Post Secret

I never considered myself much of a voyeur, but I found myself sucked into the secrets. The whole post secret project fascinates me: part confessional, part art project, these anthologies are literally a collection of secrets anonymously sent in on homemade postcards from people all over. They are every kind of secret, some funny, some cute, some terribly sad, some mean or scary. They tell the story you always wanted to know. And reading through them, I can't help but look at every passing stranger and wonder about their secrets. Is that person a secret santa or a serial killer?

What makes a good secret? What are the things that people don't say and why? How many secrets do you accumulate in one day, in one year? How do they shape who you become. Audrey Lorde says: "Silence has never brought us anything of worth". Do you think that's true? Check out the secrets online at http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

A different Christmas

My unofficial staycation began with 3 snow days, one of which was a miraculous, unheard of snowless snow day. As a midwesterner born in IA and raised in WI, I am used to the idea that it has to snow so much that you can't open your door for school to close. Here apparently if someone even whispers that it might snow, no matter if it's only for 10 minutes, that is enough to get out of school. While I am kind of amazed, I am definitely not complaining. I despise snow, cold, and anything winter related and would prefer to stay at home whenever stuff like that happens. The only white Christmas that interests me is a musical involving Bing Crosby.

Needless to say it was not my Christmas wish to be besieged by snow. After a trip to the grocery store and the liquor store, Mz. Blu and I settled in the living room to do some painting, enjoy a bowl of mojitos and watch out the window disgustedly as our neighbors literally skied down the sidewalk or donned snow shoes to walk the few blocks to the grocery store. I mean come on...it was barely 4 inches. Somehow in the midst of all the insanity, I did manage to get off my unplowed street and to the airport. I spent a week in AZ with my mom and grandma.

My parents have been divorced since I was a baby, and my dad is not really big into holidays, so I have made a habit of being with my mom during Christmas. I spent most of my Christmas times in IA with my grandma, my mom, and my aunt. We would attend midnight mass at the church I was baptized in, then come home and stuff the turkey. This was a time to drink sherry and eat fudge, to hang out and tell stories. This is when I learned how to cook (which is good because it eventually became my job to make the family meals). I always kind of loved our traditions. On Christmas mornings we would do a gift exchange, then my uncle, aunt, and three cousins would come over for dinner. Some years they would go to my aunt's house leaving dinner a much smaller and intimate affair. Either way, the core members of my Christmas were always the women of my family. Shortly after I was born my mom, my godmother, and my grandmother put together an annual party that would take place after Christmas and before the new year. It was a multi-generational party where we would get together with our girlfriends and have a nice brunch with my godmother's famous homemade sticky buns and fruit slush, and my grandma's rum cake and applesauce cake.

I remember the few Christmases I did spend abroad (one clubbing and feeding elephants in Thailand, one eating Chinese food in Spain)even though I was definitely down for the adventure, I missed being home. I missed the familiar routine of friends and family. But I guess this too is a part of growing up, adapting to new circumstances. Traditions are only actions repeated over time, and breaking them doesn't necessarily mean losing the meaning of time spent with family.

Now that my mom is in AZ and my grandma spends her winters there, we don't have white Christmases or big family dinners. We attended midnight mass at my mom's church and had Wassle (spike cider with cranberry juice and angostina bitters). Instead of turkey, mom made a standing rib roast and instead of the annual, we hosted a brunch with some of my grandma's friends. It was smaller, but fun and evidence that there are more important things than doing everything the exact same way. It makes me wonder what it will be like when I have my own family. What traditions will form the foundation of my children's memories and what will it mean to them?

Spiritual Homework: 21 Days of no complaining

So here is the challenge: Go 21 days without complaining. If you do slip up, gently forgive yourself and begin again at day 1. Today is my 5th Day 1. I did make it to Day 2 earlier last week, but then I had a school in service on diversity.

SO here is what I learned: sometimes complaining is fun, also complaining is a huge part of the culture at my school. If you ask any of my co-workers, they would quickly tell you that they love their job, yet they gripe about it constantly. This has been difficult, because the more they complain, the more I remember all the things there are to complain about. What helps? Being happy. If I am in a good mood, even when irritating things happen I seem to navigate better. Also, I've amended the no complaining to no complaining out loud. I am trying to do better inside my head as well, but that is a lot of mind training and I'm not quite there yet. Living in the bitch free zone is a lot like going through sugar detox, painful, and a brutal eye opener to an addiction I never knew I had.

