World’s Most Reluctant Blogger

I truly am the world’s worst blogger.

The idea behind the blog is a great one: anyone can share their thoughts and feelings and experiences with anyone in the world (as long as they have internet access) at a moment’s notice.  It’s an opportunity to feel connected and stay in touch or share ideas and branch out.  Blogging opens up a whole new world of socializing and sharing and it’s very Kum Ba Yah or very cutting edge or very deep and personal.

Trouble is it doesn’t work if you don’t ever post anything.

The original idea behind my blog was to stay in touch with friends and family when I moved.  What could be better than documenting the crazy goings on from the Iowa prairies for people to access whenever they like?  Miss me?  Just take a hit of the blog, man, you’ll feel so mellow after.

What would be better is actually seeing my friends and family in person and telling them stories face to face.  I love a good letter, a nice email, text messages are great and phone calls can be wonderful, but nothing compares to sitting down face to face with someone you haven’t seen in a long time and just talking.  Talking and listening, watching someone react to your thoughts and having your own reactions in turn.  Really listening and trying to truly hear what the other person is saying.  And laughing.  Laughing is a must.  Put it all together and that is the best way to communicate.  I’d hate to step all over that by publishing a bunch of spoilers in blog format.

I still like the idea of the blog.  I still like writing.  But I’m not going to treat this like a diary where I pour all my thoughts and feelings and bare my soul to the world.  That would be creepy, first of all, and secondly I don’t think the general public could handle it.  And I would be much happier sharing all that stuff surrounded by actual human people whom I love and who care about me too.

So the future of this blog is uncertain.  Behind the scenes the writing will continue.  My life continues.  But you may just have to ask me about it if you’re curious.  

 

 

Retail Me, Retail Me Not

I like my new job.  Primarily it’s good because I get to sit and I get to wear color, two things which I was not allowed or able to do when I was working retail in a cafe.

There are a few people who enjoy working retail, usually those in management positions who really enjoy working with people.  God bless them.  It’s not something I could do forever without becoming a total Debbie Downer.  There are benefits, however, to the retail brand of employment.

You get a really healthy dose of human interaction when you work retail.  In the really busy seasons and on days when humans are driving you crazy this does not seem like a good thing.  They come to you with stupid questions and petty complaints and you just want to say, “uh, tell your troubles to Jesus honey because I just straight up do not care”.  Sometimes it seems like they enter into the public just so they can behave badly:

“I’m gonna spill every product imaginable on this here counter top and just leave it for the drones behind the counter to clean up!  Also I’m going to move this furniture around into a completely awkward position that suits only my needs, but I will not be putting it back to way I found it when I leave!  And when you’re done fixing that you can put away all these books that I picked up, but won’t be putting back, and also I did something gross in this balled up tissue but I’m not gonna tell you what and I’m also not gonna throw it away!  Bye!  Thanks for letting me be really gross and disrespectful of your place of business.  Whoops, almost forgot my screaming child whom I’ve been ignoring for the last half hour.”

It’s easy to get fed up with that behavior on a day to day basis; it’s also easy to allow that to make you hate your retail job.  Once I left my retail job I did find that I enjoyed no longer having to clean up after anybody or humor people who basically took advantage of our store.  But I also found that I really missed the fun customers who came in: the regulars.  You wouldn’t think that you’d get attached to people who you talk to at best two to three minutes a day, but you really do.  I found myself wondering how Ann was doing and what kind of shenanigans Vinnie was up to, wondering what new and exciting things they would tell me about if I was still behind the counter.

Most of all I discovered that I really missed my daily dose of weirdos.  Every now and then someone would come into the store and just do something so bizarre that you couldn’t have fabricated the situation if you tried.  Someone once stole a bunch of Godiva chocolate by taking it into the bathroom and eating all of it while sitting in the handicapped stall and then hiding the evidence in the baby changing station.  There was another man who would come in reeking of women’s perfume, dressed somewhat like the Uni Bomber, and talking about how he had to walk carefully in his platform shoes.  (More power to him, by the way; I agree, platform shoes are not easy.)  You can experience weirdos anywhere but I would be willing to bet that a profession in retail is probably one of the best ways to collect some excellent wacko stories.

The retail work schedule is another benefit in disguise.  When you work at least part of every weekend it’s definitely easy to start dreaming of a good ol’ 9 to 5 job.  You fantasize about having two whole days off in a row every single week.  When your friends get to do whatever they want on Friday and Saturday nights you have to be thinking about what time you really have to go home  so you can get enough sleep to function at work the next day.  You long for a time when you won’t have to sell your soul to be off on a national holiday.

But then the good things start to bubble up.  You don’t have to do your grocery shopping on a weekend when the stores are mobbed and everybody goes home in a pissy mood; you get to shop on a weekday and sail through the check out lines.  Sure you have to work some national holidays, but it’s rarely for the whole day, plus you get paid time and a half.  As for the whole going out on Friday and Saturday nights thing, well, having to work weekends gives you the perfect excuse for why you’re not going out.  When you work a regular first shift Monday to Friday and then spend your weekend nights at home you must accept the fact that maybe you’re more boring than you thought (said the most boring girl on the Earth).

Working in retail gives you a new respect for other retail workers; it truly does.  Some people treat you so well and are a joy to help.  Some people are absolute terrors and when you see them walk into the store, you run.  They are rude and treat you like an idiot or sometimes they barely even acknowledge that you are a human being.  They do not say please or thank you.  Yeah, you work there and you’re paid to help them, but that doesn’t mean you’re paid to be treated like garbage; all I ask is that you treat me like a person!  These people exist, but they are not the norm.  Most people are, if not polite, at least not outwardly rude, and that’s perfectly acceptable.  Most of the time people do things that they don’t even realize make a retail employee feel like garbage.  For example: throwing money or a credit card on the counter instead of handing it to the cashier: super. freaking. rude.  Talking on your phone and expecting to be helped at the same time: so frustrating.  Even something that seems innocuous like saying, “Hey, at least it’s Friday!” can be annoying.  Friday means nothing to retail workers.  Chances are good they have to work the weekend.  These things happen all the time and mostly you can let it go because you know that people are just not thinking.

