On Everything

The Broncos won last night!! Such a good game to be at! The fourth quarter was lovely! And the weather was nice. I'm still not on the Tebow bandwagon, but at least I'm feeling a bit more proud of our team. Uncle Mike wins awesome Uncle of the Year award for hauling us back to the Light Rail station at DU, and also because his commentary during the game always makes me smile. He's the best to sit by.  (Also, Mom and I were reminiscing about the drive to Chicago all those years ago. And he still wins for that.)



Tomorrow is National Adoption Day. Did you know that there are over 107,000 kids in foster care waiting to be adopted? A lot of them won't ever be, which is really sad. Every child deserves a family.
I hope that when I grow up (a little more), I am able to be a foster parent or at least get involved in helping foster kids find good adoptive homes.

http://www.ccainstitute.org/our-programs/national-adoption-day.html

Also, Mike just finished writing a big paper for his psychology class about adoptions and success in life. If you're interested, you might email him and ask for a copy. I know that he spent a lot of time working on it and considering all of the factors that can affect people who've been adopted.

My boss (who has four adopted children of his own) always says that kids who are adopted only want to know two things: why they were given up and who their birth parents are. He's so right. I know why I'm where I am today and I know half of who my birth parents are, but I find that as I get older, the desire to know just what my biological father looked like grows stronger. Where is this nose from?!

I'm stoked to procreate the regular way one day and have kids who look like me, but I think that should I run into conception challenges - I'd absolutely consider adoption over other fertility stuff. (Not knocking all the IVF and surrogacy stuff, just saying.)





Today is Grandpa George's birthday (he would have been 86) and my half-birthday. Mom always sends me a text on my half birthday, and every year, I have no idea that it's today until I get it. (This is also just another piece of evidence that she loves me more than Mike - he doesn't get half-birthday texts or facebook wall posts.)

Happy Birthday Grandpa George! I emailed Grandma to say that this would have been the age we would have started to tease him about being very elderly.




Pretending that you're not as poor as you are is getting to be really stressful. I know that I make a lot of lifestyle choices, including my adventures, but each of those choices involve a lot of careful planning and sacrifice. I am so grateful for all of the support systems I have in my life - I know that if I was desperate, I could call Mom, but at the same time, I'm so determined to be completely independent that I won't dare. There's no need. I won't rely on anyone to take care of me. Not now, or ever.
Once bills and rent and loan payments are made, the daily budget sits somewhere around $15 (give or take) - which sounds like it's good enough until you realize that filling your car up with gas is two days worth of life expenses. Everything comes down to "how many days do I lose?" if I do or eat or buy this or that or the other thing. That said, I refuse to let experiences pass me by. I will not stay home and let life go on without me.  There are so many things I'd like to do (like get Simon a new bumper, one month of life expenses) that fall by the wayside. I spend a lot of time stressing out about this (and retirement), especially since I feel like so many of my friends (all of them) are making more than me.
I realize I shouldn't complain. I'm really lucky. I'm happy at work; I'm learning a lot; it's a laid-back environment (which I need and thrive in).
But it makes me feel like I'm not good enough, not as smart, not as talented, not as driven, not as successful, not as goal oriented, not as focused, utterly lacking potential for growth. (There's a lot of NOTs in there, and I'd like to be able to focus more of my energy on being less NOT and more BE - as in I AM successful, I AM goal oriented, I AM focused, driven, etc.) It's just overwhelmingly frustrating and really scary. I would like just one month where I could buy a new pair of jeans (a week or so out of my budget). Or boots that didn't come from Target (3x the daily budget). Or eat three meals a day. Maybe next year. Maybe I just need to find another weekend job. Or start babysitting more. I've been eating the same damn baguette (1/7 of the daily budget) for three days now, and I'm getting about as annoyed as it is stale.

Sorry, that was ridiculous and completely self-pitying, but it needed to come out. I need to remind myself that I'm wallowing sometimes. It helps when it's public - it makes you think twice before having any self-depreciating moments. It also enhances the wince and the inner shame. Both are great character builders.
:-)




Tonight, one of my favorite bands is in town. I didn't even know they were coming (what does that say about me?) until yesterday when I saw that they had tweeted from Colorado Springs. But they're going to be here! And I have tickets! And I'm beyond excited! Between this concert and the one in two weeks (Mickey Avalon), I am crossing two bands off my bucket list. It's going to be a productive end to 2011.
Shwayze - Get U Home
Shwayze - Crazy For You
Shwayze - Drunk Off Your Love




Tomorrow is up in the air. I'm either going to take Mike's car and go up to the mountains before babysitting, or I'm going to write my personal statement for grad school and get the mountain of laundry done before it threatens to eat both me and Carlos.
I'm secretly hoping that laundry wins this battle. I have just wanted to get rid of everything I own lately. I just want to pare down my clothes pile so that I'm only keeping what I'll actually wear. I would also like to clean the entire apartment from top to bottom.




