From Bad to Worse: Catholic Sex, Apparently

Before I begin my rant for today, I'd like to show you my new shoes. I'm super excited about them. I needed a pair that was more slender than my running shoes, because they wouldn't fit into the cages on my bike pedals and that was causing a problem.
These are lovely. They work!
Yesterday, Mike and I went on a long bike ride. From our house all the way to Quebec and Mississippi. I thought I was going to die, but I made it!
As we were headed back, we were starting to run out of daylight and since I don't have any lights on my bike, I got nervous.
"It's not Cape Town, Katie," Mike was quick to remind me. Mama P wouldn't let me be out alone after dark. It wasn't safe.

After we got back, we made some stew and then went and got ice cream. It was a perfect night.
He's decided to name his car "Frank the Tank," which I entirely support.

Alright....


My dear friend Maddie sent me the link to an article yesterday. I started reading it not knowing what I was in for. I've included the text of the article in full below for your reading pleasure. The article is about Catholic relationships, living together before marriage, and the idea that sexual compatibility is a myth.

I beg to differ. I know plenty of Catholics who appear to be mutually satisfied with their romantic lives, with their marriages, and with their individual relationships with God. That mutual satisfaction might be that they are well matched conversationally, morally, spiritually and also sexually. There are plenty of options for compatibility, and I think that sexuality is one that cannot (and should not) be ignored.

There's nothing worse than trying to engage in a relationship with someone when there is not a hint of physical frisson present. It can be a deep friendship, but true union in the biblical sense can only come from blissful physical encounters, which supplement the other bonds formed early on in the relationship and maintained as part of the continuation of that relationship. Of course, as we age (or perhaps not, I'll let you know when I'm approaching "very elderly"), our focus on sexuality changes. It morphs, yes, changes over time, evolves, but it may never entirely disappear.

The author makes a very valid point in distancing living together from marriage by exposing the lack of promise in the non-marriage situation. To a certain extent, it is "I'll only stay with you until I'm bored, or can't stand you, or we have one too many huge fights." But to a certain extent, I think he's missing that point entirely. Many marriages begin unhappily, appear happy to the outside world, and then fail miserably, either in public or private.

"For better or for worse" isn't real anymore. "Try it before you buy it" isn't a bad philosophy as far as I'm concerned. And yes, I hope that people enter into marriage fully understanding the gravity of the situation, and that just because there are bound to be troubled times doesn't mean the marriage is lost. However, the reality is that even those people who most stand for that idea of marriage sometimes screw up. Sometimes it's better to get out. It's painful and it shapes the rest of your life, but honestly, trying to save something that's not worth saving isn't always in everyone's best interests.

I'd rather live with a dude, then hate him, and then leave him rather than marrying a dude, living with him, hating him, staying married for the sake of our offspring, and then eventually cheating on him and running off with my graduate school classmate who's ten years younger than me but really gets me and writes better poetry than my husband could ever produce.

He also ignores the real implications of living with someone. That's a strong relationship, whether it's religiously binding or not. There are things to take into account like joint-bank accounts, the lease on the apartment (only get it in one person's name in case of disastrous break-up), the cars, the potential for income discrepancy. Things that will have to be considered in marriage also have to be considered before co-habitation. Guests, dinner procedures, cleaning, shopping - the creation of a family unit doesn't necessarily have to be decided by a piece of paper or God's blessing. It can happen with two female friend living together. It can happen in a frat house. The proximity and presumptions create a family, regardless of definition.

Here's the part of the article that really irked me:

As someone who has only ever had one sexual partner, I cannot speak authoritatively on this matter, and I invite others of broader experience to offer their thoughts as well, but it seems to me that “sexual compatibility” so construed is a myth. It seems to presume that there is something almost biological going on wherein one must find someone with a similar sex drive, similar sexual tastes, even a compatible body.

But, from my limited experience, this simply isn’t how things work. If every man is to hold out until he finds a woman with a sex drive to match his, only a select few males will ever find a partner. Women’s sex drives are a different kind of thing than men’s. They require different stimuli, they naturally vary over the course of a mentrual cycle, and they are much more easily affected by the seemingly non-sexual aspects of the relationship. Sexual tastes and compatible bodies follow from this. If a man doesn’t recognize how a woman’s sex drive works, her sexual tastes (cuddling, for instance) will seem foreign to him, and her body will not respond to his in the way he expects. (One could write a whole other piece about how the porn epidemic is destroying any realistic expectations about women’s drives, tastes, and bodies.)

This poor man assumes that all women like cuddling and have low sex-drives. He assumes that his one partner is providing him with the best that she can do, but that's okay because she's just a woman.

Why would you ever marry a man who didn't like to cuddle? (Just a thought, ladies. Lay out your expectations before you get married. Before you co-habitate. Second date, at the latest. I throw all dealbreakers on the table - including toe-walking and mouth-breathing - and see how it goes. Sometimes, it's just doomed from the start.) 

He's neglecting biology. The almighty clitoris. An organ absolutely unnecessary for reproduction. It exists only for female pleasure. If God only wanted us to have sex to affirm our commitment to him, then why would he include that little bit? If it's meant to be the pleasure-less experience I can only imagine the author and his wife engage in, then why make it even possibly feel good? And why punish women for enjoying it?

(Don't even get me started on prostitution, sex trafficking, etc, all of which are basically male-run industries in which females are put to work solely based on their biological sex and therefore, utility.)

Sex can supplement and enhance a healthy relationship. Just like anything, it's often used in opposite and negative ways. It's been sensationalized by the media, made into a both a weapon and a punishment, and those who actually fight to enjoy or embrace their sexuality are sanctioned both socially and religiously. 

Read this comment from a reader: 

Excellent. Additionally, I think a discussion needs to focus on how the woman resonates with the male’s mood and desires and how the male unconsciously influences the attitudes and behaviors of the woman. Safety is the prime instinctive need of the female in relationships. Safety is established by the male and the female is always instinctively attuned to this aspect of the relationship.

I laughed at this comment, and then choked on it because I realized that there are men and women out there subscribing to the beliefs that they need to maintain this heternormative power structure. Man = provider, woman = vulnerable. There are no blurred lines, no allowance for strong women or emotional men. No deviation! 

And it's absolute shit. Yes, I will someday be the nurturer in my family structure. But it will be a role that I define for myself. There is no part of me that doesn't want the cooperation and compassion of my husband through all things, including decision making, etc. But that doesn't meant that I will be passive, eagerly awaiting his attention and direction. 

Surprisingly, I want to take on the traditionally feminine role in a future relationship. But I'd also like the respect, attention, and equal treatment that I deserve. I want someone who will adore me and listen, match my commentary with his wit, and who will make me laugh, yell at me for not squeezing the toothpaste tube correctly, but never protect me. I don't want to rely on any man for protection, and the assumption that the comment above makes is that no woman will ever be equal to her husband, and instead will have to look to him for protection and guidance. 

In short, I'm torn on whether or not I'd live with someone before marriage. I probably will. I'll also probably (statistically speaking) be divorced someday. 

But damn, I will enter into my marriage with love, with passion, and with great expectations, something that I worry gets lost in the mind of religious fanatics bent on procreation and utilitarian family creation. 

Here's the full article, enjoy!

"I recently returned from Twickenham, England, the home of Catholic satirist Alexander Pope, where I gave a workshop titled “How Far Can We Go? Talking to Young People about Physical Intimacy,” at the 3rd International Theology of the Body Symposium. It was a very fruitful experience. Apart from making all kinds of interesting connections with other conference participants, I had my thoughts on several issues stimulated by the excellent feedback I received in the Q & A sessions of my workshops. I hope to share some of these thoughts with the readership here at Vox Nova over the next little while.


At the end of my second workshop I was asked how to talk to young people about the pitfalls of cohabitation. As we are all aware, most of our contemporaries see it as foolhardy to marry someone if you haven’t lived with them. “Isn’t it just asking for trouble,” they suggest, ”to commit to someone when you don’t even know if you can stand to be in the same house with them?” This seems perfectly logical, of course, which is why, when a widely publicized study came out several years back (I read about it on MSN when I signed out of my hotmail account) indicating that cohabitation radically lowered the odds of marital success, people didn’t know what to make of it. It was simply inconceivable that people who did the smart thing and test-drove the relationship first would increase their chance of divorce by 60%.


The obvious explanation to many people was that it was religious people who didn’t live together before marriage, and religious people are less prone to divorce. But this second claim isn’t actually true, at least not very significantly. Furthermore, it was often suggested, religious people are more likely to stay in unhappy marriages, exactly the kind encouraged by the silly practice of not living together. But there is no evidence that religious marriages are unhappier than other marriages.
No, it turns out that it is not simply that a certain cross-section of society which doesn’t cohabitate also does not divorce. It is actually the case that cohabitation itself is a problem. Cohabitation ostensibly says, “We’re being prudent by not rushing into things. Our future will be happier if we make sure we are compatible by living in a situation that is very like marriage. And, if we find that this doesn’t work out, we can part ways before making a huge mistake.”