Retail makes you realize that you are encountering the general public for brief snippets of their lives.  You don’t know what else they have going on; you cannot know what is driving their behavior.  You cannot fix them.  But you can learn from the bad ones.  The nastiest most disrespectful customer you’ve ever met who you add to your list of people to loathe and tell long exaggerated stories about at parties; that person is one sense a gift.  Those people who grunt responses at you when you ask them necessary questions.  Those who blame you for your company’s policies or talk on their phone forcing you to bend over backwards to help them without interrupting: all gifts.  Those people are all provide you with an example of how not to act in a retail situation.  While pissing you off and sometimes making you hate your job, they are simultaneously teaching you what not to do.  When you go into a store as a customer you probably bend over backwards to make life easier on the employees, because you know what it’s like.

I firmly believe everyone should work retail for at least a little while, even just a couple of months.  It’s not perfect.  Often it quite frankly sucks.  But that which does not kill you makes you stronger.

It also makes you a less douche-y shopper.

 

 

Stephen Says

Writing is hard.  

Or maybe being a writer is hard.  The actual act of writing is not too difficult, but BEING a writer is hard.  Which sucks because that is what I would like to be. 

I’ve said before how writing is therapeutic for me, which it is.  But it’s more than that.  It’s how I think and how I view the world. Things occur around me or I observe something or someone in action and it strikes me as funny.  It reminds me of something else.  It disgusts me to my very core.  It provokes some kind of reaction in me and my brain goes into writing mode.  Immediately sentences begin forming and ideas are suggested.  I starting thinking in prose and wondering what conclusion I will reach at the end of my stream of consciousness.  Literally I go around writing all day long.

The trouble is that while all this writing is going on I’m actually driving, showering, eating, working, sitting around with people, or somehow otherwise engaged so that although my brain is writing, there are no actual words hitting the page.  Though I’m constantly reacting and thinking and planning the next clever turn of phrase, none of it actually ever lasts.  Sometimes I am smart enough in the moment to record a particularly noteworthy thought using my phone or a scrap of paper, but mostly these things just disappear into the vast and murky swamp that is my brain.

This is totally stupid and totally my fault.  I want to write.  I have been encouraged to write by family, by teachers, even by friends, although I think they mostly are just being kind.  Even I, with my moderate to lower middle levels of self-esteem actually think I have potential in this area.  But most of the time it’s just one of those great ideas for a project that never quite gets off the ground.  

When times such as these come around I generally turn to the wisdom of those I admire to pull me through.  I look for quotes or essays from some person past with whom I happen to be mildly obsessed.  In this case that person happens to be Stephen King, an inarguably prolific writer who happens to be capable of writing far more than your basic horror novel.  (If “horror” if what you think of when you think of him, then you’ve obviously not read enough of his work.) 

King has written an astonishing number of books, novellas, and short stories, the majority of them being of the horror or thriller genre.  The most terrifying book he ever wrote in my opinion is a non-fiction work called “On Writing”.  In it he outlines not only his experiences, but his rules for writers and I tell you it will make the aspiring writer in us all cringe and develop a strong desire to eat our own hair while crying in the corner.  

Disclaimer: I do not actually own a copy of this book.  The copy I read was borrowed and I never acquired my own for fear that simply having the book nearby would give me nightmares of failed writing endeavors.  As a result I am paraphrasing all of the following from memory, so my apologies if I’m not exactly accurate.

First of all, Stephen says that if you want to be a writer, you have to first be a reader.  Read everything you can get your hands on.  Devour entire libraries.  Even if its something you don’t usually have a taste for, give it a try.  You may find an author with a voice that speaks to you in a unique way and inspires you in your own work.  I have found this to be valuable, although I know I don’t read as much as I should to get any real benefit.  Still this bit of advice has encouraged me to explore the work of David Sedaris, Mark Twain, J.K. Rowling, Michael Shaara, Neil Gaiman, and Stephen King himself, some of my favorite authors who write in a voice that just makes sense to me.  Then there are writers like George R.R. Martin, Jane Austen, and J.R.R. Tolkien, who make me work a little harder for comprehension, but are well worth the effort.  Stephen has yet to inspire me to attempt Faulkner or Hemingway again, but as he says, you must read if you wish to write.  Even though I’m keenly aware of the benefits I’ve gained from trying out new authors, I still don’t actively pursue the work of writers I’ve never read.  I will hear someone on the radio and think, “wow, they’re interesting, I think I’d like to read their book” but then when I get to the bookstore they don’t have those books on hand.  (Apparently the people I find interesting are not interesting enough to have their work carried by a big retailer.) Or they do have those books on hand but they are too expensive and the library is too far away plus I don’t know where my card is and do I even have a library card and ooh look at that a new pattern for a pair of gloves!  Let’s make some new gloves and watch seventeen hours of Gilmore Girls instead of taking a little time to pursue a new writer.  So I don’t do so great with this first cardinal rule.

And since I brought it up, Stephen also says that you do not want to be a writer.  You do not try to be a writer.  You either are a writer or you are not.  It’s like Yoda says: do or do not, there is no try.  Even on days when you know you aren’t going to get anything worthwhile done, you still sit down and write.  You work even when your heart is not in it.  And it is work.  It requires thought and knowledge, research, emotional investment.  You can write for an hour and be exhausted.  You can also write for ten hours and be exhilarated.  But either way you sit down and work.  King tells a story of how he was very badly hurt in a car accident.  (If I remember correctly he was hit by a car while not in a vehicle of his own, so you can imagine the damage.)  He found himself limited in his mobility and he couldn’t get to his usual writing spot.  So his dear wife Tabitha set up a writing desk for him in a more accessible area of the house.  And even though he had nearly died and was broken and uncomfortable, he was able to keep working; he IS a writer.  As I am lacking a Tabitha King-like figure of my own to encourage me and make me work, I have to do it myself.  I must be my own Tabitha and find a way to make the writing happen.  This is truly a challenge I worry about.  It is so easy to get home from work and think, “eh, I’m too tired, it’s not worth it today.  I have nothing to write about.  Nothing worth saying.”  But I can’t let that rule the day if I am to be a writer.  A writer makes time to write, or else he or she is very simply not a writer.

