I helped put out three proposals last week.  On top of other things - if you only knew. By Friday, my body (I believe) began to kick into stress mode.  You see, I handle stress really well.  Until I don't.  Then I black out.  Thankfully, I've learned the warning signs - like shaking, sweating, the room beginning to move when I'm sitting still. I apparently also get migraines from stress now.  Or it's something else, because John and I have both been sick on and off (and mostly on) for a few months now.

Suffice to say, I'm seeing a doctor today.

But I think it's just stress.  And maybe allergies.

Seriously folks, I put out three proposals last week.  And worked a 12 hour day on Monday, on less than 4 hours of sleep.  Please, hold the applause. ;)

I feel an incredible pressure to be something, somewhere by 30.  To have arrived.  To be impressive. As if after 30, I have failed or can no longer be remarkable.  I'm curious if this is because I am a youngest child and for so long have identified my success alongside the scale of my age.  Or if it is because of our culture - the 30 Under 30 list and 40 Under 40.  I've known people on those lists. And my name is nowhere near making a list.  Of any kind.

I think at this time - I'd settle for just knowing clearly what my big goals are by the time I turn 30. What my dream job even is - that one thing that will make me come alive in the workplace.  

I asked my coworker today "What is your dream job?"  She said she didn't know.  I told her I don't either and that it's making me bloody depressed.  She leaned her head back on her chair and said, "Me too."  I'm beginning to think it's a disease English Lit majors are especially prone to - and it's making us all sick in the soul.  We pursue a degree we love - and it can apply to almost anything - but finding that one thing becomes increasingly difficult as our dual technical-artistic selves get pulled deeper and deeper into the business world. And here we are nearly 30, still thinking we are moving toward something, some thing we cannot name. 

For some reason, all of this makes me dreadfully sad to not have a grandparent.  I feel like if I had one, they'd tell me - you're 27 years old, dammit. You've barely begun to live. But I don't have a grandparent.  I hardly ever did. And that silence just seems to drive the end ever closer to me - this pressure to do something, be somewhere, be someone, quickly.  Because life seems to end too soon.  And I've barely begun. 

And now that I have depressed you all - go read this article.  It may be the best thing I've read in a while... and I'm only two-thirds through it. 

Twin Talk

I have often talked about this and watched as people stared at me like I was crazy. This doesn't always happen, but often a set of twins will develop their own language, such as my cousins Kate and Kolleen did.  It resulted in the more dominant twin becoming the translator for the other, making it less necessary for her to learn to communicate to others in English.  You would literally watch one tell the other and the dominant one communicate their needs.  Of course, they were toddlers and none of it was exactly clear.  But it was crazy to see, and a bit remarkable.





"Forty Percent of Twins Invent Their Own Languages.

These languages are called autonomous languages. Researchers suspect that twin babies use each other as models in developing language when an adult model language is frequently absent. The "language" consists of inverted words and onomatopoeic expressions. These autonomous languages are formed when two very close babies are learning how to speak a real language alongside one another and naturally often play and communicate with each other. While this is more common among twins, since they are more likely to be around each other and developing at the same rate, this phenomenon can also sporadically occur between two babies who are not twins. The made up "languages" often disappear soon after childhood, once the children have learned a real language."     

-The Huffington Post

Happy Anniversary Mumsy & Dad!

Happy Anniversary to my mom and dad, who've taught us what it means to love one another for better or worse, through thick and thin. You've shown us a real (stubborn) love.  And, you're a whole lot of fun!

Thank you. xoxo.

I was asked the other day what my friends would say was the one thing they most appreciate about me.  I replied, "that I am consistent."  Well my interrogator disagreed, and it has me thinking why I gave that answer.  "Are you sure you're not being humble?  They wouldn't say fun? I think they'd say fun." He's right, my friends probably wouldn't actually give, "consistent." After all, who does? I told him I might be being overly-confident, that they might not say consistent.  But I didn't want them to say "fun" - everyone in their twenties is fun - but few are consistent.

