and you need a hand. Love won't even remind you that he told you to get that thing fixed weeks ago. Love just gives you a hug and dries your tears, gets the toolbox from the trunk and gets to work.
13. Then, when everything is settled down, Love calls you on your shit in a way that kinda makes you squirm a little bit but also makes you grateful that he's paying attention. 
14. Love pays attention. 
15. Love notices how you're doing and wants to help out when he can, but has enough other stuff going on that he's not all up in your business every five minutes.
16. Love believes you can do it if you want to and sits in the front row clapping louder than anybody once you have.
17. Love thinks you're beautiful. 
18. Love has room in his heart for everyone, but saves the prettiest corner for you.
19. Love totally doesn't mind if you want to wear your tiara to dinner.
20. Love will probably have on his Superman boxers just in case, cause he's that kind of guy. Prepared. Love is always prepared to be silly and have fun.
21. Because Love totally gets that there is way too much serious in the world and refuses to take it all so seriously all the time.
22. Love encourages occasional irresponsibility.
23. Love is sorry that you freaked out and will kiss you on the top of your head to make up for it.
24. Love makes it easy to ask for help.
25. He's also elusive and cagey and often impossible to find. 
26. Love has his own plans and you shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't share them with you.
27. He'll find you when he's darned good and ready.

Happy Friday, everyone. 

Fire still bad.

I can't let the morning pass by without thinking about what was going on two years ago.

I wanted to just be all cute and engaged and happy, but my fiancé's house burned up. 
That fire SUCKED. As do all house fires. There really isn't such a thing as a good house fire.

It changed my life. That's what fire does -- it changes things.

Oy. Enough about anniversaries. Things happened that I didn't want to experience. Then I woke up the next morning, and the morning after that, until now.

Today, I know how to take care of myself in ways that I never did before. I don't need to make the same old mistakes. I'd like to make all new ones.

Please go check the batteries in your smoke detectors, though. Just real quick - go push the little button and make it go *beeeep* -- then come back here and tell me you did it. Thanks.

Five Years

 And this is post number One Thousand Three Hundred Eighty Three. So I guess I still find myself fascinating, huh?

I'd really like to write you something poetic and reflective and lovely. I'd like to write you something about how I've changed and grown as a writer and as a person over the past five years. How writing out the kinks from my terrible relationships has made me a stronger person, how wonderful my life is now that I don't live with constant chaos and trauma, how happy I am to be right here, right now.

But I don't really have time to do a link to link comparison of how I've evolved since November of 2004. And I'm not necessarily crazy happy. Honestly, from behind my eyes, I can't really tell you much about what has changed.

Perhaps I should tell you this: I've noticed the cellulite on my thighs likes to clump up around my hips and belly. I especially notice it when I put on my one pair of skinny jeans. This weird thing happens -- every time I wear them once, I have an insane desire to eat every cookie on the planet. Weird.

I should tell you that I'm moving more, getting into my body in a way that I never did when I was younger. Someone told me that getting more exercise means having fewer mood swings. Working out helps alleviate depression? Seriously? Sitting in my desk chair and feeling sorry for myself seems a lot less important.

But I'm glad that being depressed and having a sad story to tell got me writing. I've learned a lot about writing in the last five years. A lot about how to tell a good story.  A lot about how to tease someone's attention from the headlines and comics and entertainment gossip for just a minute or two and offer them a little bit of human interaction. Of course, once you offer something on the internet, you're never really sure if it's been accepted or appreciated. That hasn't changed. Blogs don't get many comments. That was in 2006 that blogs got comments.

I could perhaps tell you this: my primary obsession as a writer is love. Love, LOVE. I wrote about Rachel because I loved her and she broke my heart. I've been in love twice since then, with two men who had the same name, both with stunning good looks, blue eyes, long legs, big shoulders and tormented hearts. I've online dated. I've blind dated. I've gotten out to shows and concerts by myself. I've told all my friends they should hook me up. And I've finally given up on the idea that I can find romance in the big out there. Love is something that only happens when you aren't looking for it. And often, healthy relationships are much more about the mechanics of everyday life than they are about emotional proximity, swoony hormones, and having someone to make bacon for on a Saturday morning. OK. I take that back. Healthy relationships often have a lot to do with bacon.

