Sunday

I'm sitting in my yard right now on a folding chair with my feet up on another folding chair. It's December and it's 63 degrees. I'm right next to a little stand up fire pit that I used for a fire with friends on Friday night. The neighbor's cat has crossed into my half of the yard and is under my tree sunning herself. My wifi works out in the yard so I can write this blog right now. I'm listening to Polyphonic Spree. Things are good.

I moved just over two weeks ago. Today has officially busted into the beginning of my third week. It's a little unreal. I have to keep reminding myself that I get to stay here as long as I want. This 63 degree day has me thinking of summer time, having people over to play croquet (oh, i'm getting croquet) in my backyard. Or on July days, when I'm feeling lazy, just stretching out on a towel with some sangria. I feel incredibly lucky to have found this little perfect house in this little perfect neighborhood. It was all so serendipitous. I went to lunch at this vegetarian restaurant on a work day and parked right in front of the house. I opened my car door and saw the For Lease sign. It was magical. And now, only weeks later, I get to sit here.

(I'm facing the house right now. Thats the chair for my feet.)

what it means to be an adult---austin style

Two thoughts for today:

1)In your 20s you can live in an apartment with amenities that are likely to be nicer than you'll be able to afford in your 40s. University of Texas has over 50,000 students. These students need places to live. This makes competition fierce among apartment complexes. It is not unusual to walk into a duplex/apartment and see stainless steel appliances, marble countertops, and wood floors. It's a little humbling to know that your switch from "poor" twenty-something apartment dwelling to home ownership is likely to be a huge downgrade.

2)I've realized recently that my conversations now aren't that different than my teen years. Just replace the topic of boys with the topic of food.

Example:

I think Tom is great and it seems like he likes me. He's always around and trying to make me feel really good, but Rick is cuter.

->

I think breakfast tacos are great and it seems like they really like me. They're always around and trying to make me feel really good, but cereal is healthier.

I talk about food every day at least half a dozen times. And these aren't just "I'm hungry" conversations, these are lengthy, emotional discussions about things that are tasty and why.

remembering my spirit

So the title of this comes from something Oprah said a few years ago and now, more than remembering anything else about Oprah episodes I watched, I remember the "spirit journal" and the fact that Oprah urged everyone to take time to "remember" their "spirit." And, like many things on that show, I thought the presentation was cheezy but the general-well-"spirit" behind it was worthwhile.

Its a weird feeling when you forget your spirit. And I'm not being facetious (I had to look that up for the 50th time. I never trust I'm using that word right). I really can identify times that I've lost touch with who I am and what I want. Its those nights where you go home and you're like, "wait. what was THAT?" or something comes out of your mouth that you felt was true when you were saying it but as soon as you're done feels totally wrong.

Maybe most people let this stuff go, but I can't. I'm aggressive about authenticity. I want to make sure at any moment I'm being exactly who I want to be. And maybe, to a greater extent, who I'm perceived to be. This is energy that is well-spent when you're writing a paper, exhausting when you're trying to have a friendship. Sometimes I get off the phone/get out of an email/leave a conversation and think "Aah! What was that? I have to call/write/tell them that's not what I meant! They're going to think that's who I am and it's not!"

So back to the spirit. So when I do connect with someone on a level that feels spiritual and I think I'm being understood I feel like that is happening because I am being authentic and they are being authentic. This is a tricky area, because it sets me up for this deep sense of betrayal when I find out this isn't the case or, to a lesser extent, if I hit a point where suddenly it becomes clear that the connection isn't cosmic but instead based on my projection. I wanted the feeling of absolute belonging with this person so much that I invented it.

