New Year, Resolutions, and the Flu

 There are few things worse than having the flu on your birthday.  Trust me, its even worse when you have the flu on your birthday and you were born in January.  The sky stays grey, the wind is cold and there is the pervasive color of brown everywhere.  Nothing encourages you or inspires you to get better in January.  In fact, you are left with a seasonal gloom. 

I took off work for the first time in three years and to add insult to injury, they are going to count it against me.  Of course, I wouldn’t have the flu in the first place if my co-worker three seats down had just stayed home.  She said she count afford to have anything count against her, well, now twenty people have called off work.  Eh. C’est la vie. 

So, I’m going to look on the bright side of January and focus on my new year’s resolutions.  This will be a short and sweet as my bed keeps calling me.

1.)    I resolve to keep writing this blog every week.  This ties into a larger goal to write on a daily basis, but we shall start small and work our way up.  This flu almost got me to forgo this one, but so far so good.

2.)    I resolve to eat healthier, exercise more, and go hiking often.  Hopefully, there will be a shift bid and I will get to have a morning schedule at work!  I blame my night schedule for more than I should, but one less excuse, right?  I realized with this flu that my health has gotten out of hand.  I really should at least be eating better.  Also, I got all this cool hiking gear and I should be putting it to good use. 

3.)    I resolve to keep my house in some sort of order.  Really it’s ridiculous to let things pile up the way I do.  But no more!  Trash goes in trash can, dirty cloths go in hamper, and dirty dishes go in sink.  When any of the afore mentioned gets full, it’s time to empty it.

4.)    I resolve to resume my summer “to do” list of impossible things.  Really, I will never know why I quit. One year, my impossible thing was to fly without being in a plane and so I went parasailing over the gulf of Mexico.  Another year, I wanted to save a life, so I got Red Cross certified and joined the rescue squad.  I never felt like I accomplished that one like I thought I would, but I got a thank you letter in the mail from someone I helped and it was the best feeling in the world.  I don’t know what my impossible thing is yet but it must meet two criteria.  1.  It must be “impossible”.  2. It must be completed no matter what without “cheating”. 

Well, that’s it for now.  I told you this would be short and sweet, but I feel like this was the medicine I needed.  Well… that and Tamiflu…  Now its back to bed for me.  Bon voyage and happy new year!

Ode to Twenty-Thirteen.

I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about how people are glad to see Twenty-Thirteen go.  How they cant wait until Twenty-fourteen is here so they can finally be free to do what they have set out to accomplish without “Unlucky ‘Thirteen” trying to stop them at every turn.  Cowards.  They’re too scared to say all that to her face. It’s something whispered at the water-cooler behind her back as she is packing up her things to leave and go on to bigger at and greater things.  Places where she will be treated with a little more love and respect.  Who knows, maybe she will be on the cover of TIME magazine.  She’s sure that at least MTV will have a place for her in a couple of decades after everything has smoothed over.  “I Love 2013” kind of has a ring to it…

No one thinks of things from the year’s perspective, but I can see it all now. Her two weeks’ notice has been put in and she only has two more days to grind through.  Well, really only one because on the 31^st, people will care less about her than the new guy who’s taking over.  Of course, everyone is talking about how things will be different- better- under the new management.  We’ll see, she tells herself, trying not to be bitter.  A year ago, people were saying the same thing about her and it’s hard now not to feel a little bit disgraced.  She had such high hopes, such big plans…. But c’est la vie. Best not to dwell on the past, she tells herself with a chuckle, pleased with her own ironic joke.

Hopefully things are better under Twenty-fourteen and not just another year- just another miser to live under until the replacement comes 365 days later.  Hopefully everyone will lose all that weight, or get their dream job, or quit smoking.  Hopefully people will spend more time with their families, finally learn how to play guitar… be kinder and more decent.  She wants people to go on that trip to Ireland they’ve always been dreaming about, finish college and finally buy a house somewhere in the country.

 People blame her for not doing those things… they want it to be her fault.  I would have done this or that, but the health care bill just threw me for a loop.  The price of gas is still too high and I cant afford a more fuel efficient car.  I was going to, but I had to settle for a low paying job because of the economy.  Twenty-thirteen just wasn’t a good year.  People want it to be all a matter of circumstance because the alternative is….

I’m the worlds worst.  I still didn’t read through my Bible, I still owe the library ten dollars, I failed to maintain some of my most important relationships, and I lost one of my most prized possessions to a bitter old man in a misguided attempt to make friends.    I actually gained weight, and I celebrated my tenth anniversary this year of not writing my internationally acclaimed best-selling book.  If you look strictly at my new years resolutions, I accomplished nothing.  I completely failed this year- there is no two ways about it.  Maybe in reference to all my best laid plans… it has been a bad year. 

