25 of 31: a breath of fresh air

Now that Spring seems to be less hesitant in its arrival, I am full-swing into Spring Cleaning! I'm also a whore for Amazon, and books in general, really. These are the latest purchases. I'm all about detoxing the house and my body and my lifestyle. I tend to be fickle in things like this so I just hope that it sticks this time. There was once upon a time that I wanted a little coop with chickens in my backyard and fresh eggs mere steps from my kitchen door, a big veggie garden, self-sustainability, and that was a little bit before it was cool. I had the garden and the bounty and the drive until about mid-July, when I decided that I liked air conditioning more than home-grown tomatoes. That was a classic example of running out of steam. I threw up my hands and let the sun scorch the rows of cucumbers and squash and eggplant and peppers. It was a beautiful patch. I was 20.

So I'm biting off something a bit less ambitious with what I hope will be an equally beautiful container garden. The chem-free stuff just seems to follow suit with taking better care of myself, and eventually The Staff Sergeant, too. I'm also developing a slightly obsessive addiction to the idea of urban homesteading, a more ambitious version of the aforementioned goals that does include my lost-dream-chickens. It probably won't be in this house, but if the vision holds, maybe at the next one.

Full of non-toxic cleaning recipes and tips on how to be more eco-friendly with the less replaceable cleaners

Notes on food, home cleaners, personal care recipes

Hailed as the best of the best in vegetable container gardening. I'll let you know how it turns out, that is unless my seeds rot in their little starter homes and never sprout...

19 of 31: giving (a little for me and a little for you)

My day can be summed up by my trip to Borders and my evening in the kitchen --

morning yoga

cardio yoga

for calorie counting

Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies (for my soldier)

6030

A new day and a workless week! It would only be a better Monday if I were caught up on my reading, which is why I cashed in a couple days of remaining paid vacation.  Now I'm trying to make myself move on the active need to love hundred-year-old literature.  I've got my pomegranate enviga close and my Damien Rice love song, but I really have no interest in writing a response to Harper's Iola Leroy no matter how I might try to manipulate my indifference with creature comforts.  

What I would really rather be doing, and what I have had to pry myself away from, is grocery shopping Plumgood's website and thinking over little details for next summer's travel writing road trip.  It doesn't take much to distract me especially when I want nothing more than to be completely distracted.  But at the end of a few hours of procrastination there is defeat and panic and pull-my-hair-out-stress.  So even though I cannot stand another dose of 19th century literature, I must push onward.  Life is unfair and I'm pretty sure that most things are meant to be trying.

an honest attempt

I am determined to write something positive as my fingers hover over these familiar keys. I was recently honored by being allowed to grace the ranks of alltop.com's twenty-something genre and while I think I should feel accomplished and elated, I'm fighting the urge to crawl beneath the nearest rock. Not only have I read the latest posts, I wrote them so I know they haven't been profound or interesting. They and I haven't had much to say.

I'm trying to warm to this new life with its slower pace and limited social interaction. On top of the steep shift of transition, I am still only acquainted with Army-ness, which has currently caused the most distinct abyss of separation to date. My life seems to be carved out in such a monotonous cycle from now until it dissolves into the horizon, accompanied by the end of a lease, the want of graduate school, career-lust, where-we're-going-next, and the rest of uncertainty. I have found that these times of unanchored purgatory are my most miserable. I am the type of person who needs an artery to ground them to a blood source. It doesn't help that the nearest thing to Constant is unavailable. So I wait. I'm waiting for the end of Six Months, waiting to sink my toes into new soil and take root. I'm waiting for him to return so we can talk - what a luxury taken for granted - waiting to start the right job search in the right city in the right industry, waiting to apply to a right local university. So I wait, in this temporary, lonesome state strung between nothing and being engulfed in the thickness of Living According to Direction.

Something positive.

If nothing else, I'm reading. Just like I said I would love to, I'm reading books that have nothing to do with business or school or final exams. I read now in a carefree way that I only recall from memories of grade school or summer vacations. There is no guilt, only wispy delight in worlds cracked open like rich yellowy yolks - the smells and heat of a childhood in Rhodesia and Zambia, the damning panic that moves one to murder, escaping war-torn Sudan to the American violence of Atlanta. They inspire me to strain my reach toward the dream of one day growing into a writer. They let me step away from all the worry of Life's meaning and my role, from the weight of missing him and from counting the hours until he is home again.