You know what I would hate if I were you reading this right now? I'd be like, "GAH! Why doesn't she just tell me who/what she's talking about?!" Okay. So I'm not talking about anything or anyone in particular. I'm talking about this general feeling I've been having. That I'm missing the forest for the trees. I've become addicted to this spiritual connection I'm talking about and it's ultimately leaving me lonely. For example, I'll meet people and discover they used to watch "Murder, She Wrote" too when they were little, I'm like "OMG! Me too!" and suddenly I'm picturing us having 17,000 things in common. We all like Eight O'Clock coffee, love wearing scarves, and hate laundromats. He/she wanted to be an art teacher when he/she was eight. We enjoy dark beer and can't stand those Real Housewives shows. So, when my new spiritual twin reveals that he/she in fact loves Real Housewives I want to start to cry. Because I feel like this ruins everything. If we were *really* connecting spiritually he/she would have followed this narrative I put together.

Interestingly enough, when I become obsessed with this diversion I feel like I'm totally forgetting *my* spirit. I'm focusing on the mundane and not trusting a connection and appreciating it for just that. Yes, we both felt moved by The Lorax, but you can think Quentin Tarantino is a genius and I can disagree and we can still have The Lorax. And that's amazing in itself because that is a rad book. Because there are lines in there that meant something to me that also meant something to that person. And having that is an awesome thing. And finding someone that cares about what you care about, even if its only a couple things, is what life is about. Thats what having a spirit is about in the first place, right? Not every friendship has to be about twinship. If I spend a lot of energy projecting myself I won't ever really know someone and furthermore they won't feel comfortable letting me really know them. I have to leave room for them getting me to care about what they care about and being open to that. I can't merge my spirit or make theirs less or reduce/enlarge them into something that they're not for my own needs. It assumes that people are only what they like and the best thing about many of my friends isn't that we like all the same things, but that we like each other and we care enough to want what they want for them. And to abruptly stop and quote The Lorax:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not.

Austin City Limits 2010

Normally I would talk about the three days of the festival and the amazing bands I saw there (p.s. check out GIVERS as my top up and coming band pick) and talk about how fantastic Muse, LCD Soundsystem, Pete Yorn, Flaming Lips, Foals, etc. were and how rad it was to be there for free as a volunteer.

But instead I want to talk about what today was like after three days straight of ten hour outdoor days. My coworkers were both amused by my red sunburned nose and confused by my stamina. They all assured me they were too old for a three day festival. And for the first time in my 5 straight years of 3-day or more festivals (Lollapalooza, ACL, SXSW, etc), I thought maybe I was too. On Saturday night during Muse I noticed that somewhere during the day I hadn't only gotten a sunburn but a throat ache too. On Sunday I packed DayQuil and Kleenex in my bag with me just in case. I found myself that night, during The National, just feeling sleepy. It was 8 o'clock.

Today I went to work with sore legs and a deep concern that I might soon "age out" of festivals. I find myself more ornery at the teenagers I see at these things. On Sunday, while waiting for Yeasayer to start, one of them spilled water all the way down my back. I shoved him in a rare display of pure aggression. He said, "my friend made me do it!" Nice, bro. Nice.

That said, I still LOVE L.O.V.E. music festivals. I'm sure that as long as I physically can I will continue to go. It's like a little utopian city where high fives are free and it's acceptable to wander barefoot with a beer at 1 in the afternoon. A place where you can just stumble between genres, from Broken Bells to The xx to Monsters of Folk, without walking even a half mile. I want to live there. I just want all the kids to leave and for there to be nap villas. Make it happen, science.

coaching in luxury

I need help. Someone has to show me how to spoil myself. Seriously. I have this painfully midwestern sense of farm wife practicality. Observe.

Things I have never done:

1) gotten a manicure

2) gotten a pedicure

3) gotten a massage

4) gotten a facial/spa treatment of any kind

5) had my hair professionally dyed or highlighted

6) had anything professionally waxed

7) ordered lobster or duck or steak in a restaurant

8) owned a car less than five years old (my current is over 10)

9) paid for a music festival (i always volunteer so i can go for free)

10) bought anything I couldn't pay for all at once

Yes. This may be fiscally responsible. I imagine my parents would read this and feel proud that they had raised such a practical daughter. I have savings. I shop carefully and consciously. It's all very reasonable. And boring.

