Hmm.

Why are the people on TV with the structured settlements shouting out their windows that they need their money now? Is there someone outside who's going to give it to them?

Strength in Numbers

Over the last several weeks I've found that my perspective on most of life has shifted fairly significantly. I'm happy with the new direction in which I find myself looking, but it's a big adjustment nevertheless. I keep having to stop and take my bearings, or stop myself from automatically responding to something the way I would have two or three months ago. It's amazing to me how drastically I've changed and simultaneously how much more myself I feel.

One thing I've finally come to terms with is the idea that life is often arbitrary and generally full of mistakes; that I might "ruin" good things in my life, but in some way that's okay because that's just how life goes. I guess I finally believe the old adage about doing your best being all you can ever do.

Even though it makes me very sad to think about the possibility of making terrible career choices or losing dear friends, there's something incredibly liberating about recognizing that it's inevitable that those things - or similar things - will happen. It makes me less anxious about doing something wrong. And it makes me value even more the positive outcomes, the good times with friends. It makes me realize just how valuable my closest friends are, and how grateful I am to have people with whom to share all the ordinary experiences of life. It reaffirms for me that my family - the one I was born into and the one I've chosen for myself, my friends - really are the most important part of my life: the rest of it is arbitrary and too often full of tragedy, but there truly is strength in numbers, in remembering that other people are experiencing the same difficulties, in having people to prop you up when you can't stand on your own and to party with you when you're finally back on your own two feet.

It's cheesy, but it's true.

Thanks, guys.

Elbow Room

I first realized it when I flew home for my cousin's wedding in October: I'd never before been so happy to find myself at Newark Airport. Then it happened again as my plane landed at Logan and I walked out into the terminal. For four days I've re-entered a world of car horns and obscenities, and I've never had such a distinct feeling of coming home.

As I stood on the T this morning simultaneously cursing the group of shouting teenagers in my car and feeling immensely grateful for their existence, I began to wonder about these stereotypes of Southerners as being nicer and Northeasterners as being not necessarily mean but unconcerned with the welfare of their fellow humans. Now that I live in the South I’m seeing how much truth there is to those supposed differences, but as a born and raised Northerner I always feel compelled to defend the detachment: that’s what feels right to me, and I’d like to think that doesn’t make me inherently less nice.

What occurred to me on the T is that there’s just a lot more physical space for people to spread out in the South, and in my favorite cities (New York and Boston) there are so many more people crammed into the available space. In Nashville my apartment isn’t flanked on all sides by neighbors, and it’s more than spitting distance from the building next door. When I go to the far side of town (which is much farther away than the far side of Boston), I get in my own car and have however many cubic feet of space (and sound and attempt at thermal regulation) all to myself. In Boston you’re constantly surrounded by people – roommates, upstairs and downstairs neighbors through thin ceilings and floors, next door apartments with windows so close you could reach in from your room, jam-packed subway cars and buses, sidewalks full of pedestrians – so in order to maintain any sense of personal space you have to manufacture it for yourself.

Northeasterners are “mean” simply out of self-preservation.

It’s not that someone from Boston necessarily cares any less about other humans, but if you let concern for others surface even half the time you’re in close proximity to other people you’ll be completely overwhelmed by caring for a vast sea of humanity. In Tennessee it’s much easier to attempt connection with a large percentage of the people you encounter because on any given day there are so many fewer people who will come close enough to your personal space for interaction.

Obviously not everyone responds to these situations according to the stereotypes, but I think that if you grow up in the Northeast then you are much more likely to develop the apparently prickly exterior necessary to preserve some semblance of personal space, just as if you grow up with a lot of siblings you tend to be aggressive about staking your claim on things you want (lest someone else get there first). Yes, some people find themselves better suited to the environment opposite that of their own childhood, and some people feel equally comfortable in both sorts of places.

