Blueberry

So, I shlump into work today and am told that all the work from over the weekend, the work that is usually done electronically, has been done on paper. This means many things to me. First, it means that I will need to acquire lots of paperwork. Second, it means I will have to type what is written on the paper into an electronic system. Third, it means that I will have to call people who would prefer not to speak to me on their days off to bother them about their atrocious handwriting on said paperwork. Fourth, and probably the most relevant to me, it means I can kiss my lunch hour goodbye. And so I kissed it and sent it on its way. Goodbye, lunch hour. Hello, cubicle.

My boss decided that she would 'make it up to us' by ordering us pizza. (And yes, I am about to complain about a free lunch, in case you were picking up on a tone already.)

It's not the idea of a free lunch that bothered me. It's really what the pizza represents. And what does it represent, exactly? It represents the idea that pizza (or any carb-rich, salty food, really) is an equal exchange for an hour away from the shackles of our drab, dreary, quiet office life.

One day last week, I had the opportunity to take my full hour for lunch. I ate quickly at my desk, then drove to a nearby lake. I walked down one of the trails, found a quiet bench tucked away near the lake's shore, and read a chapter of a very well-written book while soaking up the sun. When I returned to the office, I was renewed, refreshed, full of energizing Vitamin D, and endlessly grateful for a job that not only pays me fairly, but allows me to leave for an hour a day. Now that is a lunch hour.

Blah, blah, blah, work leaves me unfulfilled, blah. I'm even tired of hearing about that.

On another note, on Saturday I got to see my best friend's parents. I guess the only way I can explain how they are is to say that they feel and express feelings so freely. Their joy is absolute, and when it's aimed at you, you feel like you're engulfed in sunshine. We only spent a little time together on Saturday, but I walked away with a big smile, and I could hear them laughing behind me. I feel incredibly lucky to have them in my life.

There have been other things: a bike ride, an opera, the forecast of several inches of snow, brunch in uptown with an old friend, and something bigger than I could probably get into right now, but let's just say I think I've figured out what my year is going to be about, and really, what the rest of my life will be about. But that's for another time.

Hope you're all well!
xo

Glasgow

I've been thinking of Glasgow a lot lately. I think I live there just long enough to really feel like it was my home. I remember sitting in the airport, about to head back to Minnesota for awhile, and really feeling deep down like I lived there. Obviously, Chris and I had a flat there, but I also felt like I knew where the important things--dentist, doctor, liquor store, produce stand-- were, I felt good going grocery shopping, or taking the train to a friend's house on my own, or meeting up with friends in the city center. I knew how to ride my bike, or take the subway, or walk, or take a train just about anywhere, and I had friends, and I could understand even the thickest accent.

But even then, there was something in me that wouldn't let me get too settled in. In the past 10 years or so, I have become very cautious about putting down roots anywhere. Little roots had started to form in Glasgow. I think about being there a lot, and I kind of miss it.

There are lots of things I don't miss, of course. I don't think I would have ever adjusted to having wet feet and hair all the time, or the vast amount of fried food in the diet. But I do miss a lot of other things--riding my bike along the Clyde, the Voltaire bookshop (which was essentially a musty room full of literal piles of books), the subway, DJing at the Bier Stube for 40 pounds a night, walking up the long driveway to the Strathclyde University Jordanhill campus, the enormous cinema in the city center, and the buskers along Buchanan street.

Things here are nice and stable, and I'm grateful for the way things have turned out. Sometimes, though, I wonder what could have happened if I'd been able to stay in Scotland another year or two.

xo

Social Caterpillars

This weekend was kind of a bust. Nothing bad happened, but nothing really exciting happened either. I wonder if maybe 28 is the age where you and your friends are all paired up, people start having babies, and people decide that staying home is less of a bother than going out to bars or out dancing or whatever. I get it. Bars are mostly just for trying to meet people to date (and possibly stay home with on a Saturday night later on). No one's saying, "Hey, longtime lover/partner/spouse, let's go sit in a noisy, crowded bar, pay like $7 for a splash of liquor and some soda or a normal 12-oz. bottle of beer." No one is saying that! Last weekend, we somehow ended up going to a friend's house, where there was keg beer and a baby. It was an odd juxtaposition of life stages. The things we do to avoid going to the bars these days...

My stay-at-home buddy and I were really struggling for something to do last night. Minneapolis is absolutely redolent with good stuff to do on a Saturday night--usually. We were having a hard time deciding what, exactly, would be the perfect thing with which to occupy our evening, despite the array of activities/plays/concerts at our feet.