Lately, I've been thinking about how I'm getting older and this window for frivolousness is closing. There is a certain class of things that you can discount as foolishness that comes with your "twenties." It's not uncommon to hear older people say, "oh yeah when I was in my twenties..." as if that was the time when anything was excusable. I'm not saying I haven't done my share of careless things, but I am saying I haven't done enough. And I need help. Soon.

swimming sacred

The older I get, the more I believe in spirituality. And not spirituality as anything organized. And how the lack of organization is okay. For me. My parents were raised in differing faiths and both moved away from practice as they got older. So when they had me and time came for a religious decision they decided not to decide. They left God up to me. And, when I was growing up in a primarily Christian, often Catholic area, this felt frustrating. It didn't seem okay to be a misfit, at least not in this arena. I didn't know what I was and that was more troubling than I think my parents expected it to be.

It seems odd now to think about being distraught over a lack of religious alignment. Most of my friends now don't attend any kind of worship service. But, when you're a kid, and all of your friends are getting dressed up and going off to some big building every weekend it's easy to feel left out. Now, most of these same friends that were shuffling off to a church while I was playing in my backyard, have since told me about the conflict they felt when they left their faith. Since I technically never "left" anything I feel like I can't exactly relate. Sure we're both in the same place now, but our paths were different. I never had to go through the turmoil of leaving something that was a big part of my life. I never questioned God because I never devoted a lot of time, at least once a week, to thinking about Him. He was there, He wasn't there...it didn't really affect my day to day.

I guess I'm still a little ambivalent. But what I do feel, beyond God, is a sense of spirituality. I felt it today when I was going for a 9 am swim at Barton Springs. The Sunday morning crowd at Barton Springs is a religious bunch. They do their laps and dangle their toes and there's a huge sense of fellowship. I lay in the sun and it was quiet and honest and peaceful. It felt sacred. And it wasn't about God, at least not directly. It was about the letting go and the acceptance or faith that everything was good.

I've realized, thanks in some sense to my family, that my relationship with something bigger than myself can be just that, my relationship. And while sometimes it's easy to feel that left out feeling when people talk about their religion, I remind myself that not being in their specific faith doesn't take anything away from mine. I actually sometimes feel lucky to have found my spirituality in a way that was organic, a way that made sense for me, instead of struggling to squeeze parts of myself into something that didn't exactly fit. Now, I can be in religious service every day. In swimming, in working in the yard, in cooking, in listening to music, and in my moments of true connection with friends and family. It's pretty miraculous. And okay. And good.

babies

When I was a kid I used to alternate sleeping with my stuffed animals so one wouldn't feel unloved. As I got older my attention turned to cats and dogs. I preferred my pets shy and would seek to draw them out with gentle pets and my best attempt at a calm presence. When I hit my teens I became everybody's confidant. I didn't date, but I became the go to person when everyone else that was dating wanted to discuss it. These days my mothering comes out more pronounced through my job and personal life. I put probably far too much effort into making coworkers feel appreciated through birthdays and special emails. With Zach, I not only make dinner and clean house, but find myself watching over him to make sure he's taking care of himself. For someone who still feels a little squeamish about babies, I have a palpably strong maternal instinct.

A lot of this came from having a sick parent. The kind of sick that could come on unexpectedly. Before much was known about how diet affected diabetes, my dad struggled keeping his blood sugar under control. By the time I was nine or ten I became adept at sensing when he was slipping into an insulin reaction. His movements would become slow, his speech less focused, and he'd seem almost drunk. I'd spring up to get something sugary and then monitor him until his regular self would return. I can't even describe the combination of relief and pride when I'd "fix" him.

In the past few years I've noticed the long term effects this nervous vigilance has had on my relationships.