Somewhere along my journey, or perhaps all along, being consistent became one of my biggest measures.

Consistent = Trustworthy.

You can fake anything for a day, you can sell yourself as anything to a new group. So when people seem to become a color wheel of characters and styles, I give a wide berth to their spin.

I'm really not the most fun person in the room.  Nor the funniest.  I'm not the smartest.  I'm not the prettiest.  Lord knows I'm not the tallest. But whatever I am, regardless of how I may be feeling, I try to be the same person every day in every room.

I've been writing on this same blog at the same url for nearly nine years. I've published 3, 116 posts here. This blog is not the prettiest or wittiest in the room either.  But, it is consistent and honest.  And to me, that counts.

"We must take care that everything doesn't get so dreadfully serious.  We must play -- but we must play seriously." 

 - Hans Wegner

[source and full article: fastcodedesign.com]

Oatmeal is a power food.  It is to everyone. But to me, oatmeal is also my 'game day food.'  It is steal cut comfort and confidence.  It reminds me that I win sometimes, and I work hard all the time.  It reminds me that I'm strong.  It reminds me that I'm a morning person.  That I'm a team player.  That I'm a striker.  That size matters less than strength and speed. That I have good coaches in my life - and that I'm good at listening to them.  And above all, it reminds me that I have a few very loving and strong people behind me - like my dad, who I'd hear out in the kitchen banging pots, closing cabinets, running the tap, cooking me oatmeal on game days.  And now my Beau, who set his alarm early to make sure I had a cup of coffee waiting for me in his kitchen when I came in at 6:30am.

That's why this morning, I had oatmeal.

This is going to be quite the week.  I'm fairly certain I had the flu this past weekend.  Lots of sleep, a few cancelled plans, 4 baby chicks and a 5k later.... I'm back at work and going to attempt to pump out 3 proposals in the next 3 days.  On top of that, some other side-exploratory-projects.  Aaaaaaaand Morgan, John and I are flying out to San Fran 6am on Thursday!!

"Not Cool Robert Frost!"

A Pep Talk from Kid President to You

We've got work to do and we can cry about it or we can dance about it.

I feel my humanity ignored. When I'm walking down the street I don't feel recognized by strangers as another, like them.  I feel unattractive. Unnoticed. Un-human. At work, I feel more and more like a piece of a machine, a tiny mechanism to be tinkered and fixed.  At best left alone to operate efficiently and clean, leaving as little loss as possible along the way. Replaceable. One in a line that can be switched, changed, unnoticed and unnamed.

It could have something to do with Brave New World.  Each day I've spent my commute lost in the laboratories and Fetus assembly lines, carried along in their pre-conditioned lives.

It could be my work.  Could be our consumer-loving new world, driven by the twin demons of large corporations and personal autonomy obsessions. Could be my perspective and lack of attention to my own humanity.

Go watch this Ted Talk Playlist:  Work Smarter.  Especially, watch the second one in the playlist, "The Happy Secret to Better Work."

I'll be honest, I'm avoiding writing the next part of "our story".  I like it and I'd love to share it.  But I've been thinking so much on conversation lately and working intentionally to improve mine and what I post here is an extension of that - this is part of my contribution to the written conversations happening between us all. And I'm tired of the conversation  - so tired, that I'm willing to bite my tongue about John and I's story for a bit longer.

Instead, I'll tell you this.  There's seasons of life where you feel under water.  Not like you're drowning, just like all your movements are fluid and slow, not quiet obstructed but resisted.  You see the other end of the pool and you'd like to get there, but walking feels ridiculous, nearly humorous.  And so you dive under water to swim, but then you can't see where you're going, it's either pitch black or blurry shapes at best - you have to just point yourself in the right direction and hope to get there - bumping into all sorts of people and weird objects that have sunk along your way.  And if you're lucky, you'll get there.  And your shorts will still be on.

