Out and Back

Morning ramble

The posts here have been fewer and farther between, I know, but I had some time this morning and thought I would throw a few words up here to keep little Out and Back's bloggy heart beating. I'm writing this post from Christiansburg, VA. Hubby and I arrived on Saturday to hang with my brother, sister-in-law, and not quite six month old nephew for the weekend. We're heading back to SC this morning, but it has been a wonderful visit. My nephew is a very sunny little guy, quite even-tempered for a baby. My husband and I had fun holding, playing with, and reading to him at several points during the course of the weekend.

In other news, my husband will be finishing his PhD coursework this semester, after which he'll be able to dedicate himself full time to researching and writing his dissertation (he's already started work on it but I know he's looking forward to being able to give it more of his attention.) I got a promotion at work at the start of the year, too, which is exciting. More interesting projects and challenging clients are coming my way, and I'll be cross-training on a third product this year which I guess makes me a triple threat -- in any event, it makes me much more billable. We also might be leaving our little apartment in the upstate and moving to Charleston this summer, and we are both excited about that.

I'm still on the road quite a bit -- Texas this week, Kansas the week after, and upstate NY and Texas again in February (so far.) I've also got two local clients, which is a nice break from the norm. Imagine, commuting by car instead of by plane!

Thirty-seven?!

Using today's entry to wish my husband a very happy 37th birthday.

Love you, honey!

I'm here

Made it to South Carolina yesterday afternoon after a night at the somewhat shady Blue Jay Budget Host in Salem, VA.  (I did get to spend Saturday afternoon and evening with my brother and sister-in-law... we went to a Japanese hibachi place for dinner and then watched Good Night and Good Luck at their new condo.)

I like our new apartment, despite it being a little worn around the edges.  (It's funny... I've gone from living in a house built in 1891 to a two-story townhouse-style apartment built in the 1970s, and it's the 1970's place that I describe as being "worn around the edges.")  At any rate, the complex is very quiet, and the apartment is cozy.  We have a lot of stuff.  My husband has already been here for two weeks so he's managed to accomplish a lot of the unpacking, but I imagine I will spend the next couple of weeks doing a little rearranging and making as efficient use of our limited space as possible.  Two words: visible storage.

When I arrived yesterday, one of the first things my husband did was show me the six-pack of Yuengling Black & Tan in the fridge -- I am so happy to be able to get it down here!  We went out for dinner to the Mexican restaurant across the street and then hit the Bi-Lo for a few groceries.  (Where, I might add, I was pleased to note that they carry Yuengling's Light Lager, which is one of the best light beers you'll ever taste.)

I was awakened this morning by Dorabella pushing her way into our bedroom (the door doesn't quite latch, so a tenacious kitty can easily shove it open with her nose), announcing her presence with a meow, and hopping up onto our bed.  It is still kind of strange to see my husband, my pets, and my stuff in a totally different context, but it feels like a bit of a fresh start, too.  This morning I saw a mama cat and her four kittens frolicking a few patios over... the kittens were trying to climb a statue of St. Francis, which seemed appropriate.  I have no doubt the real St. Francis would have raised no objection to having kittens climb on him or push their way into his room first thing in the morning.

Memory

I have been thinking about memory lately.  Memory, like broken glass that gets ground into a fine powder over time.  Every so often, though, you can stumble onto a piece that is still sharp enough to cut you.

Rolling downhill

I can't believe July is almost over.  It feels to me like Independence Day was just a few minutes ago.  So much has happened in the past couple of months and a whole heck of a lot is going to happen in the next few weeks that my head is starting to spin from the jam-packed-ness of it all.

We had a yard sale on Saturday morning (well, technically more of a sidewalk sale since our yard is pretty small) and managed to sell off a bunch of books, housewares, electronics, tools, and other gadgets that we no longer need.  A friend from work came by on Sunday to pay me for our kitchen table and chairs.  (Our new place doesn't have an eat-in kitchen, so we'll eat off of my grandmother's dining room table every day instead.)  It's been interesting sorting through things, getting rid of them, and noticing the growing absence of clutter in our house.  It's as though we are beginning our disappearing act, book by book, unused gadget by unused gadget.  Soon there will be no trace of us left, except for my seahorse tiles in the basement powder room, the flowers in the yard, and my husband's shop-vac, which he is kindly leaving behind for our house's new owner.  There will also be the little dimples in the softwood floors, left by my spiky heels.  A little cat hair, too, no doubt. 

It's funny what we leave behind.

Feelin' hot, hot, hot

It's been unbearably hot here the last couple of days, as it has been around most of the country.  I was watching Al Roker's weather map yesterday morning and the entire country was bright red with the exception of a teensy strip of yellow along the Washington and Oregon coastlines.  I have to admit, seeing that made me a little homesick.

My "ForecastFox" extension for my Firefox web browser has been showing the "exploding thermometer" icon for the past few days... or is it a smoldering thermometer?  I don't know.  Either way, the rising mercury has certainly been foretold.

There was a bit on the local news the other night about the high temperatures and the relative lack of places to get cool in our fair city.  (Well, you can go to WildWater Kingdom at Dorney Park if you can spare the nearly $40 it costs to get in.)  In order to discourage people from swimming in quarries or the Lehigh River, the mayor announced yesterday that on days when the National Weather Service warns us that it's going to be bloody hot, all the public pools in Allentown will be free for residents.  Isn't that nice?

Weather like this makes me think of slurpees, popsicles, lemonade, and running through the sprinkler in the front yard.  I also think of the house I grew up in and the fact that we didn't have air conditioning.  Fortunately for us, it never got that hot in Seattle in the summer, and we could usually get by with a couple of fans.  Our apartment in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, had a single gigantic air conditioner in the hallway that connected the living room with our bedroom.  Because of its location, it blew cold air in the wrong direction -- right at the closet door in the hall.  My husband and I rigged up a diverter system with a length of metal dryer-venting hose so that the cold air would blow into both the living room and the bedroom at the same time.  Our landlord was impressed.