Why am I doing this? To see if I can....to see if it changes the quality of my life. Everyone says they want to be happy, but I'm beginning to think that's not entirely true. It's easy to be happy when nothing is bugging you, when you don't have to do lice checks, or lots of data entry...but what if you could find a way to make even the most tedious or irritating parts of your day fun or at least less painful. What if, you replaced the complaint with a compliment or a suggestion, or even just a thank you to the universe for something good that happened? I don't know, maybe everything would be the same...but I'd like to find out. Yes, I know this is a far departure from my normal comfortable role as sarcastic observer, but the definition of insanity if doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I'm ready for my different results.

K & B: The Wedding

Here is a little known fact about me: I kind of love weddings. Okay, I really love weddings.There is always cake and dancing and good people watching and if you're lucky there might even be an open bar. Last weekend, right before I moved, I flew to Palm Springs for the wedding of my friend K. K and I went to grad school together. I am always a little surprised that people who knew me during grad school actually want to talk to me (I was a bit of a dragon), but none the less we were always cool and I learned a lot from K about leadership and staying positive in the face of irritation.

So I took Friday off and flew into the sun. I love Seattle. It is my home and I live here on purpose, but it was so lush to see the sun again and be able to go outside without protective rain gear. K picked me up from the airport where I was whisked to the nearest pharmacy to replace the Robitussin TSA would have confiscated, then we had lunch and mimosas and got full mani and pedicures while I met a whole lot of K's cousins, and sisters. K has a big family and I had never met any of them, so it was really cool to see where she comes from. Everyone was really nice and politely ignored the fact that I spewing out phlem wads of death. Then Cookie showed up, another fabulous friend from grad school. Turned out, she was just recovering from pneumonia, so we shared a room and coughed together.

Friday evening we had burgers with the bride, which I guess is become a family tradition as K's dad owns an international chain of burger joints. The next day Cookie and I lounged by the pool eating cough drops and clearing our sinuses while we caught up with another grad school buddy and her friend. The wedding was in the afternoon and held in a Catholic church where K's uncle is a priest. There were tons of people in and out of the wedding. K had like 8 bridesmaids who all wore navy blue silk that actually looked good on all of them, plus there were flower girls and ring bearers and as K's folks are divorced, so they walked in seperately. Side note: K's mom's gown was a TO DIE FOR gorgeous gold beaded work of art! I digress K was stunningly beautiful in the traditional princess white, with her hair upswept in curls, and her guns totally tight from pre-bridal bootcamp.

As she walked towards her B,and half the women in the audience broke out the kleenex, I couldn't help glancing up at her parents and thinking not all happy endings look the same. 27 years later, neither of my parents have their fairy tale ending. And yet we all keep trying. K & B looked so happy that I couldn't help but believe that forever can be a kept promise, a true adventure in love and partnership. Sometime I get stick on the idea of forever. I mean, how can I envision my forever with someone, when I've never actually seen a long term functional relationship in my own immediate family? Having had this entire lifetime to get to know know my parents, I am actually kind of confused as to how they got together in the first place. I am long since over the childhood days of wishing that they would be together so we could be a TV family. No, for divorced people,my parents have a highly functional relationship in which raising me took precedence over any issues they might have with each other.But I do wish they had gotten their second chances. And as I watched K & B take their vows I wondered if I'll even get my even a first chance at the whole permanent love thing. I didn't wonder too long though, there was cake and champagne to be had.

After a quick stop to down more medicine, the grad school crew and I took a shuttle to reception which was something out of a movie, valet parking, red carpet, hordourves circulating on silver trays, and 2 fabulous and fully stocked open bars. After a multi-course sit down candle lit meal (for 250 people...served on gorgeous dishes ringed with fresh orchid blooms)beginning with lobster bisque and ending in a plate of wedding cake, raspberry creme brule, and sorbet, the party really began. The reception was set at an indoor outdoor venue dotted with palm trees and wrapped around a lagoon that shimmered in the night. There was a bonfire with a s'mores making station, a hot chocolate bar, a fabulous band, and a photo booth....photo booth and an open bar, what an excellent combination!It was a great night. I caught the bouquet and as K had 3 professional camera crews filming, I am sure it is on Utube somewhere. K & B, thanks for letting me share in your moment. It was a beautiful wedding and good reminder that my hope doesn't have to be contained in politics.