What is really says is . . . well, that last sentence should give it away.
In fact, though cohabitation looks a lot like marriage on the surface, it is missing the very heart of marriage, namely a promise to be faithful come what may. And without this promise, cohabitation ends up being not a close analogate of marriage, but it’s radical opposite. While marriage says, “I’ll be with you no matter what,” cohabitation says, “I’ll be with you as long as I can stand you.” It says, “If you do your share of the housework, and pay your share of the bills, and keep me satisfied sexually, I’ll stick around. But if you don’t, well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”


The kind of insecurity this un-promise engenders is at the heart of the increased failure of cohabitation-preceded-marriages (to say nothing of a series of cohabitating relationship which end without ever reaching marriage). When you promise to take someone in health, for richer, and for better, for as long as either of you shall like, you aren’t really promising anything. And, without a promise, the ambiguity of human relationships are unlikely to stand the test of time.


In the Q & A session I said that a test-drive says, “I will love you as long as you put the cap back on the toothpaste, and make the bed and remember not to use metal utensils in my non-stick cookware,” while a promise says “I will love you even if you don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste! I will love you even if you void the warranty on my cookware!”


Just as I thought I was hitting my stride, the questioner interrupted me and said, “We know all that. But kids are telling us that they have to live together to find out if they are sexually compatible. What are we supposed to say to them about that?” At that point, as happens with Q & A sessions, we were informed that we were over time. But I thought about the question and had an interesting talk with the questioner at the social on Saturday night.


As someone who has only ever had one sexual partner, I cannot speak authoritatively on this matter, and I invite others of broader experience to offer their thoughts as well, but it seems to me that “sexual compatibility” so construed is a myth. It seems to presume that there is something almost biological going on wherein one must find someone with a similar sex drive, similar sexual tastes, even a compatible body.


But, from my limited experience, this simply isn’t how things work. If every man is to hold out until he finds a woman with a sex drive to match his, only a select few males will ever find a partner. Women’s sex drives are a different kind of thing than men’s. They require different stimuli, they naturally vary over the course of a mentrual cycle, and they are much more easily affected by the seemingly non-sexual aspects of the relationship. Sexual tastes and compatible bodies follow from this. If a man doesn’t recognize how a woman’s sex drive works, her sexual tastes (cuddling, for instance) will seem foreign to him, and her body will not respond to his in the way he expects. (One could write a whole other piece about how the porn epidemic is destroying any realistic expectations about women’s drives, tastes, and bodies.)


The fact is that virtually every couple will go through times when their drives, tastes, and bodies seem less compatible and times when they seem more compatible. And, as most marriage counselors will tell you, in this their sex lives mirror the rest of their lives together. The real problem about the search for “sexual compatibility” is that it abstracts sex from the broader relationship. It makes good sex the result of a biological fluke rather than the natural outcome of a loving relationship. It absolves women and (probably, especially) men from taking the responsibility to be good lovers to their spouses. And, in doing so, it undoes one of the most important functions of sex in marriage.


The natural desire for physical intimacy should serve to help us focus on the other aspects of our relationship where our urge to serve the other person is compromised by human weakness. Foreplay starts with helping around the house and listening when someone has had a bad day. When “sexual compatibility” becomes something independent of relational compatibility as a whole, sex becomes less and less capable of confirming and sealing the commitment between two people who have promised their lives to one another. And when we strip sex of its power to hold people together by isolating it from its normal role in a relationship, we should not be surprised when marital breakdown follows."


Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one. He is the co-author of How Far Can We Go? A Catholic Guide to Sex and Dating.
 
http://vox-nova.com/2011/06/14/is-sexual-compatibility-a-myth-some-thoughts-on-cohabitation/
 

 

Gay

Gay is many things, but mostly homosexual. (It still always makes me think of the Village People, so that probably needs to change.)

This post is inspired by Pride Week, during which people of all sexual orientations celebrate the movement toward equality, recognition, and respect.

This week is Pride in Denver. From the Denver PrideFest website: "The mission of Denver PrideFest is to create a fun, safe and empowering space to celebrate and promote the heritage and culture of the LGBT and allied community in Colorado."

I'm an ally. I have gay and lesbian friends, straight friends, and bisexual friends. I love them all equally.

I don't really care how you stand on homosexuality. Because really, there is only one way to stand. And I'm not saying this because I want you all to share my thoughts, my political leanings, or my social theories. I'm saying this because every single human deserves the same rights.

Who cares if they get married?

Imagine not being able to visit your spouse in the hospital because you're not considered family. That's seriously fucked up.

It's like that commercial with Justin Long that ends with "...make them get married. Like the rest of us."

People of different races have fought for equal treatment, been awarded it by law, and yet are still persecuted for something they cannot change. Throughout the world, they are profiled, brutalized, enslaved, mocked, underpaid, overworked, disrespected, stereotyped, marginalized, and undermined. Laws are made to question their legitimacy, even in a nation built on the backs of and with the blood of immigrants from all over.

Women have struggled for the rights to their bodies, for the respect of men, for education, for freedom from familial obligations, for equal pay, for the rights to work and make the same as their male counterparts. They, too, have had to fight against all types of social injustice. Our work remains undone.

Change has happened, slowly. Perceptions have changed, slowly. But it's not finished. It never will be. In a world where victims of rape are criticized for their clothing choices and where poverty is more prevalent among people who aren't white, it's obvious that some of our well-intentioned policies are nothing but fluff, a big talk meant to quiet the outspoken yet leave the status quo unchanged.

Gay isn't something that just happened overnight. The gays didn't just materialize from thin air. They've been here all along. They've shared your drinks, eaten at your dinner parties, managed large companies, created and maintained traditional families. You work with them. You sit next to them on the bus. They've been a part of your world since you were born.

Gay makes some people uncomfortable.

It's understandable. Gay people do weird sex stuff, right? Well, newsflash, the straights are doing weird stuff, too.

Gay people will touch my children, you say.

Wrong. I mean, maybe a few. But so do your priests. So do teachers. So do people meant to protect our children. It happens, but it's not directly linked to gay.

Gay people have the HIV.

Actually, they're not the ones with the highest prevalence of new HIV infections these days. That heroin needle you're holding is probably more dangerous. Besides, you can't get HIV/AIDS from being near an infected person. Didn't we all see "Philadelphia"?

Last night, I was out with two of my dear friends, one gay, and one Katie. After having dinner with Mike, we met up with a new friend of mine and went to a Denver gay bar. Wednesday is drag queen bingo, and we caught the tail end of it.

My new friend was uncomfortable.

I understand that men particularly are afraid of gay bars. He told me that he didn't want any of his clients to see him and think he was gay.

What's wrong with that? I thought. I was annoyed by his behavior. He didn't want to get hit on. He didn't want anyone to think he was gay. He didn't want this, or that. He kept looking around nervously.

He never got comfortable.

Maybe it was the rainbow banners decorating the place? Maybe it was the drag queen standing by the door? Maybe it was the loud, shrill bingo announcer?

We ended up leaving.

It hurt my friends' feelings and I was rude to them because I wanted to placate the new friend.

What I should have done is smacked him and told him to man up, politely.

This behavior is typical. It reminds me that even the most educated people with degrees from liberal institutions of higher learning can come out of those hallowed halls without having learned anything about what it's like to be a human being.

It reminds me that people think that "the gays" are all sex-crazed monsters who will fuck anything that moves and is a man.

Not true!

Walking into a gay bar is just like walking into a straight bar (which is basically every bar) except there is more hair gel and better muscles, if you're into that sort of thing.

But there's also personal melodramas, bar snacks, shots of vodka, relationships being made and dismantled, laughter, tears, pictures being taken. Basically, it's like every damn bar you've ever been to.

Later, new friend was telling me he was struck by my intelligence. (I was drunk at this point, and drunk me loves compliments.) I was flattered and completely blind to my opportunity to remind him that perhaps intelligence includes willingness to adapt to unfamiliar situations. An open mind, humor, and humility. He reminded me that intelligence isn't something you can only get from As and good grades, that 4.0 and long-winded papers. I should have reminded him that intelligence is a continual real-life process, something you can only have if you're willing to think about and experience emotionally challenging things.

I am ashamed that I said nothing to him. "The gays" are a very important part of my life. My friendships mean more to me than anything else.

Part of living in a diverse and beautiful society is understanding differences. Part of it is realizing that people are born the way they are and embracing that. And who cares? I have a weird elf nose and people still hang out with me.

I didn't choose to be born a woman (although I'm glad that's the way I came out - thanks Mom!). And no one chooses to be gay. There's been a lot of discussion about this, and recently, a lot of suicides because of how hard it is to be gay.

While I generally hold that our children aren't getting the social support they need, and consequently are taking drastic action that's really stupid, I completely disagree about our discourse on taboo subjects needs to change. There's not enough of it! We wait until someone dies, or something kills someone else, and then we say, "oh, we could've, should've, wait, next tragedy." Nothing changes! Let's dialogue until we're blue in the face with our kids about a whole bunch of topics. Let's show them that it's okay to ask questions. Let's show them that families come in all different styles.

