A rationale for blogging

I started this blog because the idea of an online diary intrigued me. I never was any good at keeping up with a private journal, perhaps because I was the only one who would ever enjoy it. So I started a weblog in the hopes that someone else (mainly my loved ones, who are contractually obligated to view and delight in my every written word) might enjoy my entries.

I try to write each blog entry as a distinct story or personal essay on the amusing or interesting bits of my life. Some people write in their blogs every day, but I enjoy blogging much more if I can take more time, but do so less frequently, on a topic of my choice. As Twitter's microblogging becomes more and more popular, I prefer keeping my traditional blog entries longer and less about what I happen to be doing on any given day. This setting provides an opportunity for me to reflect carefully, with no pressures on word limits, so I try to use it to the fullest.

I often find writing in my blog challenging because it lacks a theme, consistent subject matter, and even a viewpoint besides the vague one of my own. It changes with me, which means it's not just a blog on library science or a blog on young professionals or a blog on English majors or a blog on wedding planning; it's (currently) all of these, and it will likely grow with my future experiences and interests.

Other blogs which have a more limited focus I find more successful than mine. One of my favorite blogs is The Kitchn, a blog for not only recipes but also cooking techniques, kitchen gadgets, and really any topic that people who love food or food preparation might find interesting. There are several writers who blog on various topics - for instance, one person writes about only cheeses - but despite the various viewpoints, the blog feels cohesive with a distinct voice, outlook, and visual appearance. The blog lacks the extensive recipe selections of a site like All Recipes, but what it lacks in breadth it more than makes up for in depth. These writers are people who clearly care about the craft of cooking and baking. Posts are written to simply highlight an unusual ingredient or discuss the produce of a local farmer's market. Reading this blog truly makes me better aware of what I eat (without the sense of a guilt-ridden nutrition lecture) and more interested in trying out new recipes (which range from the intriguingly complex to the blissfully simple).

In the efforts to try a more directed blog, I did create another blogger site for an interest of mine. I called it Book Cover Judge. Not only does this allow me to try to write on a specific niche, it also gives me an outlet for a slightly more silly tone. And who knows? Perhaps someday BCJ will become my "professional" blog.

Here are those URLs:
www.thekitchn.com
www.bookcoverjudge.blogspot.com

Occupational hazard

From George Eliot's character Mary Garth in Middlemarch:

Oh, I have an easy life--by comparison. I have tried being a teacher, but I am not fit for that: my mind is too fond of wandering on its own way. I think that hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.

Heck yes. That last sentiment may very well be this year's motto for me. Going to graduate school is going to be so so so expensive. I have applied, been accepted, and registered for classes, and I am just now calculating how much this is going to cost me. But, as Mary points out, living a difficult life in debt, eating ramen--you've heard it all before-- can't be any worse than the full-time position (it's not teaching, though) that I plan to walk away from in just over 2 weeks.

It's not a bad job, and I shouldn't complain about (nor quit, perhaps?) any job in the current financial climate, or economic crisis or however we're addressing the sinusoidal plunge into what appears to be hopelessly shark-infested (-invested?) waters. The problem is that I have way too much free time in an eight-hour day and way too much personal research I am tempted to conduct on my company's time. Not only am I starting grad school, but I'm also planning a Wedding this year. With internet access and a "privacy hutch," as I call it, I have way too much opportunity to plan! Or register! Or vent! But this would be ethically bad of me. If only I was kept too busy to allow my mind to fondly wander. But then I might not be pursuing my advanced-degree dreams after all.

P. S. The runner-up Middlemarch quote-of-my-year:

The bethrothed bride must see her future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.

Tee hee.

Engaging news

I have been engaged to be married for three weeks. I vowed not to become "the bride" for the entire year or so leading up to the wedding day. You must know the type I'm referring to. "The bride," as opposed to a woman getting married, is the girl who clearly was only pretending to care about other things in her life until the magical day she could start her wedding plans. These are the girls you stare at in disbelief, struggling to understand why anyone would talk about tulle bows or paper favor boxes, let alone actually make them. You wonder if it takes so much energy hauling around a diamond all day that the mind becomes too exhausted to consider anything more challenging than cake fillings or ribbon colors.

