Rhubarb Pie

Hmmmmmm

I was all set to log in here and agree with you, and then I made the mistake of reading all those kind comments, and my heart softened a little bit.  I've been blogging since 2003, met my husband this way, not to mention you, my fine friend, and I'm *still* caught off guard at the kind, authentic connections that are possible when you share your thoughts with the world.   

That's the problem, I think.  You and I have our own backchannel, so we don't need this place to know one another, and neither you nor I use this place to discover our own thinking so much.  The best writing I do is when I'm perplexed or vulnerable or confused, and writing helps me get clearer.  And I don't do that here very often.  I'm not quite sure why.  Maybe getting married and loving my job has taken away some of the sources of confusion, or maybe I'm no less confused but my interest in talking about it has changed.  I'm still confused -- a person I admire doesn't seem to like me and it hurts my feelings and makes me wonder why; being married and pulled into a whole new family dynamic is fascinating.  I wonder a lot about the process of self-discovery as I work with college students who are thinking through their own ambitions.  I wonder if what I'm saying to them is helpful, or true, or which parts of it they hear and which they ignore.  I pay a lot of attention to the difference between the way life feels when you are twenty -- the sense of urgency on some decisions, the shorter time horizon, the things that matter and the things that don't -- and the way it feels at 37, and I think hard about how to communicate well across that gap.  But I don't seem to want or need to write about it here.  

Is this a problem that can be solved with goals, or homework?  Two posts a week, each? One photo and one text?  I would like to send you a photo of our drowned state -- three days of rain on saturated soil, grey skies and a flat 39 degrees -- so you'll know what spring really means.  Is this a problem that needs to be solved?  Is this even a problem?  All these nice people want us to keep talking here, in public, even though you and I seem to have lost interest.  Maybe we should try harder for a couple of months -- say until June -- and then decide.

Happy people make bad bloggers.

I'm thinking the world doesn't need another lackluster blog.  What are you thinking, Sherry?

Worst case scenario

Today will be sunny and beautiful.  It is already bright and clear.  That air stream from Alaska that made everything cold has weakened.  It is supposed to get warm, and after that weak of dreary rain, I need sun and warmth so much. 

I will be in an eight hour Seismic Design Review class.  It is hard, and goes fast, presumably because he calls it a review.  Review, my ass.  I never took Seismic.  It is hard (except for the part about moment frames and shear walls, which is pretty neato), and takes all my concentration.  Which will be impossible, because I'll be staring out the window.  Maybe if I concentrate with all my might, all the walls and ceiling will evaporate, and I'll be out in the sunshine, planting my garden.  Or with my whole family, who went to the beach this weekend.  The last hour will be agony.

Update: Fun

Sorry I've been quiet around here.  I've been quiet everywhere else, too.  One reason is that my throat is still sore from the dratted cold that lingers and lingers, so talking hurts.  Another reason is work life has been taking my full attention.  A therapist friend of mine told me that in their profession there's a term of the trade called "compassion fatigue".  Aha. In my world I think it is curiosity fatigue, or extraversion fatigue.  So many interesting conversations during the day that I'd rather listen, or read, or watch a movie, or nuzzle with the dog in the hours when I'm not working.  

But I wanted to show you something I did that was fun.  I made these custom sun visor covers for a guy in my carpool.  It's kind of a long story, but maybe that's part of the fun.  One of our carpoolers has an older little Honda, and his sun visor has gotten all ratty and tattered.  So I schemed up this ridiculous idea, that we should crochet him a visor cover.  And I ganged up with a couple of other carpoolers and we just played with the idea, making it more ridiculous.  We decided the visor covers should be reversible, and silly.  We decided they should have a means of displaying offensive bumper stickers, because that's a topic of conversation in the carpool from time to time.  We went on a field trip to the fabric store and we chose four fabrics that we thought were funny.  We sent one of our carpoolies to our victim's car to measure his visor covertly.  We met for a day of sewing on a Saturday morning -- I brought bagels, another person brought notions: fringe, colored buttons.  We all contributed funny bumper stickers and sewed in different sized clear pockets (made of ziploc bags) on the visor covers so you could insert a baseball card or a bumper sticker or a business card if you wanted.  And we made lots and lots of them, so not only our original recipient but everyone in the carpool could have one if we wanted. We all met for lunch in the campus dining hall and presented them in a big ceremonious box to our mystified carpool friend.  