It's been one of those really long weeks. I'm physically and mentally exhausted. I've done a lot of stuff, though. Boulder, Broncos game, Suite 200 - never again, whatever it was that I did on Monday night. I'm in a great mood and I'd like to channel this positive energy into something useful, like a clean apartment.

Also, because I haven't subjected you to the torture that is looking at cat pictures lately, here's Carlos just waking up. Notice how annoyed he looks to be bothered. I love him so very much. And I'd like to think that he loves me too. I think he does. 

On the Hangout

I forgot how much I hate driving around in Boulder. It stresses me out. In my mind, all I can see is bicyclists flying over the hood of my car, or stoned college students wandering aimlessly into the crosswalk when I can't see them. I'm seized by fear. (That's a lie. I'm very rarely seized by fear. The last time was the bungee jump in Africa. That was scary.)

I only know how to get to E's house. So I make the familiar drive, chatting with Katie on the way up. (I love her. There is nothing more wonderful than just talking to your best friend.) I make record time - which is good, considering I left nearly half an hour later than I intended to. 

E's golden retriever Archie is the most wonderful dog in the world. He's chewing on a squash when I get there and wants to play fetch with it. "Archie," I say, "I love you a lot but not that much." He finds a tennis ball instead. This is good. 

E and I haven't seen each other since our awkward breakup in City Park this summer. We talk pretty regularly, but I've been ditching out on plans for the last three months. Both of us were surprised to find that our meeting last night was anything but awkward. (He's never done the friends with your ex thing before. I find that to be very familiar territory.) We went and grabbed a couple beers and caught up. It was great. We're a really mismatched pair and it's hilarious. He towers over me. He's grown his beard in and now looks like a really skinny Jesus. I look nothing like a bearded Jesus or a mountain man. 

We talk about life, religion, beer, love, mountain stuff. He's impressed (appalled) by the bruises on my knees from the snowboarding. This summer, he cut his hand while trying to carve a stick to catch carp - although his official story is "fishing accident", so he's been healing from the surgery that followed that. We talk physics (he talks physics, I drink), crazies, Ohio. 

It was good. He wants more non-science friends; I fit that bill. I'm looking forward to a nice friendship. I also still need to take him to the 1Up downtown. 

On the lost wallet...again

E and I are on the chairlift headed up to our new favorite run when I see the boys. They had come down our bunny hill looking for us. I yell. He turns; he's heard his name, but there's no way he'll spot us. So I decide to call them.
While reaching for my phone, I accidentally pull everything out of my pocket. Everything including my wallet, which for the time being is just my cards and cash secured with a hair tie. It plummets down and lands in the snow under the chairlift. Just my luck.
We get off and ride down the hill. K, who rode up and back down in the time it took us to get down, is stopped right where I need to go under the ropes to go start the search. He is kind enough to ski over to the spot and dig around. There is a moment of hesitation where it occurs to me that it might be time to panic, but he comes up triumphant.
"You know," he says to me, "for someone who claims to have never lost a wallet, you're having a rough couple of weeks."
I agree.

On the Weekend

The weekend was wonderful. Sushi, sleep, sandwiches, and snowboarding.

I've decided that we're going to take a picture every day this year. This is Day 2. Day 2 was much better than day 1. A lot less bruising. 

outside

with the boys. 

On Writing

J just started reading my blog and he loves it.  (I love him even more for saying that!)

He told me that I am so much different here than I am in real life. 

Apparently, I let my guard down here. I seem more vulnerable. I'm so much more bold outside of this text box.
J told me that he wishes I wasn't so critical of myself, and that he can see how much I define myself by what I do, and how I get down on myself because of it. (Who doesn't?) Of course, moderation in all things - I work so I can party, pretty much. But then he told me that what I am, above all things, is a writer.

I finally have the answer to a question that John asked me more than a year and a half ago. I couldn't answer it. And it's bothered me ever since.

I can see my mom rolling her eyes right now. Of course, Katie. We've been saying that for years. (Do I ever listen, Mom?)

The introspective Four in me really loves this sort of examination. I love that there are two separate sides of me. Of course, this is not the whole truth - it's far from it. It's my representation of what I'm experiencing. It's fractured. It's my emotional outpouring, my naive assumptions, my life lessons. It's heavily edited because what I'm honestly thinking isn't always suitable for my grandmother's eyes. (She's an avid reader and one of my biggest supporters. She's basically the best.) I curse now and then and talk about stuff - but I leave a lot of it out. 

There are so many posts that trigger memories for me. I won't even have to write what happened. I like it that way. It's like songs: Whenever I hear Midnight on the Bridge by Ming & Ping, I think of that night leaving someone's house. We were driving and I was staring through the moon roof at the stars and all I could think about was bottling all of that happiness and keeping it forever. The song is linked above. Once you get to the webpage, scroll down to Midnight on the Bridge in the music box on the left hand side. You'll be so happy you did.
My favorite line comes from that song:
"I want to look in your eyes and see your wonderful laughter."
Every time I hear it, I'm thrown from wherever I am at that moment back to that night. And I'm always happy.