I'm in the pool. And swimming itself seems a bit silly right now, because I don't think getting out of the pool is the point.  And I don't know what "end" of the pool is really the best anyways.  But all my movements are so damn slow. I kind of just want to thrash around like a child, cut my arms along the surface and splash.  See if John will let me climb up on his shoulders and jump off.

It's hard to write when you're in a pool.  

Nebula

She is the center of her own world.  Ruling those around her with quick words, frenzied comments and an unbeatable drive to be first.  To conquer others through the sheer rush of finishing first. She imagines others spinning round her, colliding into the literature she consumes at the core and tosses out into her system as if she were their sun, leaving bright zodiacal light all around to be called dust.  But that dust was once stars.  And those stars are held together only by their own gravity.  They don’t need her to feed them light. In truth, it is her pull that would try to consume them.  Devour them.  Her fire burns the brightest on the surface as her core has already begun to shrink, so soon she’ll collapse and leave nothing more than a black hole. 

You Can't Eat Beauty

Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o Speech

6/25

Insurgent by Veronica Roth.  It was okay.  I'm angry about the end.  Maybe talk to me about it again in a few weeks.  I liked Divergent a great deal, Insurgent a little less, and Allegiant the least of them all.  At moments, I found myself annoyed with the characters decisions and inability to learn through THREE books. I didn't gain the same incredible attachment to them as one does in the Hunger Games.  I did tear through each of them fairly quickly, and that says something perhaps.  But again, now that I have finished the series, I would rate them only "okay." 

A Tribute

It's only been a few years since my dad plopped an old 33 on his turn table and we sipped coffees to the melodies of Peter, Paul and Mary.  I fell in love.  That same vinyl spun around and around and around for months.  When I was cleaning.  When I was reading.  Always.  I started treating myself to album after album - though I think my dad had their best from the start.  Last weekend we took my dad's old turntable to Hawthorne Stereo for a diagnosis.  Within the hour we were back at John's, the voice of Karen Carpenter streaming through the living room speakers.  The Carpenters were a feature in both of our childhoods - my parents played "We've Only Just Begun" at their wedding, us girls selected it for the renewal of their vows 25 years later.  John's family danced to their Christmas albums each December.  It seemed only fitting to be our first album on this record player that had now become "ours" - one of the many things we've taken from the lives of our parents.

But the second album?  It had to be Peter, Paul and Mary.  Because while I love the Carpenters, because it is "theirs" - well, Peter, Paul and Mary - they are mine.  And after Saturday, I think perhaps they could be "ours".  Grateful to have the man I do, one who'd fiddle for hours with wires and cords and nobs, just to make voices that have been singing worthwhile words for 50 years, a little clearer.  

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll called Peter, Paul and Mary "the most popular acoustic folk music group of the 1960's." During that decade they produced 11 albums, 5 of which became million sellers. And they scored 12 hit singles, including the classic children's song, "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane," a ballad written by John Denver. The group brought folk music to a new prominence in the post-McCarthy era, putting songs about politics and morality on the radio amid the syrupy boy-girl love songs that dominated when they began playing together in the early 1960s. 

 Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers made their debut in 1961 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village. On the strength of this performance, they were signed to a recording contract with Warner Brothers. Released in May 1962, their first eponymously titled album included their rendition of Pete Seeger's song, "If I Had a Hammer," a hit that was the first record to bring protest music to a mainstream audience. Eighteen months later their version of "Blowin' in the Wind" became a hit, and the first commercially successful recording of a song written by Bob Dylan.

As their fame grew, Peter, Paul and Mary mixed music with political and social activism. In 1963 the trio marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., and Washington, D.C. The three participated in countless demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. And they sang at the 1969 March on Washington, which Mr. Yarrow helped to organize. 

