tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72898462024-03-14T04:44:20.780-05:00Under ConstructionAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-30177521042520002082010-01-02T14:08:00.003-06:002010-01-02T14:25:33.930-06:00I Resolve to Read the Calendar BetterI'm staying at my parents' house for a couple of weeks. They are off having sun and warmth in Mexico, but Jimmy's mom who is 90 and lives with them had a difficult time recovering from pneumonia recently, so I'm here to call 911 if I need to, to try to force her to accept my help with her breakfast and lunch, and to cook dinner for her and Ann (the other elderly housemate). I'm not used to having such regular meals, and if this weren't the lap of luxury, I'd be feeling all crowded and introverted. Since it's an enormous house, I'm on the third floor alone right now, typing away, while Ann naps and Dorothy knits in the sun room. We each have our own floor.<br /><br />This morning, I got up early (to train myself for the inevitability of going back to school on Monday), walked the dog in the freezing, freezing cold, and headed off to Uptown to cross off my first New Year's resolution. I was going to my first belly dancing lesson in the dance studio above Birch's Pharmacy. Classes begin at the beginning of January and they are offered almost every day of the week, but I decided that Saturday was best for me. Otherwise it becomes a day of too much thinking, moping, and procrastinating.<br /><br />Well, I got there only to discover that classes actually begin on Monday, so Saturday's first class isn't until next week. This was all very clearly spelled out on their website, which I checked three times before I headed off to a strange land, but despite my enormous brain, I have all kinds of trouble reading calendars, and so I misread the date.<br /><br />Anyway, I made the best of it. An outing is never bad when you are younger than your housemates by over 50 years. I bought myself some Yak Tracks so I can walk Buddy through ice and snow. Then I got home, and crossed off another resolution by buying my train ticket to Portland. <br /><br />Now, I'm at least 90 percent certain that my Portland ticket really does involve travel during the actual dates of my Spring Break, but it was all on a calendar so I can never be 100 percent certain until the date actually comes around.<br /><br />Love,<br />AlAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-22776385795676599832010-01-01T11:44:00.004-06:002010-01-01T14:47:20.854-06:00ListsIn case you didn't receive this in the mail, here is my resolution list for 2010. Hope you're enjoying the day. Here in MN it's sunny and even colder than the thermometer says.<br /><div> <p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Dear Friends and Family,</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >I’ve never written the holiday letter or Christmas card before because I don’t have any cute kids to share with you. Buddy doesn’t like having his picture taken, and although I <i>am</i> pretty vain, I draw the line at sending everyone I know of photo of myself for Christmas. However, I am the number one fan of your holiday cards and photos, and so, to encourage you not to drop me from your list, here is my first annual New Years Resolution letter.</span><br /></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Whereas, I have room to improve and grow in 2010, be it resolved that this year I vow to do the following.</span></p> <ol type="1"><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Smile more, especially in November and February.</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Say goodbye to everyone when I leave a party</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Go to graduate school (finally) starting in March</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Go to the gym twelve times a month, until such time as it is warm enough to allow my membership to lapse</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Be less cheap</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Take the train to Portland, OR for Spring Break</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Go to my 15-year reunion, and be proud of what I’ve done in the last 15-years, even though I’ve never yet been ambassador to the U.N. Nor have I cured cancer. At least I didn’t join a cult.</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Run another half marathon and beat my time from last year</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Have more dinner parties</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Take myself out to dinner more</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Finish painting the basement</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Go to the Dominican Republic in the summer<br /></span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Join a running club and go more than twice before I quit</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Visit the Black Hills</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Learn to dance or at least take lessons.</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Go to a weekly exercise class at least four weeks in a row</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Say yes more</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Say no more</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Stop procrastinating</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Ask for help when I need it</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Write more</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Read more books</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Join a book club that reads books</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Design knitting patterns and write them down</span></li></ol><br /><p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Furthermore, the following resolutions will happen in 2010, although they will most likely <i>not</i> result in much growth or improvement.</span></p> <ol type="1"><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Watch the rest of West Wing, even though the walk-and-talk is starting to annoy me</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Forget to wash the dishes sometimes before I go to bed</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Hope that Buddy can survive the night without a third walk</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Laugh with my nephews and nieces and my pseudo nieces and nephews</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Eat many dinners at Jimmy and Judy’s house</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Knit in front of the TV</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Play Wii at Perley and Jill’s</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Watch So You Think You Can Dance with Sarah</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Eat at least one Jucy Lucy</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Eat too many croissants at A Baker’s Wife</span></li></ol><br /><p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Finally, the following resolutions will continue from last year (and the year before).</span></p> <ol type="1"><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Volunteer every other week at the library</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Donate blood sporadically</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Give everything I can to teaching, because it’s a job I love and do well</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Pay my mortgage close to on time</span></li><li><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Care deeply for my friends and family and the children of my friends and family.