A little clarification

The recent comment about this post got me thinking.  My initial post about Kristin Armstrong's Glamour article was a little vague... one of those on-the-fly, I-just-read-this-and-I-think-it-rocks posts.  I didn't go into a lot of depth about why I liked the article.

I liked the article in large part because the phenomenon that Kristin Armstrong describes has HAPPENED TO ME: 

Here is the truth as I see it: Marriage has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity. If you aren't careful, it can tempt you to become a "yes woman" for the sake of salvaging your romantic dream. It can lure you into a pattern of pleasing that will turn you into someone you'll hardly recognize and probably won't like. I am warning you because I only wish someone had warned me.

My feelings on this subject and my agreement with Armstrong have nothing to do with whether or not I am a feminist.  This is not about man-hating or bra-burning.  This is about identity, about the sense of self, and about holding on "to the bright, hard flame of who [we are.]"

I mentioned earlier that some of what Armstrong describes has happened to me.  When I got engaged, I fell for the fairy tale, the Cinderella story.  (Anyone, male or female, who has been married will agree with me, for certain, that marriages are not fairy tales.  They take work.)  And yet society sends a message -- particularly to young women -- that marriages are fairy tales.  (Look at all the bridal magazines, websites, and wedding books if you don't believe me.) 

Anyway.... I got married and became the "yes woman" that Kristin Armstrong describes, following my husband from city to city and supporting him (emotionally, intellectually, and financially) as he pursued academic degrees and a career.  His goals became our goals, his priorities, our priorities.  At first it was fine, fun even, because I was 24 and enjoyed the adventure involved in moving around, exploring new places, and, most of all, the thrill of being in love.  But, as Kristin Armstrong writes, "The beauty of a wife is in her being, not in her doing.  During those years I perfected my doing and neglected my being."  The same is true for me.  Somewhere over the course of the past six months or so, I realized that I was turning into a stranger, both to my husband and myself.  It's a little disconcerting to look in the mirror and barely recognize yourself.

I'm going to pause here and say that I don't blame my husband or the institution of marriage for any of this.  I think I blame the myth, the "marriage conspiracy" that Armstrong writes about.  Also, I am the one who is responsible for my being, for maintaining my identity.  And I have been neglecting myself.  One of the reasons I started therapy back in February was to start to work on reclaiming my identity.  Things have been challenging in my marriage lately because I am now more likely to challenge my husband to think in terms of what is best for us as a couple rather than solely on his goals and aspirations.  And isn't a healthy sense of give and take, of compromise, essential to a good marriage?  Isn't a good marriage one where both partners have a strong sense of who they are and an ability to support one another and bring out the best in each other?

Or is it really all just about the beer and the sandwich?

Perhaps I am too close to this subject to be able to see the truth clearly.  I don't think so, though.  All I know is that reading this article made me cry out of sheer relief.  There is nothing as reassuring as discovering that maybe you're not crazy, that maybe the things that have been bothering you have been bothering someone else, too.

Yowza

I debated about what to do with this comment, left in response to my post about the article by Kristin Armstrong.  Should I delete it?  Should I go on one of my famous tirades?  In the end, I just decided to leave it.  This dude illustrates my point perfectly:

Didn't feminists drink this whine in the 60's?
Aren't women wising up and realizing that being a wife and mother is better than working themselves to death in the salt mines of capitalism?
I know what would make you feel better sweetheart - make me a sandwich and bring me a beer while you are at it.

My inner anthropologist is positively fascinated. I had no idea men like this still existed.  How quaint.

O fortune....

I needed to get out of the house yesterday afternoon, so I trucked over to Bethlehem to visit In the Mood, one of my favorite shops.  In the Mood is hard to describe.  No, it's not a lingerie store or a sex toy emporium, despite what the name might suggest.  Rather, it's an eclectic little shop with all kinds of interesting things, ranging from clothing to decorative items to cookbooks to vintage-style Christmas decorations and greeting cards.  Whenever I go there, I always find at least one or two things that I had no idea I needed, but can't possibly live without.

Today was no different.  I left with a pink sack holding three items: a little metal sign that reads "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?", the The Housewives Tarot, and a Fortune-Telling Birthday Book.  This third item is the one I'm most excited about.  It's a little red leather-bound perpetual calendar with space to record people's birthdays.  For each date, there is a fortune for people born on that day.  For example, the fortune for my birthday, May 14, reads:

You can attain any goal you really set your heart on.  You are determined, independent, dominating, and sometimes inclined to be headstrong.  Your mind is clear and alert, and it absorbs and retains what you see and hear.  You are sincere and generous in your love.  You are a loyal friend and a bitter enemy.

If you email me or leave a comment with your birthday, I'll tell you what your fortune is.  You need to know, right?

Amen, sister!

I was browsing on Glamour.com during my lunch break, and I found this article, written by Kristin Armstrong (Lance Armstrong's ex-wife.)

It totally knocked me on my ass.  Kristin echoes in this piece many of the same thoughts and questions and concerns I have had about marriage over the past six years.  It was a relief to realize that I am not alone.

In the very first paragraph, Kristin speaks of the marriage "conspiracy theory" that I've suspected exists for a long time now.  Reading this article was like having a conversation with a good friend, or perhaps even with my ideal self.

This is powerful stuff.

It's OK to put yourself first sometimes

It's OK to put yourself first sometimes.  That's a lesson I learned -- or rather, re-learned -- today.

Lately I have been feeling like I'm shedding my skin.  There is a weight slowly being lifted from my shoulders.  I feel new, revived, refreshed, all positive things...... but I also feel tender and vulnerable, the way I imagine reptiles feel right after shedding their old skin.

I spent the first 30 years of my life looking at the world in a certain way and living life a certain way, and I'm starting to feel the rumblings of a major seismic event.  The paradigm is definitely shifting.

Freedom

Been thinking a lot about the concept of freedom today.... not freedom in the rah-rah, God-Bless-America kind of way, but of a more personal freedom.  The feeling of independence, of limitless possibility, of self-sufficiency and inner strength.