No one chooses to be part of a marginalized subset of society. No one chooses to be gay. It's a difficult life. It's also really fun, too. There are cheap drinks at X Bar on Tuesdays. It's normal. It's natural. It's really lovely. Just because that's not how you roll doesn't mean you have to hate on it.

Having gay friends doesn't make you gay. Trust me on this one. Still a hetero here. People won't think any less of you if you hang out with gay people; you won't be any less of a man. So get over it! Stop freaking out about gay and start embracing it.

Or, if you're still uncomfortable, start with baby steps. Gay is not always the stereotype. Remember that.

Gay makes good parents. Gay makes good teachers. Gay makes good thinkers, good bus drivers, good politicians, good postmen, good database administrators. But mostly, gay makes great dancers.

This week, reach out to your gay, lesbian, queer, questioning, and straight friends and remind them how much they mean to you.

And if you've got the time, head downtown this weekend and be a part of the celebration.

Breakups, the beautiful things that crush our souls. (Kidding)

There are those moments in life where nothing happens as you might have expected that it would.
And then there are the moments where everything goes like you thought it would and it's entirely underwhelming.
Beneath the small struggles that encompass our daily lives, there are something bigger and more beautiful at work.

To quote Ryan, who took me out for a wonderful dinner last night: "Maybe I have it all wrong and you are just some ruthless asshole that just roams the earth hurting 39 year olds.  But I don't think so.  Behind that tough facade I know you are very sweet...You are a shining star amid a crowd of 40 watt light bulbs. You seriously are an amazing individual."

I laughed when I read this, becuase he signed his email with a typical rude Katie Barry sendoff.

This weekend brought the end of the biochemist. We tried (perhaps valiantly) and failed. We both knew it was coming, but he brought it, and deserves credit for it.
I had announced the impending breakup (can you break up with someone you weren't actually with?) to several people, and so feel quite fulfilled by my ability to feel out my hunches.

I cried like a small child, much to my embarrassment. I later told him that the unleashing of cathartic tears was 80% the result of wine consumption and 20% my wounded ego.

I'm not sure that he understands that I was not solely involved with him and therefore am not as devasted as if I'd lost my house, or had my bike stolen again, or if my cat was run over by a truck. This registers at, "Damn, I spent that $20 I was going to save." on the emotion-scale. Upsetting, annoying, but entirely survivable.
By the way, that might be the worst analogy ever, but I am sticking with it. The more I read it, the more I'm alright it. And the more I want to check my wallet to make sure I have that extra $20.

I am slowly realizing that there are people who will not adore me. (Surprise, surprise. Something we've known all along but can finally catalogue for posterity.)
I realize that two people, no matter how lovely individually, can be perfectly wrong for each other.
I am realizing that perhaps the parting of the ways should happen after the 3rd bad date and not after the 20th.

I am young, free, and quite content to wander for awhile.
I know what I want. The problem is that it's in Chicago and needs to get its shit together.
I'm kidding - that's the most perfect non-relationship I've ever been it. I hope it only changes for the better and never for the worse. We've known each other for a year and a half, and in that time, there has been so much miscommunication and craziness, but also so many really wonderful moments.
I hope that my July visit is either as good as the April one or better.
And contrary to popular belief, I did not go to South Africa because of him.
(Just so we're clear on that.)

Ha.

Here's to the waning (and wonderful) days of my beautiful youth.

(I'm going to read this when I'm still single and 45 and have a lot of cats and thick thighs and quite possibly an addiction to TV dinners and not laugh at all. But for now I think it's funny. All of it. I am a walking episode of Seinfeld and I'm alright with that.)

The garage sale

My mom, on the garage sale:
"I'm glad you guys made some money. I think I lost money. Who has a garage sale and comes out with less money than they went in with?"

I ask how much.
Maybe ten bucks, she answers.

This from the woman who was giving things away for 10 cents.
She sold my childhood stuffed cow for a dime.
She sold as many books as kids could carry for a dollar.

Overall, Mike and I each came out of it $55 richer.

And I got to introduce Nancy Drew to some little girls who didn't know who she was.
We didn't sell the oak desk, so if you're in the market, hit me up.


Small success!

A quick adventure (from last Monday)

Summer always invokes those beautiful childhood memories, the feelings of infinite freedom, the heat.
We decided on a picnic in the park - wine, cheese, bread, fruit, baked goods.
We needed supplies. Jacob met me at my apartment and we were tasked with cheese procurement, as well as other odds and ends. We drove to the grocery store, singing happily like teenagers.
While he ran back in for allergy medicine (ah, the signs of aging have landed), I retrieved the car. Since the parking lot off Downing is super small, I had no choice but to move my car since another was queued waiting for it. As though by magic, when I rounded the lot, edging closer to the door, easing my foot off the brake only when absolutely necessary, he appeared.
Yoo-hoo! I yelled, our regular greeting.
And then there was a quick driver change so that I could prepare myself for the picnic. Stopped at a red light, he made the suggestion and neither of us spoke in response. We exchanged glances and then undid our seatbelts and ran around the car.
Connected space messaging, we call it, based on me forgetting what telecommunication was called.

We laid the blanket near the flowers, but closer to the wide openness being taken up by volleyball players.
And we sat there until the sun had excused itself from the earth. Darkness fell softly and the bats emerged. And we laid there, heads on legs on heads on legs and we were content.

There is something so familiar and comforting about laying in the grass staring up at the sky. Trees stand above you. You know they'll not look the way they do forever. The green will grow and then die off and fall away, only to reemerge.

It's beautiful.
My friends are beautiful.
The night was beautiful.

However, I made the uncomfortable realization that tire swings lose a bit of their excitement as you age. I wedged my legs into the tire that used to hold like four kids, but now could only hold me, and let Jacob push me. I swung around, waiting for the stomach-dropping thrill, but finding none, extricated myself and went on to other pursuits (including the digger. Which also isn't that fun anymore).

Ah, summer nights.

Babysitting.

I've been babysitting since I was twelve.
Well, sort of.

My first ever babysitting experience was with the Cella's infant daughter while they were off at another daughter's First Communion.
I was fresh out of the Red Cross certification session that we did as Girl Scouts and I was ready to go. Babysitting schmabysitting, it was going to be no problem.

It was horrible.
I was never asked back and I don't even have to hesitate as to why.
The baby was supposed to go down for her nap and sleep the entire time (thus making her delightfully rested for the after-party). Of course, when I went to put her down for that nap, she cried, and I, overwhelmed with the prospect of letting a small child cry, picked her up and played with her for the next two hours.
There was purple marker all over her by the time the parents came home and she was just getting ready to head to bed.

Since then, there's been marked improvement.

I babysat all through college. Since then, it's been a great way to supplement my income on a semi-regular basis. It's also giving me a crash course in pre-parenthood, so that when I get around to procreating (not soon, not for many years) I won't even have to bat an eye about the basics.
I tend to babysit for kids under five (I've got one six-year old now).
I gravitate toward babies. They're easy. They have few needs. They haven't yet learned how to lie. They are still amused by simple things.
However, I do like the imagination and conversation that comes with slightly older children.

The three boys (twin three-year olds and their five month brother, when I started in September 2008) gave me a run for my money. By the end of my year and a half with them, I was no longer stressed out about little stuff. I stared down tantrums and was getting better at being strict.
They were some of the best kids I've ever sat for, partially becuase of the bond we developed.
But trust me, it definitely made me rethink my plan for having three kids.

When I first started sitting for them, the twins were having trouble coming to terms with the fact that their little brother was there. He was interrupting their lives. "Can't we just put him back?" they'd whine. Biting back a smile, I'd explain that he really looked up to them and wanted to be just like them.
That baby was one of the sweetest babies I've ever had charge of. We'd go to circle time, or whatever it was called, at the library, and we'd read and clap and do baby things. It was always funny becuase there would be a handful of parents and then a handful of caregivers like me, who sort of had an idea what they were doing in the circle, but sort of felt awkward.

I love how intelligent the kids can be. I love the way their minds work; I love the questions they ask.

One day, we were playing with the magnetic triangles that the boys had. (I loved these toys. I am getting a set for my kids one day.)
One of the twins said, "Katie, pass the isosceles."
I handed him a triangle, taking my best guess as to what an isosecles might be.
If he could have rolled his eyes at me, he would have. "That's not an isosceles," he said, disappointed.

Lately, the twins here in Denver have been all about their music. Asking for classical music by name so that they can re-enact Fantasia in the bathtub is wonderful. Graham asked me if I knew who Beethoven was. "He made a symphony," he announced.

I also love how understanding they can be.

The twins in Chicago used to have a hard time falling asleep. They all slept in the same room, so it was understandable that someone was going to talk or interrupt the other ones and general chaos would ensue.
Sometimes, when they couldn't sleep, I'd go in and lay with them, holding their hands until they fell asleep. My last night with them, I held their hands and sang to them and then cried. (They had tricked me into the singing business by telling me that their mom sang to them every night. She definitely didn't, and I definitely am a horrible singer, so I'd usually end up humming the refrain to a Beatles song until they got bored and asked for a new one.)