But something feels different- broken off.  Its almost like someone has unlocked the chains that have been holding me back for years only for me to stand stupidly in my cell, unsure of what to do.  Someone has left the stable door opened, and I’m still stalling, wondering it it’s some trick. 

I’m free somehow without knowing where or when it happened; and I’m happy about that, don’t get me wrong, but the question I have been trying to get answered all year is “where do I go from here?”   I’ve been begging for someone to tell me.  I’ve been to all the conferences and I’ve read all the books.  I’ve been asking all the “right” questions but no one can give me a straight answer. The heaviest cost of freedom is that no one can tell you what to do anymore. 

I still don’t have a perfect answer but I have been learning the answer is something akin to “anywhere I want”.  I’ve been learning that instead of worrying about “who I am” I should be more concerned about “who do I want to be”.   I’ve been leaning that instead of “where am I supposed to go”, it’s more like “where do I want to go?”.  I’m no proponent of only looking out for number one, but I am learning that with free will comes the will part of the whole thing.  I will lose weight, or I will eat a cookie.  I will go to Ireland this year or I will wait until I can afford a plane ticket and pay light bill.  When it comes down to it, I’m as much to blame as my circumstances.  How can I blame “Unlucky ‘Thirteen” and judge her as a bad year without acknowledging my part in making her so. 

 Sure, there are things beyond my control.  I’m not saying people are responsible for every single thing that happens to them.  I can’t make one thing something else by simply calling it it’s opposite.  A rainy day by any other name will still get you wet.  All I’m saying is that I can choose to either put on a rain jacket or learn to appreciate the rain. 

 

Now, going back to my poor friend Twenty-thirteen who is looking back on the past year with a smile and a regret… I, for one, will miss her.  No matter what anyone else says about her, we had some good times together and we had our share of bad times, too.  It was a learning year.  A time of planting and hoping good things will grow, and a time of knowing if the crop doesn’t turn out as planned, if despite my best efforts things still go awry, that even the worst vegetables can still be made into a killer soup.

 

Happy New Year’s all!  As the old saying goes, may the blessings of the coming year last longer than our resolutions!

Socks For Christmas

Socks.  That’s my grandmother’s idea of a good Christmas present.  Every year, that is what everyone gets.  Every year, always the same.  Socks.  Guaranteed I will get them this year, too.  Hanes crew cut socks, a size too big.  They are cheap, always on sale, and they come en masse.  The only thing worse than one pair of bad socks for Christmas, is a dozen pair of bad socks for Christmas.   Some Christmases, we even got two packs.  You could never tell which box was the socks box because she worked her hardest to trick you.  Sometimes it would be in an impossibly small box, so when you opened it they exploded out like Pillsbury canned biscuits. Sometimes it would be in a huge box- so you thought it was something awesome, only to find… Socks.

Now, its kind of a cute, quaint thing.  Its as much of a Christmas tradition as putting up a tree or my father (republican) and grandfather (democrat) talking politics, or my aunt showing up late for dinner.  Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without it.  When I was about thirteen, though, socks for Christmas was an affront.  That gift brought out the worst of us like nothing else, and I believe that my grandmother knew and delighted in this fact. 

My brother, a year younger than me, forced a thin lipped smile and said nothing upon opening his Christmas present.  His eyes would go dead, though, and it wasn’t hard to see his utter and complete disappointment. Sure enough, when he held up the present so everyone could see, it was socks. My little sister, who was youngest of the family merely looked at the ugly white socks she had received and pitched them aside with less enthusiasm then discarding the wrapping that they had come in. 

“Roxanne,” my father would say, quiet, dangerous, “what do you say?”

“Thanks,” she would mutter, looking about like she would cry. 

I, however, was the diplomat of the family and was old enough to understand that socks for Christmas was an inevitability like eggs or steamed broccoli.  Oh, sure, I smiled and acted excited to receive socks!  I can always use socks! But inside I was beyond disappointed-worse than my brother or sister.  How could she know me so little as to get me, not only socks, but those socks.  The heel never fit and pushed up over the back lip of my shoe.  Not only that, but they were embarrassingly unfashionable.  I was already teased in school for not wearing the right thing. Although bad socks couldn’t hurt that, it most certainly didn’t make things better.  Of all the things that could have been gotten for me- it was always socks.  Never a cell phone, or makeup or something that could bring life to my impossibly straight hair.

To make it worse, there was always that implied lecture that I should be grateful.  That some kids didn’t get anything or how when she was a kid all she wanted for Christmas was some candy or a bag of nuts.  My grandparents came from a rougher time in history.  Sometimes there wasn’t enough to eat, much less Christmas presents.  And then there were always the kids in Africa.  They probably didn’t even have Christmas.  It was an all-around unfair gift, meant to teach us humility and thankfulness during a time when everything depended on giving and getting the perfect thing. 