While I am desperately trying to appreciate this new journey, the effects of the institution are strong and wrangling. I am a little lost without the obligation of college and afraid of the great-big-world sitting all cocked and ready to either act as my salvation or to happily crush me. This grown up chapter is frightening, especially without the support of my other half. I'll get through it just like I've powered through all the other trying times of my life, and I'll learn new things and I'll grow, just like in the other struggles to find myself. I'm sorry it often manifests from a dreary place inside, but I'll try to do you better than surpluses of desolation.

Because I've been projecting the funk:

10 really great things that I love/am thankful for/just make me smile...

• the care package that I assembled for The Staff Sergeant's next trip - care packaging is love.

• I have the day off, it's sunny and 65 degrees and I'm spending the afternoon in a sweet, new coffee house downtown

• 16 Military Wives - The Decemberists
  

• reading Anne Lamott's hilarious quips on life and writing

• pole dancing...and the next 6 weeks of it that await me :)

• taking down the Martha empire one cookie at a time. I heart baking.

• HAVING HIM HOME!

• um...7 weeks till graduation

• fitting once again in my "skinny" jeans

• a brief series of date nights and date night dresses [trapeze, naturally]

Naked in Baghdad

::drumroll::

I finished my first book of the year! This afternoon's irresistible spring-time highs coaxed the masses from inside, even me. I milled around the apartment for most of the day, but after the third load of dirty laundry was loaded I couldn't ignore the temptation of sunny skies. I packed my current read-in-progress and some homework, and sped off to the haven of Starbucks' patio. I ordered my tall-iced-skinny-caramel-macchiato and planted myself in the iron chair with the full intent of devouring the final page.

Naked in Baghdad is the 2003 journalistic compilation of Anne Garrels. Working as an NPR foreign correspondent, she finds herself in Iraq's capital just as talks of war and WMD's are being volleyed. By the time the bombs begin raining, she remains one of only 16 American journalists surviving either deportation or personal fear. In spite of being a woman of fifty-something years with a loving hubby at home, she stations herself on the other side of the world to contribute her observations through daily audio reports.

She's basically my new hero.

I'm not sure if my somewhat compulsive interests in genocide [and now the war in Iraq] convey here. If you were to have a glimpse at my bookshelf, or possibly even a short conversation with the Princess herself, it would be clear. I always try to explain that it isn't the tactics of war that whet my mindful appetite or the politics either, rather it's the people - the sociocultural aspects of war, as I often entitle them. At the end of Garrels' book she states the same as her motivation. It's the people and how they fair conflict that drives her need to give them a voice. Her perspective was oh so intriguing, too. The entirety of her stay was made up of several trips back and forth on account of visa restrictions, and never was there left out a single complicated hoop through which she jumped to get back into Baghdad. I loved that she avoided the fantasy of battle, that she covered the monotony and fear, and mostly that she did so without apparent agenda.

there is no love without compassion

Every now and then the world pauses, allowing a few sacred moments for me to reflect. Welcome to the first [in a long while] post that is not rushed by the bustle of my last-semester-almost-full-time-job-distracted-by-love life.

Still, not having had previous time to disperse these thoughts in increments, I fear that this will end up being a post full of color, but lacking cohesion.

[I'm sorry]

Again, on reading:

A few times I've mentioned this book that I am attempting to read, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. I am both intrigued and disgusted by the history I have avoided until now. Not only is my personal ignorance an intolerable realization, but also the testament that this book stands as. I feel so...let down by humanity.

Are we or are we not inherently good?

The Staff Sergeant will respond with an immediate and deliberate, "No." I dodge that answer in order to preserve my idealistic purpose, but I love that he challenges me to look at ideas from another side. Still, I can't help wanting to think that people are [usually] good by nature. All expectations aside, I have come to realize that not everyone aspires to make the world a better place.

[I should be hugging trees, right?]

I've only covered a small slice of the innumerable dilemmas now categorized as "genocide." One of the more inspiring/appalling situations to which I was enlightened was the Khmer Rouge regime that terrorized the Cambodian population throughout the mid-late 1970's. I just don't understand how this happens, how this is happening, elsewhere, right now, as I type, and we as Americans do little or nothing. A good portion of the populous doesn't even know what is happening in, say, Darfur. My mind lacks the ability to process so much apathy...