</span></li></ol><br /><p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >I am grateful to have you in my life. Have a happy new year. Don’t forget to send any hot single guys you meet my way for a once over. </span></p><p><span style=";font-family:Eras Light ITC;font-size:100%;" >Love and kisses from Alex and Buddy</span></p> </div>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-32114103391850245932009-12-23T07:57:00.003-06:002009-12-23T08:31:53.546-06:00The Permanent CollectionThe fourth floor of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is a busy place this time of year. The period rooms are all done up for the holidays, and families and school groups wander through to see the glitter. Anyone who has ever had a doll house knows the fascination of the period rooms. We long to rearrange the furniture, we imagine dramatic domestic scenes around the fireplace, and we picture the people readying themselves for the night in that tiny colonial bed. I have a special fascination for the period rooms, because all the years I was a child I didn't even know they existed (did they exist then?), and it wasn't until one Christmas that my step-mother took me to see them in their full splendor that I discovered a whole wing of the MIA my usual tour guides (Jimmy, Claire, my dad) must have avoided on purpose. Still, as I've gotten older I've realized that the period rooms never change. Even the holiday dazzle is the same year after year. The sameness of the rooms makes them uninteresting. I've seen them. Done that.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the rest of the art on the fourth floor is the same as it always was, but it just gets better every time I go. There's the stunning one of woman lying in the grass eating an apple with her baby (Cassatt, I think. I'm not very good at remembering to read the tags). There's a nude painted by a man who has never seen a naked woman. There's a baby painted by a man who has never seen a baby. And then stop! Here's that breathtaking scene of Lucretia with the knife. Rooms of angels and religious paintings lull me back into my museum stupor, and then she catches my eye again, the woman with the candle, the flame of it covered by some man's arm, but the glow of it perfectly reflected on each of the faces huddled urgently around her. There's the couple in the moonlight. I'm not sure I love Gauguin, with his bold swatches of color, but used to have a puzzle of one of his paintings, and so I spend some time reuniting with it in the museum. And of course, I have to pause each time at the bust of the Algerian, stark contrast of bronze and stone.<br /><br />Around me, on the fourth floor of the museum, the ones who make it past the period rooms to look at the permanent collection gasp along with me. I think they must gasp each time at the same place in the room. I know I do. The best paintings are old friends that still catch me by the shirtsleeves each time I see them.<br /><br />"Look!" says a man to his son, "If you stand close, it's just dots. If you back up you can see the picture. He did it all with dots. Can you believe it? Just dots."<br /><br />"Oh no!" shouts a woman to her out-of-town companion. "They moved it. Where is it? Oh! Oh! Here it is. Isn't it breathtaking? Isn't it wonderful?"<br /><br />"It's perfect," says the man of the elderly couple to his wife. She agrees, and they stand silently in front of the Carpet Vendor for a minute, just looking.<br /><br />I wonder if the way we enjoy art is Minnesotan. If we lived in Manhattan, we'd have so many more paintings to see that it would take longer to make friends with our favorites. We'd have traveling shows come and visit us, and we'd be able to make new acquaintances so easily that we might not cling so steadfastly to what we know and like. We might not notice if they move one of our favorites to a different wall. We might go to the museum not to see the dozen paintings we already love, but to meet new ones and allow them to impress us. We might not spend our entire play-going budget each year on the same old "Christmas Carol" at the Guthrie.<br /><br />I don't know, but I do know that I can't wait to go back again so I can see Lucretia without the tour of catholic school tenth graders blocking my view.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-29295041774945942882009-12-13T17:45:00.002-06:002009-12-13T18:07:45.948-06:00Those Crazy JapaneseI wasn't blogging, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been any action on this site. <br /><br />I have mixed feelings about people reading this blog lately. Part of me wants to be famous with legions of fans. I want to use my blog fame to make friends and influence people. I want to flash my fame when I enter a restaurant so I can get a better table. But another, equally real, part of me, feels a little bit naked on the Internet, and I think about closing this site down so that I can get dressed and stop over-sharing with the whole wide world. That part of me kind of hopes that no one is reading these words, and figures that long periods of silence are a good thing because they drive down my readership.<br /><br />So, I haven't written anything or checked this blog for comments for about a month. But that doesn't mean that there hasn't been any action on this site.<br /><br />When I logged in recently, I noticed that one of my posts had eighty-four comments! Oh, the mixed feelings began to crowd out all other thoughts when I saw that number. Eighty-four people care what I have to say! I'm famous! Oh, crap. That means that eighty-four people read my post. Damn it. Did my students find me? What did I write? Crap. Crap. Crap. <br /><br />So, I was filled with eagerness and dread when I clicked on <a href="http://agalt.blogspot.com/2009/06/trend-such-as-it-is.html">this post</a> to discover that in my absence, it has become some sort of Japanese sex chat room. At least, I assume it's Japanese. I use Firefox, and I've noticed before that Japanese characters display as a block of four numbers for Firefox users who don't bother to get the Japanese plug-in. I assume it's about sex because every once in while, embedded between the non-English characters, are words that hint at sex. Words like "sex", for example.<br /><br />I deleted a ton of the comments, but there isn't an easy way to delete mass amounts of comments on Blogger, so I got lazy and decided to be content with zapping all of the ones that had English-character email addresses in them. I've also disallowed anonymous comments on this blog.<br /><br />Anyway, I guess I got exactly what I wanted. I got legions of people to come to my blog. Fans, if you will. Chances are, they don't really read English, though, so I got the other thing I wanted: None of them is reading what I wrote. Perfect.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-29618895537995475632009-12-11T19:11:00.003-06:002009-12-13T13:42:43.308-06:00The One Without a TitleYou know what, you guys? I cried. Pretty much all of November, I cried. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I can make a lot of tears when I get going.<br /><br />When you start crying like that, you don't really need a reason to keep crying. It just does itself. Tears upon tears. Thinking about all the people who saw you cry, or suspect you cried, or might just think you are crying without having seen you in years can be enough to bring more tears. Writing the words "I cried" was enough to bring some more, even though today's tears are stoppable, which is the difference.<br /><br />All through November, it was a torrent of heart-crushing grief. There were phone messages from my mother I couldn't play, because they were going to make it start again. There was incredible guilt whenever I did talk to her, because every conversation ended with me unable to speak past the lump in my throat and the ache in my heart, and I know that she worries and it's not fair to still do that to her after thirty-six years. There were car rides to and from the Suburb throughout which I was so wracked by sobs, I could barely see the road.<br /><br />Some of it was logical. I got dumped in November, twice, including once by a guy so unworthy of me, he ignored me for a week, and then finally (and only after I asked him to explain himself) wrote me an email explaining that he wasn't ready for a relationship. I gave him three months of precious teacher-weekends, and he couldn't take the time to dial the phone to say "no thank you" in person or at least in voice.<br /><br />You know it's a bad month when you end it by thanking a guy for taking the time to dump you in person. I thought I met someone really, really good in November. His emails said all of the right things. He was charming and cute in person. Our one and only date went so well I felt something I haven't felt in a long time (something like lust. Desire maybe.). Maybe if I weren't so very ready to find someone charming and cute, and if he weren't so very not, this story would have ended happily. It didn't. It ended familiarly, at least. One good date, followed by silence. And then that final conversation.