Exhausted by nearly 10 years of nonstop touring and recording, Mr. Yarrow, Mr. Stookey and Ms. Travers disbanded in 1970. But it proved to be only an intermission. They reunited on a part-time basis in 1978, and continued to perform together for decades. They have five Grammy Awards and a handful of gold and platinum albums. Ms. Travers died on Sept. 16, 2009, at 72. 

The New York Times.

I'm trying to remember, but I believe this is the first night John and I ever met.  And it went a little something like this... 

A good mutual friend, one of the classiest and kindest ladies out there (who also happens to throw an excellent party and keep a skilled finger on the shudder trigger) decided to throw a little mad men themed party.  

It was all that a classy cocktail celebrating the mid-century should be.  With cocktails, live music, tons of strangers and new friends, unexpected dancing in the middle of the restaurant. 

 

When I said goodnight, my soon to be Beau was outside with the gentlemen, surrounded with pipes and cigar smoke.  I was parked down the street and it was Belltown past midnight, so a male friend walked me to my car.  Imagine what John assumed. ;) 

Oh, no, I just remembered.  We'd met before, on the turf.  But I don't have photos of that night, and this is a fun alternate.  It's still part of how our story began.  I love this man. 

You can see more of Mal's fun shot's from this night on her Facebook album here, or better yet, take a look at her website and see what her photography looks like when she's working.   

So fun heading out this morning with my backpack full of the necessities: pajamas, tooth brush,  chapstick, change of clothes, moleskine, one black sharpie pen, two books, water bottle and a can of chili. Even though it's a change of business casual clothes, and the can is really a mason jar full of vegetarian chili I'll be eating  at my white desk today, somehow I felt ready for an adventure.  Like I was running away, or heading out camping in these rainy skies.

Thankfully that's not the case, because I'm wearing my favorite new suede boots and I don't want to ruin them. ;)  Instead, I'm heading to another adventure - a sleepover with a friend.  And I'm as giddy as the 10 year old I'm sure I looked at the bus stop this morning.

5/25

1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp

READ:  Several friends had recommended this book to me because of Ann's style of writing.  They felt I'd enjoy her poetic flow.  I enjoyed the book, but I must say it wasn't her style that won me.  I found it sometimes too flowery and distracting.  It was hard to follow what she was even talking about at moments, or why she'd gone there.  Over the top almost.  [Funny, since I've heard the same complaint about my own style.] However, her content was all too timely.  Inside the pretty pastel cover that nearly scared me away, wrapped in all that flowery language, is a woman talking about the reality of death and loss, despair and depression, numbness and carrying on. She gave me some answers no one else seemed to be able to - or said what others weren't willing in a time I was desperate for that truth.  When death seems to be always in the back of my mind, if not the forefront, how do I keep living this life?  And why?  Why marry when I'll lose him anyways? How can I hold on to my parents? My sisters?  Why have children when I'll just be abandoning them one day?  I'm plagued.  And I don't want cheap answers or hugs or pats on the back. About 2/3rds in to the book, I think Ann finally started giving me an answer I could accept. I'm still not sure, but I'm willing to give it a try. 

I can't guarantee you'll pick this book up at exactly that right time in your life, nor know how it will affect you as you digest its pink pages. But because it hit me so right (though I admit I took it in doses), I have to mark this one a "read". 

4/25 

The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks



READ: I was supposed to be meeting a friend, but I had 35 pages left. Need I tell you I was late?  I finished the final pages and launched into the complete retelling of the tale to John.  Sophia and Luke add a level of suspense and "cuteness".  I can't help but imagine that Sparks needed to write in a couple young good looking parts for the screenplay.  But it's Ira and Ruth who will make me return my library book and buy a copy for my own shelf.  There's is a beautiful story that had me in tears and longing not for some other love, but to be better myself at loving. A sign of a great story.  My only real complaint, and it's really more the thought of an egotistical girl who has yet to write her own book but feels entitled to advise on the books of others:  The book could have ended a chapter or two earlier.  When it comes to fiction, I prefer a few loose ends.