Backtracking to Cambodia: I was about half way through the chapter when, in one of those few seconds of free time, I happened across a blog post addressing the exact thing I was losing myself in every time I opened the book's pages. This Khmer Rouge phenomenon was severely disturbing to say the very least, so I dove into the depths of Micheal Yon's account, "No Darker Heart" with hopes of seeing yet another perspective. I devoured it, relished the words, fell in love with the articulation and lusted after his experience. I wanted to see the place where he stood, where the rain surfaced scraps of clothing, unearthed irrefutable truths. I wanted to be a voice like his, to be a bridge for those who don't know, to rid the world of naivety and preferrable darkness.

We can't close our eyes, lest the machine is perpetuated and grows more precise, more able, more hungry. If we don't talk about Darfur, the babies still starve, the innocent are still raped and tortured. The families are still displaced, still left with nothing but the memory of life before. We can't close our eyes, turn our gaze, cover our ears...we can't because it makes us an accomplice to unfathomable brutality and devastation. The sad reality is that most of us do, most generations have, and without knowledge, most will continue to.

On future plans:

My old roommate always acted as a great voice of reason. We think alike in many ways and work through our thoughts in similar methods. Coffee with her last night was extremely helpful in calming the currents of my over-active mind. I had constructed a shaky tower of what-if's on which to position my future direction. I really have no idea what I want to do with myself once I leave these hallowed halls of college, but I feel a pulling, a summoning that urges the core of myself toward some unknown place, some unclear purpose. Alas!, over hot tea, in a noisy, but familiar house of coffee, I was able to move from the maddening buzz of my inner thoughts to a place significantly less congested. I had a pseudo-epiphanic moment.

For once, I embraced patience.

[sweet relief.]

Oh the times, they are a' changin'

It seems that life happens at a rate too fast for recording these days. I know I'm slacking here, and in personal journaling, and worst of all, I am very aware of the toll it takes for me not to be writing every day. Words become more difficult to use, and cobwebs blanket my inner vocabulary pool. I stutter a lot in my head...SOOO, I'm going to put forth more effort here, both for the therapeutic benefit and for the mental exercise it provides. I have to. I really feel that it is vital for whatever the next chapter holds.

I've been juggling this last semester with much more agility than I have in the past few, and I'm being more prudent with my study habits as the burning desire to get into graduate school for journalism has been re-lit...and there might be some futuristic talk, albeit still quite ambiguous, of relationships/careers/higher education and location and where it all could lead. All that to say that this is my current inexcusable excuse for slacking in the blog commitment. I'm sorry. I will do better.

This is turning into a kludge of a post, but I'll at least leave you with a teaser or two of things on my mind [that will hopefully be soon revisited in the form of substance].

On current reading lust:
I have noticed [as has The Staff Sergeant] that my palette has lessened an appetite for the heroine novels to which I was once drawn. I'm not talking about damsels in distress or worse yet, to be confused with drug use. No, the average, garden variety Oprah books [circa, beginning of the book club]...White Oleander, The Lovely Bones, Feast of Love, East of Eden. You know, where the women show resounding resilience and overcome obstacles to find themselves empowered in their new sense of self. blah, blah, blah. Ok, I did just receive the newest Sebold novel, but even she likes the dark side. Wow, a tangent has ensued! The point, and there is one, is to note the drastic turn from "warm and fuzzy" to war and destruction. To give you an idea, a list of my last 10 literary purchases:

1. What is the What
2. The Sandbox
3. The Graves are Not Yet Full
4. A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
5. The Blog of War
6. War Reporting for Cowards
7. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
8. Journalista's
9. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
10. Highways to a War

What to make of this?

Well, The Staff Sergeant has painted a picture including me in [insert war-torn country] running around in an over-sized Kevlar helmet as mortars go off around me, toting a notebook and/or satellite driven laptop. I, however, just want to get into Journalism School and to continue to feed the ravenous beast [guilty pleasure] of my own curiosity and impassioned heart. We'll see where it takes me :)

my life in bullet-form, but no particular order

I'm still here, I swear, and I've got so much to write about...

...this new read on genocide has gotten me thinking and learning so much about modern history and what people are capable of

...the staff sergeant is getting ready to leave again for about 2 months (i.e., I'll be soon slipping into the life of the dating-single world of military other halves...and we all know how gracefully I wear this persona [note sarcasm]). Reference October for further illustration.

...I'll be turning 24 in a few weeks [...and I'm not who I thought I was...]