There was a time in my life when I felt that kind of freedom.  Interestingly, I think I actually appreciated it for what it was at the time was experiencing it, which isn't often the case with life experiences.  There's a reason the old "hindsight is 20/20" adage has been around for so long.  But anyway, I was free.  Every day was full of possibility.  Things weren't perfect... there were a lot of obstacles and challenges to be faced, but my life felt richer than it ever had.

I miss that sometimes.

20s Milestone #1 - Moving on

I considered and dismissed several potential #1 20s milestones over the course of the past week.  Some of them seemed rather important at first blush, only to deteriorate into minor episodes after a few hours or days of consideration.  I thought about when I graduated from college, about the time I wrecked my car on my way to Seattle for a Buddy Guy concert, about the time I broke my ankle, just seven weeks before my college graduation.  (I had to have pins and plates put in and they remain in place to this day.)

None of that stuff seemed to matter as much as the 20s milestone I experienced this weekend, though.... leaving my 20s behind.  Turning 30 is a huge 20s milestone -- I know it sounds contradictory, but bear with me.  As I roll over into the new decade, I'm trying to honor the experiences I had in the previous one.  In addition, though, I'm turning over a new leaf, starting a new chapter... call it what you will.

So I've reached the conclusion that the biggest, most potentially life-altering, most #1 milestone of my 20s was simply moving out of them.

Happy birthday to me!

20s Milestone #2 - Marriage

I've mentioned my husband more than a few times on this blog.  He figures in many of my stories.  Marrying him (when I was 24 and he was 30) is definitely a milestone from my 20s.

I know I've written before about how when I met him I was still trying to get over someone else but I was also trying to throw myself back into the dating pool.  By the time I met him, I'd figured out that it's better to keep your expectations low on first dates.  Because what is a first date after all but an audition for a second date?  When I went out with Robust Zinfandel I was convinced that our first date would lead to a serious relationship, marriage, kids, the works.  Boy was I wrong. 

So when I set up my first date with my now-husband, I wasn't really expecting anything out of the ordinary.  To tell the truth, I was expecting to have a marginally nice time and never hear from him again, because that seemed to be the pattern that was establishing itself.

Again, boy was I wrong.  (In a good way.)

We clicked.  We found we had things in common, and we also found that we had complementary differences.  I was blue and he was orange, to put it in art class terms.  After our first date in February of 2000 (lunch at a bistro that is no longer in business, followed by coffee at a well-known coffee chain) I drove home and checked my email.  He'd already sent me a message asking for another date and flirtatiously remarking how cute he thought I was.

We saw each other every week after that, and in June, we decided to get married.  I planned a wedding in six weeks, which in and of itself is an achievement.  (It was a nice wedding, too.  There isn't much I would change if I had it to do over again.)

More important than the milestone of getting married, though, are the lessons that marriage has taught me.  First of all, marriage isn't perfect.  It's not for sissies.  It really does take a heck of a lot of work.  I've realized as I've gotten older that people (young women especially) are sort of programmed to want to get married.  I'm sure that part of it is a biological drive... you know, propogate the species, etc., etc.... but I'm also quite sure that part of it is societal.  There is so much information out there about how to have the perfect wedding that a bride-to-be could positively drown in it.  I've been to weddings that were more like coronations than wedding ceremonies, where the bride is the star of the show and more important than who she's marrying is the china pattern she picked or the one-of-a-kind Vera Wang dress that her father spent a fortune on that she's only going to wear once.  I always predict, with a wry grin, that the marriages that result from extravagant weddings are always going to be the first to unravel.

I'm starting to sound bitter.  I'm really not.  It's just that I wish people wouldn't get suckered into the idea that marriage is this perfect panacea.... it isn't the be-all and end-all.  It's just another step we take in life.  And it isn't always easy and it isn't always perfect.  Despite this, I'm grateful every day that I found a great partner in life, even on the days when I'd like to throttle him.

I guess part of growing up and being an adult is learning that you have to work at things, marriage included.  I'm glad I learned that lesson.

20s Milestone #3 - My House

I bought my first house at the age of 28, here in beautiful Allentown, PA.  (Of course, my husband was part of the process too, but he's been a homeowner before while I was truly a first-time homebuyer.)

When we knew that we were going to be moving from Philadelphia to the Lehigh Valley, we decided to explore the possibility of buying a house instead of continuing to rent.  We'd been renting since we got married, and we thought we'd be living in the area long enough that a house would be a sound investment.  We'd both dreamed of buying an older home and fixing it up, and the gorgeous housing stock in the Lehigh Valley was appealing to both of us.

Hubby found a realtor and started looking at the listings that were emailed to him on a regular basis.  We made a couple of trips up to the area from Philly to drive around and check out neighborhoods.  My husband researched schools, even though we don't have kids, because the quality of a community's schools is a good marker of desirable places to live.  We got prequalified for a mortgage so we would know just how much house we could afford.  Finally, it was time to dive in and look at some houses.

We visited several properties over the course of a couple of weeks, and our realtor was great about showing us a good mix of houses we had expressed an interest in as well as houses he'd found on his own that were similar to what we were looking for.  And he wasn't fazed at all if, after walking through the front door of a house, we decided to turn around and walk right back out again.

We found an interesting old house in Salisbury Township.  It was on a hill overlooking Bethlehem, and you could see the Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces from the front porch.  The house had been inhabited by an eldery woman who was now in a nursing home, and her sons were selling the place in order to cover the cost of her nursing home care.

The house was old and it needed a lot of fixing up.  I had visions of ripping out the dropped ceiling, pulling the fake paneling off the walls downstairs, and completely renovating the kitchen.  My husband and I both dreamed of planting lots of flowers and shrubbery in the gigantic yard, and we were excited by the attic space, which had potential to become a big bedroom or office space.  We put in an offer and it was accepted.  The house was ours.

Ours, that is, until the home inspection.  The home inspector, who specialized in older properties, discovered that at least one floor joist and both the front and rear sills had sustained massive termite damage.  And that was just what he could see.  Suddenly my husband and I were faced with the prospect of jacking the house up off of its foundation in order to replace the damaged areas... and we wouldn't know the full extent of the damage until we really got in there and started rooting around.