While I was babysitting for the Chicago crew, I was dating someone who had the name name as one of the twins. The other brother, Luke, once asked me if I had another Luke. I told him that he was my only one.
After the breakup, little Hunter told me that it was okay, because he would go on dates with me. He thought about it for a minute and then said, "We can put my carseat in your car."

My last night there, they told me that instead of going to get ice cream that night, they wanted to go to the beach because I reminded them of summer and the beach. And so we went.
We always ended up messy at the beach. We'd stand with our toes in the sand, waiting for the waves to come up and wash over us up to our ankles. They'd scream and run back from the waves. I'd pick up the baby and he'd laugh.
These happy moments would usually dissolve. I remember one night carrying the baby and his tricycle (because he refused to get off), while I had two dinosaur backpacks on my shoulders as well as one of the twins. The one who was on bike wasn't wearing anything but a pair of underwear .
Hey, at least they get home safe and happy.
That's all I can promise.

I love intelligent, imaginative kids. In those situations, it doesn't feel like work anymore, and it feels as though we're just playing.

I love going to the park.
I love their inquiries.

My favorite quote from the past few weeks:

Me: Do you need to go potty?
6 year old: I went before I got in the bath!
3 year old: I went in the bath!
*Cringe.*


While I usually manage to create a routine that's satisfactory to both myself and the children, I've run into a situation I'm unable to control, and one that has little chance of changing.

I call her the Cryer. It's a terrible name, I know, but there really isn't much else to describe the situation.
She's eleven months old now, and I sit for them about once a week. I get there and she cries, we recover, and then she cries.
There's no cause.
There's no solution.
It's frustrating.
I feel horrible, having to listen to her tears and see her face scrunched up in that horrible baby bawl. I don't know how to explain to the parents that this is the first time I've ever run across this issue.

I walk with her. I hold her. I try to distract her with toys. I feed her. Together, we feed the fish and then watch them.
I'm not connecting.
But I'm trying.
Last night, she went down at seven and was up again at eight thirty. The grandmother is in town for back surgery, and I'm not wondering if part of that played a factor in the wake up. (Coincidentally, it happened the minute the grandma walked past the baby's room.) And once she was up, all she wanted was grandma, who can't lift her.
And so we went upstairs and watched tv.
That's not usually my go-to solution, but it seemed to work. We played peek-a-boo with a blanket and threw some toys around.
Eventually, she went back to sleep.

It's an adventure, that's for sure. But I'm hoping that she'll warm up to me soon. I'm hoping that we'll soon be getting along terrifically.
But until then, it's a stressful experience for both of us.

Ferocity.

Something I'm learning from Carlos.

Act preemptively and base everything on your gut.

Your past guides you more than you think but shouldn't affect anyone's future perceptions of you.

I'm hurt; I'm annoyed; I'm angry.

No one should make me feel like I'm less than a human being, whether it's intentional or not.

I am Katie Barry and I do what I want.

Friday.

Ah, beautiful weekend ahead.
For once, I'm not entirely bogged down by babysitting plans.
I actually have some unscheduled time ahead of me this weekend, and I'm positively giddy about it.

After a miserable yesterday, I woke this morning feeling entirely refreshed. I was literally up and cleaning my house at 7:30 am.
It's looking a little better.
Mike and I need to be better about keeping up with things like the kitchen. It's gross. I rarely eat at home, and so I push it all off on him. But the pile of dishes keeps growing, and it's really grossing me out.

I am the designated bathroom cleaner. Maybe it's all the babysitting, or the years spent making faces while mopping Dairy Queen, but I am not scared of bathrooms.
Hair from the drain? 99% chance it belongs to me, so I'm not scared. Toilet cleaning? Meh, it's just bleach.
That stuff I can do.
(And I do regularly.)

I even had a load of laundry and some clothes hung up before 9 am.

Carlos was running around chasing his toy mice. I can't tell if I love him most when we are just waking up and he is laying on me and yawning, or if he's sliding on the wood floors chasing something. He's definitely got something very seriously dignified about him, but he's also childish, when he's stretched out lengthwise with a mouse between his paws, having just somersaulted into a wall. (God, I love him. I'll never let anyone take him from me.)

It was all very cute.

We are expecting canine company this evening. I'm terrified. I adore Ely's golden Archie, but I'm also not so sure how I feel about forcing Carlos to have to adapt to a dog.
Given that Carlos is so wonderful at adapting to strange situations, I'm hoping that once they realize it's probably going to keep happening, both animals will relax around each other. Archie is curious about Carlos, and even more curious about his food. (Apparently wet food is like crack for all animals.)

Based on how Carlos reacts when he sees any dog, I'm assuming he was attacked by one or more during his Chicago years. And so I understand his fear of Archie, but I wish it wasn't so bad. While I'm assuming he'll just run and hide, I'm also worried about a confrontation happening. Carlos can be very nasty when provoked. And I'm not sure Archie would be prepared for that.

Alas, we have to get to the Rockies game first. I'm not going home after work; I'll meet Emily at the DU light rail station at we will head down from there.
And then after the game? God only knows how we're going to get my car home.
And get the dog home.

It shall be an adventure. I'm not sure if I should start stressing now, or just wait until it's happening and roll with it.

I'll wait.
In all honesty, trying to balance Emily's needs with Ely's is going to be a hot mess.
This might get interesting.

And Madeline is in town tonight. And she'll be out after. So I'm just going to give the rest of them my keys and go dance. (just kidding. or am I?)

Happy Friday!

War is an ugly thing.

Just cried at work while reading this article: 

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2005/nov/11/final-salute/

Carlos.

The weekend was quiet, but not terribly so.
I babysat, went to Boulder, came back down, had brunch with Emily, did laundry, went for a walk, babysat, helped Jacob clean his house, babysat, went to dinner with Heidi and Val and then saw a movie, and then went back to Jacob's to help him finish.

Saturday night, I brought Carlos with me to Jacob's. He hates cars, he hates being carried, he hates his leash. I don't know why I keep trying, but you absolutley cannot walk a cat. He won't behave. He'll try to escape. You'll pick him up, and for your trouble, he'll claw you.
You'll be bleeding, from your chest and your knees, and you'll have a squirming ball of angry black fur in your arms. And you'll have to throw him into your car and slam the door and then watch him look at you with wide green eyes.

And that's just the beginning.

We slept over, so of course, the litterbox was an issue. I'd brought a shoebox, but he didn't have enough room to turn around and get comfortable, so we were woken up by the sounds of scratching in the litterbox and then a sad sounding meow.
This was repeated.

We leashed him and took him out. He was a street cat, of course he'll know what to do.
Nope. Went under some bushes. And then tried to get under a fence into a construction site.

It appears I have much work to do. I wonder if we could join some doggy training classes at the Dumb Friend's League.
I wonder if they'd judge me for trying to make my cat into a dog.

Alas, we arrived home safely. He was immediately quite happy to be back at home. (I think that every time we go somewhere he thinks that I might leave him or that we're going to the vet, where he'll have to have surgery or some other horrible procedure. I'm hoping that enough nice outings will reinforce the fact that I'm not leaving him, that I do love him, and that he's stuck with me.)

I woke up this morning with him curled up in my arms. He, too, hates the alarm.

He's been eating dog food lately. I wonder if it's bad for his health. Last time Ely brought his golden down, Carlos was relcoated, and we just left the dog food in a container. I went into the kitchen the other day, and there was Carlos, crunching on dog food. Ely's dog tries to eat Carlos's wet food, so maybe pet foods are sort of interchangeable.

However, I'm hoping that soon we can get Carlos to get comfortable with the dog. This may prove to be an interesting situation, and honestly, I worry more about the dog than Carlos. He can hold his own. The dog, hwoever, has a sweet disposition and a curious nature. Carlos will eat him alive.

The answer?
Kitten mittens.

Tonight, I'm going to bribe him with wet food so he's not upset when I go to Boulder.

Musing

I wonder at what point my formative years will end and the formidable ones will begin.

The Russian situation, and then some kidney pain.

What did God get me for my birthday?
Renal failure.

Just kidding, but only sort of.
I spent all of yesterday in bed after a morning visit to the doctor revealed that I wasn't going anywhere.
Today, I napped in my desk chair at work.
I'm dehydrated, achy, and worst of all, fiercely ill-tempered.




So far twenty-three isn't that great.

But hey, I guess the only place to go is up!

Why I scare men and why he scares me.

Ely pointed out to me that men might find me intimidating.
He was hasty to add that he doesn't.
Of course not, dear.

We're at a concert, I'm pushing my way to the front, wiggling into the space at the bar, all the while talking to him about a man we've both met briefly and that we mutually despise. Maybe despise is a strong word.
I'm sure it sounded something like, "blah blah blah blah blah...and then he gave her this and that and then wrote this."

That's when he stops me. "You wonder why men find you intimidating? It's because of that." A romantic gesture? And I roll my eyes?