Friday, Friday, Friday!
Going out tonight!
Sleeping in tomorrow!
Snowboarding Sunday! - My knees are still green and black and pink and yellow from last week. This could get exciting.

On Work. Sort of.

We had a staff meeting today.
Since I'm the youngest by about twenty years (give or take a few), I sometimes miss "relevant" cultural references.
I've also learned quite a bit. These women are wise. They are hilarious. They take care of me when I need it; they make me laugh; they teach me stuff.
Today, I hadn't heard a song that they were talking about - Dreamweaver? - so we had to play it.
Right then, the head honcho walks in, shakes his head, and walks out.
I am so grateful for this environment.
I'm currently barefoot at my desk.
This is great stuff. I am so lucky.

It's like Phil always says, "We are not what we do."
I mean we are, mostly, but to remind ourselves that we are not just software slaves is a beautiful thing.

Today's song? Slightly Stoopid's Collie Man. It's seriously one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. It reminds me of the summer after my freshman year of college....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziNx7V1iA2Y

On Them and You.

J always makes me smile:
We are talking about the communication. It was not odd, just out of the blue.
"I mean, I just don't get it," I'm saying. "She's way out of my league. She's beautiful." I draw out the beautiful, lingering on each syllable.
J agrees. "She's gorgeous!" He says. He extolls her physical virtues for way too long.
"Seriously, J," I snap good-naturedly (I rarely snap good-naturedly. I'm in a great mood.) "Enough! I know how much better looking than me she is."
"Oh," he says, pausing. "Sorry."
We laugh.
"Do you think he fell in love with you?" he asks.
My turn to laugh alone. "No," I say, certain.
Our conversations now revolve around the usual things. Work. School, when I'm thinking about it. My inability to find a suitable mate; his ability to find the best ones. It's a good pattern. We used to meet for platonic margaritas. I miss that.
I wish girlfriends were more lenient. But I get that too. I always hated when H would let his ex get weird around me, which always happened. There's nothing worse than the awkward run in with an ex. She and I faked a good friendship for so long that eventually it started to become real.

But it's gotten me thinking. Can you really be friends with an ex? Should you be?

R(2) invited me to climb Kilimanjaro with him a few weeks ago. Then he invited me to the Bahamas. Such a tease - he knew I couldn't take time off work. I would have gone in a heartbeat. He texts me to comment on my horrible date blogs. He thought the one about him was especially hilarious - he found it when we were still dating. It was all about how to talk to someone sixteen years older than you, the high suicide rate of CPAs, and the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. I loved that post. I would later come to adore the man. We still meet for dinners, drinks, whatever. He still beats me at Scrabble every time. I still love that we drank a bottle of wine from the year I was born. (I love that about men - that they actually have wine from the year you were born.) He always teases me about the bookshelf. He built the first one, I still need him to come and build the second one - it's been nine months. I'll never get around to it.
I still see his friends sometimes. They're great people. Sometimes I'm with him when we all hang out, sometimes I run in to them at bars. We always exchange pleasantries. It's all good on the surface.

You date. You separate. You re-acclimate. Then your relationship becomes something new and beautiful.

E and I have been trying to meet up to hang out for the longest time, going on months now. We should have gone out tonight, but I begged off, still sick and tired. I never want to have fun when I'm sick-grumpy. I wanted to take him to the 1Up, since he's never been, and I think the nerd in him will geek out so hard over life-size Jenga. We're excited to be friends with each other. We had a long conversation a few weeks ago. He'd just run another marathon (gross) and rocked it. I love this. I love that even though we have literally nothing in common (except our love for his dog), we can still sit there and be fun people. Next week. I've entered it into my calendar, to make it real.

My boyfriends always hate that I'm still friends with most of my exes. I don't get why. I think that's a good sign.

I keep bringing up Portland in front of K, for some reason. It stemmed first from public transportation (theirs is so much like ours), then it was the homeless youth, then it was the spiders (HUGE!). He finally asked me what it was about Portland and I had to explain. College, I told him, for a year I did the long distance hell with a kid from Denver who went to school out there.

It was the first time I'd brought up any of the past. I was nervous. I haven't felt the way I do since my junior year of college. I want to keep him. Therefore, I can't just let anything slip out my mouth like it usually does. I want to tread carefully with the past. I have nothing to hide, but, still... I want this exploration of each other to be organic (and USDA approved).

I'm talking to E about it today.
"I can't read him," I say, frustrated.
"You're hard to read, too," she says.

For now, it's wonderful. I'd like for it to stay like this. Nothing's official - it's still in those weird tingly stages. (That was a really gross adjective, I apologize. But I'm sticking with it.) But I like where it's going. I like what it is. I like that he likes me for who I am - awesome.