<br /><br />The problem is that logical or not, crying over break-ups does you no good. No one wants to hear about it when you're 36 anyway. They would have been more sympathetic when you were seventeen (not that you dated, then, because of the whole thing where you never talked in high school). Nowadays, the world likes to tell you that you can be happy by yourself. The world likes to tell you that you'll find your match when you're least looking for it (Is this the advice you give to your unemployed friends? You'll find your job when you stop wanting a job?), and you should get busy living your life alone. I do live alone. Every day. I've lived alone for more years than most of the world ever does.<br /><br />So, you have a choice, ultimately. You can choose to think about how much you hurt or you can choose to not. It ends when you find the strength to choose the latter. Then the tears stop. You find your humor again. You can talk to your mother and neither of you has to end up in tears. You can go to school and you can even come home and grade homework. It doesn't hurt so very much because you decided not to let it hurt so much.<br /><br />Thank you, you say, with real grace. Thank you, for taking the time to meet with me in person, to have this real conversation with me. Thank you for saying what you think will help me. Thank you for being my sweet mother who doesn't deserve to have to worry. Thank you for being my friend with an extra N who will feed me soup and listen to me cry. I live alone. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me in person. I'm worth it.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-24168491438012913802009-11-07T16:51:00.002-06:002009-11-07T17:01:08.610-06:00DecidingWhen I have a ton of work to do, often I'll get overwhelmed. I'll stew on it, worrying about it. I'll put off friends who want to have fun, because I have all this work to do, and then I'll feel sad about missing the fun that I'll procrastinate for so long that I might as well have just gone out and had the fun. <br /><br />So, today, I finally just decided. "Crap," I decided. "I have a lot of work to do. I'm going to have to pull an all-dayer." So I got in my car, and I drove to the suburb, and I sat myself down and I graded paper after paper. I didn't let myself relax until I had graded every last test - all 80 of them, two pages, double-sided, crammed with tiny little numbers, written in haste and not-tidily by 80 stressed-out high-school students. "I don't understand how to do any of this," they said on Friday, the first hint of a whine I've had all year (it's been a good year). They had five tests yesterday. I'm thinking they'd know if they hadn't had to study for four different tests (and what are they doing putting other subjects ahead of Calculus, anyway?). Test results do not back up their claims. They know how to do some of it. One of them even knows how to do all of it, plus the bonus.<br /><br />I still have work to do, but after my all-dayer I know that I can do it in the 24-hours before I have to be back at school. Enough with the whining. Just do it.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-90631672161428687982009-11-06T21:27:00.002-06:002009-11-06T21:37:56.842-06:00Something SmallThe reason you haven't heard from me: I was thinking about me and dating, and I decided that I'm not going to let myself think that it's my fault that I'm single, anymore. It's just plain, dumb luck, and while there are lots of ways you make your own luck, there are also lots of ways in which your plain, dumb luck is Not Your Fault.<br /><br />Like, for example this: You meet a guy. He's attractive and he seems to be into you. You're into him. Then, bam, he stops calling. What happened?<br /><br />Correct answer: God only knows. Do yourself a favor. Stop thinking about it.<br /><br />Or this: You meet a guy. You like him. He likes you. Then, bam, everything he does annoys the crap out of you. You can't even stand to be in the same room with him. What happened?<br /><br />Correct answer: Who cares? Stop thinking about it. Just get out of the room as fast as you can.<br /><br />Advice by Al. Free. And worth every penny.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-68846735260805985702009-08-27T10:05:00.017-05:002009-08-27T12:11:53.782-05:00Dog DaysSummer is winding down here in Minnesota. We have a law which prevents school from starting before Labor Day, and it means that we're at the end of the longest summer ever. I am not complaining.<br /><br />I spent a big chunk of the summer making my home more homey. I'm not with-it enough to have before pictures, but here are the after pictures.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SpayhralfrI/AAAAAAAAB-o/MaDJri8kAIs/s1600-h/DSC00638.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SpayhralfrI/AAAAAAAAB-o/MaDJri8kAIs/s320/DSC00638.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374679496972926642" border="0" /></a><br />I got a new bathroom faucet. This is the kind of thing you use before pictures for, I think, but it makes a big difference to me, and so it makes the photo gallery.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa0DEQRNYI/AAAAAAAAB-w/FYpqr9h6CDQ/s1600-h/DSC00641.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa0DEQRNYI/AAAAAAAAB-w/FYpqr9h6CDQ/s200/DSC00641.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374681170087851394" border="0" /></a>I tried to take a picture that looked daunting, because that's what it felt like to think about the task of replacing the bathtub rubber hose with an actual diverting faucet. I did the plumbing myself, with just a little bit of last minute rescue help from a good friend. This change may have improved my lifestyle the most. I can now bathe, not just shower. I love baths.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa1vmNrDRI/AAAAAAAAB-4/dNGvjW0PRLk/s1600-h/DSC00648.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa1vmNrDRI/AAAAAAAAB-4/dNGvjW0PRLk/s320/DSC00648.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374683034629639442" border="0" /></a>The second biggest lifestyle change is hidden in this picture. Can you find it? It's not the beaded unicorn or the spice rack. It's the remote control light switch for my kitchen ceiling fan. Now, instead of groping around in the dark for the pull-chain I get to flip a switch, just like a civilized human being.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa2aVKVJ4I/AAAAAAAAB_A/r0GmojcGunA/s1600-h/DSC00643.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa2aVKVJ4I/AAAAAAAAB_A/r0GmojcGunA/s320/DSC00643.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374683768786593666" border="0" /></a>The kitchen received the most attention. You can't see them, but I refinished the floors (hired someone to refinish the floors). I sold the World's Heaviest Butcher's Block (good-bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out) which made room for my great-grandparents' kitchen table.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa21zLfGMI/AAAAAAAAB_I/mBlJuy6qMbo/s1600-h/DSC00645.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa21zLfGMI/AAAAAAAAB_I/mBlJuy6qMbo/s320/DSC00645.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374684240700971202" border="0" /></a>And I bought the Best Thing Ever on Craigslist. It's called a Hoosier cabinet, and now I finally have more counter space and more storage, and I didn't have to buy crappy Ikea cabinets to do it. Also pictured is a broom that is so attractive I don't have to hide it in a closet. It's called "Sweep Dreams". Are you cracking up?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa3bsW6-OI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/yvQZw25D1yE/s1600-h/DSC00646.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa3bsW6-OI/AAAAAAAAB_Q/yvQZw25D1yE/s320/DSC00646.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374684891704916194" border="0" /></a>The Hoosier cabinet gives me room to store my food, and it also helps me answer one of life's most persistent mysteries: "Where are my keys?" I try to hang them on the hook in the cabinet as soon as I come home. I'm not perfect, but I can see perfect from here.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa4aT_FuQI/AAAAAAAAB_Y/b7cEaboMAhs/s1600-h/DSC00647.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa4aT_FuQI/AAAAAAAAB_Y/b7cEaboMAhs/s320/DSC00647.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374685967494265090" border="0" /></a>There actually is a <a href="http://agalt.blogspot.com/2009/06/kitchen-project.html">before picture</a> for my two-tone cabinet paint job. Painting is a lot of work, but it makes the kitchen feel lighter and airier now that it has mellow green trim. Besides, who am I to complain? I am <span style="font-style: italic;">legally required</span> to stay on vacation for three more days. Oh, and just so you know, I do have dish towels to match my trim. I'm so Martha Stewart. They're just dirty. I think Martha has people to do the wash for her, now that she's out of the Big House.