We decided--OK, I decided--that it would be a great idea to write down 6 possibilities on little pieces of paper and pick one at random. The number 6 came up because that is how many pieces of paper I got out of one large sheet. We actually had a kind of rough time thinking of things to write on that many pieces of paper at one point. This lead to us going to vita.mn, which is a website that tells you what's happening in Minnesota on any given night. We devised an overly-complicated system of each choosing a number and then adding them together, and then that would be the number of the event we would have as a choice. For instance, for the musical events, he chose 32, I chose 8, so we looked at the 40th musical option happening on 3/19.

ANYWAY, here are the events we came up with:

1. Female comedian at ACME Comedy Club (we later YouTubed her and found out she did mostly abortion jokes).

2. Male comedian at some comedy club at the Mall of America.

3. A play called 'Sarah Palin's Minnesota'--this was actually our first choice, but the tickets were something like $35 each, it started at 10PM, and local theater can be sort of hit-or-miss.

4. Music Option #15--some jazz trio at the St. Paul hotel.

5. Stay home.

6. See 'Barney's Version', a Paul Giamatti movie, at the indie cinema in Edina.

The first one I picked out of the hat was 'Stay home'. We were dismayed! So, we threw it out and started again. This time, we picked 'Music Option #15. This would have required putting on new clothes, however, as we were both wearing jeans. (The St. Paul Hotel is a very swanky place.)

The more options we chose, the less we wanted to do any of them! We were at the point that every choice, even staying home, felt like a huge chore. We became very whiny at the thought of having to do any of these things, like it was really difficult to put on a dress, or to drive to Edina to watch a tepidly-reviewed independent film.

In the end, we stayed home, grazed the kitchen for dinner--I had Greek yogurt and berries, he had leftover pizza--and watched the Sopranos. I think we were in bed by 11:30 at the latest. I am very well-rested.

Hope you've all had a good weekend!

xo

Good Grooming

When I was younger and worse at planning, my dad used to use the phrase, "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" with a certain degree of frequency. It's something I hated to hear, but I now loooove to think. I think this phrase when my bosses fail to take into consideration things that I think are fairly logical. I think this phrase when I am given large projects with unbelievably soon due dates, and when my boss piles work onto my desk at the very end of the day. I say that I think this phrase because I am not yet in the position to say it. The way things are going, however, I may someday be in that position. And then I will say those delicious words with pleasure and a maniacal cackle.

OK, no I won't. I may go my entire life only saying this to any future children I may have. But I still stand by my assertion that I may someday be a position of higher authority. Why's that, you ask? Well, I think I'm being groomed for middle management. Yes, that's right. My parents must be so proud.

My suspicion was aroused for the first time during my latest performance review. First, I got a nice, performance-based pay raise. My manager went on about what great work I do and how much I contribute to the company. My first response was, "Awesome! I'm going to take half of my raise as PTO!" My second thought was, "Hey, wait a minute...I don't think I contribute that much." Almost immediately after my performance review, an eerie though dawned on me: Oh, shit, they're grooming me for middle management! Yes, their praise and their offer of more money are, I believe, a way to keep me in the company, doing their bidding. My boss said things like, "I'll be focusing more on school in the next few months and will be looking to hand off some of my responsibilities," and, "I think you have a lot of promise. Someone told me that when I first started." Oh, shit! Is it wrong that I immediately imagined throwing my ergonomically-correct office chair out the window, jumping out, and running as far away as my office-life-atrophied legs could carry me?

You see, this is just a job for me, and in that sense, it is perfect. I don't worry too much about anything that happens during the day and I rarely, if ever, think of work when I'm not there. It is sometimes acutely stressful, but never chronically so, to do my job. It is trivial, monotonous, and the only part I truly enjoy, besides punching out for the day, is the rare interaction I have with patients when I call to offer scheduling assistance. I've gotten to the desperate point of having a racing pulse when I can find someone the perfect appointment. It is the part of my job I enjoy, and a very, very small part of the job as a whole.

I do a lot of paperwork. I mean, a ton. I have one of those stupid, plastic paper-organizers above my desk, and a lot of my day involves shuffling various stacks of stupid paper around into different piles and then filing them into different file cabinets. I hate paperwork. I think I was born with a gene that gives me an aversion to paperwork and organization. This job is the antithesis of what I should be doing, and it is so out of character for me that it kind of embarrasses me.

For the moment, things are steady--I've been given the responsibility of training the new girl (the one who replaced the co-worker who was smart enough to get out before all of her soul was sucked out). My guard is up, my hackles are raised, my senses keen. I'll be on the lookout for insincere praise, large shifts of responsibility, and extra money in my paycheck. I won't get sucked in. I won't get sucked in. I won't get sucked in...

Goodbye, 27!

An open letter to my 27th year:

Dear 27,

When I started thinking about you, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I thought you brought me a husband, but really, I was 26 when I got married. So...never mind. I also thought you brought me a new job, but once again, I was 26 when I started my new job. What the heck did you do for me, I wonder! I'm beginning to think 27 was just sort of average...