(Also, and seriously never tell him this because it comes out so creepy unless I explain it properly, he totally fits into my life plan of having my last name hyphenated to B-S. I think it's so badass. Today, my favorite professor from college was telling me to go get my doctorate instead of just my masters and I had the sign in my head: Dr. Barry-Something. And it was beautiful. I will only date people whose last name begins with S from now on. I'm already on my third "S" of the year. This may be a strange 2011 trend, though. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.)

Now that I sound absolutely insane, I'm off to bed.
Work is crazy this week, and I have a half-completed marketing plan that's due by like 10am. Oh great, deadlines. Yay.

On Strep

This picture was taken early in the day. 

By the end, I was frustrated, bruised, and nearly in tears. K was kind enough to make sure I got down the mountain alive, but by the end, I was overwhelmed. Too much ice and too many people, combined with the stress of spending more than half of my time on my butt, knees, or wrists was too much. I was mad at myself; I wanted to do better. I just wanted to stay up, but couldn't. 

I didn't cry, but it was close. I'm paying for it now. Every muscle in my body is a mess. 

But I cant wait to do it again...although, I'd like to wait until the worst of the bruises have healed. 

Here's hoping that next time brings progress!

I woke up yesterday morning with a majorly sore throat. Thinking nothing of it, I headed in to work. My lady boss said that she heard strep in my throat. Since my doctor's office couldn't get me in yesterday or today, they sent me to urgent care (thanks, guys. I appreciate that a lot - nothing like the $50 copay to get me all excited about not feeling good). The doctor who examined me winced when she saw my throat. It was strep, just as G had predicted. 

So I spent yesterday on the Love Sac, curled up with the cat (his worry about my health only extends as far as my ability to feed him), trying to get comfortable. I cried twice yesterday. I am not usually such a cryer, but I know I'm really sick when I just break down. I took a hot bath, trying to calm down and at least get one temperature through my body, but couldn't reach up to get my bra off. So I took a bath with my bra on. 

 I finally fell asleep as the afternoon wore on, and I felt marginally better after my nap. I slept through the second half of the football game and through the night. I'm hoping to get some work done today, lest they think I'm a horrible employee, but I'm also hoping to really get myself back to normal. 

I'm going back to sleep. I'll write something more coherent later, I hope. 

On the Week and Randomness

Your video for the day is Pearl Jam's Just Breathe. Because it always makes me cry, but in a good way.

This week was wonderful because it went so fast.
I've been busy every night, but I haven't felt tired until today.
Last night, I tossed and turned and tossed and turned some more. By the time I was finally ready to really be asleep, the alarms were going off.

We went sledding on Wednesday! I haven't been in what feels like forever, so it was really nice to trek over to the sledding hill and go for it. E's yellow lab came with us and had fun chasing the saucer sleds, as though she thought they were giant frisbees - they sort of are, but they don't get as much air.
Sledding, followed by hot chocolate and pasole, was amazing! We all curled up in E's basement. It reminded me of college.

Last night, instead of going to trivia, K and I ordered Thai (again - we panicked and couldn't think of anything else) and stayed in. I think I'd like to keep him. We'll see how this works out, but I find him to be incredibly interesting. He's funny - deadpan sarcastic at all times; he's super sweet; he wants a Burmese mountain dog AND he likes artificial banana flavor. What more does a girl need? I've had a really nice couple of weeks and am terrified that I'll jinx it somehow.

Tonight, J is DJing at a gay techno party, so I'm headed there in time to see his set. I can't stay late because I have to be a responsible human being all day tomorrow. But hopefully there can be wild shenanigans tomorrow night (i don't know) and then snowboarding on Sunday, followed by the mad dash to the Avs games for H's birthday.

It should be fun!

Again, I can't stress enough how important it is to do self-breast exams. Please, please, please know their topography. Talk to your doctor at the first sign of any change. It could save your life.

On Abortion Opinion Pieces (this is one of them)

I realize that there are different sets of beliefs on this planet. I really try to see the other side of things. It's so hard to understand where people who don't believe the same things as you are coming from. To understand that is the first step toward being able to rationalize their thought process. Or perhaps for mutual respect and compromise. Oh wait, compromise isn't real.

I get that you, believing whatever it is you believe, might want to turn a news story into something that fits your own agenda. So you write an opinion piece and then you publish it. People read it. That's great. Now they're aware of your opinion and they're seeing the connection between whatever it is that you wrote and your agenda.

Below is an article about how Steve Jobs' adoption "defied Planned Parenthood's abortion agenda."

Seriously? That's how you want to use his death? I guess it got my attention, so you must be doing something right.  Actually, I was distracted while reading an article that used such terminology as "the abortion business" and how Planned Parenthood, said "abortion business", by offering birth control such as free condoms, is bilking Medicaid out of millions of dollars. Since I couldn't verify the validity of the article - and I tried - I could not tweet it for the healthcare company I do contracted social media work for. So naturally, my next move was to spend twenty minutes digging through this site reading anti-everything articles. To my surprise, there was a very rational one about Gardisil (the HPV vaccine) and religion, abstinence, and parenting. I recommend reading it.  And then getting your kids vaccinated. 