...I'll be Valentines-ing it up in Atlanta with an old high school friend turned mil-wife (our men both have dates with the army).

...hopefully I'll be able to introduce a new roommate as the old one has moved...well, down the street

...classes start back (note tone of dread), buuuuuuuut it's the last semester [ever] of undergrad business studies (note tone of elation)

...I've also gotten this new book brimming with writing prompts, so I might start trying those out and posting them here.

And soon I'll give each of these things the time and honor and respect it deserves. Tonight is just not the time or place. I'll post something meaty soon.

[SOON.]

Home is...not Memphis.

I said I'd post the back-logs, but I ended up journaling most of them. I'd recap the 4 days of holiday "bliss," if I wasn't exhausted just thinking about mentally reliving them. I saw some friends and family. I ate some good tasting, but not good for you Southern food. I wore skinny jeans and silver pumps to Christmas Eve's festivities. I received my grandmother's wedding set for the possible event of its [very future] intended use, and a fancy GPS, and some books, and lotion. I saw three movies. Drank one beer and two glasses of bubbly. And received 2 birthday presents a month early because my parents...I don't even know.

And it rained.

I'm glad to be home.

::sigh::

Outside it rains and I have sad eyes, or maybe tired. Perhaps it's just a rainy mood inspired by gray clouds. I'm heavy, my eyes are anyway, and the music wafts lazily over and through and below the murmur of the others. I know the voice of this singer but can't retrieve his name from the tip of my tongue. His identity doesn't much matter, and this song fits oddly with the melancholy nature of the late afternoon shower. Peppermint tea rolls steam from its surface before me and dribbles carelessly down one side - syphoned by the the steeping bag.

The aroma of coffee permeates the air. [and peppermint too, of course.]

I have no idea what has gotten beneath my skin, nonetheless this unnamed agitation is bothersome. Maybe it is the rain, and the sad slush of tires through puddles on the asphalt. Maybe it's the Hornby novel I read, likening marriage to the impulse to drink bleach. Maybe it's [this] or [that]...maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe it's the woeful plight of voices around me, those who might actually be planning to toast the Universe with a brimming pour of Clorox.

Could the goal really be unachievable...?

The Fear.

I don't read religious books. I don't find that I much enjoy them. I've walked away from that part of my past maybe to one day return, maybe to not. Regardless, I read this today as it was posted within one of the infinite numbers of personal blogs that hang somewhere in the balance of real and virtual existence. I know these questions well and wrestle with them daily. There have been times recently when the paralyzing fear of not being enough [again] is immense. While I am deliriously glad to be offering my heart, I am unable to always avoid the sinister whisper of Doubt...sometimes, it is terrifying. The more I allow myself to give, the more my senses become acutely aware of the possibility of an end, not because I will choose that road, but because the others have. This fear is not a fair precedent, I know, but I worry nonetheless...

What if it ends? What if I enjoy you more than you enjoy me? What if your delight in me is bogus? Or worse, what if it is mere manipulation to get from me what you want? What if I love you and then you die, divorce me, or turn against me? The risk is more than I can bear, and so I refuse to open my heart to another person who will arouse my desire and then might use me or dash me to the ground.

Such ambivalence is the enemy of love, [because love] is the capacity to offer ourselves to others.
•••••••••••••••••••••••
Exerpt from The Healing Path by Dan Allender, pg 29

Paper Wings

I sometimes feel very 2 dimensional. flat. plain. average. I dream of a life so large that it exceeds every possible perimeter that the world can throw around me and said explosive existence. Sometimes in the midst of that dream I realize that I am in fact more stuck than expansive energy and my heart sinks...until my romantic mind begins whirring again with those too-big thoughts. I've adopted that phrase, by the way, from Kerouac (read him).

So here I am - feeling stuck. Feeling small and flat and wanting. Wanting to move and shake and save the world and save myself...from whatever it is that makes me feel pinned. Today, perhaps it is my mother and that latest bought of guiltful puppeteering of purse strings and toxic parenting. Perhaps it's that I let her. Perhaps it's the apathy that still taints my ambition to do (anything). Maybe it's the monotony of life, and I'm tired. I'd like to leave for a bit...for a bit...I'd like to get in my car and drive to Anywhere But Here.

Welcome to Anywhere But Here! the sign would read.