I was puzzled. He's probably right.
But then again, I've never been subjected to romantic overtures.
After that weird first date back in high school, there were roses, and there was a CD of songs that reminded him of me on it. One of them was this song.
So that was awkward.
The string of bad attempts at love could go on, but to spare us all, I won't.
So perhaps I'm jaded. Or inexperienced. Or just cynical.

I turn back to him. "I liked it when you made me waffles," I say, as though that would be some sort of explanation. (I actually don't like waffles. Don't tell him. They're good, just not something I go out of my way for.)

Later that night, we're walking home. I say something rude. (In my defense, it wasn't that rude; he has delicate ears.) "Again," he says.
I'm incredulous. How is that intimidating?
He explains.
I argue.
(I begin to understand what he means, but that annoys me, so I argue more.)
We concede (or maybe I do and forget to tell him) that men are mostly moronic and "chivalrous" at all the wrong times, and there's no reason I should have to conform to some lady-like ideal when we're breaking gender barriers daily.

***
We'll flash forward to last night.

I went up to Boulder to return his watch and retrieve my water bottle. (I'm glad that both of us seem to lose stuff. Or maybe his was an isolated incident.)

Last week, I was trying to be cute and I asked him to make me dinner someday. So he told me that if I went up to Boulder, he would.

I was thrown off my game. We cooked.
I am inept. We were going to bread tofu and I (I'm cringing even now as I replay this in my mind) pour the egg into the flour.
Uncle Mike White will appreciate how much I got made fun of over the next hour.
Constantly.
I was not born to cook.
He has a surprisingly snarky side.
I like it.

It's rare that someone is completely un-readable, and yet he is, and I'm intrigued.
We've cobbled together a slow friendship based on the things we have in common (zero).
And I'm curious.
And that's good.

Education Special: Ode to English teacher

Sushi Love

There we were last night, sitting side by side in a sushi restaurant, contemplating the meaning of our twenties.

Is 23 your mid-twenties? Or are you lucky if you get to push that off until you're 24? By 29, have you resigned yourself to the approach of 30?

I'm about to turn 23. I always thought that by 23, I'd be this successful, beautiful, somehow totally organized person. Obviously, that was some sort of pipe dream. Jacob laughed when I told him this. "I don't feel any older," he said. "Do I look older?"
"I still see all of us the same way I saw us when we were 17," I told him. And that's true. In my mind, somehow, I stopped aging at some point and am still 17. It happened previously around the age of 12, when I became aesthetically aware of myself for the first time. That sounds weird, but it was at that point that I became incredibly self-conscious about the way I appeared to other people.

And now, since I'm still battling the ravages of teenage acne and adjusting to the newly developed hips, I don't feel glamorous or 23. I just feel like I've entered adolescence all over again. Navigating the adult world is much like navigating your freshman year of high school. Or even freshman year of college. It's exciting, and it's fun, but it's also really scary, and at no point do you ever feel comfortable or adequate. But looking back, you realize if you'd just taken ten deep breaths and calmed the fuck down, you'd have been fine. Because you were fine.

It was all in your head.

Not to say that I'm not happy or infinitely more confident and secure than I was at 14. Even the last two years have brought about phenomenal personal and spiritual (and maybe even some intellectual) growth.

We were sitting next a lone woman, eating dinner and worrying about something showing up on her receipt. Business trip, I thought. She carried herself with a nervous air, as though this was the first time she'd found herself eating dinner alone in a strange city.
Next to her sat the woman who somehow doesn't look like she belongs in Denver. Her feet clad in Christian Louboutins, her hat cocked just so to accentuate her styled blonde hair, her facial features swathed in soft layers of mkeup. But reeking of privilege and confidence. (Not that those have to fall together. But they might. And do.)
And there I sat. Feeling 22.

But then dinnner came and my fears were washed away as I realized that there are parts of me that surpass some 30 year olds.

Jacob and I spent the after dinner moments scribbling awkward drawings on the back of the receipts and I realized that I'd never give up my youth to masquerade as someone I'm not and will never be.

Maturity isn't an outward characteristic, not something you can buy in 24 carat gold. (Ew, don't ever buy me anything gold, thanks.) That posturing doesn't show depth of character, or taste, or class. It shows that you've got money to burn (although I'd happily burn some for these). 

And so as we walked up the entrance ramp to the West deck of Cherry Creek mall discussing the disparity between doing what you love and doing what you have to do to survive, I felt secure.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, they say. I'm off, marching confidently onwards, it's just too bad I have no idea where that is.

Awake

Beautiful day, beautiful mood.
Is there anything better?

My mouth is gin dry, my hair limp, my body sore, and my mind gorgeously foggy.
My attention span is zapped; my day smacks of endless repetition; I am content. (Every time I write a triadic sentence, I flash back to Mr. Hilbert's classroom. I am 17 again. AP English is the bane of my existence. I'll never forget Mary Hayes' sentence:  He was grotesque; he was ugly; he was my prom date. - or something to that affect.)
These are the waning days of my youth, after all.

The night began with the procedures of self-preservation and ended with the tossing out of all best intentions, but doesn't that describe the best nights?

Woke up surrounded by cloud-white sheets. Rolled over and groaned at the coming day.

Oddly fulfilled.

I also have some nasty dubstep playing. There is not enough RedBull in the world to contain me. Or to fuel my future.

Off to be productive, to produce, to hit the grind....whatever it is that the corporate world might be.

On a sidenote, my desk is a hand-me-down (obviously). It's full of odds and ends, and they're all perfect for someone with my small attention span. My current obsession? A stamp that simply says "Acknowledgement." We are nearly paperless, although I find myself stamping things just so I can see the remnants of the 80s business mentality on paper. Acknowledgement.

It's almost as good as the PostIt that said "Relocate." Apparently I wrote it, although I'm not sure what for or why. I got into work one day, and there it was, sitting on my computer. "Relocate." I was furious - they don't want me? They don't like me here and the subtle reminder was there. Relocate.
Turns out, I had set it there. Of course. It was a cute joke for awhile.

Love your day, love your life.

Also, I miss Carlos. Jacob has him. And they're happy. I'm jealous.

Death and then more war

I am more of a pacifist than I'd like to believe.
I don't support the killing of anyone.
I don't support any war.
I get that sometimes it's "necessary" but the days of the World Wars have long since collapsed into wars of greed masked with good intentions.
The best of intentions don't always lead to the best of outcomes - instead, we find ourselves mired in wars we can't pay for, wars that kill our naive kids, wars that tear apart families and countries yet don't bring the peace we'd hoped for.
The rebuilding takes years. The pain lasts forever.
The world is not a better place for our occupations; it's merely a little bit more burdened, heavy with the right hand of America, that democratic bastard.

I don't believe anyone should be celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. I don't think we've done anything other than kill someone else. He'll become a statistic, as monumental as the toppling of the statue that stood in Baghdad. This day will be a memory. Nothing more. It is not the end. There is no winning. Not even Charlie Sheen can say that today.

And while I do appreciate that it's finally done - and now hopefully our tides of propaganda can shift our focus elsewhere - I regret that it's taken so long, taken so many misfires, taken so much American abuse of lands and peoples that don't belong to us.

And of course, we didn't even tell Pakistan we were going to do it. I understand why. But I think it will ultimately hurt our already fragile relationship with that country.

We dumped his body in the sea. I will give us credit for supposedly giving him a proper goodbye according to Islamic law.

In and out, swift justice for the wounded, for the dead, for the future.
Is it really justice?
Was it really worth it?

Is all that death for one life justification of creating the hell we thought we were trying to end?

Now let's move on.
We'll take the soft uptick in the markets that is sure to follow, we'll take the slight jump of poll numbers, we'll take the fuzzy bipartisan feelings reminiscent of a night spent on ecstasy, but we shouldn't let it swell our already full heads.

I read one blog today that mentioned planting peace roses.
I'm for that.
Let's remind the world that all this bombing and killing and bloodshed is supposed to achieve one thing: peace.

Don't tell your kids we won.
We didn't.
Because there is no we.

(I was listening to a man on NPR talk about Muslims and how he didn't feel any negativity towards them - good, why should he? - and how they felt the same way "we" did. Thanks man, for really showing the separation "we've" created. Who is us and what are they?)

Teach peace and compassion.
Teach understanding and love.
And hope that somewhere, some of those lessons take root in our souls.

Odds and Ends and Saturdays

I got an email from Mama P this morning. You'll remember Priscilla, my absolutely insanely wonderful host mother in South Africa.
Her emails are always short and to the point. They never say much, but I'm grateful for them. Today she said that the weather is turning cold, and to say hello to Mike and James Dean for her. I laughed out loud when I read the last bit; I had completely forgotten about that. So here's how it goes:

The night that James was coming to pick me up for our first date, I realized I had no idea what his name was. I knew it was either James or Dean. So we had all just referred to him as James Dean the entire week. I realized that this was eventually going to present a problem, so I called him, and luckily, he didn't answer his phone. Voicemail clued me in on his real name and that was that. But we still called James Dean.