I could tell you that I have this deal with God -- that God is in charge of finding me the perfect guy, because I'm catastrophically bad at picking partners. I told God - have been telling him for months - that the guy who is right for me had better find me first and let me know he's there in a way that is a little persistent but not creepy. It isn't that I'm oblivious. It isn't that I'm a recluse. It's just that there is this décalage between the guys I'm interested in and the guys who are interested in me. Like, they're not the same guys. Go figure.

I should definitely tell you that I'm glad I've kept blogging. That someone told me last night that my blog is actually good -- or was it interesting? -- and that made me happy. Writing makes me happy. Improv makes me happy, too, and that is new. I like that I have more things that make me happy than I did before. I like that blogging has helped me learn how to make friends. That I have Three Hundred Ninety friends on the Facebook and at least a third of them I know from being online here. That when I started this blog five years ago, I had maybe four friends in the whole world because I'd alienated everyone. Now, when I throw a party and invite 30 people, 35 show up. And I like all of them.

So yeah. The more things change. . . 5 years is a long time. Happy Blogiversary to me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

And thanks to Brian for this link. May your family stories be as glorious and terrifying.

The beauty of a living thing

is not the atoms that go into it -- but the way those atoms are put together.





This one's for Dad!

I wish this didn't still bother me.

Damn anniversary. Why do you pop up your ugly head like this? Why can't you just nestle yourself back into the past and leave me be? WTF with the tears over something that's had plenty of tears already -- rivers and lakes and oceans of them? I don't want you to have any more space in my brain. I wish deleting you from the internet could make you disappear from this soft spot in my heart -- this spot that's like a bruise I thought had gone away by now but when I bump it again, it hurts way down deep next to the bone. I wish I didn't miss how happy I felt then, despite the confusion and ambiguity. I wish I didn't miss being in that relationship. I wish I could just wash it off and watch it swirl down the drain to mingle with everyone else's broken what ifs.

So. I'd like to dedicate this weekend -- and this holiday season -- to all my single friends. To all of us who can look back on something that was happy and then became sad. To all of us who know how wonderful it feels to be in love and are trying to be gentle with the ache of hearts that miss the wonderful. We want to be with you and your family during the holidays. We want to be with our families and their love and their quirks and have all of that love and celebration and tradition. To all of us who want community, and have it, and have had to work really hard to develop friendships that are tight and nurturing and satisfying and fun. I am grateful for you and for all of the support. Grateful for how welcome I feel when I am with my friends who have families. And then sometimes I get jealous -- jealous of everyone who has someone to wake up with on Thanksgiving morning and Christmas morning with a whole day of messy cooking holiday madness to enjoy and coordinate and love. I don't want my jealous to get in the way of the gratitude I feel for the time I get to share with you. But I need you to be gentle with me if sometimes it makes me wistful about the great big what if that I carry around with me, knowing that I'd really like a turn to know what it's like to have what you have.

My wish for this holiday season is that we all take an extra minute to be gentle, with a deep and cleansing breath that acknowledges that this big messy life is not one long feeling of safety and security, but series of short bursts of awesome, surrounded by confusion sometimes and hard work most times and more sad than often feels necessary. Gentle with memories of love and loss. Gentle instead of frantic rushing from one event to the next. Gentle instead of bracing pats on the back and reassurance that it'll all work out in the end.

It does all work out. Not in a swing from one vine to the next way, but in a Hey! I woke up this morning and I kinda have a plan. Let's go for it! way.

I wish I could reach back into time and love the woman who was me and who went through the wretched holiday season of 2007. Love her confusion and her hopes and her happiness and her disappointment and her fear. I wish I could fill her with compassion and praise for all the things she tried to do to make the situation better. She tried really hard to make a bad thing good. She wanted what was best for everyone and she got it, even though it meant losing something she wanted a lot. 