-I want to help everyone all the time, whether they know they need help or not.

-Drunk people freak me out. They are unpredictable and exhibit all the same symptoms my dad did when he needed sugar.

-I am hypersensitive to people's moods and changes in personality. I adopt the role of peacemaker most often just to get the uncomfortable feeling their imbalance causes me to go away.

I know adults aren't babies, but I also know they can be just as fragile. There have been at least a dozen times where I could have lost my dad. The multiple car accidents he had and 911 emergencies that have resulted from his diabetes have made me very aware of how health problems can create life or death situations. All of this never made me think "I want to be a doctor;" I still can't give blood without passing out. I guess the one thing it did do was subconsciously make me designate myself as responsible for everyone in the room. This, my friends, is the reason "Rachel hates fun" came about. If I'm around people that are losing control I spring into vigilance. This cancels out any chance of me having too much of my own fun. The plus side is that as I've gotten older I've been in this scenario less and less and it's allowed me to feel more comfortable letting go.

My friends are having babies right now and I'm excited for them. I think, sometime in the next few years, I might do that too. But I know that, unless I can temper my watchfulness, my child will have absolutely no fun and all the same cautiousness that I struggle with now. So I'm trying to chill out and recognize that people can take care of themselves. Or, if they're not, they won't automatically end up in the hospital. I'm working to not always adopt the role of the most "mature" person in the room and giving myself a pass on taking control of every uncertain moment. It's surprisingly liberating to let things happen good or bad and feel yourself still in one piece. And it's even better when, after passing on an opportunity to be the responsible one, the people around you not only come out okay, but thrive in ways you didn't even imagine possible.

Time may change me / But you can't trace time

New living space, new job...what is it, 2008? In two weeks my Americorps service will be up AND I'll be starting a new job with United Way. They hired me to work 30/hours a week plus benefits to be a Community Impact Specialist. It's going to be quite different from my work with 1 Hour for Kids and Youth Program Quality. No more mentoring and afterschool programs. I feel really strongly about the work I've been doing this past year and it's going to be hard to shift my focus, but what I'm going to be doing desperately needs to be done to support the structure of the organization. So I'm finding peace in the fact that my work will continue to aid what I was doing before, even if a little indirectly.

The other change that's coming August 1st is a move to a new place. It will be the same zip code and same neighborhood, but a duplex with a yard for Annabel. We put in our application plus deposit yesterday and we're hoping that everything plays out smoothly. I'm super excited to get out of this crowded, bug-invested apartment complex after two years of basically wanting to be ANYWHERE else.

So on to my seventh rented space and umpteenth job since college. I'm hoping these ones stick.

being cool with it

I woke up at 4:45 am this morning and I'm being cool with it. Like, "oh this is fine. maybe i'll watch a movie" cool with it. Not acknowledging that it's more like, "I can't fall back asleep because my lease is up on August 1st and I don't have a place to live." Not, "I don't want to figure out how many days that actually is, because that will be even more frightening."

Zach and I saw this place last week that was beautiful. It was a two-story, brand new appliances, wood floor, 2.5 bathrooms, bay windows, gorgeous duplex castle for $800/month that (wahwah) doesn't have a yard for Anna. Zach had to remind me, "isn't the yard the reason we decided to look at duplexes?" and oh yeah, it is.

Okay. I think I'm going to try and sleep for an hour.

the thing is it's not like i set out to find my 9 year relationship.

i think that's what people forget. zach just hasn't allowed me to fall out of love with him. it makes him quite impressive. i'm not sure many guys have that kind of stamina.