But as a woman now engaged, I will not defend the behavior of the bride, but I cannot point my finger (diamond-clad or any other) any longer. Something happens to you when you become an engaged woman. Something almost...sinister. As if the combination of gemstone and precious metal against your skin seeps some frothy-white, champaign-flavored poison into your bloodsteam, then interrupts and forever alters (altars??) your brain's behavior. Consider the following changes I have noticed in these last three weeks:

1. After receiving the song-and-ring combo, I was unable to focus my mind on anything for hours. Friends reported glazed, wide eyes and unresponsiveness. I remember very little of this evening; perhaps the shock of the ring knocked me unconscious.

2. Since that evening, I find that the ring constantly demands my attention. I lose several hours a day at the office, staring into the face of my diamond, thinking only about shininess and/or sparkles. I am becoming OCD in the care of my band. I shine, shine, buff, buff but never enough.

3. Good but foolish people often trap themselves in my rambling spell by asking a seemingly innocent question: "How are the plans coming?" During these half-hour talks, I am faintly aware that I have lost control of my mouth, but there's no roping it in. My mouth has no problem with revealing every detail on my mind, including wedding drama I may have wanted to keep private.

4. I have neither the time nor even the interest to read a non-wedding related book or magazine. My netflix DVD I received two weeks ago is still in its red envelope, collecting dust on my TV. I blog exclusively about wedding matters. Theknot.com knows me by name.

5. My fiance must gently explain to me that his brain won't be able to take any more wedding talk after a certain hour of the day. I respond by talking twice as fast to fit everything in.

6. I didn't hesitate one second at the switch in calling him "fiance" instead of the 4-year old title "boyfriend."

So clearly, I am bewitched! As if love wasn't mind-altering (altar?? where? when?) enough.

Excuses, excuses!

Well, it's January, which means I'm attempting to change my life with Oprah. This means not eating cookies every day, drinking more water and less coffee, slouching less, and yes, going to the hot, stinky gym three times a week.

Recently I stayed up late enough to catch the repeat of Oprah's show. She was going over her "weightloss confession" and kept saying "no one likes to work out." So true. I think it's just not in our genes to enjoy physical labor. I suspect people who say they do like working out really just find satisfaction in the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes after. Pushing your muscles to their limits is never going to be a pleasurable sensation. I wonder what our Cro-Magnon ancestors would think of their children today if they could be alive to see it (and possess capacity for language and abstract thought). Here we are, trotting along on machines, running towards nothing and to catch nothing! Maybe they would be most amazed at how flabby we all are. Maybe they would chase us down, mistaking us for chubby prey.

Somehow I forced myself to ignore my ancient instincts not to waste calories on a purposeless run and arrived at the gym! But not without thinking of a million excuses for me NOT to work out. Here are just a few of ways my voice of "reason" pleaded with me to turn back:

"It's so cold out. I'm going to be miserable walking back to the car wearing shorts."
"There's never any good machines open."
"I've been feeling bloated all day. That's no way to work out."
"Also, I have a weird pain on my finger."
"I've got so much housework waiting for me. Maybe I should get a headstart on that instead of working out today."
"Changing in the gym's basement takes so long. If only I had a gym in my apartment building."
"I'm probably going to get athlete's foot changing in this gross locker room."
"I didn't remember a hair tie! I can't work out with my hair loose! I should go home--wait, I found one. Darn."

I won the battle, I suppose, but the war may be endless and very whiny.

Glue and me

I didn’t need to look down at my feet to know what had just happened. There’s no sensation more distinct, or worse, maybe, than being stuck—not the stuck-at-the-train-station-because-my-friend-forgot-to-pick-me-up stuck. The sticky kind of stuck.

