Rhubarb Pie

Thirty-eight is wonderful

I've been a little weepy today. Apparently, being showered in love makes me maudlin. It is my birthday today.  Anand called first.  He sang "happy birthday" to me, but not all breath-y, like Marilyn Monroe. He's engaged now, so I'll have to wait until Chris calls to get the Marilyn Monroe version.   A couple months back, Anand mentioned offhand that I'm his best friend. I've been savoring that like the bright scent of lemon for weeks.

My family has called; my Mom and Dad and sister. I'll hear from the babies of the family this afternoon, I bet. Half the babies are my six foot siblings; I should text them in their classes. The littles will call and say happy birthday, but we won't have much of a conversation before they hand the phone to my sister and run off.

Ali took me to a play last night. It was surprisingly good, but would have been fantastic even if had been bad. It took me to a neato new place in Sac and we rode home in the spring-warmed dark, so it was already a perfect night. When I came out of my room this morning, she had laid out everything I use to make coffee in the morning. I am extravagantly spoiled.

Tomorrow I meet up with my college friends for tamales and another show. They will probably wish me happy birthday again.

This all brings me close to happy tears. I feel overfull and blessed, which is nice, but seems a little melodramatic. Perhaps it is the return of the sun and the lengthening days. Perhaps it feels more precious because my good roommates are moving out next week, so I suspect it will be a while before someone sets out my coffee gear for me. Well, I'll take it, because it is very nice. Fortunately, my celebration tonight will be at my gym, and will take the form of 38 fancy push-ups, or 38 pull-ups (with assists) or 38 of something else horrid. Or a rotation of all of it. I will not feel maudlin when I'm done.

(I wrote that this afternoon.  The gym celebration turned out to be 38 burpees.  Awesome.

OH!  And Ali made double dutch jump-ropes for me!  We were playing out in the street and we got someone to join in.)

Thoughts On Getting What I Always Wanted

Every so often people find my old blog, Stay of Execution, and write to me about it.  Mostly I don't check that email address, and I'm not very good at writing back.  But I got an email a week or so ago about this post, in which I pondered the question "What Am I For?" 

Reading it, five years later, I was struck by the fact that I'm now doing exactly what I said I most wanted to do: 

And then what welled up was this: What I really want to be for is helping people be themselves.... I feel most alive when I'm taking a risk or reaching out to somebody or having an experience that feels authentic.  And I feel most proud when I help somebody else have such an experience.   When, through talking with me, they feel safer and more able to be themselves.  I like it when people say, "I'm so glad you said that, because I was thinking the same thing but I thought I was the only one."  Or when I can see them make the decision to trust me with a confidence, and the relief when the response is curiousity and empathy and not disgust or rejection.  Or when I introduce people who are able to unlock one another in a way that I can't. 

So today I had 15 such conversations.  6 were scheduled student appointments, 8 were walk-ins, who came to my office hours between 2 and 4, and one was a phone call I squeezed in at the end of the day with an alum who's trying to change to a job that suits him better.  We talked about hopes and dreams and clarity and choices.  We talked about what to do next, what was exciting and what was scary.  I ripped apart cover letters and personal statements, and said, "you can do a lot better." Besides these 15 conversations, I spent an hour at a student affairs luncheon listening to a student panel discuss spiritual life on campus, and I met with a colleague for an hour talking about ways we can support professors writing letters of recommendations for our students.  Fascinating conversations, chock-a-block, without a moment to stop between one and the next.  

I knew that I wanted to switch from being paid to be sharp and clever, which was how I earned my keep as a lawyer, to being paid to be warm, curious, and nice.  But one interesting thing about getting paid to be warm, curious, and nice is that it means at the end of the day I don't really want to talk any more.  Tonight my brain is all full, thank you, still turning over the people I met today and what I learned about them, wondering how I might help.  On weekends I want to read books, I want to go outside, I want to exercise, I want to watch television, I want to cook or draw pictures.  But I don't really want to make new friends, or delve more deeply into the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of my other friends.  I don't even want to evaluate or articulate my own life, which is why I haven't had much to say around here lately.  I'm starting to conclude that doing this work means I'm less warm, less curious, and less nice in my personal life (and probably less sharp and clever, too).  

Progress on a couple projects.

I've been back to the upholstery store a bunch of times now and finally picked a fabric for the rocker. It arrived on Friday. So we haven't finished that project, but the sewing can start.  I won't be sewing, that's for sure.  But I have every faith that Karen can make this fit the rocker. 

The fabric store guy has been in that store for forty years. I guess you can do a fair amount of settling in over forty years.  There's more detail in the picture below.  I'm partial to the mounted jackelopes, myself.

My sister wouldn't let me paint the chicken coop like a red barn, which I don't think of as a moral failing, but instead think of as an unforced error.  I'm making up for it by painting my beehive like a red barn.  Livestock want a red barn, and that's the way it is.  Really, Ali is painting it, while I weed the front garden you can't see.  She keeps asking me if she can add details.  Sure can.

The only thing below the fold is a picture of slugs eating a dead worm.

The county admin building is no better. Why?

Hey darlin'.  Sorry for the long break.  I've been double and triple booked for a couple weeks.  None of it very glamorous, just stuff to juggle and some fun to have.  I got called for jury duty, although I wasn't empaneled.  Heebie gets to go to the Supermarket of Justice, but when you round the corner to the county courts here, you see this:

That's where the Antlers of Perfect Justice drink your blood when the jury reaches the inevitable "guilty" verdict and the judge casts you out the window.  I'm surprised it wasn't flowing red when I snapped that shot.  Too early in the day, I guess.

I thought of you, Scott.