Perhaps the most terrifying point of all that King makes is that not everything a writer write’s will be any good.  All writers produce a good deal of crap in their careers.  For all the work that King has published, he’s probably written twice that amount of absolute worthless shit.  This scares me to death.  I am one of those people who has to do something right the first time.  Take the simple task of hammering a nail into a board.  I first want to watch an experienced person do the task.  Then I would ask a series of questions to make sure I understood the procedure exactly.  Then when I finally took the hammer, God help me if I should miss the nail and hit the board because I would immediately need to make a joke like “well that’s why you can’t drink and hammer” to make up for the fact that I would be shame spiraling because I had failed.  I cannot simply grab hammer and nail and learn as I go.  I watch, I observe, I relentlessly question, and then, when confident I can succeed, I try.  

Writing doesn’t work that way.  I can look to these wisdoms that Stephen King has written and strive to get some use out of them, but ultimately I can’t be certain of success.  There is no way to observe a successful writer.  Most of writing is internal.  There are best practices as there are in most fields, some of which are outlined above, but even so writing is a highly individual specific profession.  Everyone has a different method to a certain degree.  Even if I follow all of those and other good tips to the letter, there is no guarantee that I can succeed.  Its a fact I can’t get around and one I really don’t like.  

I don’t want to write crap and I don’t want to feel like a failure.  But I also don’t want to be fifty-three and telling my children that I have always wanted to be a writer.  I’d rather be one.  Even if I remain unpublished my whole life, I think I could be satisfied with myself if I at least have a huge collection of writings to pass on to my family.  That way when I’m dead at least they can know how whacko I truly am.

Damn Squirrels

The thing that I really don’t like about squirrels is that they make me feel stupid.

Squirrels, you see, are smart enough to do several things that I don’t think I could ever successfully do.  They do all their shopping at once, for one thing.  Sure it takes them a long time to do it, but by the time winter hits you never see a squirrel running out to the store for one thing.  They get that mess taken care of up front; I am totally a run out last minute kind of girl.  They run away from things that can hurt them including cars, dogs, humans, pterodactyls.  They don’t always successfully escape, but I’ve never seen one not at least try to run away while curiosity sometimes get the better of me.  But worst of all is that squirrels are smart enough to eat like a squirrel.  I ever so annoyingly lack the knowledge to eat like a human.  Thusly I pay about twenty dollars a month to Weight Watchers so they can teach me how to eat like a human.

I find this beyond annoying.  I am a freaking human!  Shouldn’t that mean that I would know how to feed myself?

I’m pretty good at determining the edible versus the nonedible.  Things such as cleaning products, steel, iron, staplers, and roofing tar I am pretty good at not eating.  Thank you human instinct; thanks for that small favor.  The problem is more along the lines of portion control and eating healthier items, not the fun flashy ones found in convenience stores and state fair food booths.  It’s not even a question of knowing which foods are healthy.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a vegetable is probably healthier than a donut.  But donuts taste way better and this is America, dammit, I get to live the American dream and get as fat as I like, thankyouverymuch.

This is essentially why I like Weight Watchers.  The idea behind the program is that you do not have to give up anything if you don’t want to, you just have to balance it out later.  Every food has a point value and you have a target number of points to hit each day.  You also get a certain number of points for the whole week so if you need more points one day, you have a backup to dip into.  The idea is if you stay within your points target, you lose weight.

So yesterday I was really craving a carrot cake cupcake, not a crappy mass produced one but one from a real bakery with that really good cream cheese icing about an inch and a half high.  

Please talk amongst yourselves while I give myself a minute to think about that.

…

Amen.

Anyway, I couldn’t find this cupcake about which I was dreaming, so that craving was never fulfilled.  But if I HAD found such a glorious example of a cupcake, I could have, without guilt, bought and consumed that cupcake.  It would simply have meant that later on in the day I would have had a lighter dinner and probably have fruit for dessert if I felt the need for something sweet. 

It’s a very simple concept.  It also very annoyingly works.  It’s even easy to form the habit of counting points; when I look at pretty much any food item, I think of its point value automatically.  Hello, I am a Weight Watchers robot, you may call be Jessica Simpson.

Ugh, on second thought, you can call me Jennifer Hudson.  That’s way better.

For about two years I did the Weight Watchers thing and it worked really well.  I lost a significant amount of weight, started feeling more confident, felt healthier, blah blah blah yeah good.  But for all its good qualities the program is not exactly cheap, so when I quit my job and moved, I cancelled my membership, figuring that it had been more than two years, I know the program, I could continue on my own.  With such extensive training and experience eating like a human as opposed to a human garbage disposal, how could I possibly go back to the old ways?

Um, no.  That doesn’t work.  Cookies are too delicious, and don’t even get me started on cheese and beer and bread.  And let’s not forget the cupcakes.

Less than a month into non-Weight Watchers living I knew I was not even kind of following the lifestyle.  I knew that even with my extensive education in healthy foods I still had not adopted the habit.  The squirrels had bested me again in smarts.  Back I went to Weight Watchers, paying my monthly fee so they could tell me how to eat like the human being that I already claimed to be.

For me it’s not a matter of getting to a certain weight.  I just want to get to a point where I feel comfortable.  Really I need to get to a point where I can get really silly and do some crazy dance move or obnoxious pose and not be horrified when it shows up on Facebook.  More importantly, I don’t want to do it for anyone else.  While I do care what other people think (which I hate to admit), the moment they ask me “How many points is that?” while looking at me all judgmental-like I pretty much want to eat a whole pizza and fifteen cupcakes just to spite them.  “I’M NOT LOSING WEIGHT AS A FAVOR TO YOU!” I’d like to yell.  “THIS IS FOR ME! PLEASE KEEP YOUR NOSE OUT OF IT AND PASS THE BUTTER!”

I bet squirrels never have fits of rage like that.  But, then again, I’ve never been as smart as a squirrel.