The sellers wouldn't budge on the price, nor would they help with the cost of repairing the damage, so we took advantage of the contingency clause in our offer, got out, and got our earnest money back.  Any doubts we'd had about whether or not we'd made the right decision were swept away when we got the results of the radon test -- the radon levels in the basement of that house were something like 40 times the acceptable levels as established by the EPA.  The damn house was radioactive!

I can look back on the process as a learning experience now, but at the time, I was a wreck.  I get attached to things, and was already thinking of that house as home.  I thought the homebuying process was really just a form of torture -- you make the offer, you wait to see if it's accepted, you bounce counteroffers back and forth, all the while praying that a) some other buyer doesn't snake you with a better offer and b) your home inspection doesn't turn up some kind of horrible damage after you've already got your heart set on a place.  It's ridiculous.

We found our house in Allentown soon after.  I was really excited by it - it seemed like a good first home for the two of us, and it was move-in ready but it still had plenty of potential for improvements, too.  My husband was dubious, but I convinced him to make an offer, so we did.  The process went much more smoothly the second time around, and we closed on May 24, 2004, just ten days after my 28th birthday.

Nothing made me feel like more of a grownup than seeing my name on the deed to my first home.  Now and again, when I want to pull rank on my husband, I remind him that my name is listed first on the deed so that's got to count for something.  He just laughs.  People often say, "there's nothing like your first (fill in the blank)," and when it comes to houses I think that's true.  When we sell that house, I know I will mourn a little, and even after we're long gone, I'm sure I'll continue to think of the place as "mine."

20s Milestone #4 - Cancer

When I was 27, my mother started having unusual facial pain.  Her doctor diagnosed it initially as trigeminal neuralgia, and put her on one of the tried-and-true medications for this condition.  She started having blurry vision, and since this is a side effect of the drug she was taking, her pharmacist told her to half the dosage.  The problem persisted, and eventually she couldn't see colors at all out of her right eye.  After a few CT scans and an MRI, it was clear that there was some kind of inflammatory process going on in her head, so they did a biopsy.  It turned out she had non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and it had started in her sphenoid sinus cavity, which is a really wacky location for lymphoma.  (I'm still waiting for her oncologist to publish a paper about her!)  Fortunately, it was an aggressive cancer, and, counterintuitively, the agressive forms of lymphoma are the ones that actually respond better to treatment.

She had the traditional work-ups and staging, and it was determined that she was at Stage I, which was a good sign.  Since the cancer was in an inoperable location and since radiation would have blinded her, her only real option was chemotherapy, so she began a six month course soon after her diagnosis.  Blessedly, the visual symptoms and the pain receded after the first treatment -- another very good sign.

Just a couple of weeks after my mother was diagnosed with lymphoma, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He needed surgery (a bowel resection) to get rid of his.  I was living in Philly at the time and my parents were living in Seattle, so as you can imagine it was very difficult for me to be so far away from my parents at such a scary time.  When my father's surgery was scheduled, I made arrangements to fly to Seattle to help out while he was recovering.

I spent ten days with my parents in Seattle... I took my mother to her monthly chemo session, sat with my dad in the hospital, and generally tried to help keep up with things around the house.  My mother was exhausted and sick from the chemo treatments (her white cell count plummeted) so she needed all the help she could get.  In addition, although my father's surgery had gone well, he experienced a number of post-op complications that kept him hospitalized for longer than any of us had anticipated.

I write about this as a milestone because it was the first time, as an adult, that I had to confront the reality of my parents' mortality.  I had to confront my fears of hospitals and sickness and death and see my parents at their most vulnerable and frail.  It was an emotional roller coaster ride for me, and I know it could only have been a hundred or a thousand times worse for my mother and father.  When I took my mom in for her chemo infusion, we sat waiting in the exam room for the oncologist.  My mom showed me some information on the chemo drugs she was getting, and as I sat there reading all of the weird, toxic things they contained and the horrible side effects my mother was experiencing as a result, the reality of what both my parents were going through hit me like a freight train.  My mother turned to me and said, "Jeanne, if I don't survive this, please promise me that you'll take care of your father."  It was all I could do to keep from collapsing into a puddle onto the floor.

Despite the fact that it is a parent's job to raise their child to be self-sufficient and independent, I believe that there is a powerful part of every person that still identifies with being a small child, dependent on mom and dad's care and nurturing.  And when the little child in all of us has to face the mortality of the ones who gave us life, it can be devastating.

I consider this time in my life a milestone because I confronted that devastating mortality and I came out stronger for it.  My parents came out stronger too -- they both survived.  My mom has had no recurrence of symptoms since that first chemo treatment, and my father's colon remains clean as a whistle.  They are a little older and a little more fragile than they once were, but that fragility is easier for me to witness.... perhaps because now I appreciate them more.

20s Milestone #5 - Italy and NYC

The number 5 milestone from my 20s took place between January and August of 1997.  I was a junior in college and, like a lot of juniors at small, private liberal arts colleges, I decided to do a semester abroad.  My destination was Milan, Italy -- a fabulous choice, considering I was pursuing a degree in Art History.

I was 20 years old (I celebrated my 21st birthday while there) and this sojourn was full of firsts.  It was the first time my then-boyfriend and I were going to spend an extended time apart.  It was my first time traveling alone, my first time living in a foreign country, and my first time being truly self-reliant.  It was a big deal, and the anxiety was unbearable.

There was also the matter of my boyfriend at the time.  This guy was the first really serious boyfriend I'd ever had and I was terrified of losing him, so going abroad for six months was definitely a scary prospect at the time.  (Of course, now, if I had it to do over again I'd have dumped his ass and entertained a few Italian hotties while I was over there.)

After a week or two of stumbling my way through the language (my fluency in Spanish allowed me to more or less understand what people were saying to me because the two languages are quite similar, but it took some time for my vocabulary to catch up) and smacking into culture shock at unexpected times, I settled right in to life in Italy.  Milan is a beautiful city, with a little more hustle and bustle than its neighbors in the southern part of Italy. 