Abortion accounts for only 3% of Planned Parenthood's services. 3%. Their agenda is not in fact abortion. It's not to kill of all the unborn babies. They're not grim reapers sitting in dark alleys waiting for pregnant women to happen by so they can lure them into killing the kid. They do a lot of other things, too. Good things. Cancer screenings, free condoms, birth control, testing. 

As someone who was adopted (and was arguably closer to the possibility of abortion than most of you who came from married people or single mothers who chose to raise you), I am so pro-life it's ridiculous. While I would personally never have an abortion, I do see it as a viable option for those who fall pregnant in really bad circumstances. Of course it's not birth control. Of course it's actually not that hard not to get pregnant. But accidents happen. And abortion - in serious moderation - isn't the end of the world. (See the second article, below the Steve Jobs one, for 10 questions for pro-lifers.) 

(I put a socio-economic rant in here but then deleted it. In conclusion: life is really beautiful, but it can be really ugly, too. Also, insert medical issues that could affect mothers' health. Those can get problematic under anti-abortion laws. Abortion isn't really the issue for me. It's not my thing. It's the fact that laws that govern abortion really govern my body. And my body belongs to me. I worry that it's a slippery slope from anti-abortion to anti-...well, anything. I don't want the government to be able to assert eminent domain over anything connected to my reproductive system or any other system either.) 

This really bothers me on a personal level. Steve Jobs' biological mother was a graduate student. She made an active decision to give him up to a family. She made them promise he'd go to college. She wasn't plucked from the operating table mid-abortion to achieve some sort of salvation for the future-tech-god living inside of her. She made a choice that didn't involve Planned Parenthood at all. But again, it's just an opinion piece.

Steve Jobs’ Adoption Defied Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Agenda

by Ciara Matthews | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/10/11 10:21 AM

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Following the news last week, the nation is in mourning over the loss of one of this country’s greatest innovators, a man who has shaped technology, communications and human interaction and networking in a profound and unprecedented way. Apple visionary and co-founder Steve Jobs has left an eternal footprint on mankind that will be forever seen in the way we interact and connect with the world around us.

But, if Planned Parenthood had any say over his destiny, chances are he would have never been given the chance to live such an extraordinary life and lead the next generation of technological advancements.

Born February 24, 1955, Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents because of pressure his biological mother received due to her relationship with his biological father. He was adopted as an infant by Clara and Paul Jobs who named their new son Steve Paul Jobs. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Thankfully, the man the world has come to know and love due to his success as Apple co-founder, CEO, revolutionary, innovator, and entrepreneur as well as Chief Operating Officer at Pixar Animation Studios, was given a chance at life, a life that Planned Parenthood denies approximately 330,000 unborn babies each year. According to Planned Parenthood’s own numbers, in 2008 it was reported, the organization gave 2,405 adoption referrals the entire year. In that same time they performed 324,008 abortions. This means that for every adoption referral Planned Parenthood gives, it performs 134 abortions.

Clara and Paul Jobs valued the life of a child Planned Parenthood labels a “crisis,” and Steve Jobs did not become just another “problem” Planned Parenthood attempted solve.  Steve Jobs adoptive parents, as well as his birth parents, what Planned Parenthood refuses to see – a helpless life with the potential for greatness.  He could easily have been an abortion statistic.  The world has been touched by Steve Jobs because he parents recognized the value his life held. While the beginning of his life may have been “unintended,” the life and legacy of Steve Jobs had meaning and purpose. He accomplished great things in his 56 years. Unfortunately, the abortion industry has ensured that the potential and greatness of millions of boy and girls will never be realized.

Learn more about other great thinkers, entertainers and leaders that were given a chance to accomplish great things thanks to their mother’s decision to choose life.


From Ms. magazine:

10 Questions for Anti-Choice Candidates

October 20, 2011 by Holly L. Derr · 65 Comments 

Amanda Marcotte posted an interesting rant at Double X yesterday about the cognitive dissonance between the desire of anti-choice individuals to make abortion illegal and their unwillingness to address the legal issues that would arise if that happened:

The widespread delusion that advocating for bans on abortion won’t mean that abortion is, you know, banned, runs so deep that if you ask a typical anti-choice obsessive how much time women should do for breaking the law they wished existed, they straight up can’t answer the question because they’ve quite literally never thought that banned means banned.

Click the link above and you’ll see what she means–many anti-choice individuals haven’t ever thought about that detail before. It made me think: There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask candidates running for office over the next year.

1. How many years do you consider to be a fair prison term for a woman who has an abortion?

2. How many years for a doctor who performs one?

3. Will the punishments be greater the second time around? 

4. Where will the state get the money necessary to prosecute one-third of all American women for this crime?

5. Forty-two percent of women who have an abortion have incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (that’s $10,830 for a single woman with no children, if you’re counting). When women are forced to have children they cannot afford to raise, will those children become wards of the state or simply new Medicaid recipients? Where will the state find the money necessary to support them?