I feel like a completely different person today. Bothered and sad and loving and grateful. More certain about the direction I'm taking in this life than I've ever been. A little lonely, maybe, and a little jealous, but more in love with life and community than I've ever been. It's just sometimes really hard to be gentle when I flip through that old mental photo album of the things I thought I was supposed to have. Those pictures don't match me anymore. And I'm not sure what will be filling in the blanks.

I been innerviewed!

Check it out!

Alejna asked me some lovely questions, even.

The Great Interview Experiment!

Thanks to Neil at Citizen of the Month, I had the chance to interview a blogger whose blog I'd never have found without him. Here's what LZ at My Messy Paradise has to say about blogging.:

1. You're a stay at home mom and find time to write every day -- how does blogging fit into your juggling everything at once home routine? I try to squeeze a post when one of my girls is at school and the youngest is playing. I'll read blogs throughout the day and comment when I can, but usually have to do most of it after bedtime. When I started blogging, I found that I got sucked into everything and paring down on blogs in my reader and groups I belonged to really helped.  

2. You've gotten some fun blogging awards from other readers - Can you tell us more about how blog networking has impacted your motivation to write and your decision about what kind of stories to tell? I love the blogging community! It's amazing that so many people that I have never met have becomes friends of mine. I think reading others blogs has expanded my scope of things to write about. Seeing someone write an entire post devoted to a small minor detail has reminded me that those details are what makes my job as a mom the most fun and interesting.

3. What are your favorite pop culture obsessions? I have a little bit of a problem with Twilight. I feel silly being a grown woman who already has tix to the New Moon premiere, but I will go and enjoy it fully! Team Edward!

4. I don't have any children, so I'm fascinated by the network of "mommybloggers" and how the question of wanting to be "perfect" often comes up in blog posts about motherhood. What do you think drives the myth of the "perfect mother" and how does your blog address it? I posted once about how I would love to be the perfect mom, and wish it came easy, but will not put in more effort than I do. I'd love to have cookies baked every day, make meals from scratch, have a neat house, etc. but I'm lucky if I get out of my pjs by noon. I get a lot of comments from people who are in the same boat. They don't want to stress over being 'better' than another mom, and don't want to drive themselves nuts so that they drop their kids off at pre-school with nice hair and a full face of makeup. It's nice to know people agree and can empathize.

5. What is your favorite part of being a stay at home mom? I just love playing with my kids. My oldest goes to pre-school and I think it's great that she gets to play with other kids, and she loves school so much, but I'm so happy to pick her up and have the rest of the day with both of them.

6. How are the coffee wars going? And why would you want to give up coffee in the first place? Oh, the coffee wars. My Achilles heel. I have called a truce. I just can't quit. I had a few reasons for trying - the biggest was the fact that I get extra cream and sugar and wanted to cut it to lose weight. I don't like it made any other way, so I figure I'd just try to give up. Ha! Also, I was waking up with caffeine headaches every day and the shakes and insomnia. I just drink way too much. I still have at one coffee every day, but have tried adding tea to the mix. If I could just add a few glasses of water, I'd consider it a success!

7. Who are your favorite bloggers and why? Ooh, tough one. My 2 absolutely favorites are The Bloggess and Playgroups are no Place for Children. The Bloggess, because she is hilarious. You know something is funny when you laugh out loud by yourself! I don't know where she comes up with some of the things she writes, but is always funny. Playgroups - I love because she, too, is so funny, yet you can tell she is insanely proud of her family. She manages to blog about life, parenting, marriage, a few recipes thrown in, and make it seamless and always interesting. I only hope to take My Messy Paradise in a similar direction.
**

Thanks, LZ, for the great answers. If you'd like to participate in the Great Interview Experiment, comment over at Citizen of the Month right away!

Resistance and Isolation

Sometimes we balk at embarking on an enterprise because we're afraid of being alone. We feel comfortable with the tribe around us; it makes us nervous going off into the woods on our own.

Here's the trick: We're never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly. The act of courage calls forth infallibly that deeper part of ourselves that supports and sustains us.

--Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Umm. Yeah.

Wish me luck.

Something I didn't think I'd say. . .

I kinda like this Lady Gaga character.

Just in case you feel like supporting cool kids learning to do cool stuff. . .