i felt philosophical today and was talking to my new bestie, alix (shout out!) about (what do girls talk about?): relationships. when you fall in love at 19 and then cultivate that for 9 years, each day is a surprise. there was nothing about the first three even four years that said FOREVER to me. it was simple, i was in love with zach and each day i kept loving him. nine years later and it still, luckily, feels relatively simple. i love him. he makes each day a little special for me. it's rarely big gestures. zach's not a big gesture guy. it's him saying a sentence that i never expected to hear or doing some kind of crazy dance in the living room that makes me think that no one else in the world has ever done that dance. a lot of the time i take all of this 9 yearishness for granted. i think, "zach never does dishes, i bet there's a guy out there that does dishes." i bet i could find that too. if dishes were the most important thing in my life (or even in the top 20) i'd be miserable. but i'm not.

on valentines day in year two of our relationship part of my present was "monster mad libs." he got me mad libs. no reason. it's not like we had some sort of "mad lib" joke that made them significant, he just saw them and in a panic added them to his purchase. it was ridiculous and i thought, "any other guy would have more sense than to do this." turns out thats one of my fav. zach stories and maybe it took me too many years to realize this, but i fundamentally don't want "any other guy." i can't handle it. the idea of a remotely traditional guy grosses. me. out. i'm too sensitive to that feeling of, "oh. you're doing THAT thing. that thing that you probably saw on Dr. Phil or read in some magazine or heard from some friend or saw in some movie."

i've always felt different about everything as it relates to "love" and "romance." i just can't fit in to anything i feel like i'm "supposed" to fit into. i never thought about what would happen at my wedding, felt totally terrified of my first kiss, and didn't really even "date" before I met zach. i'm awkward. i'm too self-aware to let anybody do anything remotely traditional with me without acknowledging that it's typical and that i realize that it's typical out loud. so how does this work? the first week zach and i were dating i went to kiss him and after three seconds he pulled back and loudly said, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and then laughed at how funny he was. and i thought it was hilarious too. and i still do.

is the easy choice always the bad choice?

Things got weird this week.

1) I got a full-blown head/chest cold in June after not being sick at all this year.

2) A totally unexpected position+benefits was resurrected at my work and I was told if I wanted it there was a 90% chance it could be mine.

Both of these things totally surprised me. Maybe most people feel like they deal in surprises all the time but I find that I'm rarely caught totally unawares. I'm one of those "lets-imagine-every-possible-scenario-and-prepare" kind of people so when something happens that blindsides me I fumble to figure out how I feel about this unexpected situation. I have a hard time reacting immediately to something and trusting that reaction. I want to analyze, look at things from all sides, and then deliver my thoughts. I hate feeling rushed into decisions.

So this new position at work was available like 3-4 months ago and then went away when priorities shifted within the organization. Suddenly, after some recent board meetings, the job came back. Since I've made my desire to stay abundantly clear, my bosses' bosses' boss (yep. it's like that) pulled me into her office, said, "hey, remember how we were going to talk about that part-time position? well that's gone. we're not doing that. good news is now there's this new one and, if you're interested in it, we'd be interested in you doing it." This new job is pretty far removed from what I was doing before. It's much more behind the scenes and I'd have a new supervisor and would be learning new software to do it. BUT (and hopefully it's a big but) there's supposed to be a lot more flexibility in it since they've unearthed it. Before it was pretty intense with data analysis, but I was told I'd get to mold it a little to suit the skills I've been building (namely facilitating conversations with nonprofits in the community and getting to work with organizations all over Central Texas that serve youth). I really like the work I've been doing and I'm attached to seeing it succeed. It would be hard to leave it entirely.

Most of that probably wasn't especially interesting to anyone but me. All of that background is just to say that now I'm faced with a choice to work in a new area, one I feel strays a little bit from what I'm passionate about. My question is: do I take this position because it allows me to stay in an organization I know and still contribute to work I care about if in a new, more backstage way OR do I go out into the world and seek a career that meets my desire to be out and about collaboratively creating change?

I've lately been learning a lot about myself. This has largely been coming from an increasingly challenging work situation. Challenging in that it may not be my work situation for much longer. If you know me, you know that I have approximately eight positions listed on my resume covering the six years I've been out of college. Some factors outside of my control play into this:

1) I moved from Missouri to Illinois back to Missouri to Texas since college.