I think I’m a true Northeasterner in this sense, which is why I feel so at home when I’m surrounded by people who will honk and swear and cut you off without thinking twice. To me that’s just how you stake out your space in the world. My subconscious definition of "home" seems to include dense population and the attendant survival techniques. But defining "home" is another story for another day.....

Election Day 2008

I just voted in what will probably end up being the single most important election of my lifetime. The economy is on the verge of collapsing, the government of the last eight years is hated by pretty much everyone both at home and abroad, the war that was supposed to last a few months has been going on for more than five years.... shall I go on?

Now we're faced with a massively polarizing election. Dems say that if McCain wins we'll have four more years of Bush's policies - but is that true? Might it even be worse? After all, if the 72-year-old with cancer kicks it while he's in office, we'll be stuck with a dangerously ignorant and inexperienced, extremely conservative woman running the country. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

Of course, the people on the other side seem just as afraid of Obama - they call him a socialist, terrorist and Muslim and say that if he wins we'll all be killed, or at best be forced into a socialist state. I think it's 'funny' that we've come so far that a black man might be about to win the presidency, but we still have such intense fear of the word Muslim that it's used to try to sink a campaign. Then again, maybe the people who are so afraid of a Muslim wouldn't vote for him anyway, just because he's black. Religion just adds another excuse. (P.S. All you prejudicial fear-mongers out there: how can be a devout Muslim AND be tied to the Reverend you all are so afraid of? Pick a slander and stick to it, will you?)

It's obvious which side I'm on.

But that doesn't mean I think our future is rosey if the "right" guy wins. Our country and our planet are a big hot mess, and it's going to take a long time, a lot of resources, and possibly more hope and courage and kindness and understanding and generosity than the world's population is willing to offer up.

I do hope that we start moving in the right direction. I hope that Obama wins, if for no other reason than McCain would definitely be a very bad choice and Obama has a chance of being a good choice. I hope he proves himself even a better choice than the marginally optimististic among us expect. I very much hope that this is indeed the most important election of my lifetime, because I hope it never gets worse, only better from here.

A friend said that we'll see change no matter who wins, it's just a question of what that change will be. It's undoubtedly true. I really, really hope that it's a change from fear - which is what's motivating so many people in this election (fear of a 'terrorist' president, fear of an unexperienced right-wing VP with a good chance of needing to step up....) - to hope. I would love nothing more than to see Americans stop acting out of fear and start acting out of the desire to improve ourselves, our country, and our world. Hopefully our present fear will push us toward a future with much less of it: even if people vote out of fear, the outcome could point us in the right direction.

I guess by tonight we'll start to see what's coming next, and then we just keep hoping for the best.

This Was Not Full Disclosure

Not long after I arrived in Nashville I added a second weather widget to my Mac dashboard: now I have one widget showing the Nashville weather and one showing the Cambridge, MA weather. It's made it just that much easier to crow about how much warmer it is here than there. More than a few times, now, I've pointed out to friends and family just how nice the weather was here than there. Since it stopped being 95 degrees and 100% humidity, I've been reveling in the glorious weather here. It's hardly rained at all, and generally been beautiful since about the middle of September.

That is, until now. When I checked at around noon it was 46 degrees out. A little later in the afternoon it went all the way up to about 50. A whole 50 degrees. In October. It was WARMER IN MASSACHUSETTS THAN TENNESSEE today.

Who thought that was a good idea? I know I definitely did not okay that. I had to wear a sweater and a coat when I went outside. And for my grocery run tonight I wore my down coat. MY DOWN COAT. IN TENNESSEE. IN OCTOBER.

I was under the impression that the South would be a land of warmth and glory where milk and honey flow freely through the land - or at least I wouldn't have to wear more than a sweater until December. I've even been told, in so many words, that it stays warm here until Thanksgiving. It is NOT Thanksgiving, folks, not for another four whole weeks. So what gives? What's the big bonus of living in a red state (I LIVE IN A RED STATE) if it's not going to allow me to wear absurdly little clothing in complete comfort until after Massachusetts has seen at least one snowfall? Do you mean to tell me that I get strip malls, no ocean, poisonous spiders (oh yes, folks, we have those here), and pickup trucks with gun racks and McCain/Palin stickers...and it's not even WARM?