I saw a film and that made me want to move, to sell it all, everything, and live on simplicity and good deeds. I'd like to save the world. I read a book, some blogs, I've listened to the moving plans, for downsizing the stuff. The stuff is so weighty, isn't it? And the grass is always greener. I lay beneath the stars as they fell across the midnight plane. I made a wish, but I can't repeat it. I heard a song and wanted to love like that again. It made me feel inspired to give my heart away...to someone true and good who also loves without regard. I want to love and be loved in capacities larger than reason would rightfully allow, and never ever hurt (again). And I'm homesick, for something I've never seen. I'm so sick for home...rotten sick for a state of being that I've known only in daydreams.

So here I am - feeling stuck. Feeling 2D and paper thin. Feeling weighed down with the crap of life and tethered to dead weight. But it isn't all so desperate. No, there's plenty of potential, don't get me wrong. There's plenty that I'm thankful for and makes me smile. It's just...it's just that I'm restless, and plagued a little by the burn of wanderlust. And the search for Home is a little more than I can mentally entertain right now. And I want to not be scared of love, or moved to silence maternal phone calls.

A series of unfortunate events.

I retired my laptop hours before usual to instead lay in bed and devour a chapter or two of On The Road. Right about Fresno my eyes got heavy, and for once in long while, I surrendered to their sleepy desires. It was before midnight when I set my alarm for 7am and turned out the lights to wedge between the covers. A good plan, I thought, to bed early to rise early. My body revolted like an angst-ridden teen...tossing and turning and waking on the hour. When the alarm jolted me from a lukewarm slumber, I laid there exhausted for half an hour more. At 7:30am I was still doing well for time.

This morning I swore to leave 30 full minutes before class was to begin even though my campus is only 3 miles from my front door. It seems that with the influx of freshman, a simultaneous disappearance of parking slots has also occurred. I've thought about calling Roswell to investigate, but instead I attempt to remedy the problem with futile curses contained within the solitude of my car. It isn't really working. You should also know that time management is a great weakness of mine, but this morning I was on my A-game. I was prepared to be prompt in my attendance.

At exactly 9:05am I stepped outside, locking the door behind me.

First hurried step, phone - check.

Second, iPod - check.

Third - I'm gonna be on time!

Fourth, keys - che...where are my keys!?

I didn't yet launch into panic, although it was more than warranted. This would be my third missed class since the semester's beginning from which I would be absent. I'm pretty sure that under such circumstances, a student becomes a top candidate for immediate failure or dismissal from the course. I calmly turned back and lunged for the spare...I should probably add it to my list for Roswell's research, seeing that it too has mysteriously gone missing.

Shit!...and panic ensued.

To make a short story not as long as I would otherwise make it, The Roommate left work to let me in, I sped to class, found a miraculous parking spot in the garage, the door wasn't locked today, and I sauntered awkwardly into the classroom only 10 minutes late. I was at odds with the universe! After a solid effort of flawed preparation, I think I'll stick to my preferred by-the-seat-of-your-pants method.

On happier notes, The Staff Sergeant and I have a date tomorrow. I believe we'll be attending an indie rock affair in the Gulch. Hopefully it will prove to be as good of a show as the talk seems to bill it.

Idiot.

I need for someone to sit down and write The Idiots Guide to Not Being a Complete U.S. Army Dumb Ass. This my friends, is another language and culture all together!

E-what?

PF-something

Where is Dhi Qar?

...for that matter, where exactly is Iraq?

See what I mean? And it digresses from there. Maybe Miss Teen South Carolina and I can go get a latte and talk about...er...stumble over...uh...attempt to converse about The Iraq or possibly Everywhere Like Such As. She'd be in good company. My knowledge spans no further than the plastic boots of G.I. Joe and his action-hero jointed limbs. Even then, who am I kidding? I was a thoroughbred Barbie girl. No camo for this Princess.

I'm lost.

::sigh::

...and completely overwhelmed.

My adopted soldier, who we'll cast now as The Private, will perhaps be a test of informational endurance. As for The Staff Sergeant, well, I'm a bit smitten and also, he has good shoes. So, please someone remember to make that justification in my eulogy when the capacity of my brain overloads and I burst...

Story Time

Macbeth and I enjoy one last lazy afternoon of summer before classes resume on Wednesday.