I lived in an apartment building with three other American girls on the western edge of the city.  My street was Via Valsesia.  I had to ride the #58 bus to the Bisceglie metro stop (the red line) and take that to get into the city center, switching to the green line if I happened to be on my way to class.  One of the first Italian words I learned was sciopero, or strike, because the cab drivers and public transit workers were frequently doing that.

I recall odd things about my time in Italy -- like washing my underwear in the bathroom sink, taking my jeans to the dry cleaners (we didn't have a washing machine -- few Italians do, and no one has a dryer.)  I went to see the Star Wars trilogy dubbed in Italian.  I spent a lot of time in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie gazing at Leonardo's Last Supper.  I cried when I first saw the Duomo, and stood in awe looking at Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta, which was the sculpture he was working on when he died.  I ate Pocket Coffees and drank grappa.  I grocery shopped.  I learned to make coffee in one of those stovetop espresso pots (affectionately called casalinghe -- housewives -- in Italian.)  I snacked on gelato, and became an expert at combining flavors (chocolate and mint was my favorite combo.)

I traveled to the Italian Alps, Venice, Verona, Florence, and Rome, and I spent some time in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Munich, too.  I saw works of art that had previously only existed in textbooks.  I got strep throat and an ear infection, the flu, and a few lousy foreign colds, but I persevered.  (I was running a 100+ degree temperature the day I visited the Vatican museum, but I told my traveling companions I was going to the Vatican even if they had to carry me in on a stretcher.  Come to think of it, that would have been an ideal way to look at the Sistine Chapel ceiling....)

While I was over there, I learned I'd been accepted for a summer internship at an auction house in New York, so after a couple of weeks at home in Seattle, I was off again to New York City to live for a couple of months.  I had the time of my life between January and August of 1997... the lessons in self-sufficiency that I had been picking up in college were reinforced by my trip abroad and my stay in NYC.  I became more confident, more comfortable navigating the streets of foreign places.  The memories from those days stand out in sharp relief.  I learned how to rely on myself, take care of myself, and trust myself, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

The last week of my 20s

On Sunday, 5/14/06, I'm turning 30.  Crossing over out of my 20s and into my 30s.... wow.  It is hard to believe that the things that happened to me when I was ten years old now happened TWENTY YEARS AGO.  Whoa, baby.  It boggles the mind.

I have been alternately looking forward to and fearing this milestone birthday.  When I was 27, 28, I couldn't wait to hit my 30s.  I felt like turning 30 would bring with it a certain level of credibility.  Throughout my career, people frequently commented (without even knowing my age), "You look so young!  Do you have any experience doing this kind of work?"  It got kind of insulting, to tell the truth.  I got quite used to being the youngest person in the office, the youngest person on whatever non-profit board I was serving on, etc.

That's starting to change... I'm not the youngest person in my office anymore, haven't been for quite some time.  But I still look young.  Just last year, I was in Baltimore for a few days of R&R. (My hubby was attending a conference and I tagged along.)  As an early birthday present for myself, I booked myself into a spa for a full day of treatments, including a facial.  The esthetician (love that word!) asked me how old I was as she scrutinized my pores.  I said, "I turn 29 on Saturday," and she gasped and exclaimed, "No way!  Your skin doesn't look like a 29-year-old's!"  She went on to compliment me on taking such good care of my face.  (Don't ask me what my secret is, because I totally don't know.  I am a former smoker, I eat way too much junk food, I've had some pretty bad sunburns and a few bouts with acne, and I'm not exactly religious about my skin care routine.  I think maybe she was just trying to butter me up to get a better tip.)

Since sometime around Christmas, though, I've been feeling a little freaked out about turning 30.  There's something very final about hitting your 30s, especially in the youth-obsessed, hottie-loving culture in which we live.  It signifies the end of youth and the beginning of true adulthood.  Some people might argue that graduating from college is the beginning of adulthood, but I beg to differ. Twentysomething college graduates can get away with stuff that people in their 30s can't.  There's this unspoken expectation that once you reach 30, you're supposed to have your shit together.  My shit is so not together. 

I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't hearing the tick-tick-tick of the biological clock.  At my last visit to the gynecologist, she gave me the "Well, if you want to have a baby you'd better do it soon because you'll basically dry up after age 35" speech.  She even told me a story about a patient of hers in her late 40s who had gone off of the pill because she wanted to have a baby with her boyfriend.  The patient returned a few months later in tears because when she went off the pill she discovered she was menopausal, and her boyfriend had left her because she couldn't bear children anymore.  (Talk about harsh!  Both the b/f for leaving her and my gyno for telling me that story!  Ouch.) Truth told, I'm not even sure I want a kid.  Circumstances may not permit a kid.  But I guess I'd like to have the option and I'm realizing that if I don't get my shit together soon (there's that phrase again) it ain't happenin'.  I was having a phone conversation with a single male friend of mine not long ago and he mentioned that when he goes out to meet women, a lot of the women his age (29) already have kids.  That was kind of a wake-up call, too.

I've decided that this week I'm going to be introspective and formulate a list of my favorite milestone moments from my 20s.  (Sort of like Rob Gordon, John Cusack's character in the movie High Fidelity, with his compulsive top-five lists.  Love that movie.)  It seems like a good way to put my 20s to bed and at the same time clear the slate for whatever my 30s may hold.

Tune in tomorrow for number five.

I've been away

I've been away for a bit.  I'm back now... got back on Monday but have been busier than the proverbial one-legged man... you know the rest.

Out and Back is temporarily closed for repairs.  I'll be back on a more regular blogging schedule next week sometime, I think.  (I'm entertaining some really obnoxious houseguests at the moment... also known as "my family.")

More death-defying thrills next week....

Hey, blondie!

I'm known for coloring my hair.  It's an easy way to change something about myself without spending a lot of money or a lot of time.  I always do it myself... I have my favorite haircolor brands and shades, and I've been doing it long enough that it's practically second nature.  I've only had my hair colored in a salon a few times, but now I think I'm good enough at it that I'll never need to have it done in a salon again.