Seriously. I want my money back.

Fan Mail

I'm not so into writing fan mail. I wrote fewer than five letters of adulation in all my overeager childhood years (and only one really came back to embarrass me later). I generally figure that any overblown feelings of admiration I might for someone I never met are just as well kept to myself as sent off to a manager who might or might not open the envelope before dropping it in the trash. I understand the basic realities of the business of celebrity...and I'm honestly not that impressed by most famous people these days anyway.

That's not to say there aren't a few bigtime stars whose presence wouldn't reduce me to a stammering, inchoerent blob. I freely admit that those people do exist - and thank God they do, because what would life be if there weren't a single human on earth whom you admired so intensely that they could rob you of basic verbal functions simply by being in the room?

It's a fairly small group of people, though, who I really think would have such a strong effect on me. But there's a larger group of people who might not reduce me to a blubbering mass but nonetheless stand in my highest esteem for who they are and/or what they do.

One such person is Heather B. Armstrong (and this is her website). I believe I have referenced this site before - my favorite blog in all of blogdom. When I began reading it I simply found it entertaining in all its snarky glory. Now that I've gone through all seven years' archived posts, I have gained the utmost respect for this woman. I still get a kick out of her snarky sense of humor, but I also have been moved by what she has to say, and have honestly had my perspective changed on more than one occasion.

So today I broke down and I wrote a fan letter. (fan email.) I'd like to think that it was a nice balance of adulation and restraint, of intelligent commentary and gushing flattery. I basically just explained that I've now read every single post published on her blog and that I'm a huge fan of both what she has to say and how she says it.

I refrained from adding "P.S. Your daughter is beautiful, your husband sounds awesome, and I'd like to move into your basement and be your best friend."

That's good, don't you think?

The Itsy Bitsy.... Not a Spider....

I was thinking, a few weeks ago, that eventually I'd probably have to write an entry on bugs. This is the South, after all. The South is serious about its bugs. I was actually concerned about moving here specifically because of the bugs. I do not do bugs. Not even a tiny bit. (There's a story that involves a broom and a telephone and some hysterical crying....I won't get into it.)

When I had that thought, though, I brushed it aside with the very reasonable rationalization that as soon as I blogged about bugs I'd find them swarming into my life, when at that point I'd had basically no encounter with the crazy Southern insects. I figured I'd wait until they'd already made their appearance and then I'd tell the story.

So here's my bug story.

I like opening the windows, as you may recall from my allergenic lament earlier this fall. I really, really like opening the windows and enjoying the fresh not-quite-fall air, particularly when I'm bumming around my apartment in the late afternoon and there's just a little bit of a breeze. So over the weekend I went to open my windows, and as I did I noticed a whole bunch of teeny tiny winged bugs on the screen....on both sides. They were so small - and the screen so coarse - that they could walk right through the mesh.

I closed the window.

I went to the other living room window, and before I opened it I looked through. That screen was populated by the same little bugs, inside and out. I went to the bedroom window - all the way across the house, and lo and behold there were those same tiny buggers. Damn and blast!

They were too small to see any characteristics, but I nevertheless checked a National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders out of the public library and attempted to locate my pests in it. No dice. Turns out "tiny, with wings, on window screen in Tennessee" doesn't show up in any of the descriptions.

Well, not-very-long story shorter: I have bugs on my screens. For five days now I've been unable to open my windows for fear they'll all come rushing in and the apartment will fill up with little winged nuisances. I think they might be fruitflies, but it's really impossible to say.

Okay, so that's not much of a bug story, I know, but I'm hoping that by writing it up as my big insect encounter in the South I'll save myself from having any worse episodes for at least a while. And if you really want bug stories, sometime I'll tell you about the one I had to beat to death with a shoe.