The whole thing was fun. It was a secret, and it was silly, and it was social, and it was a little bit of a prank.  It was elaborate, and it required excursions: to the fabric store (have you been to a fabric store lately? What an interesting place) and to a carpool member's house for a sewing breakfast.  It involved making something, and I now have this funny reminder on my sun visor of the oddball people in my carpool and the bizarre conversations we have on our commutes. As I've been thinking about Fun these are factors that I've noticed are rewarding and novel.  So I'm kind of proud of this little sun visor project.      

 

This American Life: Fine Print

I have not one single container of unsorted crap anywhere in my house.  Just in time for No Ruz.

This American Life: Pro Se

  Her name is Lady.

This American Life: Infidelity

 At this point, it is fair to say the culprit is mail, right?  We hates it.

Went to Seismic class yesterday.  Eight hours of that, and I was completely wrung out.  I went to bed at eight, glad there was no one to see me.

Today, though.  Today is the first sunny day in a week.  How do you live when you don't have near-constant sunshine?  When you have sunshine, energy and enthusiasm flood into you with the light.  When you don't have sunshine, you have to provide those yourself, which is so draining.  I'm a little bit teasing you about the weather, and a little bit mocking me for being hopelessly spoiled (yes, I expect that my default state should be enthusiasm and energy all the way up to the sunny sky), and kindof also asking how you do it.

Anyway, with no roommates, I notice there are dishes in the sink.  In fact, exactly the same dishes I left there last night.  Back when I had two roommates, the dishes were flirty and mischievous.  Sometimes they'd be there, and sometimes they wouldn't.  Sometimes, there were less of them, but still some.  Two-thirds of the time, they'd wash themselves and put themselves away.  You never knew what to expect from the dishes.  Now, though, the dishes are dull and implacable.  They never rearrange themselves, or wash themselves at all.  They just sit there, unless I wash them.  Which I better stand up and do.

Beautiful or useful, that's the rule.

This is it.  This is the last of the piles.  With my sister, I cleared out the back porch.  I've cleaned out my attic.  I sorted my books and my clothes and thrown out every piece of tupperware that doesn't have a lid.  I've burned grocery bags of old mail.  Cursèd mail, that sneaks into my house and forms piles! I can't wait until mail only arrives twice a week. Anyway, this is the last of it.
When I clear this table off, there will be no detritus in my house.  I have several empty drawers, waiting.

Karen moved out, and Ali is gone to Korea.  I've been steadily purging the house since they left.  I put load after load of give-away out on the sidewalk.  Karen likes having things around; she's good about finding uses for old pieces.  She thought my house was already spare.  My sister thought it was hopelessly cluttered.  Well, it is emptier now.  I've been leaning heavily on This American Life.  I put on a show and get back to sorting.  It mostly works.  I'd be worried about what I'll do when I'm done, but unfortunately, I got a new vision for the west bedroom.  Sadly, the new vision involves re-painting one of the colors.  I already know that the vision will nag me until it is realized; I've learned to surrender and get it done.  So I won't need friends or roommates for a few weeks or so.  I have work instead.

Karen's new cover for the rocking chair came out great.  Honestly, re-covering the rocker was nowhere on my To Do list, but she was totally right.  It was the next thing to do.

Strangest of all, I guess I'm not taking the P.E. in April.  They say my application wasn't postmarked on time, which is weird, because I took it to the Post Office my own self.  That's fine.  I don't mind pushing it back.  But it was my whole plan for March and April.  I didn't schedule anything else*.  Well, I'll still take the Seismic and Surveying classes.  It won't kill me to get started now for October.  But it is sortof anticlimactic.  There's a powerlifting meet that day that I hadn't considered, because I was supposed to take the PE.  Maybe I'll train for that instead.