A Diamond is Forever

I was talking on the phone last night when the topic of diamonds filtered into the conversation. They've been a subject on my mind since seeing Blood Diamond a few months back, also following my quick read of A Long Way Gone, the chronicle of a child soldier in Sierra Leone (a major hot spot for diamond conflict until 2002, and also the setting of the mentioned movie).

As for many things in the vast world in which we live, my depth of knowledge is rather shallow regarding this topic of concern, but my hesitance to endorse the diamond has certainly been heightened after seeing the reenactment on screen of ruthless village attacks, violent amputations, and the enslavement of innocent people...not to mention the kidnapping and brainwashing of children later to be made into rebel soldiers.

So laying in bed on this lazy Sunday, performing my usual a.m. routine of checking email/surfing the net, I looked over news headlines until this caught my eye: Liberia Lifts Diamond Mining Ban. I figured that now was as good a time as any to check into the issue of diamonds.

It's a sad truth that the Western World's hype to jump on the anti-conflict diamond bandwagon is perhaps too late to be significant in making change. The countries suffering the most violent of wars have settled into more peaceful times as the encouragement to boycott diamonds has risen. It seems to be our style: turn a blind eye until a major producer in Hollywood funds a movie. I'm not above admitting that this is how my heart was turned. It was Rwanda's genocide that changed me through the impressive role of Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina. It's borderline disgusting that Hollywood has more "umph" than the news, and myself included, that Americans are so naively informed.

From what I can tell, the issue of conflict diamonds is now being controlled by the Kimberly Act, which aims to track each diamond to ensure it's origin. Within some sites this seems to be a positive movement, at others, there is skepticism that it is enough. In one article, only 1% of the world's diamonds are claimed to be mined under rebel conflict in Africa, yet the same article links 20% of diamonds on the market to a larger group of "controversial diamonds" made up of "smuggled diamonds and diamonds mined in abusive labor situations all over the world" (Washington Post). It is also repeatedly noted (in this Post article and others) that the sale of diamonds is an economic benefit to the African nations and that the boycott of the stones will prove detrimental to the already poverty ravaged nations where legitimate and prosperous diamond mines are run.

Another very interesting element of my research into conflict diamonds revealed a link between middle eastern terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and the corrupted governments of Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The article I was reading, sponsored by Amnesty International, goes on for numerous paragraphs explaining the money movement between Africa and the Middle East. Quoting author Greg Campbell, "Osama bin Laden's terrorist network began buying diamonds from the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) of Sierra Leone according to FBI sources quoted in the Washington Post." - and that was in 1998. He also writes that when assets were frozen to these groups they were still able to operate through the currency of diamonds. Campbell, throughout his article, lays a lot of blame on the unethical mining and trading of "blood diamonds" in the funding of the actions carried out on September 11, 2001.

If nothing else, it gets you thinking (or it should)...

Moving to a less controversial argument, and in a more bohemian, "damn the man" direction is the fact that De Beers is said to have created the value of diamonds through intense marketing campaigns, and an especially large increase in movie presence in the 1930's (and again, we're taking cues from Hollywood). This article highlights the arbitrary sentiment placed on the rock in the Victorian era, when apparently people felt the need to assign meaning to inanimate objects (e.g., flowers, gem stones). The guys at De Beers set out to put wide-eyed starlets in movies being offered these "tokens" of love, and we all followed suit.

I think that I need to digest all of this information before announcing to the next guy I date never to think about buying me diamonds. It's intense, as are most things in the world. It makes me sick to think about the stories illustrated in Blood Diamond (chopping off limbs and whatnot), and mentioned over and over again as a result of African rebel armies moving illegally into the diamond industry. It's also something to consider that not purchasing them might have negative repercussions in the developing nations in need of economic increase. It's something to ponder how corrupt organizations of terror work together in the name of greed and evil, and yet another to think that we might all just be duped by De Beers.

Reading & Wine - A Fabulous Combination!

I have to admit that my favorite place in Nashville might very well be the Grand Reading Room in the main public library downtown. I have come here today to get some much procrastinated work done for class and to pick up a copy of Jack Kerouac's On The Road in anticipation of the next three weeks of academic freedom! Perhaps this doesn't sound like much to look forward to, but until you've given his imagery a chance and the unique style in which he narrates, you can't judge. I'm quite excited to road trip the country with Dean as Kerouac paints vivid illustrations with his prose. Yes, I'm a nerd, but it explains the desire for an MA in writing, right? My last Composition professor said, "You become a good writer by reading good writing." Kerouac is good writing.