6. Will you be willing to watch your wife die in front of you when her life is threatened by an unsafe pregnancy that no one is allowed to do anything about? Your daughter?

7. Will rapists have to pay child support to women who are forced to have their children?

8. Will the child of incest be in the custody of its rapist father or the father’s teenaged daughter, his mother? In fact, 18 percent of women who have an abortion in America are teenagers. Will they be required to drop out of high school to raise their children or will the state provide free childcare?

9. Will upper-class white women be prosecuted as vigorously as other women who have abortions?

10. You are aware that upper-class white women have abortions, aren’t you?

Help me out here, what else would you like to have asked? The only way to hold people accountable for their views is to question them relentlessly. These people are running for office–ask them what kind of society they envision creating.

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On the Library and Occupy Denver

The library reminds me of childhood, of feeling safe and content, of feeling endless possibilities.
I  love books.
I love taking books home with me.
I do not love the fines I tend to incur when I fail to return those loved (and lost, infinitely misplaced) books.
                             
I nervously handed the librarian my driver's license, clutching a torn envelope with my address on it just in case. He informed me that I wasn't in the system - thank god they don't remember me - and then told me to apply for a new card.
Five minutes later, I had a brand new library card in my hand.
It was honestly hard to contain my excitement. I wanted to just open the first book I could see and breathe in its bookish smell.
(I didn't. I have realized that perhaps smelling books that have been touched by the population of any city may not be the best of ideas.)
At one point, I had eight books in my arms.
E and I wandered through the stacks, picking and choosing and chatting.
I will not be able to aptly describe the feeling of contentment that flooded my soul.
I pared my choices down to six.
Desmond Tutu didn't make it.
(He was replaced with a romance novel, but shhh, don't tell him that.)



Saturday, K (oh dear - now I have two K's; this may get tangled) and I went Halloween costume shopping. I needed a tutu and he needed everything. After we stopped at a vintage store, we saw a ton of cop cars headed toward Occupy Denver, and since he'd never been, we went to have a look. I tried to explain it all to him, but realized that it's a lot harder to encapsulate concisely now that everything seems to have fallen apart.

On some level, I still agree with the protesters. I see that the greed of our economic policies, leaders, bankers, etc. has gone overboard. 

                                        

But I also don't see why you'd endanger your health to sleep outside in the snow or why you'd risk arrest just you could disrespect a police officer. Things have shifted drastically in recent days, and I'm finding myself more and more removed from the movement. I no longer think the people protesting are so adamant about their beliefs and goals, and instead, seem to have let a variety of distractions get in their way.

That, and hearing that there's been conflicts with the police that were instigated by protesters, is slightly off-putting. There's no need for violence and there's certainly no need for violence against the people who are supposed to protect you. Granted, the police may not always react appropriately or respectfully, but they need to know that they at least have the respect of the protesters. Otherwise, something violent will happen that could seriously endanger lives. 

On Jumbled Thoughts and Butterflies

"May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us."

-From an email sent by Aunt S. 

I know it's a lame forward, but I don't think anybody can surround themselves with too much good. So, there you go, some good for the day. 

I'm not going to lie, I've been way too happy to even think about blogging anything. 

Literally. It's like when things are going really well, I can't write. My fingers stop working. 

Saturday: I had one of those really perfect, rare evenings where you stay up all night talking about everything. I got like two hours of sleep, but it was so worth it. I'm getting butterflies for the first time in a long time. 

Halloween was a massive success. Between a house party, a bar adventure, and a laid back cider-y evening, I managed to enjoy myself immensely. 

Last night, J hung up the phone and then looked at me. "Do you talk really fast?" he asked, but before I had time to react, he said, "Never mind. You talk a lot, but you don't talk fast." 

It's sad but true.

We had a wonderful evening. I had wanted to sit on the porch drinking cider and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters, however, there were none. So instead, K came over to join J and Mike and me for dinner. We had Thai (thank god I didn't have to cook) and I made really good spiked cider and cookies. Between that and football, I think we were set. 

Seriously. I have nothing to say. This is so lame. I keep smiling. It's weird. 

I'm going to the library to see about getting a library card. That should at least be a good story. 

...on me being an idiot

...as it turns out, it was a legit date.
We hashed it out last night. All is well.
Turns out there might be more non-dates that are actually dates in the future.
I carved a pumpkin today!
More to come.

On the Not-Date Date

Millennials are screwed.
Those of us born after 1982 have no idea what it means to interact with people romantically.
It's half the fault of texting, the rise of the "booty call," and the general departure from the chivalrous into the hook-up culture.
The middle ground we often stand in can be a beautiful thing. You get to try on pseudo-relationships before you leap into them, but a lot of chaos ensues in the meantime.