Little bastards.    

Who Am I To Judge?

For the record, most of the time I like myself just fine.  I am my own worst critic, but usually the negative and the positive thoughts I have regarding myself average out slightly on the positive side.

I say the above only because I’ve spent the majority of the last month and a half being fairly down on myself.  Primarily this has to do with the whole job hunting experience.  I know myself to be a decently capable and trainable individual, but when you’re applying for jobs you really only have your documented skills and abilities to rely upon.  Employers do not care if you believe in your ability to learn how to work a complex database, they want to see documented proof that you have done so before or have the knowledge that would logically enable you to do so.  This is my perception, but because of this perception job hunting for me essentially looked like this:

Step 1: Go to job hunting website and enter appropriate search terms (such as entry-level, minimal experience required, a monkey could do this).

Step 2: Read through the list of options.  Click on those that do not make you want to stab yourself in the eye or, more importantly, do not look like a scam.

Step 3: Read job description.  If imagining yourself in the described position does not make you immediately nauseous, proceed to…

Step 4: Scroll down and read listed required qualifications.  If you meet this qualifications, submit an application.  If you do not meet these qualifications (a much more common occurrence), proceed to…

Step 5: Lower your standards.  Repeat steps 1 through 5 as necessary.

That was essentially my way of thinking through the entire job hunting process.  I would spend a good deal of time sifting through job postings and finding positions that interested me, but not applying because I did not meet the minimum qualifications.  (Here one might argue that I should have applied anyway because you never know, they may be having no luck finding good candidates and want to go another way and lah di dah and so on.  Valid argument, yes, but the part of my brain that was taught to follow directions cannot get past the “I don’t meet the minimum qualifications, it is pretty clear they wouldn’t want me to apply” thought process.) Long story slightly shorter, during this horrific time of job hunting I found it fairly easy to throw myself onto the path of self doubt almost daily.

The first thing I do when I’m riding the self doubt train is compare myself to the people around me.  While in the midst of the job search I also started classes in my graduate program.  At the first meeting of both classes each student was asked to introduce his or herself to the class giving a name, where you went to undergrad, and where you work.  There I was, unemployed, one of the few people from out of state, and having graduated from a nationally obscure teeny tiny liberal arts college. (Sorry Lebanon Valley, but you are obscure on the national level, it’s just a fact.  Still love you, though: Go Dutchman!) I’m very happy with my undergraduate education and even more happy to hail from New Jersey, so talking about those things was a breeze.  But admitting to a roomful of gainfully employed graduate students that you are not so gainfully employed is not fun.  Even though my situation was understandable given the fact that I was new to the area, I still really put myself down  and couldn’t help but wonder if I was really capable of keeping up with my fellow students, all of whom collectively seemed to have their acts together while I, most decidedly, did not.

Once it starts, it’s easy to let this kind of negative thinking leech into all areas of your life.  Even though I was primarily down on myself for the whole not having a job thing, I started passing the time in my brain by comparing myself to every person I encountered, usually selling myself short in the end.  This is an incredibly hard habit to break and as such it has continued, even after I was offered and accepted a job.

For example: I went shopping last week.  This was a necessity because for my last job I wore only black and essentially got away with wearing yoga pants just about every day.  Since my new job is in an office and I will be dealing with people professionally, I figured that my previous pajama-like wardrobe wouldn’t cut it anymore.  So I took myself to Kohl’s, where I can usually find something I like, and wandered around the store for awhile.  After a couple of laps of the store I found myself holding two tank tops (the purely practical kind that you wear under other shirts) and two t-shirts from the men’s section: one with the Captain America emblem and one with Batman’s emblem.  Standing back in the women’s department I looked around at the other women shopping and began to wonder what on Earth was wrong with me:

“Oh my God, I suck at shopping!  I’m not supposed to suck at shopping, I’m a girl.  Oh my God, I suck at being a girl.  How is it possible that I walked through the entire women’s section with all it’s variety and didn’t see one item that I actually wanted!?  Plus, why am I not rifling through the bargain racks like those women?  Shouldn’t I want to find a great deal and get more for my money?  Oh my God, I suck at bargain shopping.”

You can see how this spirals out of control.

In the end I forced myself to buy one girly item which would be appropriate for work and then called it a day.  When I got home I was still more excited about my new superhero shirts than any other item I had purchased or had even seen in the store.  I was not surprised by this and told myself that I should be ashamed of this fact.

These are the moments when I have to excuse myself from my own psyche and step outside to examine me from a different perspective, reevaluating from the outside:

“So maybe my shopping ability or my interest in shopping does not align with that of the stereotypical “normal” female.  This is a problem because…why, again?  I don’t shop based on what is currently in fashion, I shop by what I like and what I find comfortable (which generally means polka dots and light layers).  And as long as I understand that my new Batman shirt is probably not proper work attire, what’s the issue?  Also, since when have I ever wanted to do anything normal?  In general I revel in being slightly weird and have been known to do something weird just for the sake of weirdness.  So I’m a weird shopper, what the hell else is new?”

From there I can usually find my way back to the happy medium of accepting myself for the way I am and just moving on.  I’m not as “good” a shopper as the lady next to me.  You know what, I don’t care.  It doesn’t matter.  I shop like me, and that’s fine, so long as I can eventually figure out a way to buy a work appropriate wardrobe.

So I didn’t get the first two jobs I interviewed for.  Thank God and Moses and all the powers that be for that because I do not think I would have thrived in either of those positions.  But knowing that I still managed to beat myself up pretty badly when I found out I did not get those jobs.

What matters now is that when it comes to the position I was offered, I think I will fit it quite nicely, thank you.  It’s not high powered.  It’s not influential.  It’s not even full time.  It is a place where I think I can develop skills that will be beneficial to me in the future and I am confident in my ability to do this job well.  I know I will go into it not wanting to ever make a mistake or let anyone down, but the fact is that I probably will.  And knowing my own tendencies I know I will beat myself up for making mistakes.  I will at some point descend into a shame spiral of epic proportions because of some perceived shortcoming I see in myself.  It’s just a fact; I know this about me.  I push myself to be better by dragging myself down, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but what else is new?  So long as I can figure out how to turn all the negative into a positive in one way or another I think me and my psyche will survive and, dare I say, thrive in this new job.  And that I find exciting.