It's amazing how much I miss that place. I know it will never be the same, but it will always have a beautiful place in my heart. I want to get back there, to stand at Muizenberg Beach and feel the waves crash against my feet and fight my way onto the train and off again.

However, my life here is growing daily. While I like that I'm learning a lot at my current job, I'm not satisfied with the compensation and have taken on babysitting to make extra cash. (This supports my lifestyle, which you may be surprised to hear isn't quite as wild as you might think.) Anyway, I've got four families in the rotation and the balancing act is getting a bit hectic.

This week, for example, I will be working all seven days. And twice this week I had to go straight from work to babysit. The other nights I went directly home and was in bed relatively early. It's all fine and well, but I'm not getting any decompression time and am beginning to get a bit stressed.
Hopefully this week will provide ample opportunity for sleep as I'm not scheduled to work any week days.

Alas, today brings more babysitting, volunteering at a choir concert that one of my co-workers is singing in, and then date night. And tomorrow brings babysitting.
I really love the families that I'm sitting for this weekend - I find it much easier to babysit when I'm actually enjoying myself as well. One family has three little girls, and then, of course, there are the twins.   I find myself hoping the symphony season won't end!

Last night, Jacob and I went to see a production of Macbeth at UCD. Jacob was personally invested - he did the music for the show. I went because I waffle back and forth on my hate/love of Shakespeare. This play was pretty well done. The costuming choices were interesting - mostly just corsets - and the cast was tiny, but the leads delivered their lines really well.
After that, we went to an art gallery where they were serving pancakes and alcohol (strange combination, but hey, whatever). After paying $5 to get in and being told that drinks were free - we ended up having to pay $4 for a small cup. Ridiculous. The gallery was cute, but it was trying too hard to replicate the scene in New York. There were topless models being spraypainted (when done properly, it's actually really beautiful), but it just felt like an afterthought, especially as the crowd began to diminish.  After meeting up with our friend Claire and her girlfriend and wandering around looking at some art, we bailed to go dancing.

And so we danced. The night drew to a close, and I was grateful, because the tired had begun creeping through my bones. I went home, said hello to Carlos and Mike, and was asleep nearly immediately. I woke up tired - I didn't get nearly enough sleep. I'm hoping for a nap while I do my laundry.

Tonight, once my obligations are over, I've got a wild night planned (as usual). The guy that I guess I'm dating (I don't know - we eat dinner together sometimes. He made me waffles. I think that counts as sort of edging toward dating?) is going to come down from Boulder (and maybe bring his adorable dog!) and we're going to go see Claire's band play and then (depending on how tired I am or how bored he is) head to a weird art gallery/warehouse for a space party ordeal.

Jacob is super into the electronic scene, which means I find myself at a lot of events. I joking called it a "space cult" based on the theme of the first party he invited me to. Now, we call them space parties. They're not really - just a bunch of people in a room listening to really good (or really bad, depending) music and maybe drinking.

And yes, we may have to relocate Carlos for the evening. Jacob is more than happy to babysit and Carlos has been itching to get out and explore.

Today's fortune in my lunch:

Peace comes from within. Seek it in yourself.

I'll take that.

IUD - Birth Control

http://www.good.is/post/why-isn-t-birth-control-getting-better/

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/04/25/we-need-better-birth-control/

http://www.slate.com/id/2223840/

Three articles, today, all linked to or quoted in the others in some form.
I don't have time to make the format all sexy, so just click on them and read.

I am so pro-IUD, it's ridiculous.

Enjoy!

Wikileaks: Or, How My Nuclear/Extended Family Fell Apart

It's been awhile since you've been party to an angry rant directed at someone you're familiar with, so get ready:

Preface: I understand that the airing of "dirty laundry" in the internet is frowned upon. I thought about that for a long time before I did this. It's all based on the lack of transparency. I don't want anyone to question where I'm coming from or think that I'm neglecting my duties.

I don't have a solution to the problem below. I'm just thinking thoughts. I do my thinking when I'm typing. I like to record bouts of emotional turmoil for reflection and later, growth.

I love everyone in this post. I've taken out names. I want the same things they want. A husband, a family, a full life.
I have a very full life. I am very loved. Don't question that for a minute.
So what if I like "alternative" culture? We can't all live in polo shirts in plaid (it makes my thighs look fat). Black is much more slimming. And the vampire look is all the rage these days. (Ew)

Of course, this is very personal. But it involves me, too. And yes, it's incredibly self-centered. It's how I feel. This is my space. I can write about whatever I want, and that's what I've chosen to do.
I'm pissed, so this might lack the eloquence I'd usually try to use to cloak the emotions I'm feeling.
I don't sleep well; I have dreams about this situation all the time; I'm generally annoyed.
For once, I'm at a loss for words. I've let an email reply sit out there on the interwebs for more than two months because I literally cannot think of a suitable reply to that reply. I'm stumped by the inability to respond without losing my dignity by accepting a weak excuse, or without burning a bridge, or grovelling. And if there's one thing I don't do, it's grovel.

It's been a long time coming.
It started long ago. It's part of who Dad is. Weird.
I get that, and I understand that sometimes it's hard to be around him. But my argument against that is thus: You're his family. You can stand to be around him for four hours at a time, like four times a year. It's much harder to be his daughter than to be his brother, or his sister, or his mother.
Your counter-argument: But, our children!
I counter like this: He's not a sexual predator. He's not on drugs. He's not a drunk. Yes, he's a completely degenerate bum, but he's not (at heart) a bad man. Your kids will have to learn how to interact with people who aren't as affluent or as socially graceful as you someday, they might as well start now.

I've been talking to Mom about this for awhile now, trying to puzzle out why we're so often excluded from Barry family events.
And then Christmas happened.
The text message came in just before 7pm Christmas Eve. "We now have other plans tomorrow. Hope to see you soon."
Burn. Well played, Uncle [redacted]. The smoothest dis-invite I've ever had, without any admission of the actual invite ever existing. (Actually, the only one. I don't think I've ever been dis-invited from anything.)

Here's the email I sent:

Hello,

I hope you're all having a good start to the year.

Now that all the holiday rush has died down, I just wanted to drop you

a note to let you know how incredibly disappointed I was in the way

that Christmas was handled this year, and in the way that many

family/holiday events are often handled.

In the future, if you choose to renege on invitations at 6 o'clock the

night before a major holiday, please just don't bother inviting me at

all.

I can't speak for [redacted], so I won't, but I am incredibly hurt. It's not

that I minded crying a little bit, but even worse was having to listen

to [redacted] cry on the other end of the phone the day after Christmas.

While I hope that I am correct in assuming that you didn't want to

have any contact with [redacted], I also hope you understand that [redacted] and I

are both independent adults who are capable of social interaction

without him. We haven't lived with him on any consistent basis since

we were 16 and have displayed none of his odd social proclivities.

If that's not the case, and there's something wrong with the two of us

or with me personally, I'd prefer to address it now rather than be

continually excluded from Barry family events.

Sincerely,

Katie

However, it turns out that I was incorrect. I spent hour agonizing over the text of that email. I consulted. I edited. I won't post the entire response, because I consider myself to be not that much of an asshole, but here are specific excerpts that relate to my post today. And I don't consider them privileged.

My text the night before was to make sure nothing was

"assumed" even though we hadn't discussed anything firm and to get [redacted]'s

number. The only way this was triggered was that [redacted] had begun to leave

several messages indicating he wanted to come over.

Another point that disappoints us is that you make no mention of the

numerous holiday events over the years in which you were included.

Often times those events were adjusted to fit your schedule with your

Mom's side of the family. We were happy to do this, but to be told that

we've "continuously excluded" you confuses us.

You mention [redacted] in your note. Right or wrong, holidays and family

events have certainly been impacted due to [redacted]'s behavior. For all of

his great qualities, it's no secret that his behavior can often times

add stress, drama, etc. I really hate pointing this out since he is

your Dad, but I want to be fair to you and as an "adult." I don't think

you'd find this surprising. Unfortunately, his impact has played a role

in not spending more time with you and [redacted] over the years. For so long

it was always a "package deal." I'm truly sorry that you've been

"caught in the middle" in so many instances. Thanks for pointing out

(right or wrong) that it's no longer the case.



I cried when I read this email.

But then I got mad. That's why I haven't been able to respond. I have nothing to say. I do, but I can't say it. I don't know. And now it's just too late to say anything.

RENEGE! (I'm not going to respond to that bit. I'm biting my tongue.)

I don't talk to Dad. I see him maybe once every couple of months. I'm not a pipeline of Barry family information that goes directly to him. I'm not inviting him to events. 

I was a child when they rearranged all of their schedules. I'm not the one who made up that horrible divorce custody schedule; I'm just the one who got dragged along for the ride.

You do realize I hate Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, etc? The only consolation is that divorce brought double the Thanksgiving dinners and two distinct styles of cranberries. I'm pro-divorce as far as Thanksgiving goes, and very thankful for them.