Dear Friends, Family, Students and Patrons,

This is the third year of Polar Producers, the after school video
production program at North High in Minneapolis.  The youth have
produced many award winning films over the past two years. 
Unfortunately, cuts in district funding have temporarily suspended the
program.  We plan to restart in January and have 45 students from
across the Minneapolis district already enrolled.  But we need help!

Visit our giveMN webpage to learn more about the program and ways to
help support it:

http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Polar-Producers


IF YOU GIVE THROUGH GIVEMN.ORG ON TUESDAY NOVEMBER 17 YOUR GIFT WILL
BE MATCHED!

Please forward this email to anyone interested in supporting education
and the arts!

Thanks,

Deacon Warner Youth Media Coordinator IFP MN

2446 University Ave W, Suite 100
Saint Paul, MN  55114

This should probably be a Twitter post instead of a blog post. . .

I officially LOVE my horoscope for this week. Cross your fingers for me that more awe is on the way.

"Awesome" has become a commonplace word that is used to express gladness about small triumphs and simple pleasures. Today, for instance, a woman at the local cafe uttered a sweet "Awesome!" when someone pointed out to her where she could find an electrical outlet to plug in her laptop. Back in the old days, however, "awesome" was a portentous term invoked only rarely. "Awe" referred to an overwhelming feeling of wonder, reverence, admiration, inspiration, or even agitation in the face of a sublime or numinous experience. In the coming week, Aquarius, I expect you will experience more than your usual quota of both kinds of awesome.

Les catacombes de Paris

Check out this amazing video on the Art of the Catacombs.

question du jour

Dude. What is up with all the violence lately? I can't even process how horribly upset and sad it all is. Closest to home is the stabbing of a young man who was a 12th grader here at my school.

How to express the regret and condolences to everyone and have it seem remotely sincere is totally beyond me.

acting as if

I've never been a fitness junkie. Actually, I can't say I've ever been all that excited about anything resembling exercise at all -- but I've been convinced a time or two that some kind of movement on a regular basis is worth the effort.

Quite honestly, sweating on purpose has always seemed more an unpleasant necessity than something I could ever enjoy.

BUT. Something has become clear to me over the past five years of fits and starts: There is a big difference between the working out months and the not working out months, fitting into the skinny jeans and not being able to zip up the fat jeans, and days with Hostess product attacks vs. days that I can't wait to get home and sauté some vegetables.

And that difference has everything to do with my moods. When I work out and eat well, they don't swing. When I live as a carbitarian, spend too much time on my behind, and put off the working out for next week, I'm more cranky than a mommyblogger who missed out on a free KitchenAid promotion. Cranky is bad. It leads to self-pity, zero writing, and isolation from all of my friends.

So I re-joined the gym I un-joined last year. Actually, I upgraded a little bit and I'm going to a fancier one. I've been convinced for a long time that fancy gyms were only for beautiful, fit, confident people who would automatically know that I was an imposter.

Like people working out at the gym actually care what anyone else is doing or wearing or listening to beyond whether or not that person is occupying the equipment that he or she wants to use.

And maybe I am an imposter. Or maybe I'm just a few months of pretending that I am fit and confident from actually becoming fit and confident.

So. Now that fall is here in full force and Minnesota winter is right around the corner, I'm going to use my new acting skills at my new gym. I'm going to act as if I belong there. I'm going to act as if I enjoy working out. And I'm going to enjoy not having moods that fluctuate from elation to depression to terror in miliseconds. I'm going to enjoy sleeping well, and not craving as much sugar. And I'm going to enjoy the writing space in my brain, as well as the stamina to keep up with all the other things I want to do.

And I'm going to act as if my thighs can look as awesome as Jane Fonda's. Nothing wrong with a little motivation.

Even more fun.

I definitely need to get to NYC.

Best line from class last night

Andy and Betty act out a scene where they're gardening.

Their word of suggestion is "Hobo."

Andy says, "I can't believe you slept with that hobo!"

*beat, 1, 2, 3*

Betty says, "But he was HUNGRY!"

*we all laughed so much, they couldn't continue the scene*

*lights dim*