I colored my hair about three weeks ago, in an attempt to lighten it for spring.  It didn't take the way I expected it to -- it didn't look bad, it just wasn't as light as I wanted it.  So last night I decided to start over.  I bought a haircolor remover kit along with a box of one of my tried-and-true shades (L'Oreal Superior Preference 8 1/2 A, "Champagne Blonde") and went to town.

I applied the remover first, to get all of the old color out of my hair.  The stuff smells rank and makes my hair feel as brittle as straw (I'm terrified of leaving it on too long and watching my hair break off in chunks) but once I rinsed and shampooed I had a clean canvas to which I could apply the new color.

After stripping my hair, my husband asked me why I didn't just leave it alone.  I told him that the color remover doesn't restore one's natural color, because hair dyes lighten your hair as part of the dyeing process, so when you remove the color your hair is usually bleached all to hell.  (This necessitates applying a new color.)  Sure enough, my hair was a lovely, brassy orange.  My husband thought it was cool.  I thought it was weird, especially considering that my roots were their natural light brown.

After drying my hair, I applied the new color and left it on for 25 minutes according to the instructions.  After rinsing and conditioning, I had a nice head of golden-blonde hair.  My hair is naturally light brown, so I have to be careful when lightening it.... if I'm too conservative, I don't get any results, but if I use something too light, my hair turns orange.  8 1/2 A always seems to strike the right balance.

So yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am now a blonde.  As my husband put it, "Wow, you look like you've already lost a few brain cells."

Love you too, honey!

Well, that's one way to solve the traffic problems in Seattle

My super cool and nifty brother emailed me this link the other day... it's a clever little April Fool's joke that was posted at HistoryLink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington state history.  Needless to say, it gave me a chuckle.

For the uninitiated, my hometown of Seattle has been struggling with the issue of replacing the antiquated, dangerous, and downright scary Alaskan Way Viaduct for quite a while now.  In addition, Seattle, for all its progressiveness, has been slow to get a decent public transit system up and running.  (All they've got is the crappy Metro bus system... no light rail, no subways, no streetcars... nada.)  We do have the monorail... a holdover from the '62 World's Fair, but the only thing that's good for is shuttling folks from the Seattle Center to the Westlake Mall.  (When it's not busted, that is.)

I don't know... the Scream Line sounds like a mighty fine idea to me.  Just think, you get your morning adrenaline rush on the way to work, and you get to blow off steam from a tough day on the job on your way home.  Coffee sales would plummet... uh-oh, Starbucks.

Bad news

I got some bad news yesterday.

I'm still trying to process it.

I have been crying a lot.

I want to talk about it, but I'm not sure where to begin.  I would like to blog about it but that would entail revealing more secrets about myself than I care to at this point.

Here is a thought that has come up in the wake of this bad news.  I've said that I believe in karma. (See #66 on my 100 Things About Me list.)  I'm often the one who quips, "Well, what goes around comes around," or "You reap what you sow" or "You made your bed, now lie in it" in a given situtation.  Now I'm not so sure I believe any of that stuff anymore.  Maybe I believe in forgiveness, redemption, and unconditional love more than karma.  Can the two beliefs co-exist?  I don't know.

I would like to think that there is a balance to this crazy universe... that there is some sort of cosmic system that balances out the bad with good, that hands out punishment and reward in equal measure.  That someone up there is keeping track.  That, as the Buddhists believe, every action counts.  But then something will happen (like yesterday) that will make me stop and question all of that. 

Maybe I just need to stop trying so hard to make order out of the chaos that is life.  A little clutter never hurt anyone.

Damn, this stuff really works

Every so often, I will admit to being a girly-girl.  I have dull skin right now, and my regular cleansing/exfoliating/moisturizing routine isn't cutting it.  So I went to my local CVS in search of one of those home facial peel or microdermabrasion kits in the hopes of freshening up my face a little bit.

After careful deliberation, I decided to go with the Roc Resurfacing Facial Peel Kit.  Yes, it cost $25, but it's something you use once a week and as I discovered when I got home, a little of this stuff goes a long way.  I was a little nervous -- I have sensitive skin and I was afraid that I would break out in a horrible rash, but I followed the instructions, left the facial peel stuff on for just five minutes, and voila -- a noticeable difference in my skin's tone and texture.  Some rough spots near my chin were smoothed out, and my rather blotchy winter skin tone was vastly improved.  And I haven't yet broken out in a rash, which is good.  The post-peel moisturizer that you put on afterward feels nice, too.

So ladies, if you're looking for a way to freshen up your skin, this Roc thingy is a good way to go.  It's cheaper than a facial, that's for sure.

100 Things About Me: 76-100

76.  I played trombone in the middle school band.  I was the only girl in the trombone section.

77.  I once did a meditation to discover my animal spirit guide.  It was a hippopotamus.  I have a silver hippo ring that I wear on my right thumb.

78.  I am fascinated by zebras, komodo dragons, and panda bears.

79.  When I die, I have instructed my husband (or whomever survives me) to scatter my ashes at Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY.

80.  I have secrets.

81.  I wear my sunglasses at night.

82.  I don't believe in organized religion.

83.  Both my mom and my grandmother are native Floridians.

84.  My maternal grandparents had a lot of siblings, so I have a lot of great aunts and great uncles and scores of cousins.

85.  I turn thirty this year (2006) and am alternately looking forward to it and dreading it.

86.  I own a cocktail shaker and enjoy making myself cosmopolitans and apple martinis every now and again.

87.  My job involves saying thank you on a regular basis.

88.  I took piano and voice lessons at various times between the ages of six and eighteen.

89.  I own an acoustic guitar but I don't play very well.

90.  Counting backwards from a ridiculously high number is one of the techniques I use when I'm having trouble falling asleep.

91.  I love the blues.

92.  I don't wear makeup very often (other than lipstick) but when I do, my cosmetics line of choice is Dior.

93.  If I had to choose between going shopping or going to a baseball game, nine times out of ten I would choose the baseball game.

94.  I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington.  And no, it doesn't rain there as much as everybody seems to think it does.

95.  I am a hopeless romantic.  It gets me into trouble sometimes.

96.  I have been married to my husband for five and a half years.

97.  I dream of someday owning a fully restored 1959 Chevrolet El Camino and driving it around town to go to and from work, run errands, etc.