And I'm also thankful for all the rough rearranging that was done, but I apologize for it. If I had known it was such a problem, I guess I could have....wait a minute, done nothing. I was twelve. I don't want to hear about it.

Now, of course, complain. If we were demanding change now, you shouldn't have to acquiese. Don't rearrange anything for us. We're autonomous adults ("adults" is a term of debate for another day, but we're self-sufficient, theoretically productive members of society, which in today's world, qualifies us as adult). We are capable of handling ourselves in public, in private, wherever. We are capable of managing a schedule. I recently synced my Outlook calendar with my phone calendar and began actually logging dates in there. I'm legit. (Small step for me, large eye-roll for the rest of you.)

I don't manage Dad! It's not my fault he calls you!

I would also like to address the part where (you don't get to read that part) Uncle [redacted] says that he'd like me to list family events that I've been excluded from.

Let's start now.

The day after Christmas I'm housesitting. I get a call from [redacted]. She's nonchalant. We talk. She asks me how yesterday went, we're both tip-toeing around what we know is about to come up. She tells me that it was nice, they opened presents, they did this and that and the kids played with this and that. Pretty soon, we're both crying. I have to hang up because this is bullshit.
[Redacted] and I are both pretty chill people. We don't expect big dinners. I'll host! I'll cook (badly). [Redacted] will cook (better). We'll put on the dinner, we'll have a cold cut and cheese platter. I don't want to see you for your food, I want to see you for you. I love pajamas. I own a bunch, for all occasions, even Christmas.
I cry. That's when I know everything is really broken.

It's a Tuesday. I have dinner plans with Mom. I get a call from Aunt [redacted] saying that they're in town and want to have dinner. I call Mom and cancel.

At dinner, [redacted: cousin] asks me if I'm going to California. I ask, why? She tells me they're all going to see [redacted: other cousin] graduate from high school. Oh, I say, I'm sorry, I have to work. Inside, I'm thinking, huh, definitely wasn't invited to that.

Throughout the meal, Aunt [redacted] is constantly saying how nice it is that we're so flexible, and blathering on about how it's so nice that we can just be spontaneous. It's all for Dad's benefit, because he's complaining and pressing them for details.

I get that.

Then I find out that they've been in town since Friday. Then I find out that we both went to the parade downtown on Saturday. I would have liked to have seen them. I was sober.

I bring that up because I believe that my father's side of the family has not received the most accurate information about me since I stopped living with my father. He's got a set of assumptions about my behavior that are entirely incorrect.

Yes, I drink. Yes, I go out.

Yes, I'm 22, and I have a full-time job and I babysit on the side. I have responsibilities and I'm not neglecting any of them. I have a cat-son and a dilapidated car that I love. I get regular oil changes. I vote. I can pretend to be Catholic when necessary. I'm spiritual. I believe in a g-d. I've never been arrested. I'm going to stop. This is getting weird.

(I don't know, what makes a person a good role model?)

Those are two recent examples, but I can dig further if necessary. I'd prefer not to, though.

I would like to have a good relationship with my younger cousins, but it's very difficult. I was really excited about this summer, when I had the opportunity to drive through the state where some of them live (most awkward attempt to talk around that ever) and stay with them. I had hoped that I was able to leave a positive impression and set a good example for my cousins. I talked with my Aunt and Uncle and was grateful for their hospitality and their generosity.

The base of the problem here is that I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't genuinely care. These people are my family, and just because I'm now mostly estranged from my father (for my own personal sanity), I don't understand why I've been shut out as well.

When I was a teenager, and just starting to have problems with my dad, I spent nearly every weekend at [redacted]'s house. She really saved me, and those are some really nice memories. We would go get our toes done, or we'd cook dinner, or we'd run errands together. I cherish those times and am eternally grateful to have had somewhere else to go when things weren't great. She never said anything about it, but I respect her for understanding that I needed somewhere to go.

When we didn't have any furniture or good sheets, she took me out and we bought flannel sheets, a comforter, and a rug for Christmas one year. I still have all of that (except the comforter). I still remember how excited I was to decorate my rom.

That same year, in what I now know was an attempt to pull my struggling self-esteem up, she and Aunt [redacted] took me to buy makeup. Oh my g-d, I still have dreams about that stuff. I was so genuinely happy. And I am still genuinely grateful. I love my Mom but she's not great at super girly stuff that like, and I really looked up to Aunt [redacted] because to me, she was epitome of what a woman should be. She was funny, smart, happy. I wanted all of that, too.

But now I realize that I'm not exactly like them. I have literally been racking my brain for months (years, really) to try and figure out what it is about me that doesn't jive.

I honestly don't know.

I think it's that sometimes I forget to send out thank you notes. I really do write them. Every time I move, I find a bunch of thank you notes that have been addressed, sealed, the whole works, just not sent. I'm sorry about that.

Or maybe it's that I don't send enough gifts. I want to blame Dad on this one, but here I am trying to assert my independence, so obviously that's not going to work. I'll try harder.

Or maybe it's that I'm not Catholic. But I went to Catholic grade schools, a Catholic high school, a Catholic university. I graduated. I did what they wanted. I'm not a heathen, I'm just not a Christian. But I don't tell their kids that. I answer their questions honestly but sometimes I do lie just to protect their upbringings. I know Catholicism in and out. I'm good.

Once, when I was like fifteen, Uncle [redacted] and Aunt [redacted] found a lighter at their house. At that time, I had just become a black-cotton-clad child and was expressing my inner rage, so naturally, they thought it was mine. I denied it, because it wasn't. I later found out it belonged to [redacted] but he was too scared to say anything. Maybe that was where it all started to go wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't lie.

I don't lie. I don't cheat. I don't steal.

(That's my life philosophy. It's not that hard to do, really. I feel like aiming for those goals is good. From there, you can expand yourself into the best person you can be.)

Anyway, those are my theories. I'm sorry my father is a nut. It's not all his fault. It's the [redacted] syndrome. It affects him socially. Granted, even after the mitigating circumstances, he's still a lot to handle, but a lot of that is also generated when the people who are supposed to love him unconditionally get irritated. (I'm guilty of being the ultimate hypocrite here, I realize that. But seriously, if there's a group, four hours doesn't seem so bad, does it? I manage dinners, coffees, whatever. It's not going to kill you.)

I'm not invited to Easter, go figure.

Let's just all be estranged and call it good.

I will at least say that my mom's side of the family is always willing to rearrange things for us as necessary. And sometimes they even go out of their way to see us. It's nice. I know that if I call Aunt [redacted] for something, a favor, or a plan, or an activity, she'll respond. In a timely manner. Who'd have thought?

I guess it comes down to this: you can't choose your family (even when you're adopted), but you can choose to interact for the better or the worst. Some people love me for who I am, even if I'm not following their idea of the perfect life path. Some don't, I guess. It hurts. I'm not good at conflict; I'm not good at trying to figure out why I don't belong. But I guess this is a chance for me to get better at it.

Ugh, Easter. People wonder why I get so agitated around the holiday season. Wouldn't you?

Women's Empowerment

Don't read my blog today.
Take 20 minutes and watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdOcjKsUqOI

Release

I'm free now. I'll still wonder, I guess, but I know what should have been.

The tears threatened to bubble up to the surface, but they never came and as the feeling ebbed away, I began to smile.

I'll never be that person, but at least I'm still me.

Fruitypants: or why I love my little brother

These are those rare moments when you realize that everything is truly beautiful, and you must not be missing anything at all.

Our trivia team took 4th place (out of 32 teams) at the citywide competition on Saturday, and as a result, had Nuggets tickets.  I took Mike with me, and we met Heidi and one of her friends.

And it was a genuinely, unexpectedly lovely evening. Mrs. Hosanna had noticed that I'd checked into the Pepsi Center on Foursquare (yet another application for the advanced stalking of our friends, but one that seems to do me good at times), so she sent me a text and I went down to see her and Aunt Judy and the rest of the family at halftime.

I'm glad Mike and I got to spend some quality time together. Lately we've been keeping very different schedules and it's been hard to schedule time.  Mike had a blast talking basketball with the guy sitting next to him, and I had a blast listening to him talk about betting. I am starting to get a basic idea of what it entails. He was exuberant after finding out that his parlay had gone through and he'd won $150. (Which is good because his betting  money comes from my bank account - I should start charging a fee every time.)

But we were talking on the ride home, having lapsed into one of our infrequent yet necessary "real talk" sessions and he goes, "We're not like other people...Do you know how much we're loved?" and proceeds to wax on about how wonderful our lives are.

And even though I fall into the melancholy thinking that life is kind of shitty sometimes, it is so much more than that.

I really am grateful that I'm not an only child. I love Mike because I know that he's going to grow up and be this great person. I admire him. He reads more than me (never thought you'd hear that, did you?). He explores things that interest him. He loves Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. He's this wise man crammed into the body of a 21 year old.

We are polar opposites. But we work really well together. He keeps me in line and I do the same, just at different times. I conceptualize and he does details. I socialize and he does the math. It works. However, no one does the grocery shopping.