2) Several of these jobs were made to be temporary. Two were contract positions coordinating volunteers for festivals and two more were based around me being a student at the university. Once I stopped being a student the funding ran out quickly.

That said, I'm back in situation two more or less. My Americorps VISTA term is up next month. I knew it was a year long deal when I signed on, but from day one I decided I was going to make them want me to stay when it was over. Because of this (and in true nonprofit fashion) I worked twice as hard, took on twice as much work, and made twice as many friends around the office in an attempt to make myself irreplaceable. And it worked. Sort of. If you know nonprofit work you know that jobs are dependent on grants. And they were able to get funding for a position through a grant BUT it's only covers a part-time employee. So the clock is ticking. I have one month to cast my net even wider and try to find twelve more hours somewhere in some department to get myself there with benefits.

I worked on my resume tonight as the first step towards accepting a possible job hunt inevitability. It's getting tough to fit everything on there. I find myself deleting software from my "skills" section that I no longer remember how to use and taking out some of the padding I put in years ago when I only had one job to my name.

So what am I learning? That I'm much more valuable than the eight jobs on my resume suggest. That, because I adore the righteousness of nonprofit work, I am willing to keep running to new challenges in an effort to help the most people with the most need. This is why I want to stay at United Way. There is so much potential to reach so many people. But I know that if they can't find funding to keep me on a full-time/benefits basis that I'll have to leave. I'm 28 years old. I am an extremely hard worker when I am passionate about the work I am doing. I am creative and innovative and kind. And if I have to, I can find passion elsewhere. And do a damn good job.

Floating

Before I moved to Texas my knowledge of the state really came from Yosemite Sam cartoons. I pretty much imagined I'd find mostly cacti and a sparse scattering of trees. It turns out Texas not only has many, many trees, but lots of rivers too! Last year I floated the Comal in New Braunfels, Texas (about an hour south of Austin). Yesterday I floated the Blanco in San Marcos (only a half hour south).

It being the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend we spent literally hours waiting in a line to even get in the river. In this line I saw 19-24 year old kids living out their parents worst fears for them. From 2 pm to 5 pm we waited behind a girl that had a "Made in Australia 1990" tattoo on her back just to get on a bus to take us and our inner tubes one mile to "put in." I know it sounds like I was miserable at this point, but all frustration melted away when we got in the river.

Zach's brother said this river kept him from finishing his degree at Texas State. It's about 5 miles from campus and he said that it was pretty much irresistible on hot days. The place we rented our tubes from is a local institution. Don's Fish Camp is run by an old shirtless man that wears shorts with suspenders and has the skin of an iguana. I'm looking forward to going back on a weekend where approximately 175 kids aren't in line ahead of me.

Back to floating, there's a lot of luck involved. At the end of the trip I felt lucky to still have my flip flops on, the cooler in tow, and the three boys I came with. The river regularly gets rapid and it is only by chance that you get to keep everything you foolishly brought with you. I also felt lucky that the cars in front of us got stopped by the police and not us. In a move that can only be called inspired the police set up right outside of the road that leads out of Don's. Who knew such beautiful tan people could look so miserable sitting in the back of a pick-up truck?

All in all I'd say this weekend really forced me to admit to myself that I've become a Texan. In two months I will have been here for two years. Though at this point I still haven't been a Texan as I long as I was a Chicagoan and I did still get nervous yesterday when I had to stand near someone with a confederate flag beer koozie, I'd have to say that I'm regularly having more fun than I've ever had before. For all it's brashness and blind enthusiasm, it's really kind of an amazing place. I think Molly Ivins said it best: I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults.

First timers

The proof of an adequate city is when you can live there almost two years and still have firsts. The past couple weeks I have had several of these.