98.  I have a weakness for luxury goods, most notably designer shoes and accessories.

99.  I am one of those rare individuals who is both a cat and a dog person (though at the moment I only have cats -- two of them.)

100.  I make an awesome spaghetti sauce -- from scratch.

100 Things About Me: 51-75

51.  When my cat Violetta died, I asked to keep her ashes.  They are in a little box on a shelf in my office.

52.  I profess a weakness for McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

53.  I own a cribbage board, but I haven't played in a long time.

54.  One day I would like to take a cross-country train trip, with a sleeper car and everything.

55.  I read a lot of different magazines, including Cosmo and Glamour.

56.  I spend a lot of money on books.  I know I can get books from the library but I prefer to own them.

57.  I admire drag queens.

58.  Despite being happily married, I have a huge crush on actor Val Kilmer.

59.  My husband is six and a half years older than me.  He was born ten days before my parents got married.

60.  I am a huge fan of comedienne Margaret Cho.

61.  I want to write a great novel one day.

62.  I like to sing old jazz standards in the shower.

63.  I have lived in the following places: Bellevue, WA; Walla Walla, WA; Milan, Italy; Cape Girardeau, MO; New York, NY; and Philadelphia, PA.

64.  I struggled with my multiplication tables as a kid.  I still have trouble with my sevens and my eights.

65.  I like to volunteer.  Currently, I sit on the board of one non-profit and I was recently elected president of another.

66.  I believe in karma.

67.  I feel most at home in an amusement park or at a carnival.

68.  I have a book dedicated to me.

69.  The number 69 makes me giggle and think inappropriate thoughts.

70.  I wear a pedometer and try to get 10,000 steps in each day. Most days I don't get there... 6,000 is usually where I end up.

71.  I'm in a lottery pool at work.  My boss is in it too because he doesn't want to be the only one still working there if we win.

72.  I think seven is my lucky number.

73.  I have two older half-brothers.

74.  I majored in Art History in college.  I don't use my major much.

75.  Cabaret is my favorite musical.  I own the movie with Liza Minelli and I saw the Broadway revival at Studio 54 a couple of years ago.

100 Things About Me: 26-50

26.  I'm a liberal Democrat.

27.  I talk to my mom at least once a week.

28.  I have never been able to fully understand why we love snow as kids but hate it as adults.

29.  I smoked pot in college.

30.  I occasionally sneak a Marlboro Light when I'm feeling stressed.

31.  My family and I have a running joke about ducks.

32.  In high school, I dated a boy whose father was Norwegian and whose mother was Japanese.

33.  I still remember the date of my first real kiss: November 20, 1991.  The boy's name was Joe.

34.  I was at a New Year's Eve party on Whidbey Island for the big "Y2K" non-event (as it turned out.)  We listened to "It's the End of the World As We Know It" by R.E.M.

35.  I almost moved to San Francisco in 2000.

36.  My mother's hamburger-macaroni bake is my favorite comfort food.

37.  I love horror movies.

38.  Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go and Busiest People Ever are still two of my favorite books.

39.  I secretly believe I am a left-handed person who became right-handed as a result of number 40 on this list.

40.  I have broken my left arm a total of four times (five if you count the time I broke my left thumb while trying to do a no-handed cartwheel in my neighbor's backyard.)

41.  I am a big fan of existentialism.

42.  I firmly believe that this number is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

43.  I have a couple of friends who are recovering alcoholics.

44.  I know someone who lost a family member in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

45.  I have a friend who has AIDS.

46.  When I was sixteen I got to see Gregory Hines performing on Broadway in the musical Jelly's Last Jam.  It was a high point for me.  I still can't believe he is no longer with us.

47.  I took dance lessons from the time I was four until I was fifteen.  I did ballet, tap, and jazz and I was decent at all of them but especially good at tap dancing.

48.  I had to turn off Last Tango in Paris when Marlon Brando brought out the butter.  I still haven't watched the whole thing.

49.  My brother was a big Pink Floyd fan when he was a teenager, and I can remember being three or four years old and dancing on his bed to The Wall.  Hearing Pink Floyd or early Genesis recordings always takes me back to my pre-school days.

50.  I sometimes think I was born in the wrong era.  I can picture myself walking the boardwalk at Coney Island in the early 1900s, or welding steel during WWII in the 1940s.

100 Things About Me: 1-25

Like a lot of bloggers before me, I decided to compile my list of 100 things about me.  Here are the first 25.

1.  I live in Allentown, Pennsylvania (yes, the same Allentown that Billy Joel wrote the song about.)

2.  I admire people who aren't afraid to stand up for what they believe in.

3.  I hate cleaning and laundry.  Fortunately, I'm married to someone who doesn't mind those things so much.

4.  I have a nervous stomach, and yet I love to ride roller coasters.

5.  I'm allergic to a lot of things.  I have to get shots every two weeks... four injections, two in each arm.

6.  I name my pets after opera characters.

7.  I live in a house that was built in 1891.

8.  I've never been to Las Vegas.

9.  When I was in the third grade, I got a little dachshund puppy named Dixie.

10.  I used to be afraid of circus clowns.

11.  I loved radio countdown shows when I was a teenager.

12.  I've gotten three speeding tickets -- all of them while I was in my 20s.

13.  I love to read advice columns.

14.  My first concert was New Kids on the Block, on September 6, 1990.  (My taste in music has improved drastically since then.)

15.  I took a painting class in college.  It was one of the hardest courses I ever took.

16.  I know how to mix hydrated hydraulic lime mortar.

17.  My most memorable birthday was my 22nd.  The guy I was dating and I went out for Mexican food and then sat in a bar drinking margaritas and watching the final episode of "Seinfeld."

18.  When I was in my early twenties, I played around with astral projection.

19.  My senior prom fell on my 18th birthday.

20.  My astrological sign is Taurus.  I was born at 7:04 p.m.

21.  In college, my birthday always fell during exam week.

22.  I celebrated my 21st birthday in Milan, Italy, drinking Italian wine in an Irish pub with a couple of my American friends.