Of course, in November of this year I wasn’t thinking about all that. I was thinking about REI and about hiking because my REI membership points had just come in.  The boots I had gotten had been a bit of a disappointment when I took them on a 14 mile hiking trip in July.  I was just getting over the hammer toe in my right foot and was knocking my big toe on a sharp corner, thrilled that I could feel the pain again, while talking to my mother on the phone and playing on the computer. 

“Well, what do you and Sam want for Christmas?”  she asked, trying to capture my focus again.  Sam is my husband.  

“Just to see you and Dad.” I answered absently while scrolling through articles on how to prevent hammer toe and looking at the astronomical cost of new boots on REI.    

“Well, thank you, honey.  But really, what would you like?”  Suddenly, I ran across an article on REI that seemed like it might have the answer that would solve my problems.

“You know, mom, what I could really use is a good pair of socks.”

On Being Godiva

As a child I was a fierce ball of spitfire- a force to be reckoned with.  I was always behind the hare-brained ideas that so often got my little brother and me in trouble. My passions and capers would put a Shakespearian hero to shame. I would ride in a car without my seatbelt, swim without my life jacket and commit any other number of misdemeanors that, for a kid, meant you were living on the edge. I exasperated my mother, grandmother and babysitter who all just knew I would grow up to be a little wildling.

For my part, I tried as hard as I could to prove them right.  Although I loved dresses and makeup and dolls; the idea of femininity was somewhat abhorrent to me.  Not because I hated the gender roles themselves, I loved to cook, nurture and even dress in frills, but simply because of the stigma attached to them.  Being feminine meant I could no longer be interested in bugs, climb trees, help grandpa fix his old tractor or play punches with my dad. 

In my eyes, the world for little girls was nearly always a world of no. My grandmother especially was guilty of the "Young ladies don't" maxims (i.e. play with bugs/climb on trees/sit crossed legged/go for walks alone/rough house...).  And for my part, if young ladies didn't do it, you had better bet I did. 

One time, after being shooed outside for being too loud while Mrs. Fannie's husband, Bub, took his nap; Colton Wayne took off his shirt while we were digging in the sand box.  Colton and I were friends, but more than that we were rivals for "leader". He was always trying to push my buttons or one up me (I guess I egged him on, too- some).  I got the feeling that this was one of those times; especially since I had not wanted to go adventure on the train tracks and pretend be hobos.  Most of the other kids were relieved because playing on the train tracks was strictly forbidden and punishable by a fly swat and a timeout.  So, we went to go dig in the sandbox for treasure instead. Being pirates and digging for treasure was one of my favorite games and just so happened to be my idea.

"Girls cant take off their shirts.  Only boys." Colton looked at me pointedly.  A stupid smug smile on his stupid face. 

Of course I could take off my shirt, it was the easiest thing in the world and I told him as much in the vernacular of a 5 year old:

"Yuh-huh.  I just don't want to." 

Colton raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin condescendingly.  "Nuh-uh." he chided, "its not allowed 'cause you're a girl and its against the rules. My daddy said so."

That did it.  My shirt was up over my head in one fluid motion.  My short hair swung around my shoulders, and my cheeks flushed in self-righteous pride and anger.  "Cant never could do nothing" and I could do anything I wanted to, including take off my shirt like a boy.  My unformed girl's chest was bared against the world and the rules and propriety.  I was, for that sweet moment of glorious defiance, Joan of Arc and Lady Godiva all rolled into one and reincarnated in Mrs. Fannie's backyard playground.

This feeling lasted all of 30 seconds, because after that all hell broke loose.

As I had pulled the shirt up over my head, my grandmother pulled up in the driveway to take me and my brother to our swimming lessons at the country club (which, I might add, was more club than country) and, of course, Colton was raising a fuss to tattle on me.

"I'm tellin'!!" Colton shouted in triumph.  "Mrs. Fannie!!!  Mrs. Fannie!!!  Rachel TOOK her SHIRT OFF!"

 Mrs. Fannie, always vigilant,  made it out the door just as my grandmother stepped out of the car. Mrs. Fannie was nearly as mortified as my grandmother and stood there, shocked.  My grandmother had rushed out of the car so fast that she forgot to put the car in park.  Mrs. Fannie could only watch the scene unfold.  Poor innocent woman!  What else could she do?  She was too late to stop what Colton knew my pride would set in motion.

I was plucked out of the small crowd of children and the discarded and dirty shirt was forced back over my head and shoulders- like water dowsing a flame.  In a flash I was hustled into her little Mercedes along with my brother and told under no uncertain circumstances was I to move from the back seat of the car.  As an especially cruel punishment, my brother was seated in the front seat- my rightful place as the eldest.  My grandmother went to go have a "talk" with Mrs. Fannie and we were to stay put, but she promised that my daddy would hear about this.