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SpayKZm1qSI/AAAAAAAAB-g/EEGLrftj0Yw/s1600-h/DSC00632.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SpayKZm1qSI/AAAAAAAAB-g/EEGLrftj0Yw/s320/DSC00632.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374679097055488290" border="0" /></a>Here's the dining room, getting all decked out for Tuesday's dinner party for eight people. I can throw dinner parties now that my house doesn't suck anymore.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa53_pYKWI/AAAAAAAAB_g/-Ks5lT_jiuU/s1600-h/DSC00649.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa53_pYKWI/AAAAAAAAB_g/-Ks5lT_jiuU/s320/DSC00649.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374687576942192994" border="0" /></a>The book I was following ("The Eight Step Home Cure"), said to put the bed where the king would sleep. I know a certain older brother of mine who would freak out that it's not centered on that window, but I'm willing to trade symmetry for being able to navigate past my dresser. The king has never slept in such tight quarters. It's good for him. It builds character.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa6fHuQDHI/AAAAAAAAB_o/KGc2HMc4cx8/s1600-h/DSC00650.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa6fHuQDHI/AAAAAAAAB_o/KGc2HMc4cx8/s320/DSC00650.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374688249125014642" border="0" /></a>My yarn stash gets its own cabinet. The artwork in my bedroom is courtesy of my three-year-old nephew. Nothing like a cheery scribble to greet you first thing in the morning.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa64_mRMEI/AAAAAAAAB_w/ceiQbvQu854/s1600-h/DSC00652.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa64_mRMEI/AAAAAAAAB_w/ceiQbvQu854/s320/DSC00652.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374688693620650050" border="0" /></a>Here's my writing corner. Even though I don't use it religiously, it's good to know that it's there for whenever I'm ready to start my novel. And it's labeled with my name, just in case I get confused and think it belongs to someone else who lives here.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa7WbmKwbI/AAAAAAAAB_4/jDLzp9WXZ6U/s1600-h/DSC00654.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa7WbmKwbI/AAAAAAAAB_4/jDLzp9WXZ6U/s320/DSC00654.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374689199352627634" border="0" /></a>New couch, chair, and footstool courtesy of Craigslist. I rented a moving truck and conned my brother into helping me carry it, and then I got it all home and realized that it stunk like someone else's house in such a way that I couldn't even stand to sit in my living room. I spent an entire day throwing as much of it as I could into the washing machine, and then airing it out in the yard. It now smells like me. Thank goodness. I might not always smell great, but at least I always smell familiar.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8HKEmyiI/AAAAAAAACAA/2CMRuTtr4Y8/s1600-h/DSC00656.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8HKEmyiI/AAAAAAAACAA/2CMRuTtr4Y8/s320/DSC00656.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374690036462045730" border="0" /></a>Yes, that's Buddy sleeping <span style="font-style: italic;">next to</span> his bed.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8WaS4OxI/AAAAAAAACAI/IGtlQ3bZVCY/s1600-h/DSC00657.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8WaS4OxI/AAAAAAAACAI/IGtlQ3bZVCY/s320/DSC00657.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374690298514914066" border="0" /></a>With my new system, everything has a place. The place for random papers waiting for me to eventually sort them, is here in my sun room/office. Well, at least they aren't all over the house.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8scKofuI/AAAAAAAACAQ/q-_1HHrU2bQ/s1600-h/DSC00659.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Spa8scKofuI/AAAAAAAACAQ/q-_1HHrU2bQ/s320/DSC00659.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374690676974321378" border="0" /></a>The daybed isn't new, but doesn't it look nice? The drawers under it are newly sorted. If you were a small child who visits me, you would know that the one of the far left contains all of my stocking-stuffers from recent years, and it's the one place where Auntie Al has anything fun.<br /><br /><br />So, that's it, then. My house. I now know what I want my house to look like. I just have to manage to keep it looking good while concurrently working full-time. We'll just see about that.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-24324885245444809702009-08-23T16:43:00.002-05:002009-08-23T16:54:30.655-05:00Just Plain MeanI just read an <a href="http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/08/18/would-you-even-recognize-sarcasm/">article</a> about a survey about sarcasm, and I'm not sure it would have spoken so directly to me, except that I've been reading a few Internet dating profiles recently, and I've noticed that a lot of men describe their sense of humor as sarcastic.<br /><br />According to the article 55% of respondents to a sarcasm survey, when asked to report a sarcastic comment that they had made, wrote down a comment that contained no sarcasm.<br /><br /><blockquote>It’s no wonder why sarcasm is so often misused or misunderstood — half of us can’t recognize sarcasm in the first place. Something we may mean in a sarcastic manner may be seen as being just plain <em>mean</em> because it was never actually sarcasm in the first place.</blockquote><br />I've stopped scouring the profiles of self-proclaimed sarcastic men for sarcasm. I'm starting to think that most of these "sarcastic" men are really just mean, because well over half of them display not only no sarcasm, but no humor at all in the 1000 words they are allowed to use to describe themselves. Turns out my time would be better spent reading psychology articles than dating profiles.<br /><br />Tonight, I'm not doing either. I'm biking to the discount theater to watch "Up". I'm hoping for it to be amusing without being mean.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-15364538625499216982009-08-17T10:21:00.007-05:002009-08-17T10:44:57.254-05:00I Ate a RabbitOnce upon a time, Sarah and Alex joined the liberals from the city in driving their fuel-efficient cars to a farm near Duluth.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol1wew4nDI/AAAAAAAAB8o/saHyqiUzMjU/s1600-h/farmsmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol1wew4nDI/AAAAAAAAB8o/saHyqiUzMjU/s320/farmsmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370953506368298034" border="0" /></a>The chef, Scott, from the Corner Table in Minneapolis, joined forces with the chef, Scott, from the Scenic Cafe in Duluth to cook us all dinner at a big table under the open sky.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol2OEbP0BI/AAAAAAAAB8w/ZyWN8Q-QS0o/s1600-h/tablesmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol2OEbP0BI/AAAAAAAAB8w/ZyWN8Q-QS0o/s320/tablesmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370954014694297618" border="0" /></a>The wind blew over our wine glasses, and it threatened to rain, but we held onto our glasses and zipped up our hoodies, and hoped for the best.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol2sDcbvkI/AAAAAAAAB84/PqyldetSjDk/s1600-h/cloudsmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol2sDcbvkI/AAAAAAAAB84/PqyldetSjDk/s320/cloudsmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370954529826913858" border="0" /></a>The best turned out to be a platter of sausages dipped in fresh mustard to whet our appetites. It was also bowls full of gazpacho eaten too quickly for photographs. It was carrots grown right on the farm marinated in a little bit of vinegar and cornichons and olives paired with a Mesabi Red from the Lake Superior Brewery just down the way.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol3yMbWl6I/AAAAAAAAB9A/_ZGV8J2xZJY/s1600-h/saladsmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol3yMbWl6I/AAAAAAAAB9A/_ZGV8J2xZJY/s320/saladsmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370955734829143970" border="0" /></a>Then it was time for a Caprese salad paired with beets of all things. Root vegetables do well in the climate of Duluth. Every course came with a matching wine, which I allowed myself the smallest of tastes, for I had to drive home that night.