There is something very tranquil about The Grand Reading Room...it's lofty ceilings and rows of reading tables are nestled between shelves and shelves of books and pages and words. More words that I could ever know, and more ideas than I could ever conger. It's inspiring and peaceful here, with large towering windows that invite soft natural light and frame the state capital building. I can hear the city moving below my third floor location, but inside this room only the quiet "whirrr" of an overhead air vent can be heard, and the occasional turn of a page, and maybe a murmur as someone speaks deliberately low.

On another note, I had the pleasure of going wine shopping this morning...not to drink this morning. It's for next weekend's trip to Asheville. I got my usual bottle of Kris Pinot Grigio and opted to try a new bottle that I had never before seen: FairValley. I was really excited to see that it is made on a vineyard in South Africa that is run by black Africans and that they are the individuals who reap the benefits of the wine. Naturally, I'm going to show up next weekend with African wine that is benefiting people otherwise living in poverty. It's almost too predictable :) Several people working at the store said really good things about it, though, especially that it's great this time of the year because it's fresh and light and good when it's so hot outside. I'll post when I know more about it's taste, and if it's fabulous, I will definitely encourage it to all.

With that, I'm going to wish all a Happy Saturday! For now, I must get back to my priorities.

A Closer Look at Long-Distance Dating: Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?

Meandering through the vast literary world of Amazon.com, I happened upon this cute little book: The Long-Distance Relationship Survival Guide: Secrets And Strategies from Successful Couples Who Have Gone the Distance.

::cringe::

Apparently this self-depriving movement is epidemic...enough so that authors are finding it profitable to publish books on the topic. It opens with a list of cleverly titled chapters, the first being, "A Closer Look at Long-Distance Dating: Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?"

::cringe, again::

Even the first words of the book forecast an ominous trial. Oh, the things we will do for love...

So why would one embark upon a challenge so steeped in obstacles? Can they work? Are they worth it?

Apparently someone in the 80's thought it appropriate to "walk five-hun-dred miles", while The Plain White T's are currently crooning hipster lyrics about love and distance - not to mention the military sweethearts that are definitely feeling the stretch. If there are songs and books, and an entire branch of the US government that is valiantly surviving the dreaded plague of separation, I guess it can't be all that impossible.

I'm no stranger to the reality of being miles and miles from someone I care about. I've dated someone in Tampa from Memphis (a considerable 845 miles apart), and Poquoson, VA for a period of several months while I was still in Nashville (685 miles), and now there is the possibility of trying a Nashville/VA Beach venture (a happy medium of 725 miles of separation).* Being divided by space is hard, and I'm certain that no one sets out seeking a long-distance relationship. You just meet people - atop mountains in Colorado, those in a life transition taking them elsewhere, or when you, yourself relocate and cross paths with others (in coffee shops, for example) - and sometimes the people you meet in travel and transition are really amazing and it just makes more sense to give it a chance. Apparently for me it's all the time, BUT I have never claimed to stick with conventional methods.

I think it also takes a certain personality to be able to weather the distance, and a plan - there has to be a plan, or at least an idea of a plan that eventually concludes the suffering. I won't hesitate to deem myself quite the idealist, or the hopeless romantic, and maybe even on some days an eternal optimist. I think it takes these qualities, the ability to communicate effectively (I've been told I can converse with walls, so I think I'm good here), perseverance, and trust.

I've seen the end of the spectrum - a friend of mine who is less than 2 years into marriage to a guy who just deployed to Iraq. She's really strong, but there definitely moments of anguish when we talk. Not only is he FAR, but she's got the added challenge of worry. Situations like that help to keep it all in perspective - the "it could always be worse" scenario. While 725 miles would be a significant distance, it's relatively peaceful in Virginia Beach, and if worse came to worse, in an 11 hour drive either one of us could be in the other's city.

So the author poses the question of "why we do this to ourselves?" I suppose it just depends on what we want from life. I don't mind living intensely, taking on a challenge if the end result might be extreme happiness, and if there is someone out there who is a kindred soul it seems silly not to give it a try. The worst possible outcome is finding out that it doesn't work, and I'm ok making the sacrifice (apparently over and over again) to find that moment of certainty.

I figure you only live once, and having a colorful archive of stories to tell about the life you've led builds character and keeps you grounded.



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*...why don't I date locals, and what's with the beach!?