Like, brand new Batman shirt exciting.

Thank You For Smoking

Smoking is bad for your health.  I know this.  I tell friends and loved ones this when they smoke.  I encourage them to quit.  I do not advocate for smoking in any way.  Except that I freaking love the smell. 

Pipe smoke and cigar smoke have always been important smells for me and my nose.  I remember being very young and visiting my dad in his basement office at the church in Cokesbury, New Jersey.  It was always cold and damp in the basement, even in the summertime, but I liked to visit because I got to smell the things in his office.  (I was a weird little kid.)  I particularly  liked the smell (and sounds) of his typewriter, but more importantly I really liked the smell of one specific sweater.  It was a dark maroon thick knit cardigan sweater with big brown buttons and it was always hanging somewhere in the office.  That sweater always smelled of pipe smoke.  I loved that smell.  It was a very Dad smell.  

Likewise cigar smoke has always appealed to me.  My dad smokes cigars from time to time to keep bugs away and to assist in the moving of heavy objects and/or the mowing of the lawn.  I’m not sure how the cigar helps with these tasks, but it always seems to be a needed accessory at those times.  But long story short, cigar smoke has never bothered me either.  It is a smell that I do not attempt to avoid and always enjoy.

Cigarette smoke has never bothered me either.  I’ve had many friends, very close friends, who have smoked, often right in front of me.  A few of them even manage to not smell like smokers, as if they miraculously are able to prevent the scent from being absorbed by their hair and clothing.  I swear these people smell better than I do, it’s rather unnerving.  (There have been a few occasions where I’ve encountered someone who smoked cigarettes so much that they themselves smelled almost sour.  The scent was so strong that it was almost impossible to breathe around them without the gag reflex kicking in.  This reaction is not limited to the smell of cigarette smokers, however.  Someone doused in any kind of perfume or cologne receives the same reaction from my olfactory glands.  Is it a gland?  A node, perhaps?  Obviously I didn’t pay enough attention in Biology.)  In the end the smell of smoke of any variety has never disgusted me and usually calls to mind quite pleasant memories.  

So the Iowa Clean Air Act presents me with quite a dilemma.  Out here you are not allowed to smoke in any public buildings, just like at home.  In addition, however, you must be a certain distance away from the entrance of any public building before you can light up.  In New Jersey, this wouldn’t really work.  For the most part if you are twenty five feet away from the entrance of one building you are more than likely less than twenty five feet away from another building’s door.  We’ve crammed too much into too little a space so we all have to smell each other’s smoke, among other things.  But in this much larger state with far fewer residents per square mile, it is entirely possible to go weeks without catching the scent of a cigarette.

Since I moved in about a month and a half ago I think I have gotten a good whiff of smoke maybe twice.  Once was at the state fair, but I was still getting over a cold so the nose was not running at full capacity and I wasn’t able to get the full scent. The second time was just the other day outside the Starbucks where I had to practically restrain myself from hovering around and sniffing the guy who was smoking.  

Believe me, it’s not like I haven’t been out in public.  I’ve been going to school twice a week, I’ve gone to three job interviews, I’ve gotten gas maybe five million times (there’s lots of driving out here), and I’ve been shopping at both grocery and retail stores more times than I can accurately recall.  Had I been doing all these things in New Jersey I would certainly have encountered a cloud of smoke many a time, most likely every time I walked out of a public building.  But here I swear you have to actively try to catch just a whiff of smoke.  That clean air law really works, man.  

This is supposed to be a good thing, I know.  No one seems to understand my need to experience this particular smell.  It’s kind of like going to a public gym specifically to take in the odor of sweaty wrestling mats.  It’s weird, I get that.  And I fully understand that it is much healthier for everyone to not be exposed to clouds of toxic and carcinogenic smoke; I’m not advocating for secondhand smoke here.  It’s just that I’m so used walking into the occasional cloud that I actually miss it.  

The air out here always smells clean and refreshing (unless you’re driving past a hog barn), but a deep breathe here does nothing to satisfy me.  The fact that I never have that acrid smoky smell around makes it impossible for me to appreciate its absence.  Back when I worked retail in New Jersey I walked through that smoker’s scent every time I went out into the parking lot.  I would hop in my car and take off down the back country roads over the mountain that stood between work and home.  Then I would roll down the windows and take in deep breaths of clean air created by the thousands of trees flying past, a freshness that inevitably would fade once I drove back into a town.  But in those moments I could inhale to the fullest capacity and love every minute of it.  

Fresh air in New Jersey is far easier to appreciate.  It is at times fleeting and hard to find between the clouds of smoke and various other odiferous items.  It is not ever present, and therefore far more enjoyable when it is found.  Out here I can’t seem to revel in the freshness of the atmosphere with such a lack of pollution.  My lungs find little joy in a deep breath.  I have been poisoned by my eastern upbringing.

It doesn’t help that every time I do manage to catch that elusive whiff of smoke I am immediately flooded by the good memories my brain has associated with that smell, particularly the memories of certain people or places.  Every time it happens I am reminded of how you never really appreciate something until it’s gone, or is at least very far away.  It’s got me wandering around the countryside like a bloodhound on a hunt.  I find myself desperate to hear someone striking a lighter or packing a pack against the palm of their hand, just to get a hint of that smoke and feel a little closer to home. 

But my lungs, I’m sure, appreciate all the fresh air, even if my brain and nose are completely insane.  

Just Like Canada

The other day I bought a bottle of soda at the grocery store.  There was no real reason behind the purchase other than I just felt like buying a soda.  I was not particularly thirsty, nor was I craving the flavor I selected.  Being unemployed, it certainly was not a wise financial choice.  Nonetheless I wanted a soda and being at the very least a facsimile of an adult I decided to buy myself one.

Despite all the arguments against making this decidedly frivolous purchase, I do not regret it for exactly two reasons.