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol4raavacI/AAAAAAAAB9I/Tix76Da781k/s1600-h/dinnersmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol4raavacI/AAAAAAAAB9I/Tix76Da781k/s320/dinnersmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370956717837216194" border="0" /></a>The dinner was rabbit. The little furry varmint was cooked in duck fat and wrapped in prosciutto, so every bite was delicious. I've never had so many courses (good thing I ran my half-marathon on Saturday), so I was afraid I wouldn't have room for dessert.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol5ts-rXrI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/86k8nCi2vyc/s1600-h/dessertsmall.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/Sol5ts-rXrI/AAAAAAAAB9Q/86k8nCi2vyc/s320/dessertsmall.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370957856691150514" border="0" /></a>But there's always room for goat-cheese cake with fresh berries on top!<br /><br />The Scotts did themselves proud, the food was delicious, the company was delightful, and after the salads the clouds even blew away and the sun shone down on the table. It was a miracle as big as eating beets and liking them.<br /><br />P.S. Happy birthday to me!Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-57412308721158175362009-08-14T10:10:00.003-05:002009-08-14T10:45:41.282-05:00I Hate Everything About YouEven though I'm trying to be positive, I went back to the periodontist today. He's the man who hacked away at my gums, rearranged them, and then sewed them back in new places. I hate him.<br /><br />It was the kind of trip where you're walking down the street and you meet Angry Spitting Man, and the way you meet him is he hocks one right at your feet while you're waiting for the light to change. In the block or two before Angry Spitting Man storms out of your eyesight, you see him spit three more times, twice at the feet of well-dressed women and once next to a shiny red bicycle.<br /><br />Then you show up in the dreaded office, the place that made you weep last time because gum surgery is worse than they say it is, and the receptionist is gone, so you sit down, awkwardly, wondering whether anyone will figure out that you're here. You hope they don't. They do.<br /><br />The dental technician leans you back in your chair and aims the light in your eyes, just like she did the other two times you were there. The light is blinding. Your regular dentist doesn't do this. She knows how to aim the light at your mouth without hitting your eyes.<br /><br />"Um," you say, "my tongue turned black. Is that normal?"<br /><br />"Yeah, it's the rinse," she says.<br /><br />Nobody mentioned that the rinse would make your tongue turn black when they prescribed it.<br /><br />"It looks better now," she says.<br /><br />"Yeah, I stopped using the rinse, because I can brush now." You're proud of this, the brushing of your teeth. The novelty of it. How quickly and well you heal.<br /><br />She gives you a disapproving glare. "You're not supposed to brush! It's too soon to brush. It won't heal properly if you brush. How long have you been brushing?" She has your lip in her hand when she asks you this question. You don't answer. If she wants you to talk to her, she can take her damn hands out of your mouth. And she can move the light out of your eyes.<br /><br />Nobody told you how long you weren't allowed to brush your teeth when they hacked away at your gums and rearranged them. The light shining in your eyes for an hour and a half. The sound of slicing. One small red dot of blood on the dentist's hands right in front of your eyes. Awareness of exactly what they were doing, even though you couldn't feel a thing. The way they kept going while tears rolled down your temples and into your ears.<br /><br />She flips off the light and exits the room, leaving you alone leaning back at that awkward turtle-on-its-back position, worrying that you won't heal properly, and they'll have to do it again, not sure that you'd be strong enough, really, to do it all over again. You, who are usually so quiet and mild, swat the light down, away from your eyes, just in case they come back and turn it on again.<br /><br />The dentist comes in, reaims the light directly in your eyes, and then realizes he's missing the chart. He leaves you again, a blinded turtle trapped in a chair. You hear him ask for your chart. You hear whispering. She's telling on you, about the brushing. Fine.<br /><br />Nobody told you when you could brush again.<br /><br />He says your gums look good. They healed quickly. Then he stops. "Candace tells me that you've been brushing. Just the teeth though? Not the gums?"<br /><br />"Yes," you say, meekness returning, damn it.<br /><br />"How long have you been brushing?"<br /><br />"Just a couple of days," you lie. How long? You don't remember. As soon as it didn't hurt. As soon as you could, because of the black tongue and the grossness of not brushing. And because no one told you how long you couldn't brush.<br /><br />When he's done giving you more specific brushing instructions, he says, "OK, I'll tell your dentist that you healed nicely," and he walks out of the room. <br /><br />No one tells you that you can leave. No one guides you through the maze and back to the lobby. You just pick up your bag and go. You are in the elevator before anyone can stop you. You keep thinking about the $800 you will pay these people, and you swear as the elevator takes you back to the street that you will never, ever allow anyone to rearrange your gums again as long as you both shall live.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-30668976582106111552009-08-13T08:29:00.002-05:002009-08-13T08:46:46.379-05:00Oh! And Nieces and Nephews.I forgot to mention how grateful I am for the nieces and nephews in my life. <br /><br />Right now, five of them are staying with my parents. I've been over to visit a couple of times this week. If I don't bring Buddy, he is the first topic of conversation.<br /><br />"Where's Buddy?"<br />"I left him at home, because I just went running."<br />"Why?"<br />"Because I ran ten miles and he can't do that."<br />"Why?"<br />"Because he's old."<br />"Can you go get him?"<br /><br />So last night, I brought Buddy to a family pizza party, where the two local nephews joined the five out-of-towners to create the annual cacophony of familial joy. Buddy's arrival was heralded by the shouts of seven (well, maybe six, since the baby doesn't care) nieces and nephews. He was, once again, the first topic of conversation.<br /><br />"Buddy! Buddy's here. And Alex!"<br />"Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!"<br />"Did Buddy have a bath?"<br />"Sit! Buddy! Sit! Sit!"<br />"Did you bring any treats for Buddy?"<br />"Buddy! Sit!"<br />"Can Buddy fly on the airplane?"<br />"Buddy! Lie down! Play dead! Buddy!"<br />"Buddy licked me! Why did Buddy lick my leg?"<br />"Buddy! Shake!"<br />"Buddy! Stand up! Stand up!"<br /><br />Did I mention that I'm grateful that Buddy is such a good dog? He doesn't know what all of these children are yelling about (and he only obeys their insistent commands to sit when I'm in the background with a stern look), but he accepts their eager attention with a calm submissive demeanor which endears him to them (and to their parents), even though he obviously doesn't know any tricks.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-65602502599463486632009-08-12T10:02:00.003-05:002009-08-12T10:20:59.823-05:00Gratitude (this one's kind of sappy)Some things for which I am grateful. In no particular order.<br /><br />I am grateful that Buddy is a good dog who doesn't bark too much. I am grateful that he needs me to walk him three times a day, and that he forces me out of the house, even when it's cold or rainy.<br /><br />I am grateful that my family is full of good, loving people. I am grateful that my parents believed in my education enough to pay a lot for it. I am grateful that I never had student loans, even though I don't usually like to admit such a terribly unfair thing out loud. <br /><br />I am grateful I went to Carleton where I learned to be myself among peers who finally understood my sense of humor. I am grateful for the friends I still have from there, and especially grateful that I've been able to be part of their lives as they've grown and changed since then.