1) Trivia. I've never participated in it before. My first time out my team, "Betsy Ross Perot is a Patriot" won first place out of 20+ teams. This won us a $25 gift certificate. So we went back to the bar (Shangri La) this week to use it and I played again. We didn't get first, but I was able to put my knowledge of the Marx Brothers and E. L. Doctorow to good use.

2) Salt Lick BBQ. Oh boy. A forty minute drive for exactly 40 pounds of meat for $40. Sooo good. For $20/person you can get a plate of all you can eat sausage, brisket, and ribs. It will be hard for us now to not go weekly.

3)Powerpoint. I'm old and a liberal arts (english even, one of the liberalist of the arts) person so I've never in my life had to give a powerpoint presentation. I know this doesn't fit into my proof-of-an-adequate-city category, but I had to give my first one last week. And it went really well. I have a little more confidence now that I can do things in the biz world should I need to for some godawful reason.

4)Little. I now have a "little sister" through Big Brothers Big Sisters. I actually need to get moving because I have to meet her for the fourth time in a half hour. She's a 7th grader and desperately loves anime. It's a challenge. That said, I'm relatively confident that there are few types of nerdy that I can't handle.

On timers

This morning I woke up to take Anna out to pee around 7:30 am and then crawled back into bed (as is usual on weekends) and couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up and did a load of dishes, did two loads of laundry, made coffee, toasted a bagel, and watched Inside the Actors Studio on youtube (John Goodman...a fellow St. Louisan). Now it's 10:30 and I've realized that pretty much everything I was going to do today is finished. I mean I still want to go to Newflower Farmer's Market and get chicken sausage, hummus, grapes, and maybe some potato salad, but my weekend jobs are pretty much finished (I cleaned the sink yesterday, did the other half of my grocery shopping, bought a frame for my new poster, and picked up my movie from the library that was on hold).

All of this rambling is to say that I'm very task motivated. I find it hard to relax until my tasks are complete, necessary or not. That is to say once I decide I should do some chore for the weekend I don't feel satisfied until it's complete. I find myself building a schedule each morning and then planning when I need to complete everything. All of this strategy is a little exhausting.

Austin as a whole is not task motivated. You'll find brunchers still brunching at noon. It's not unusual to schedule a meeting anywhere with anyone and have them be 15 minutes late. There's a real clear division between on-timers and not on-timers in that the on-timers stand out like that kid in your class that would say, "didn't you say we were going to have a quiz today?"

Summer time is a whole new beast. It's going to be 90 degrees plus all this week meaning that people will be moving even slower and almost every activity involves drinking and/or swimming. For example, this coming week I'll have a trivia night (drinking), a happy hour (drinking), a pool party (swimming and drinking) and a BBQ (more drinking). All of this makes every day here in the summer feels like vacation. Austin has this way of making everything a celebration. This is especially true once May hits. The grocery stores occasionally have live music, there are weekly city-wide social bike rides, I have a large collection of friends that participate in kickball/softball teams (also involving drinking), and the odds are about 90% that if you live in an apartment complex you have a pool.

All of this is to say that I find it very hard to be task oriented here. It just feels silly and meaningless. My years in fast-walking, high heel wearing Chicago seem to be melting off me like so much drunk sweat. And I like it.

What I still haven't learned

So I've been 28 over a month now and what's most interesting to me isn't what I've learned, but what I still haven't:

1) I still have a hard time reconciling the conflicted feelings I have when many people want something that I can't fathom wanting. I always think to myself, "why don't I want that too? is it something weird about me?" At 28 this feeling comes strongest when I hear about people getting married and/or having babies. I don't want it now. I just don't. I think I will...at some point...probably...but I don't want it the way most people seem to and it makes me question why I feel that way. It gets harder as you get older because people start asking you to explain this in a way you didn't have to when you were 19 or 20. I don't get through a month without having to talk about why I'm not married (nine years with Zach as of tomorrow). It's like when I was vegetarian for that year. When you make a choice that goes against mainstream you suddenly have to become this activist for your decision and get on some soapbox, even if it's as simple as something that makes sense to you...not because you're anti the other thing.