I have a very full life that's overflowing with great things. And I really do love every single minute of it. Thanks for the reminder, Mike. You're the best.

South African Wine Article

Teenage Wasteland

This week was weird food week for me.
Jacob and I were grabbing coffee downtown on Tuesday night, and on the walk back to my car, we spotted a random assortment of vegetables laying on the sidewalk. Of course I stopped to take a picture. They lay there in the dark, an oddly phallic assortment of forgotten food.
I thought little of it.

I went home, parked on 17th and as I was walking back toward my house, I saw an entire bag of English muffins sitting there by the sidewalk.
So I took a picture.

I realized later that it was dumb to take two pictures of weird food coincidences, but then today, it finally hit me.
I was driving up Colorado Blvd to grab a salad from the grocery store when I saw tubs of Blue Bell (brand new to Colorado) ice cream melting all over the median. Thank god it's not summer and the tubs won't start to stink immediately, but someone is still going to have to come and clean them up.
And who leaves food like that?

I got back to the office and took the plastic off of my salad. And then took more plastic off of the toppings. And then unwrapped the plastic fork and removed the plastic off of the plastic carton of salad dressing included in the plastic package.
See where I'm going with this?

Plastic. Food.

Maybe now that I'm working in a confined space (read: an office), I find myself often eating perishables in disposable cartons. Or eating non-perishables in disposable cartons.
I have a set of lovely reusable food containers. (Ah, Costco, where would we be without you?) I bring yogurt in them. I have stained them orange with spaghetti sauce residue. I have microwaved them and washed them and refrigerated them, and they come home with me daily.
I'm satisfied to use them, because I know they are about as sustainable as plasticware gets. I'll reuse them until either I lose them (which is bound to happen at some point) or until they become broken and old. But they're sturdily made and chances are high that my $30 investment (that's a high estimate) will be well worth it for both me and the environment.

But waste.
Food gets wasted.
It happens.
But it happens too often.
Mike and I are constantly battling the fresh food problem. We want fresh food. We buy fresh food. We watch that fresh food become less and less fresh until it's no longer fresh food. We throw it out.
The cycle begins anew.

I remember being sixteen and having a seriously depressed thought about a spoon at Dairy Queen. (Oh god, that's embarrassing.) When you drop a spoon on the floor, it gets thrown away. It'll never touch anyone's lips. It's now been rendered useless. And that bothered me. It was created to be a spoon, to bring ice cream joy to the lips of greedy consumers. But now it never would. It will spend the rest of its days (weeks, months, years, centuries, millenia) languishing in a landfill, wrapped in plastic, surrounded by paper cups and napkins, and other plastic spoons, rotting slowly back into the Earth.

But they won't rot, really. Not within a decent timeframe.

This is why it is of the utmost importance that people start recognizing their own consumption and thinking about it. (Thoughts are where all real change starts.) Don't recycle because it's cool, recycle because of that poor red spoon. Recycle because you can and should. Recycle.

And stop wasting food.
I'm guilty of it, too. We all are.
Stop leaving half empty beer cans. Drink up.
Stop letting your spinach rot.
Stop buying the 5lb carton of strawberries at Costco (I'm so guilty of this...I do it every time) because it's cheaper than 2lbs at the grocery store.

I'm not going to the use the hungry-child-in-Africa excuse because it's not really that valid as far as your own personal food consumption goes. Sending someone your spinach isn't going to work. Eating something extra even though you don't want to will just make you fat. It's a no-win situation. They're still hungry and now you're dealing with the onset of adult diabetes.

So much for saving the world.

Only buy what you need. And sometimes, even though it may be laden with preservatives that might mummify your insides, it might be better to buy it canned, or frozen, or not at all if you know you're not going to use it right away.

Just a small public service announcement and personal reminder.

I get really upset when I hear the debate about public education in this country.

One day, I would really like to be able to send my kids to public schools. At the moment, I wouldn't. I know I'm biased based on my private school education, but the public school system needs an overhaul.

Class size? Salary? Supplies?
Screw it all. Our country doesn't do enough with what we've got. We spend so much time trying to cut necessary human services so we can waste money on bombs.

Let's have teachers who have enough support that they're not burning out after two years!
Let's have people who are passionate about what they do in charge of the public school system rather than having administrators run it all like a business (some of them have never set foot in a classroom in a teaching capacity!)

Let's get everyone involed. Screw state mandated test scores. Screw performance based funding.

Let's start over. Let's re-do the system. And let's make sure that our kids are getting the best education possible; it's the only way that the US has any sort of future.

The QR code for my Tumblr account.

If you have a barcode scanner on your smartphone, scan this link and my blog should pop up.
I downloaded and use Zxing - which is free on the Android market. There are also 50 free apps on iPhone.
Pretty cool, huh?

And so the gallbladder goes...

I've nearly caught my breath, but only momentarily, of course.

My mom has been in the hospital since Sunday morning, when she went to the ER with severe stomach pain. Turns out it was gallstones.

So there was a thing yesterday and then the surgery to remove the gallbladder today, and now she is resting comfortably and we can breathe again. I sat in the room with Grandma Mary today, away from work on my lunch break, jumping everytime I heard something that sounded like a bed rolling down the hall. It wasn't, and just as I was getting so anxious I thought I'd burst, she came back in, looking a million times better than she did on Sunday.

And I was so happy to have her back.

I'm so selfish, I know, but I'm not ready to lose her yet. (Not that I'll ever be, but, you know...) I wore her rings yesterday and today; it's odd that small comforts like that really do help.

When I first realized what it might feel like to not have her there anymore, I was younger, maybe still an emo-ish teenager, and I was reading some article in some magazine I would only buy once. It was about picking up the phone to call your mother and realizing that she'd never answer. Or deleting her number because it was stupid to have it in your phone becuase you'll never be able to call it again anyway. Upon reading that, a surge pulled through me and then away, leaving an empty sucking feeling at the pit of my stomach. And from then on I realized how precious our time is.

And so I gave her the "you're-running-out-of-spare-parts" lecture and I hope the heavens understood my true meaning.

But thank god, more than ever, for good health insurance, and for family.

Am I heartbroken or am I just weak?

Rough week, exhaustion, uutter despair. Calamity, apathy, angst-ridden.

Worst part about it all?

Nothing's wrong.

Except that overnight, plane tickets to Chicago went up $120 round trip. So that sucks.

But other than that, I guess I'm fine.

Wishing to run away again, as usual.

I am in the midst of a trepidatious Monday. I'm unnverved, unsettled, and somehow craving something firmly rooted.

It must be time for the next great adventure. We're thinking of road-tripping to that music festival and then flying to Boston/Provincetown to see Jacob in the summer. I want Chicago, too. I want to see the people I love, the city I crave.

All of that will quell those feelings momentarily, until I can't breathe anymore and I need to be moving. I always want to be moving. I love the thrill of nowhere, living from that suitcase, throwing things willy nilly into the backseat and speeding away, off to anywhere.

Maybe I need to learn to sandboard, to ski, to do those things that will give me motion without taking me too far. I'll get my damn iPod fixed and I'll run in the park every day, until the long forgotten muscles become taut and sinewy. I'll run and run toward freedom, only to find myself back at my door, fumbling for the right key, reminding myself that tomorrow I'll take off the key that doesn't work.

My spirit isn't dead, it's still very much alive, it's still here.
I want to go to Tibet.
I want to learn how to meditate. I want to sit with people wiser than me and let them show me how to find calm.
I want to dive in deep ocean. I want the waves to crash against me in the night. I want to stare up at the sun and stare out into the sea and realize I'm so small.

At least if I still want these things, my soul must be still stirring inside me. That's a positive sign, I believe.

500th Post

This is the 500th post.

The first sentence written here (back in January of 2007 - my freshman year of college) was, "Ah, solitude at last." or something like it.
And since then there have been many sentences and many posts, and in the coming days I'll repost a few of them - or something like it.

And because I know which post is my mom's favorite, I'm going to put it here, instead of writing something momentous.

http://angelfallenhere.blogspot.com/2007/12/dear-mom.html

Happy Friday, world.

The almighty Internet

This week has been especially professionally fulfilling for me.
I realize that it's weird to say, but there have been small accomplishments that really boost my confidence as far as potential goes.
You've been reading my blog long enough (maybe) to realize that I'm terrified of being stuck in that mediocrity that I feel I live in, but I'm also terrified to realize how capable I actually am. (I know what you're thinking. She's so melodramatic; not this again. But deal with it.)

That being said, today I updated the company website for the very first time. By myself (mostly, there was a bit of input from my colleague Heather). I added links to images on our Partners page. And then I put them up live on the website unaided.
That was the scariest part, I think; messing around with our actual, real website. Not just saving and testing HTML code internally.
But I did it. And now I'm comfortable enough that I could do it again.

And for me, that's a small step toward something.

My article in the Cape Chameleon

Here are the scans of the article which appeared in December in the Cape Chameleon, published in Cape Town. Feel free to click on the images. Once they're open in a new window, you can click on them again and they should magnify to a somewhat readable level.

enjoy!