I watched as my grandmother went to go talk to Mrs. Fannie, who had, up until this point, been making dinner for her husband, Bub who worked a graveyard shift and the kids whose parents couldn't pick them up until late.  My grandmother and my babysitter both had their grownup faces on.  Anyone watching would think that they were neighbors swapping recipes for lemonade and sweet tea. But my grandmother's gestures were too gracious.  Her smile was too wide and showed too many teeth.  Although I couldn't hear, I knew first hand that my grandma's words were honeyed but poisonous with strikes of lightning that fell between the words.  I felt sorry for Mrs. Fannie, but I felt sorrier for myself because I knew there was going to be at least a 20 minute lecture and some hint about everyone letting me run wild all the time and how if she had a week, she would make a lady out of me.  Unlikely.

I looked over at Colton.  He was still standing without his shirt a big mocking grin on his face.  His victory was too strong to be contained in a smile and it bubbled over into an awkward victory dance.  He stuck his tongue out and wiggled his fingers near his ears then jumped around and wiggled his butt in my direction. 

Mrs. Fannie saw all of this and put two and together.  She excused herself from my grandmother to deal justice.  She just so happened to have run out with her flyswatter - her weapon of choice. Many a tender thigh had been smote with that little green swatter.  It was one of the only things that was capable of putting the fear of God in me. She shook what was meant for me at Colton as she marched towards him, looking for the world like a charging old lady bull in her long straight skirt and button up collared shirt. 

"But I'm a boy!" I heard Colton whine as he put his shirt back on.  He started to make a run for it, but Mrs. Fannie was too quick for him and SWAT!  The other kids backed away from Colton, eyeing the swatter warily.  Everyone respected the swatter.  Mrs. Fannie said something to him which made him sulky.  Probably that she was going to call his daddy.  Everyone knew Colton's dad believed in corporal punishment a little too strongly and would make that fly swat feel like a mothers kiss.  Be that as it may, I was satisfied with this new turn of events.  I felt a  shred of my dignity restored like a balm to my bruised heart.  Maybe the world was full of "no" for a girl, but maybe boys couldn't do just anything they wanted either.

My grandmother had evidently seen enough and she turned to go back to the car, but just then the car began to roll backwards with my brother and me in the car.  I screamed, and both she and Mrs. Fannie forgot their previous differences but were too stunned to move.  The car picked up speed as it rolled towards the train tracks but Bub appeared out of nowhere like an angel.  He, somehow, was able to get behind and stop the car before it dropped off the embankment and onto the train tracks.

My grandmother was forced to utter a sheepish "thank you so much" to Mrs. Fannie and Bub before she got in the car and nearly cried, I think.  During the whole car ride from Nortonville to Madisonville, my grandmother didn't say hardly two words besides "are you two okay?" and "I'm so sorry... I don't know.. I am so sorry".  She was so shaken she entirely forgot about the lecture she was going to give me about how young ladies don't take their shirts off and even about telling my daddy.  I guess that's why today, I still smile at pictures of Joan of Arc and Lady Godiva impishly.  Unlike them, for perhaps the first time in history,  I got away with not being a lady.

Introductions

Before I begin, I will come right out and say that I consider this more of an outlet for my rambles and a "fix" for this odd compulsion to write about inane topics at 3 am. I have this inkling that many of the topics will have some distant and disjointed relation to "existing" and this odd notion of "daring" more in my life. Nothing more and nothing less.  I will leave the weightier topics of the world to the many experts and activists you may find in other blogs as well as on Twitter  and on the comments section of YouTube.

That being said, I feel I ought to point out that I consider myself a Christian, a woman and a Kentuckian.  I do not pretend to be "what a Christian/woman/Kentuckian is"- whatever that means, only that these are the only three labels that have stuck. I feel the need to point this out because these definitions are an essential part of my core being that I have not been able to shake no matter how hard I may have struggled with them (and I assure you, I have struggled with all of them at one point or another).  Every aspect of my life and views are tinted with these three colorings and so I ask you to bear that in mind as you read. 

I don't want this to be considered a "church" blog or, even worse, a "religious" blog which has come to mean something dirty in our society- merited or not.  I am neither educated nor wise enough to defend something as ethereal a force as my faith in God.  As far as Kentucky goes, its the place I call home.  You have heard rumors and I will leave it to your own discretion on whether or not they are true. On the topic of being a woman, I will say that I am not a feminist.  Feminists either hate me or laugh at me or both; but I am not this woman either:



Nope... I am definitely not this woman.

All-in-all, I don't claim to speak for anyone, save myself. I will more likely, in my supernatural ability to word something trivial in the most offensive way possible, end up offending at least one person. I assure you that it will be innocently and no harm is meant.

Consider this your one and final warning before you read any further.  If I have not already scared you away, I implore you to read on and make ample use of the comments section.