The day before, I had arrived home to find evidence of two horrible pieces of information:
1. someone had been in my apartment.
2. my building has a rodent problem.

The evidence was four MouseCatcher sticky pads placed throughout my apartment, mostly in the kitchen and bathroom, and one mysterious black box with a hole in it, wedged between my refrigerator and cupboards, which I guessed was placed there for the same reason as the adhesive sheets. Other than a shudder that I might have to find these pads occupied some day, I didn’t yet think too much of these methods of rat-killing.

Sure enough, while rushing to grab a glass of water during a commercial break from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" a day later, my bare foot made contact with one of these pads. After a moment of panic that I was going to lose a 3 x 4 rectangle of skin, I discovered that these things peeled off of human skin without too much trouble. “Hmm, I hope that mice stick better to these than I do!” I thought.

As I imagined some little mongrel immobilized on my kitchen floor, I began to realize what a horrible way to die this would be: starving to death, unable to understand why your feet just wouldn’t move from the floor, maybe with a corn flake just inches away. I feel panic and terror when I wake up with a numb arm, and I can explain that feeling. Suddenly this seemed the most inhumane way to kill a creature, albeit an unwanted roommate.

I reluctantly placed the sticky pad back under my sink, thinking how the old-school spring traps, a quick blow to the neck as you taste your last meal of cheese, were a much more humane option to intruding mice. “Yet,” I thought, slipping on flip-flops, “Not quite as humane to my toes.”

Independence day

In high school, I had something of a reputation for being a feminist. Particularly clever students would subtly coax me into an angry soapbox rant and finally laugh, revealing their mocking intentions, once I had worked up a sweat. I would say things like, "I'll never get my ears pierced; why would I puncture my body for the sake of society's idea of beauty?" and "Mr. __, why didn't you ask any of the girls to help you carry those heavy textbooks?" I wanted a career and no kids, travel, cultured friends, and respect, maybe a husband, as an afterthought. I was so confident in my future and in my ideals.

I think 17-year old Allison would be a little disappointed in her future self. There's still plenty of that feminist-minded self in me--I still prickle at the phrase "career woman"--but the dream has changed, of course. I try to remember what I wanted to be when I was a teenager: was it a writer? a curator? an editor, maybe? What would "Alli" think of Allison-as-receptionist, I wonder. And what would she think of my paycheck, especially if we were to compare it with that of her boyfriend's, who made at least twice as much at his first real job. What a rude awakening to the feminist dream.

I can't really blame society. I could have been a software developer. But I wanted to "be whatever I wanted to be," that old promise of youth. I should have made up my mind that what I wanted to be was rich and successful and necessary in comtemporary America. America doesn't need any more writers or art museum staff, and they especially don't need inexperienced college graduates being whatever they want to be.

When my boyfriend takes me out to his friends' parties and weddings, I already feel myself morphing into the little housewife. His friends have learned not to ask me how work is, because they know I will look down awkwardly and murmur "it's fine," my cheeks burning because I don't have my career yet and I'm not really pursuing it and shouldn't I be ashamed of that?

So Alli has that to look forward to: learning that it is difficult to get her foot in the door, that networking is a necessary skill, that she's going to have to slave away for at least a few years before her dreams start coming true. Alli also needs to be aware that she will fall in love, which is 95% a wonderful thing.

Last week, with boyfriend out of town for work, I expressed my loneliness to my mom, who responded, "Yeah, when Dad and I lived in Ann Arbor [while Dad was working towards his PhD] I really didn't have any friends there. I remember feeling lonely, too." My sister went through this phase, as well. Seems like a lot of people deal with this I-have-a-boyfriend, I-can't-make-friends problem. What an unexpected feminist bump: social dependence on a man.