The first reason is that I feel I need to take advantage of this portion of my life that I am currently experiencing.  I am no longer in need of parental permission to make such a purchase.  In that seemingly interminable but simultaneously gone-too-fast phase known as childhood you repeatedly found yourself in the position of asking, “can I have _________?” (If you were a grammatically correct child you actually asked, “may I have______” but, let’s face it, you were a dumb kid just like the rest of us so you probably said, “can I”.)  “Daddy, can I get a candy bar?” “Mom, can I have a soda?”  “Can I get this new Chapstick, even though I have seven currently melting in my pocket?  But…but..this one is cherry flavored and has Snoopy on it!”

God bless my parents because their answer to questions like these was almost always no.  I did not appreciate it at the time but have come to realize that they were inadvertently teaching me how not to be a greedy pain in the ass.  By telling me “no” when I wanted something ridiculous, they taught me how to figure out the difference between a need and a want, at least as far as supermarket impulse purchases are concerned.  Someday when I decide to spawn, adopt, or otherwise trick some unwitting children into calling me “Mom”, I plan to teach them the same thing, likely using the same method.

This is why I need to take advantage of my current childless status and buy myself unnecessary bottles of soda and tubes of Chapstick now.  Future me can’t very well say no to little Luke and Leia and then go ahead and buy myself what I just denied them.  That would only serve to teach them hypocrisy and double standards, things they will be sure to learn once they enter the working world.  So huzzah for my current state of childlessness and pass the soda.

Secondly I do not regret my soda purchase because it revealed to me the perfect way to explain how it feels to move to a brand new region.

When you buy a soda or impulse snack of some kind at the HyVee (where there’s a helpful smile in every aisle!) the cashier asks you if you would like the item left out, presumably so you can immediately commence nomming on said item.  I had six or seven other items on the belt and was deeply engaged in mental bank account math when the girl behind the register asked, “Do you want your pop left out?”

I am not an idiot.  I knew exactly what she meant.  Still, there was a part of my brain that said, “wait…what?” As a result I stared at her blankly for a full three seconds before finally responding to her question.  I left the store, soda in hand, and I drove home thinking about Canada all the way.

Last summer by best friend Monica and I spent several days on vacation in Toronto.  As I had never traveled internationally over the age of eighteen, this was the first time I actually needed a passport or paid any kind of attention to the importance of citizenship proving documents.  The gravity of the whole situation hit me as we sat in my car just south of the Canadian border waiting for our turn to speak with a border guard.  The guard could potentially have decided for no particular reason whatsoever to not let us into Canada.  Likewise, should we succeed in crossing the border the first time, they could just as easily decide to not let us back into our home and native land!  I had always thought crossing borders between states was cool, but this was much more intimidating to a travel neophyte like myself.

The border guard we talked to was actually very nice.  He asked about our plans for our time in the country and we told him about our plans to visit the CN Tower, Casa Loma, and attend a Blue Jays game.  (We did accidentally lie to him.  We said we were going to the baseball game on Tuesday, July 3rd, but we actually went on Wednesday, July 4th.  Sorry Mr. Border Guard.  We won free stuff at the baseball game which you’re welcome to have as retribution for our heinous lies if you like.) He bought our story and sent us on our way.

But the intensity of the border crossing experience left me hyper aware of the fact that we were in another country.  We were most decidedly not home.  Every store and business establishment had a flag out front, just like in America, but it was a Canadian flag.  The roads were similarly built, but the signs were in multiple languages and distances measured in kilometers.  The money was colorful, kind of like ours, but it had pictures of the queen and of kids playing hockey on it instead of a bunch of deceased white men.  Overall it was not that different from what I was used to, and I wasn’t horribly uncomfortable the whole time we were there (although I did verify the location and safety of my passport every day).  It was just different enough that I was keenly aware that I was not home.

“Do you want your pop left out?”  A simple question that made perfect sense in the situation.  But it made me feel like I had crossed the border all over again.  It reminded me that I have moved to a whole different region and things are a little bit different here.  I kind of feel like I’m back in Canada; enjoying myself, but checking every day that I have a way back home. It’s not bad different, and it’s certainly nothing to which I cannot adjust.   It’s just different enough that I know I’m not home.

Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Apple?

I’ve been hanging around out here in Iowa for several days now wondering when I can expect to start noticing the differences between New Jersey life and Iowa life, all in the hope of bringing to the interwebs a delightful and humorous comparison of life in the two states.  The trouble is that I haven’t been noticing that many differences; everything here seems fairly normal to me.

This may lead you to believe that I am quite simply an idiot, and you would be quite correct.  To claim that life in New Jersey and Iowa are exactly the same would be an out and out lie.  There are the obvious geographical differences.  Fewer people are packed into each square mile out here leaving a noticeable increase in elbow room.  And for those of you waiting for an analysis of the language: Iowans refer to “bags” as “sacks”, “soda” as “pop”, and “sneakers” as “tennis shoes”.  (They also correctly refer to ice cream sprinkles as “sprinkles”, so that lunacy with calling them “jimmies” seems to be contained to the Philadelphia area.  I love Philadelphia, but I will never be on board with that.)

While there are these and other changes to encounter in my daily midwestern life, I have found that my brain isn’t noting the differences the way it used to.  And I realize now that this is because I have been here so many times before.  In the last five years I’ve been to Iowa to visit at least nine or ten times, so the basic experience is a bit of old news.  There is, however, one thing that is extremely different from life back home:

That thing is apples.  Specifically an apple tree.  

In New Jersey when I wanted a plethora of apples to make applesauce, apple muffins, or just to eat, I would hop in my vehicle and head over to the grocery store and purchase however many apples met my apple need.  I would then return home and use those apples in any which way I desired.  In the fall I could drive a little farther and pick apples fresh off the trees of an orchard to meet my apple requirements.  Either way I got to control the way in which I acquired the apples and exactly how many apples I allowed into my life.

The same rules apply here in Iowa.  If I want apples I know I can go to the store and purchase them all the live long day if I so choose.  There is, however, no need to do so as there is an apple tree right here on the farm.  