23.  I once played Martha in a scene from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

24.  I truly believe that diamonds are a girl's best friend.

25.  I attended a Methodist church when I was a kid.

In like a lamb

Remember the old saying about the month of March... if it comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb, or vice versa?  Here in Allentown at least it's come in like a lamb although we did get some snow last week... I'm not sure if that counts as lion-like.  I'm one to picture howling winds and driving rain and thunder and lightning and all those fireworks.

I have been experiencing a great deal of self-discovery lately, but most of those discoveries have crept into my being like little lambs, with a little bleat here or there to let me know they've arrived.  Taking the lamb analogy just a bit further, I guess we could say my therapist has been like a shepherd, helping the lambs to find their way to me.  (Now I'm tempted to get really weird and start making Brokeback Mountain and Silence of the Lambs references... but I'll refrain.)

People talk about "breakthroughs" when they talk about therapy, and I'm still inclined to believe that they can happen, but I'm not sure the word "breakthrough" really applies, at least not all the time.  Sometimes they are more subtle... working their way into you without you even realizing it.  A push-through?  A sneak-through? A tiptoe-through?

Regardless, being more introspective has helped me notice the "-throughs," whatever they are.  Because we all know that lambs are quiet little creatures.  There's a reason why counting sheep is a preferred insomnia remedy.

Who controls my fate?

I was bored last night so I pulled my copy of The Psychologist's Book of Self-Tests off the shelf and attempted to gain a little insight.  One of the tests, "Who Controls Your Fate?" caught my attention and I settled in to answer the questions.  This test is comprised of 24 attitudinal statements, and each one corresponds to one of three areas: Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance.  Internality refers to "the degree to which [people] believe they control what happens to them."  Powerful Others and Chance refer to just what they sound like -- people with power who influence us and that old bugaboo, chance.  My score was off the charts on the Internality scale -- apparently I believe very firmly that I am in control of my life and where I will end up, both literally and figuratively.  My lowest score was on the Powerful Others scale, which means that I don't lend much credence to the impact that other people with more power than me might have on my life's path.  I scored slightly higher on the Chance scale, but not as high as I did on the Internality scale, so I suppose that means that I'm willing to accept that chance can play a part in the things that happen to me.

According to the test, because I have an "Internal Locus of Control," I am better off than people whose locus is external, that is, people who believe that things "happen" to them.  I can make my own destiny, as it were.  This experience reminds me of a saying I once saw on a T-shirt or a poster or something: "There are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened."

I'm glad to be in the first category.

Make that $441.91

I didn't realize until later on yesterday that my designer sunglasses (which I had inadvertently left in their case between the front seats) had also been swiped when my car got broken into.

Now I'm really pissed.  If you see someone wearing these gorgeous Oliver Peoples shades, steal 'em back for me.

I'm really not a shallow, materialistic person... but I did love those sunglasses.  They were expensive, but I bought them as a special treat and wearing them always made me feel fabulous.

This whole episode has gotten me thinking about my own karma.... if you reap what you sow, then I guess I've been sowing some bad seeds lately, or something.

At least I'm still fabulous.  You can take my sunglasses, but you can't take my fabulousness.

25 things that are bad for the soul

I found this journal prompt while trolling the internet for ideas for something to write about, and I liked it.  So... here is my list of 25 things that are bad for the soul:

1. Unfounded, unconstructive criticism.

2. Heartbreak.

3. Rained-out baseball games.

4. Boredom.

5. Panic.

Thought for the day

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's last night and this quote really struck me:

... no matter where you run, you're always going to end up running into yourself.

Ain't it the truth?

Anniversary

I've spent some time this morning thinking about the fact that 33 years ago today, the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision was handed down by the Supreme Court, making abortion legal in all 50 states.

Today is an important day in the history of women's rights in America.  Roe vs. Wade was decided three years before I was born, but it has had an impact on my life nonetheless.  I've never had an abortion, but I know women who have.  I also know that for every single one of them, it was the only viable alternative they had.  I am convinced that the Pro-Life movement is not, in fact, "pro-life" but rather, "pro-birth."  I have yet to meet someone who opposes abortion who is actually trying to do something to help find homes for unwanted children, or who advocates for family planning, comprehensive sex education, and readily available birth control.  I find it sickeningly ironic that most people who oppose abortion also oppose the availability of birth control as well as educating young people about sex and how to do it safely.

This contradiction frightens me.  Some people think I am paranoid, but I believe this opposition to abortion and birth control and complete sex education is a sign of a greater conspiracy on the part of the right wing: to keep women down.  To keep us barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen.  The same people who oppose abortion and birth control are the ones who oppose childcare subsidies and push for "welfare reform," too, so that the barefoot, pregnant woman with more kids than she knows what to do with can't even get the assistance she needs to support them.  They also oppose providing health care coverage for all children.  It makes me sick.

My mother was a nurse, and she remembers very clearly the days before abortion was legal.  She has seen women in the aftermath of illegal back-alley abortions, and she remembers the days when safe abortions were only available to women whose families could afford to bribe a doctor or send them someplace where abortion was legal.  Why on earth would we want to go back to that?

Before you label me a baby-killer, let me just say this: I agree that abortion ends, at the very least, the potential for human life.  It is sad and traumatic for the woman having it done.  Every woman I know who has had one has been forever changed by it.  I would love to live in a world where abortions are totally obsolete.

So how do we make that happen?  For starters, provide age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual education to all children throughout their school years.  If young men and women understand the reproductive process and the methods of birth control available to them, they will use their knowledge.  Forewarned is forearmed.  Abstinence can and should be presented as an option, but not the only option.

Next, make birth control readily available to women, including emergency contraception or "the morning-after pill."  I've taken advantage of this option myself a time or two, and it makes me sick that certain pharmacies (Wal-Mart, for one) won't sell it.  While we're at it, why don't we develop a reversible, hormonal method of birth control for men, too?  We could also make adoption a more realistic alternative than it currently is, by providing free or low-cost prenatal care for women who elect to carry their babies to term.  I imagine more women would choose to keep their babies, too, if they knew they would have the resources t