I don't want to sit here and say it's representative of my generation, because I've dated plenty of people (still am dating) who were born before 1982 and share the same, seemingly Milleninial semi-chivalrous-yet-hesitant-predilections. On the flip side, I've also dated plenty of people born after 1982 who are adorable, charming, and date-driven. Not every date leads to a relationship. Some lead to beautiful friendships. Others lead to crazy passionate affairs. Some just stop. Some just limp along. Some lead to the best stories ever.

Ready for this?
I've experienced a lot of that ensuing chaos, but nothing on par with this:

My dear friend E lives with three wonderful randoms she met on Craigslist. They have a giant, gorgeous house. They threw a Halloween party last weekend. At said Halloween party, I was introduced to this kid. We'll call him K.

Reader's Digest version: I meet boy at party. I kiss boy. We exchange numbers. We get dinner. He offers to pick me up and then pays for dinner. We have drinks. I try to give him a goodnight kiss and it's soooo (yeah, that) awkward.
[there are more gory details including the owner of the bar buying us shots and telling us we looked like we were going to get married, but I'll leave that for another day]

I hear today that he told his friend that it took him awhile to realize he was on a date.
What?!
I mean, that definitely explains all the weirdness.
I spent about an hour burning with shame, humiliation, and the prospect of semi-rejection before I snapped out of it. I'm not putting this one back on me. Seriously? You make out with me and then expect me to think we're having a business-y dinner meeting?

I start polling people I know:

I call Katie to ask her advice. "If it looks like a date and smells like a date..." she says.

I ask J. "It's like if you came over and I had Barry White on and was wearing a sexy bathrobe and there were rose petals all over the floor, but I just wanted to play video games."

E tells me to stop being such an idiot.

I was just watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother about Ted going on a date with Stella, only to realize that all of her friends are there, too. He whispers to one of them that he's embarrassed because he thought it was a date and she whispers it to everyone else. Then they whisper the collective response back at him. Everyone laughs at him.

This is my life. I am Ted Mosby, architect, and apparently, recent master of the non-date.


I'm semi-related news:

I guess it's somehow fitting that I'm wearing this shirt today:

The sexual life of adult women is a “dark continent” for psychology.

SIGMUND FREUD, The Question of Lay Analysis

On Women and Work

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/

Such a long read, but so worth it (I think - I'm halfway through page 3).
I'm swamped with proposals right now, so I don't have time to really get to it. I'll pick it apart later.

Enjoy your afternoon!

On the first snow

I've felt that feeling of glorious beginning only a few times in my life, but I can still remember the first moment for all of them.
It's never a complete memory, just a glimpse, a snapshot.
You will never feel the way you do in that moment ever again. There will be highs, lows, the muddling about in between, but there is never anything so pure as the singular realization of possibility.

Today, I was too busy to write about how I feel about fall. About the way the light looks different now than it did a month ago, how the sun shines on crisp leaves. I wanted to show you the leaves blowing across the road, skipping along and settling. I wanted you to feel what I felt. Color set against the gray light. Beauty in the beginning of the end. (The beginning of anything is always the beginning of the end.)

It is one of those glimpses, a moment slipping away before the barren winter arrives.

Tonight is that feeling. Tonight is full of possibilities. Tonight, you don't see it coming; you can't; you're too excited. It'll stay like that forever.

The first snow is the best snow. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it and covers you before you have a chance to take it in. You sit by the window. You stare. You watch the flakes fall. You could watch for hours, you're enamored. You want it to last forever - your childhood is calling. You see snowball fights and snow forts, your yellow kitchen table and mugs of hot chocolate.

You forget the frostbitten toes and pink cheeks. You forget the feeling of wet wool socks. Now, all you can see is the glittering, the snow falling through the eyes of the street lights. You forget that you've forgotten to pull you windshield wipers away from your car; that your winter jacket hasn't been to the cleaners; that you're going to be late for work.

The snow will turn black, eventually. It will melt away until the misshapen clumps become eyesores. You'll ache for fresh flowers. You'll hate how empty the trees are. Autumn fades before you know it, giving way to the endless winter. Just as you think you're about to go mad with want of life, spring arrives to save you.

You feel the rush all over again. Love is the first day you run barefoot outside, only to realize the ground is still frozen underneath the spreading warmth.

Potential.

Either that, or six more weeks of winter.

On Tim Tebow (ugh)

I'm not the biggest Tim Tebow fan, that's no big secret. But this blog is all about him: 

Article number one is from the Huffington Post and article number two is from Grantland. Enjoy!

Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos Quarterback And Focus On The Family Spokesperson, Kisses Demaryius Thomas

First Posted: 10/24/11 12:44 PM ET Updated: 10/25/11 11:54 AM ET

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Although Tim Tebow filmed a Superbowl commercialin 2010 for the anti-gay, anti-abortion organizationFocus On The Family (FOTF), he seems to have no problem sharing a male-on-male lip-lock in front of thousands (millions?) of onlookers.