Well...what happened was, I celebrated my first year of being married to someone who makes time feel like it's going by so quickly, but who also makes me want to slow it down. You also gave my husband a job, which lead to financial stability, which lead to signing up for a better apartment and a general feeling of being better prepared for most things. I saw dozens of bands, some plays, some art, spent time with my family who loves me, and went to Scotland for a wedding in a castle. I got snow shoes, did yoga, had brunches, had a wedding party, ran 10 miles, met new friends, saw old friends, spent time at the lake, and went to baseball games. If this was an average year for me, I want every year to be average.

So, goodbye, 27! You were good, but I think 28 is going to be great!

Yours (for 7 hours more),
Christina

A Year of...Something

I just finished reading a book about a guy in New York who decided to live an entire year of his life trying to follow every single rule of the Bible. We're not talking just the 10 Commandments, but all of the little, silly rules that are everywhere in there, from not touching a woman during her 'time of the month' to not wearing clothing made of mixed fibers. He wrote about all of his experiences with required animal sacrifices, his requisite trip to the Holy Land, his year of unleavened bread and no fruit from trees younger than 5 years old. He really made the effort, let me assure you.

In any case, the combination of reading this book and just passing over to the new year has made me think about what I can do with 2011. I'm not going to sit here and list resolutions or anything like that, although I have made some (1. To be more creative, 2. To do lots of yoga, 3. To choose to be positive when I have a choice), but rather, I'd like to make a theme for the year. Like...this is the Year of Writing. Or, the Year of Focusing on My Education. Or, the Year of Volunteering.

In a way, 2010 was all about getting married and getting Chris his Green Card. Now that those things are checked off, I feel like we've really got a clean slate here. And, in some ways, that means I have a new slate too. A whole year to do...something. Something good. Something big. Something unique.

Sorry, that's all I have. I really don't know what this year is going to be about. Let me tell you, it will be about something!

In any case, I've been very lucky this Christmas and New Year's. I've had time off as needed, been able to see most of the people I've wanted to see (some of them, I've been able to see via Skype only, sadly), and it's been nice to have my first married Christmas with someone I love a little more every day. We've been lucky enough to have gotten approved for a new apartment, lucky that it has a little porch, lucky that it has two bedrooms and more space in general, and lucky to have enough of everything we need.

I hope 2011 is kind to all of you! Happy New Year!
xo

I'll Never Tell You My Secrets!

Last weekend, Minnesota was hit with one of the worst winter storms we've ever had. We all woke up on Saturday to a thick, drift-y blanket of soft powder that swallowed up cars and consumed city streets. Minnesotans are a tough breed, but this tested us. The snow storm was immediately followed by sub-zero temperatures. Mother nature is a real bitch sometimes.

That night, a friend of mine who lives 5 blocks away invited me over to have some wine and cheese and to just generally hunker down. 'Hunkering down', for those of you who may not be native Minnesotans, is what we call being inside during a storm. You can hunker down by yourself, but it's more fun to hunker down with others. It creates the illusion of having a good time while the weather spews its evil outside.

In any case, I bundled up, packed a bottle of wine into my bag, and headed out the door. The sidewalks weren't shoveled, and there was thigh-deep snow there and in the streets. It took me almost 30 minutes to walk the 5 blocks to her house.

This storm got me thinking about what it's like to grow up Minnesotan. For one thing, it makes you physically tough. Your blood becomes a little thicker, your skin a little rougher. The weather is something to survive, not enjoy. When non-Minnesotans talk of being cold, you scoff at them. Cold? You think you're cold? It's -30 in Minnesota! Now that's cold! Choosing to live in this weather, to endure its cold hell every year, is a badge of honor. Yes, sir, I am that tough.

But I think it does something else to a person. I think it makes people mentally tough, too. I was thinking that surviving a Minnesota winter is sort of like being a captured spy, and winter is the enemy. It pushes the envelope when it comes to testing your will. No, not with bamboo shoots under fingernails, but with icy winds and dark mornings scraping a layer of ice from your car, only to find it is too cold to start. Not with sleep deprivation and water torture, but with frostbite on the skin between the cuff of your coat and your mitten. And the thing is, we don't have the option to say 'Enough! I'll tell you the location of the uranium!' or whatever. It's something we have to endure, every year, for the rest of our time here. And if you're a real Minnesotan, you must endure it with a big smile on your face.

On Sunday, I went out to shovel my car from its icy tomb. I shoveled for over an hour and a half, and then decided to take a break. As I turned to go back inside, one of my neighbors stopped shoveling, too. At the same time, we looked at each other, gave each other the exact same 'Do you believe this?' look, and started laughing in unison.

And I think that's why we all stay in Minnesota.
xo