<br /><br />I am grateful for the friends I have who weren't from Carleton, because they remind me how to be myself without the crutch of a shared life in Northfield.<br /><br />I am grateful that I have known romantic love. I am grateful to the men who loved me even when I didn't love them enough back, and I am grateful to the ones who were gentle when I loved them too much.<br /><br />I am grateful that I learned how to teach - and grateful that my education was, once again, debt-free, thanks this time to the government and the Minneapolis Public Schools. I am grateful that I've never worked in a school where I had to buy my own paper and that my students each get their own textbooks for the year. I am especially grateful that I found a career that allows me to be creative and active while still doing good in the world. I am grateful for summers off and long days that allow me to create my own projects.<br /><br />I am grateful for good food, eaten with people I love. I am grateful that I have the kind of body that doesn't put the good food in unsightly places, and I am grateful that I finally learned how to run when I was in my late twenties, and I am most grateful for an injury free running life.<br /><br />I am grateful to MPR and NPR and podcasts and the sound of Terry Gross's voice when I'm stressed out, and the way the Slate Political Gabfest team bickers, and the stilted way Josh and Chuck from "Stuff You Should Know" speak.<br /><br />I am grateful for my health and my health insurance, and I wish I lived in a world where no one had to think about whether they could afford an annual exam.<br /><br />I am grateful to live in a space that is my own and grateful that it is comfortable and fits me so well. I am lucky to be able to afford solitude, and (with apologies to Bev who lives next door and might, <span style="font-style: italic;">possibly</span> be able to see from her living room) every day I am grateful that I don't have to shut the door when I pee.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-40394794404791725882009-08-10T12:27:00.003-05:002009-08-10T22:24:01.406-05:00Off the GridWhen I was a kid, we used to go to the North Shore every summer for my birthday. To celebrate the day, Margot made some kind of a cake in a bundt pan (When I got older, because she hates to bake and I love it, I baked my own cake). My dad made Dutch Babies with lemon juice and powdered sugar for breakfast. I got to bring a friend, who for many years, was Emma, my red-headed friend who lived in Finnlayson, MN. We reconnected every year, city mouse and country mouse, sharing a bed in a cabin, and exploring the rocky shores of Lake Superior together. We even "swam" in the lake, although this activity was reserved for extremely hot days, because the water of Lake Superior never rises above 50 degrees. You lose feeling in your feet before you gain the courage to dunk your head. Once you've gone under, you dash back to shore. If there isn't a warm rock baking in the sun for you to sprawl upon when you get out, it could be days before the blood starts circulating again.<br /><br />This year, my friend was Buddy, the dog. Emma and I have lost touch, and besides, he needs a dog sitter when I'm gone if he doesn't get to come along. And so we drove up in my dad's car, just like Emma and I used to do. Buddy rode in the back, quietly. Buddy curls up in the car, and only sits up to look around when we slow down. Otherwise, he relaxes and enjoys the ride.<br /><br />I realized, midway through the trip, as Margot and my dad adopted Buddy into our small family cabin lifestyle, that, really, I have a bit too much love for the beast. I'm a little too worried that he will endear himself to our companions when we travel together. I sleep with one eye open for the dog. Is he sleeping? Is he getting into trouble? Is he worried? Does he need me?<br /><br />So, then, this is what happens when a single woman gets a dog. He becomes a lover and a child all wrapped up in too much fur. Oh, well, at least he's not a cat. At least (small blessing counted) I haven't become a Cat Lady. No. I've just spent the weekend excusing my dog's farts to two people who were kind enough to allow their love for me to help them decide to let him sleep in their cabin, but at least I haven't become a Cat Lady.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-37354322184958565912009-08-06T12:02:00.003-05:002009-08-06T12:21:28.664-05:00The Perfect DistanceSo I'm training for a half-marathon, which will be next Saturday. I use the word "training" lightly. I just run more often, and have increased how far I run. I thought I needed a goal, so on a bit of a whim a month ago, I signed up to run more than twice as far as I had ever run before. It turns out that if you run slowly, as I do, then there is no reason why you can't run twice as far as you normally do. Or, at least, that's what I found out, when I started running farther.<br /><br />I used to run three miles two or three times a week. Now I run five or six times a week, and I run longer distances. My longest distance to date was about nine and a half miles around the chain of lakes in Minneapolis (and did I feel lucky to be a Minneapolitan when I ran that most beautiful nearly-ten miles in the country? Yes, in fact, I did.).<br /><br />Still, the chain of lakes run took all morning, and it wiped me out all day. The perfect distance is the one I ran this morning. Six miles. There's a loop along the Mississippi that crosses the river into St. Paul and then crosses back over into Minneapolis. Six miles gives you time to listen to an entire episode of Fresh Air (and, let's be honest, if you run at my pace a little bit of Planet Money, too). It gives you time to be in a rhythm of running that allows all of that other stuff that you always think to get pushed all the way to the back of your brain so that you really hardly hear it any more. It also gives you a pretty good reason to stop by the Baker's Wife for a pastry afterward, and it forces you to leave the aged dog at home. I love six miles.<br /><br />Now, if only I had signed up for a 10K. That would be perfect.<br /><br />P.S. If you missed Terry Gross talking to Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, whose daughter was murdered, and you kind of like a good cry, then here's a <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111218053">link</a> to it. I don't even like poetry and every one of her poems hit me right in the gut.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Note:</span> This link is not here for my mother, so if you carried me in your womb for nine months, do yourself a favor and <span style="font-style: italic;">don't</span> listen to this podcast. And if you know my mother, <span style="font-style: italic;">don't</span> teach her how to listen to this podcast. Give her something fun, instead. Maybe she'd like a little <a href="http://www.howstuffworks.com/stuff-you-should-know-podcast.htm">Stuff You Should Know</a>. Josh and Chuck can lighten any mood.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-19358963723394153212009-08-05T11:37:00.002-05:002009-08-05T11:48:35.427-05:00People Think I ExaggerateRecently, I decided to get more active on the dating frontier. I pulled up some profiles, and emailed a couple of dudes. One of them emailed me back, and it wasn't witty banter that made my brain tingle, but it was all right, and so we corresponded for a while until I suggested that we meet in person, because what's the point of sending emails to strangers, when they might turn out to be the opposite of attractive in real life?<br /><br />And he said, "I'm too busy right now to meet in person. I'm just here for conversation."<br /><br />Conversation? It's email, hoser. It's email with a stranger, and as far as I'm concerned email is the tool to get you to the real life. It's not the Thing. It's not the Reason We're Here.<br /><br />Oh, and lest you think that this was all an elaborate brush-off, because I'm a repulsive email conversationalist, let me tell you that he promptly changed his profile to say that he was too busy to date and was just here to chat. Yep. On a dating site.