On Sunday, the Denver Broncos quarterback kissed Demaryius Thomas after Thomas caught a touchdown pass. The Broncos went on to beat the Dolphins 18-15.

Towleroad noted that this wasn't the first time Tebow, who has been referred to as the "Bieber of Football,"shared a same-sex kiss on the field: Tebow waspecked by University of Florida teammate Tony Joiner a few years ago.

Tebow's feelings about homosexuality and gay marriage remain unclear. This summer, when asked about gay marriage by The Washington Post, his publicist jumped in and rejected the question. But, considering his ties to FOTF, he's probably not about to announce he's coming out of the closet (or would support those who have) -- but who knows?

Still, if an NFL quarterback and card-carrying member of FOTF wants to go around very publicly kissing other men on the mouth, we're OK with that.

[I don't think that even counts as a kiss. I'm pretty sure I've accidentally brushed lips against a few people in my life without meaning to. It was basically a millisecond of brush - as though they were both going in for the same side of the hug. There's no reason it should be news.]

Debunking the Tim Tebow Myth

If you think the Broncos' new starting quarterback has finally earned the right to be treated like NFL royalty, you probably don't want to read this breakdown

By Bill BarnwellPOSTED OCTOBER 24, 2011

Robert Mayer/US Presswire

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"Congrats to @TimTebow for that comeback win today. Impressive! He's just a winner."
— @KingJames, who knows about guys who just win when he sees them.

Far be it from us to ruin an admittedly great story, but let's be real about the Tim Tebow plaudits being thrown around after the Broncos' 18-15 comeback over the Dolphins on Sunday. Tebow certainly deserves some of the credit, but not the massive outpouring of praise that is being thrown his way.

The Win Probability chart at advancednflstats.com for this game tells the true story of what happened. When Tebow took over on his own 20-yard line down 15 points with 5:23 left, both Broncos and Dolphins fans were leaving the stadium in Miami, and they weren't wrong to do so. The Broncos' chances of winning were estimated to be around 1 percent. Tebow proceeded to lead his most impressive drive of the day, going 80 yards in eight plays, throwing a five-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas.

For all that work, the Broncos' chances of winning had improved all the way to … 2 percent. Teams with an eight-point lead that are about to receive the kickoff simply don't lose very frequently; it takes an expected onside kick to pick it up, and teams recover expected onside kicks only about 20 percent of the time. When the Broncos were able to recover the kick, their win expectancy improved to 12 percent; the onside kick was six times more valuable than Tebow's drive. If that figure seems low, consider that the Broncos still needed to drive 50 yards, score, pick up a two-point conversion, and then win in overtime. They had momentum in their favor, but so have plenty of other teams in this scenario who haven't been able to pick up the W.

Tebow then proceeded to take advantage of a short field. Starting on his own 44-yard line, Tebow drove the team 56 yards in 10 plays, highlighted by a gorgeous 28-yard throw to (and equally impressive catch from) Daniel Fells. After that, Denver converted the two-pointer on a Tebow run¹ and the Broncos' win expectancy was pushed all the way up to 46 percent. They'd made an incredible comeback, but they were still underdogs heading into overtime.

After they won the overtime coin toss and traded possessions with the Broncos, the Dolphins remained favorites. When Daniel Thomas converted a second-and-2 to give the Dolphins a new set of downs on their own 43-yard line, the Dolphins only needed to travel about 25 more yards to pick up a game-winning field goal. They win an estimated 67 percent of the time in that situation.

That, of course, led to the final dramatic swing. Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams sacked Matt Moore on the ensuing play, producing a single-play swing that was bigger than any of Tebow's drives. The Broncos went from a win expectancy of 33 percent to 78 percent by recovering the fumble, and while they proceeded to gain only two yards on the subsequent drive, they converted another short field into points to win the game.

On Sunday, Tim Tebow was given a total of 15 possessions. Four of them started with 56 yards or less to go for an offensive touchdown. Not coincidentally, of the four, three were his final three drives, and he produced a total of 11 points on those drives. His other 11 drives all started deep in his own territory, with six of them beginning on the 20-yard line and only one beyond the 25 (a drive that started on the Miami 41 that resulted in a missed field goal). Ten of those drives resulted in eight punts, a missed field goal, and a fumble. They gained, on average, less than 12 yards.

This isn't a one-week trend, either. When he came in against the Chargers last Sunday, Tebow started with three consecutive drives inside his own 31-yard line. The Broncos punted on all three drives. On the ensuing two possessions, though, Tebow started from his own 49-yard line and the San Diego 41-yard line. With the short fields, he proceeded to score two touchdowns. It can't be much simpler.

A lot of what we're crediting to Tim Tebow is actually the impact of things that are totally out of his control, a combination of field position, defensive turnovers, and a miracle on special teams. He deserves some of the plaudits that have come his way over the past two Sundays. Just not all of them.