Lo, how nice it is to have an apple tree!  How beautiful to see the apples dancing beneath the fluttering leaves as the winds blow swiftly by!  How horrifying to see how prolific this one freaking tree can be, leaving all residents of this property in a state of apple slavery for who knows how long.  

Since I have arrived the solitary apple tree has produced at least eight bushels of apples, if not more.  (If you don’t know how big a bushel is, picture one of those rectangular laundry baskets and chop off the corners to make it circular.  If that didn’t help you, consult Lord Google.  If you don’t care enough to do that, just know that a bushel looks innocent enough but actually contains quite a lot of apples.)  More are falling off the tree every day and the thing is still chock full.  

This particular tree apparently goes through cycles where it will have a year or two of meager apple production, followed by a bumper crop.  It evidently decided to welcome me to my new residence with a bumper crop of it’s finest apples.

I shouldn’t complain about this because it’s actually a good thing that this tree exists and provides us with produce.  It allows us to make and preserve applesauce and apple pies and apple breads.  Then when winter comes and sucks away our will to live we can defrost said apple products and enjoy the memory of a warmer season.

It is the demands of making the apple products that is making everyone a little bonkers at the moment.  We don’t want to waste any of the apples, because we honestly will appreciate the apple-y goodness in the times to come.  Collectively we’ve already produced at least four or five massive batches of applesauce and four apple pies.  Today I made two loaves of apple bread and cut/cooked/mashed four big pots of applesauce, using up about one bushel of apples.  After helping me cut up the third and fourth pots of apples, my stepfather went outside and picked another bushel of apples up from the ground under the tree.  It’s as if the tree spent the day watching me labor over its fruits and waited until I felt I had made a dent in the apple collection before pooping a whole new pile of apples onto the ground to make my Tuesday feel pointless.  

Thanks a lot, tree!  I see how it is!  You think you and your apples own me.  But we shall prevail!  You don’t run my life!  As God is my witness, as God is my witness you’re not going to lick me! I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry for apples again!  

And you just know that tree will be ready for me tomorrow, standing tall with an air that says, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.  But here, have seven more bushels of apples.”  

The harvest will end and eventually this mad apple processing will cease.  We will eventually return to a life which involves encountering only as many apples as we choose on a daily basis, just as I was able to back in New Jersey.  But until then we apple slaves shall trudge on with the chopping and peeling and cooking and baking until we weep apple-scented tears into apple-stained hands.

On the bright side, I have discovered that apple pie goes well with Smithwick’s.  

Judge me not for imbibing alcohol.  It is one of the small pleasures we apple slaves have during the harvest.

Be It Ever So Crumbled, There’s No Place Like Home

Genetics can be cool, but also decidedly unfair.  

My mother, my sister, and I share a decent amount of genetic qualities.  We have squinty-eyed smiles.  We are freckled creatures.  We are all musically inclined (although they can actually read music and play instruments while I fake it).  Between the three of us we knit, crochet, cross stitch, quilt, and sew with varying degrees of skill and ability.  We are stubborn as the day is long.  

It’s good to share these qualities with family.  They understand the excitement I feel when I find a new pattern I want to stitch.  They also relate when there is a new song that speaks to my soul and I simply have to listen to it eleven times in a row, eleven being a conservative estimate.  And they know when to leave a subject alone because I simply will not be moved in my opinion so don’t even try thank you very much.

When it comes to a genetic knack for homemaking I seem to have missed out.  Where Meredith and Mom could take a cardboard box add a few special touches and make it feel homey, I would content myself with a plain old cardboard box and maybe some torn up paper towels and straw to create a kind of nest.  They seem incapable of living in a state of chaos where I seem to thrive on it.  (Maybe thrive is not the correct term.  I live with it somewhat successfully.)

I have never walked into a house where my mother was the queen bee and felt like I was not at home.  She can make anywhere, even a week long vacation rental, feel like Mom’s house.  Same with Meredith: when she moved into the room that is now mine a few years ago, she had her stuff unpacked and organized in twenty minutes, or so it seemed.  She made it her place, putting her stank on it, so to speak.  Wherever they live their space is clean, (mostly) organized, and is tastefully decorated.

I appreciate cleanliness and organization and a general lack of chaos.  I do not, however, possess the motivation to actively pursue such things.  At the moment there are still several unpacked boxes stacked on the floor of my room and I’m having a hard time caring.  My clothes are unpacked, crafts are accessible, posters and pictures are on the wall, and some of my books are stacked on the shelves waiting to be organized.  I’m slowly working my way through it because I have to, not because I have any desire to be done.  

Which I know is driving my mother insane.  Now I think I could easily blame both Mom and Meredith for stunting my ability to create my own home type environment.  Mom being the Mom, she always did it for me. Meredith being the older sister (and being Meredith) also always took care of such things.  So really it’s their fault that I am a stunted at settling in.  They took away all opportunity for me to learn how to do it when I was little by always doing it for me.

I could easily say that, but it’s not even kind of true. The honest answer is that I lack the motivation to pursue any sort of labor that isn’t strictly necessary. 

For proof, let’s compare my Friday with my mom’s Friday.  

On Friday last I woke up somewhere around 9 AM.  I then engaged in my lazy morning routine of playing Words with Friends, putting in my contacts, and then going upstairs for breakfast, daytime television, and job searching on the internet.  I did all of this before actually putting on real pants.  Around lunchtime I went into town, purchased one item at the grocery store, and then returned home.   It then took me all afternoon and several episodes of Bones to slice up about a third of a bushel of apples, cook them down, and mush them into applesauce.  I then proceeded to do a combination of sitting on the couch, sewing, and eating for the remainder of the day.  By the time I was once again in my bed playing Words with Friends, I was quite tired.

On Friday last my mother woke up and presumably engaged in some sort of morning routine that got her ready for work.  (I say presumably as I slept through this part.)  She then went to work where she teaches music to tiny children from kindergarten age through grade 5.  This in itself should be enough to exhaust a human being.  But not my mother.  After work she returned home and proceeded to go through the vegetable garden for any ready to eat produce, questioned me about my day, and made another half bushel of apples into applesauce in about seven minutes time.  There was probably something in the laundry that she either moved through or folded.  She then made dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, and likely fixed the pillows on the furniture in the living room about thirty-five times.  The rest of us helped here and there, but really Momma was the lead.  If this were my day the action pretty much would have stopped at “she returned home.”  