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-61736694369284258392009-08-04T09:24:00.004-05:002009-08-04T09:38:21.084-05:00What I Wanted and What Really HappenedWhat I wanted was to go to an open mike night on my own. I wanted to enter a bar where a crowd of people were engrossed in what was going on on stage, where artists shared their talents in the dimly lit room, and everyone drank good beer out of pint glasses. I imagined drinking a couple of pints and then standing up to read my short piece. The crowd of people would be curious about this woman. They would be mildly disappointed that she wasn't here to sing. They would be worried when she began to read. Aren't we always worried by sincere people who try to share their writing on stage? What if it sucks? Then, I would start reading, and my reading would be good, and the silence would grow as would this imaginary crowd's interest me. How could so fascinating a character be here on her own and not surrounded by admiring friends? (Hey. It's my fantasy. Get your own if you want to be admired.) Maybe one of them would buy me a beer.<br /><br />I couldn't do it.<br /><br />I parked blocks away from the bar, hoping that the walk would give me courage. I walked up to the bar, feeling the crinkling paper in my back pocket. I opened the door, and through the dark screen of sad, lonely people drinking at the counter I saw a musician with lots of tattoos setting up his equipment in front of the microphone, and I saw no admiring crowd. And I realized that sitting at the bar drinking with the sad, lonely people was the last thing I wanted to do on a Monday, and the thing I was going to read would have been the last thing they would have wanted to hear, and it would have been terrible and dark and depressing. I pretended that I was checking my cell phone, turned on my heel and left before I even sat down.<br /><br />So, I went home, and tried to watch "Six Feet Under", but it was terrible and dark and depressing, so I stopped the episode and went to bed.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-18508218012781394052009-08-03T11:14:00.000-05:002009-08-03T11:16:20.499-05:00My Bed's BrokenAll of those things you just thought. Not true. Damn thing is just an antique.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-20994685291175007752009-08-02T18:03:00.003-05:002009-08-02T18:35:27.521-05:00Tastes a Little Like CarI found an old transcript of a road trip I took with a friend. It was actually the move back to Minneapolis from Portland. I had a microphone and a mini-disk recorder (in one of my dream jobs, I was a reporter for NPR), and I spent the boring parts of the trip recording our interactions. Mostly we chatted about nothing. My evil cat was ill, so she made the first part of our journey memorably stinky. We had a gift for bringing out the humor in each other, and so we drove across Washington swapping the role of straight-man more times than I can count.<br /><br />Partway through the journey, we decided to cook a meal by wrapping it in tinfoil, strapping it to some hot part of the moving van's exhaust system, and driving until it was done. My friend had been experimenting with this technique, made famous by the cookbook "Manifold Destiny". Here's what he said about his attempts to cook on his own small car:<br /><blockquote>I've tried cooking [garlic cloves] on the engine block which was the best deal for me, and that ended up getting it just a little bit warm, but not really cooked at all, and then the other two or three cloves that I've tried have ... either fallen off my car or they've been totally raw, and so I've eaten some raw garlic - really kind of bummed my coworkers out.<br /></blockquote>So, understandably, we were worried about raw food as a result of this experiment. We started with just one potato, figuring that if a potato came out raw, at least it wouldn't give us Salmonella. It was also a cold, windy day in early May, which brought some complaints from my friend as he crawled under the truck and wired a tinfoil packet of oil, garlic, and potatoes onto the exhaust pipe. Not wanting to eat carbon monoxide, I insisted on four layers of foil.<br /><br />Here's what happened when we pulled the truck off the highway forty minutes later, and tried to talk into the microphone while struggling with wind and four layers of hot foil while crouched under a moving van in a post office parking lot in the middle of Podunk, Montana.<br /><blockquote>A: We have dinner. Well, we have something that resembles hot. J is unwrapping our dinner.<br />J: I still think it's bold to call it dinner.<br />A: Well, it was definitely just one potato. Whether it's cooked or not, it was still only one potato.<br />J: We're through the first layer. Looking pretty good. Oh, yeah. This looks good.<br />A: Smells better and better. It seems to be cooked in just that one spot.<br />J: Yeah. I wonder why that is. Maybe that's where the oil leaked out. But yeah, you're kind of right. Huh, that's interesting. All right. Here's the first food. It kind of looks cooked. Hey, want some potato? (chews) That's done.<br />A: We're geniuses!<br />J: I mean it tastes a little bit like ... car<br />A: ...carbon<br />J: Oh, my God, it is burnt. Look at this. It's totally burnt to a crisp. I mean some of these art OK, but most of it is just cooked. Wow. It was like it was on fire in there.<br /></blockquote>After burning our potato, we did make a second attempt. We wound up successfully cooking a complete chicken, broccoli, and potato meal, and eating it while crouched on my old furniture in the back of the van while the evil cat had the smelly cab to herself. The lengths I'll go to to avoid McDonald's...<br /><blockquote></blockquote>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-71397965615870031762009-07-10T18:08:00.002-05:002009-07-10T18:11:41.034-05:00Half-way DoneJobs that are halfway done<br /><br />1. Bathtub Plumbing<br />2. Kitchen Door<br />3. Rearranging Living Room<br />4. Toilet Plumbing<br />5. Cleaning<br /><br />Notice how I didn't say halfway not-done. This is not just because this is a grammatically unnatural construction. It is also because I am an incurable optimist. Yep. That's me. Pollyanna all the time.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-78939625230657598122009-07-09T13:03:00.005-05:002009-07-09T13:32:20.655-05:00Day of Death Part 2This story is so totally not worth the month-long wait. Not sure what happened to me. Not sure I'm back, but I can at least finish the narrative. I'm giving new meaning to the phrase "unreliable narrator".<br /><br />Recall that we were on the train on the way to Kutna Hora's creepy bone museum, and the introvert (me) was for once in charge of our plans, while the extrovert (Byn) was not excited about them. Predictably, when we arrived in the small town, I chose not to ask for directions. (Talk to strangers who might not speak English? No, let's just wander around. I'm sure we'll find it.) We came to a cemetery, and I said something like, "Well, this must be the consecrated ground. Look how crowded the headstones are."<br /><br />What you might not realize, if you've never been in Europe, is that even in death, Americans claim a whole lot more real estate than our European counterparts. We have all this space, see, so why not make a cemetery with rolling hills and spreading lawns and winding roads past trees and ponds? Why not choose a family plot that is approximately the size of your living room? Why not make a death room to match? We have space, and we can always head west if we need more.<br /><br />So, yeah, the headstones were crowded together to our eyes, but it still might not have been the right cemetery. I don't <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> that it wasn't, because, of course, I didn't ask for directions, but it seems like maybe it wasn't, because we could find no evidence of the ossuary. What we did find, in the middle of the crowded, small town cemetery was a shed. Being tourists, we did what tourists do, and we snooped. We stood on tiptoes and peeked in the windows, and we found dusty stacks of femurs carefully piled up against the walls of the shed. We saw a rusty rolling cart full of old banana boxes, each one packed with skulls. We saw sunlight filtered through dust reflect off the grimy bones.<br /><br />"Is this the ossuary? How <span style="font-style: italic;">old </span>is that guidebook?" I asked Byn.<br /><br />"Do you think these are spare parts for the bone museum?" he asked.<br /><br />"It's creepy."<br /><br />"Let's get out of here."<br /><br />And so we left into the sunshine, past the Marlboro factory, over to Byn's cathedral where we hung out on the lawn smelling the tobacco in the air and awaiting the arrival of the next train back to Prague. Our willpower to see creepy bone art sapped by the stark reality of Dole banana boxes filled with ancient human heads. Perhaps, looking back on it, a trip to a cigarette-producing town with a bone shrine was not the best way to spend the afternoon with someone so recently grieving the deaths of two parents from cancer. Sometimes, I'm not as sensitive as you think I am.