2)I absolutely love people and I haven't learned how to keep myself out of everybody's business all the time. I think a big reason I became such a big fiction reader is because I can't get enough of hearing what people are thinking about, the decisions they're making, and then helping them plan their next move. This makes me a popular friend because I am pretty easily invested in whatever anyone's drama is, but leaves me a little exhausted when I put a bunch of energy into someone and they do something I spent a lot of time advising them not to do. Or I put myself in the middle, relay messages from one person to the other, and then days and hours of energy later can't find a way to get out. All of this said, I don't expect to grow out of this...I'm just hoping I can begin to leave more and more wiggle room as I get older to spend sometime on getting what I want instead of living through other people.

3)On a less deep note, it's still hard for me to dance like nobody's watching.

SXSW 2010

I decided to post some of the SXSW surprises. The thing about a music festival that takes over the city and shuts down large portions of downtown is that in your strolling from venue to venue or when you're waiting for the next show you find bands you hadn't heard of prior that really make the day for you. Here are some of those bands:

- Bajofondo - This group introduced me to "electronic tango" (like techno tango really). This music makes it almost impossible NOT to dance.

- Carolina Chocolate Drops - Remember the song Hit 'em Up Style? Well this bluegrass band found exactly what that song was missing: a fiddle.

- Fanfarlo - They have a pleasant Arcade Fire quality.

rock climbing

This is a picture from the south location of the Austin Rock Gym. I started taking weekly lessons here on March 1st. I heart rock climbing. It's the perfect kind of exercising for me. I tend to enjoy things that involve problem solving. Working out has always been hard for me to get into because mentally I can't get over the repetition. After 15 minutes of running I want to be doing anything but running. Climbing is a constant test of what logically seems possible and what is actually possible. Plus you actually get to accomplish something, as small as it may be, every single time you do it. After the two hours of class I want to do more. I'm not sure what's going to happen when the lessons are over since I took all of this on as a solo venture. I imagine I'll pay the monthly membership fee to practice more and then who knows? I really like the learning aspect and I'm concerned that when I stop being taught I'll stop knowing how to challenge myself. I guess this dilemma is similar to the one everyone faces when they stop taking any kind of class. Huh.

2009 is Cached: Not Another Reflective Post

I thought about doing one of those year-end recaps, but I'm over 2009. It wasn't especially bad or good, I'm just over it and more than ready to look forward.

A couple things to work on for 2010:

-I'm not really in bad shape when it comes to health and fitness so I don't feel the need to burden myself with some sort of workout resolution. I'm good about keeping myself in check. When the extra pounds start to push 5 or higher I work on it. Otherwise I just go as I feel like it.

-I cooked a lot last year and I plan to keep it up. I'd like to thank allrecipes.com for constantly giving me the confidence to tackle new things.

-Currently, I need to try to avoid becoming a gossipy old woman from a Jane Austen novel. I like making friends and I like when people feel close to me. One cheap way to do this is to put myself dead in the center of everything whether I belong there or not. A few weeks ago I tried to set up two coworkers. I regularly pass on juicy information to friends with relish. I've been trying to cut this habit for decades. It's dangerous territory and the instant I suffer any backlash I want out and immediately regret my decision to open my big mouth. I need to try to cut back on this ASAP. (I'm realistic. I know I can't give up gossip...it's a little essential to having friendships with girls. But I need to stop throwing myself into it with such abandon.)

-2010 is the year I finally get a good job. It just has to be. I'm tired of living at the poverty line and limiting all travel because I can't afford any frivolous expense.

Other than those things I can't think of any life plans worth noting. I'd like to get to Chicago for a visit and I'm still juggling plans to get to Paris (all of this is conditional on the good job plan).