On day 4 of boyfriend withdrawal, I was so antsy I finally did something I didn't think I was brave enough to do: I went to a movie, on Friday night, by myself. Appropriately enough: Sex and the City, a flick I wasn't really dying to see, but I needed something fun to do. I thought I might be depressed by the sea of girlfriends surrounding me in the theater, but it was the opposite. I felt contented, at peace, happy to have found the courage to do something without a friend or boyfriend on my arm. It reminded me of that joy I discovered my year in Boston, taking a train by myself to a museum, or in Spain, er, also taking a train by myself to a museum. I love the freedom that having 20 dollars and a decisive mind can bring me. I'll make friends, eventually. Right now I'm enjoying my own company.

Crank it

While observing the crowds at a recent Friday night punk concert, I was overcome with dueling emotions: a longing for that teenaged joy of defiance, independence, and staying out late; and, of course, a contented relief that I'm done with that phase of cocky ignorance. I now know that I would much rather know how little I know about the world than be foolishly arrogant with my opinions. Still, those days were fun while they lasted...

People who know me intimately may be raising their eyebrows at the notion of my rebellious past. While there have been some debatably punk-rock moments (I swear, dying my long blond hair magenta days before my cousin's wedding was an ACCIDENT), overall my teenaged years were tame. What did I have to fight against? My parents nearly always encouraged independent thinking, my teachers generally adored me, and society had no qualms with allowing an upper-middle class white girl to go to college and pursue her red-white-and-blue dreams. I had nothing in common with the rebellious voices other teens enjoyed, needed to identify themselves with. The most I had struggled with in my life was an episode or two of unrequited, undeveloped love. Why wouldn't I, even now, be more interested in the lyrics of Kelly Clarkson than in those of the Clash?

I do hit those days, though—those kill-me-now, I'm-on-the-edge days when my blood boils. Today was one of those days. I was inexplicably fixating on everything wrong with my life: I have no money to buy a gym membership, my boss makes me do stuff, I have to go to Planned Parenthood and I don't want people to think I'm poor or getting an abortion, the wind is messing up my hair, and so forth. I was pissed off and in agony. Walking to my car after work, stepping in puddles and getting my pant hems wet, I could feel the anger just rise higher and higher, my face was getting warm, and I knew I had to release some of the emotional pressure somehow. Immediately after I closed myself into the car, I grabbed the steering wheel and screamed.

As soon as it had happened, I regreted it. No one had seen or heard me—that wasn't the problem. I had heard my yell, and it sounded, even reverberating against the confined glass surfaces, stale. Contrived. Embarrassingly dramatic. The silence that followed seemed to hold an eternity of judgment on my moment of ridiculous anger. I thought of the mowhawked, chain-ladden children at the punk concert, throwing their beers at the stage, screaming obsentities senselessly, thrashing their bodies against each other—and why? Because they hated social norms? Because life was unfair? Because they had a curfew?

I hung my head thinking how similarly juvenile I could be, needing to scream my anger at nothing. Then something remarkable happened. I turned my key in the ignition, and as my engine sprang to life, so did the cd of "Rock Band" songs compiled by my boyfriend for me. The bass line throbbed, drums pounded, vinyl scratched, and Adrock SCREAMED:

I—CAN'T STAND IT
I KNOW YOU PLANNED IT
IMA SET IT STRAIGHT
THIS WATERGATE
CAN'T STAND ROCKIN WHEN I'M IN HERE
'CAUSE YOUR CRYSTAL BALL AIN'T SO CRYSTAL CLEAR

I can't say that the lyrics were a comfort to me. Honestly, after singing this song numerous times for our virtual band, I still can't say I know what the Boys were after with these words. I will say this: the mere presence of angry-sounding language, noise, pacified me. What I was lacking in the car before I turned on the music was a justifying response to my outcry. And perhaps that's what punk rock is to kids: it's a companion piece for their annoyances, something to share the dialogue, nod along and add a "Yeah, life sucks" where needed. People want their music to respond to them, not the other way around. No wonder people categorize their music in mood-based playlists.

Or maybe I just can't express myself without an audience, even one that can't really hear me. (Note that I've never kept a personal diary, but a blogger apparently I am.)