I watch my mom in action and think, “Good Lord but that is a lot of work.”  I know my mom takes pride in her home and keeping it nice.  And it is nice.  It’s freaking beautiful.  (Seriously, come visit me and find out.)  And then I schlepp my butt down to my room, look at the pile of boxes and think, “Eh, I can do that tomorrow.”  

I missed out on that homemaking gene.  This makes me wonder about my potential for making my theoretical and eventual grown up apartment or house or double wide feel like home.  I could take the easy way out and invite Mom and Meredith over to “help” me unpack, and then just let them at it.  But the truth is that would likely lead to a house set up to Mom/Meredith standards that Megan would never be able to uphold.  It would last for a week, and then would fall spectacularly to pieces.

For all the things we have in common, I’m just not them when it comes to settling in.  I’ve got my own way of making a place my own.  It takes a lot longer, and it is a process that never seems to finish.  It will look different than my mom’s house and my sister’s house, but hopefully the end result is something that is more reminiscent of a home than a cardboard box nest.  

Although my standards are pretty low.

More Observations From the Road

After approximately 1,268 more miles on the road (and three days in Michigan) I return to you now with further observations from my travels:

Firstly, I went to Michigan to spend some time with my grandfather, aunt, uncle, and two of my three first cousins.  Upon reflection I must say that biology is pretty freaking cool.  Over the course of our time on vacation we all noticed various traits that run through our family and that individual family members share.  For example, my grandfather and I worry for sport.  It’s what we do.  Meanwhile, my uncle and I are both silly almost to the point of insanity, as is my cousin Adam.  Heaven help you should you find yourself locked up with the three of us for any extended period of time.  Sarah and I are both afraid of many a thing for many a silly reason, including the “fuzzies” that covered the rocks in Lake Michigan.  That stuff makes our toes most unhappy and we choose to avoid it, thank you very much.  Also our eyes match.  Abigail and I both love to play games and are interested in the world and science and the license plate game.  And although my aunt and I are not related by blood, we share a love of coffee (which I learned to drink as a little kid sitting on her lap) and cross stitch projects.  Its so cool to see our family traits displayed through the multiple generations, especially when we’re all sitting in the same room.  I took AP Biology in high school, so theoretically I should know all about the genome and phenome and metronome, but alas the only thing from Bio that stuck was a love of saying “endoplasmic reticulum”.  (Say it, it’s fun!)  All I know is genetics are cool and I heart my nutty family.

During this trip we stayed on Grand Traverse Bay which is part of Lake Michigan.  On Monday we went to Old Mission Lighthouse, which is a little lighthouse on tip of the little strip of land that divides the east bay from the west bay.  The 45th parallel, which is the latitude line that marks the halfway point between the North Pole and the Equator, runs right past the lighthouse, so for most of the trip we were actually closer to the North Pole than we were the Equator.  So that’s pretty geographically awesome.  

What was less awesome was the bathroom facilities at the Old Mission Lighthouse.  Mostly they were super fancy (would have been fancier if they had a light) outhouses.  I mean I’m not proud, I used the thing, but it was, as my cousin Sarah would say, rather “ratchet.”  (I’m not sure I spelled that correctly, nor am I entirely sure of the meaning of the term.  I’m not one of the cool kids anymore.  You can trust me, though.  If you walked into that bathroom you would totally be thinking, “Why, yes, this is quite ratchet.  Good thing Megan’s cousin is awesome enough to know the exact term I needed to describe this situation.  Now I think I’ll go pop a squat in the woods somewhere.”)

Speaking of bathrooms, I had never been to Michigan before so now I have another set of rest/truck stop bathrooms to review.  No problems to report with the flush timing, but one interesting fact was that there was a condom vending machine hanging directly above the toilet at one truck stop.  And here I thought Virginia was for lovers.

And while we’re talking about truck stop bathrooms, I need to voice my concerns about the hand drying options available to the weary traveler.  Most bathrooms along the road have hands free air dryers, whether they be of the old “press button, receive hot air that looks like bacon in the little diagram” variety, or of the “just stick your hands under here and watch your skin ripple in the hurricane force winds” variety.  Either way I find them to be mostly unhelpful as I almost always leave the bathroom continuing the hand drying process by wiping my hands on my pants.  So one of two things needs to happen: either roadside bathrooms need to go back to the earth-murdering but much more effective paper towel method, or someone needs to design fashionable looking pants that have what looks like wet handprints built into the design so no one will be the wiser.  

Anyway, I told you that so I could tell you this: Iowa 80, the World’s Largest Truck Stop, has very nice bathrooms that feature fun “world’s largest” trivia facts on the walls.  They also feature (pause for effect) paper towels!  Now shouldn’t all the other truck stops and rest stops in the world be following suit?  Just a suggestion, America.

Driving long distances with a cold is no fun.  Driving long distances through farm country without a cold is also no fun.  

I also found that driving through Illinois and Iowa in the dark is easier.  With no light your brain can’t focus on how open the landscape is or how large the sky seems.  Coming from the Northeast I’m used to being surrounded by buildings or hills or trees.  There’s almost always something between me and the horizon which is not the case out here.  I find it a bit unnerving and at times almost expect the giant yellow hand of God from The Simpsons to come down out of the sky and flick me off the face of the Earth, probably because I was singing along a little too loudly.

Speaking of which, I have finally found a reason to behave somewhat normally while driving.  Along route 80 I saw several people at more than one rest stop.  I also recall passing this one woman from California multiple times, all the while singing/dancing as if no one was watching (as per usual).  Then I ended up parking right next to her at one of the rest stops and experience a sort of walk of shame as I got out of my car and saw her recognize me from the road.  

Whatever, though.  You can’t listen to “Gettin’ Jiggy With It” without gettin’ a little jiggy, am I right?