<br /><br />The bone place does exist, and we even rode back to Prague next to two perky tour-guides-in-training who showed us pictures and post-cards of it. But the two of us never found it. We'd had quite enough death for one day.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-43421906009660951352009-06-16T19:28:00.004-05:002009-06-16T20:52:08.239-05:00Day of Death Part 1One of the things that is floating around the Internet is a way to find your NPR name. Why should Kai Ryssdal and Mara Liasson have all the fun of having odd-sounding names? Anyway, the way you get your NPR name is you take your first name and insert your middle initial anywhere it sounds good. Then your last name is the name of the smallest foreign city you have ever visited. I'm a little bit in love with my NPR name. It's pretty good. Ready? It's Alexnis Kutna Hora. I know, right? And you thought Mrike Montreal was exotic.<br /><br /><br />Kutna Hora comes with its very own story. So, sit down, make yourself comfortable and prepare to hear about The Day of Death, starring Alexnis and her good friend Byn (not his real name, but it's close).<br /><br />Byn and I met at the small liberal arts school many, many years ago, but we didn't become good friends until I moved to Portland. He had just moved there from California, having spent the years shortly after graduation nursing his parents who died, one after the other, of cancer. <br /><br />Byn and I bonded over cards. He was hyper-competitive. I was raised to win at cards, and I can respect a good competitor. He used to have parties at his house for the "Quiets", during which he'd invite two other introverts and me over for cards and he'd watch us interact. We were Byn's own personal social science experiment. He also counseled me after my break-up, and he talked me through a year of hating my job.<br /><br />He had a wisdom I couldn't match, because I hadn't experienced as much life as he had, but I like to think that I'm a good observer, so I nudged him when I thought there was something he had been too busy talking to notice. He encouraged me to write. I encouraged him to pursue his dream of becoming the next Ira Glass. In short, we were good buddies and we were good for each other at the time.<br /><br />And so, when he set off to spend his inheritance in a way he wished his parents had spent it when they were alive by traveling around the world, I knew that I'd miss one of my best friends in all of Portland. Weeks later, after I'd finally quit the hated job, he invited me to join him on his travels, and it didn't take much arm-twisting to get me to pack up a backpack, send the cat off to board with some friends, and join him for two months in Prague. <br /><br />And now, finally, here we are at the story. We were in Prague. We'd found a wonderful hostel there called Sir Toby's run by a young German guy, but we'd gotten a little too comfortable around the streets of Prague and the kitchen of Sir Toby's, and we were looking for an adventure for the day. Byn had, thus far, acted as tour guide, because he was the one with the guide book, but the weather outside was February, which means I was irritable, and finally, he handed the book off to me.<br /><br />"You decide," he said. "Pick something for us to do. Let's take a train, and get out of the city, but you pick where we go."<br /><br />He'd been focusing on bath towns. I didn't much feel like being naked in a room full of Eastern Europeans, so I turned the page and found a grisly description of Kutna Hora. It fit my February mood exactly. In Kutna Hora, there was a bit of consecrated ground where people liked to travel to be buried. No problem. The death rate was pretty steady, so burying some non-locals in the town wasn't a very big deal, until the Plague came thundering through Europe. Suddenly that bit of consecrated ground in poor little Kutna Hora was overflowing with bodies. What do you do with stacks and stacks of extra dead people? Well, if you're some priest in Kutna Hora, apparently you make art out of them. <br /><br />He made a coat of arms out of every bone in the human body. He made a chandelier of bones. He built a bone throne. I can't remember what else he made, but he was a very industrious priest, and he had a lot of raw materials, and so his little ossuary has become quite the creepy tourist attraction. Who wouldn't want to take a train to go see it on a grim February day? How much better was a bone throne than sitting in a steam room with sweaty Europeans?<br /><br />Byn seemed to regret slightly his decision to hand over decision making authority to me, but he yielded to my wishes, and we figured out the train to Kutna Hora. We were off.<br /><br />I reread the brief guide-book blurb about the town while we sat on the train. "Hey, Byn-Baby," I said. "Did you know that there is also a giant Marlboro factory in town?"<br /><br />"There's also a cathedral," he said.<br /><br />I scoffed. Really. How many cathedrals can one person see? And why would you see a cathedral when there were coats of arms made of bones? We were most certainly not traveling all the way to Kutna Hora just to see another boring cathedral.<br /><br />...To be continued...Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-66008049797532610302009-06-15T08:37:00.003-05:002009-06-15T08:55:01.029-05:00Old Notebook Uncovered During Cleaning<span style="font-style: italic;">I, who am so practical and mathy, sometimes paint pictures with words. If you wanted to, I suppose you could call it poetry. I'm not so sure about that.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Silence Doesn't Bother You<br /></div><br />The fridge kicks on and we both look up from our plates.<br />I catch your eye before your gaze returns to you food and<br />your fork makes another round trip flight from<br />potatoes to<br />mouth<br />to potatoes to<br />mouth.<br />The silence which is killing me doesn't bother you.<br /><br />I wonder if I am losing my mind.<br />I wonder if the fridge is broken again and stuck in the on phase of its cycle --<br />and then it stops --<br />leaving me cold,<br />but the silence doesn't bother you.<br /><br />I repeat the word "wonder" in my mind and<br />I wonder if it's the only word in English that doesn't lose its meaning upon repetition.<br />I try another<br />another<br />another another another<br />Meaningless.<br />And still the silence doesn't bother you.<br /><br />You chew each bite five times.<br />Two heavy chews, and then three fast ones.<br />Slow, slow, quick quick quick<br />Slow, slow, quick quick quick<br />Turn.<br />Look at me.<br />Down at my plate.<br />Back at me.<br />"You gonna eat that?"<br />I shrug.<br />The silence doesn't bother you.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-34120258120111129772009-06-11T11:20:00.004-05:002009-06-11T11:47:19.484-05:00The Kitchen Project<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SjEx-wu7tOI/AAAAAAAABek/WIElEUwLQn4/s1600-h/DSC00362.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CPJOgD166Nw/SjEx-wu7tOI/AAAAAAAABek/WIElEUwLQn4/s200/DSC00362.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5346109186968892642" border="0" /></a><br />So I was doing this book called the "Eight Step Apartment Cure", and I was supposed to thoroughly clean my kitchen, and the thing about my kitchen is that I only have three cupboards, unless you count the one under the sink, in which case I have four. I have a dishes cupboard, a pots and pans cupboard, a food cupboard, and a nasty under-the-sink cupboard. Oh, and not to brag or anything, but I also have a drawer. One drawer. It squeals like a pig on slaughtering day when you open it.<br /><br />You might be able to guess that in my thorough cleaning, which involved throwing away a ton of stuff, I still ran out of space in my three cupboards. Where do you put your dishtowels, for example, when this is the entirety of your storage space?<br /><br />There's room in the kitchen, too. It's actually a big room. So, I'm thinking I need another set of cabinets. Unfortunately, thoughts of new cabinets caused all kitchen cleaning to stop (as careful observers of the photograph may have already deduced). Obviously, if I am getting new cabinets, I need to spend less time tidying these ones up. And if I'm getting new cabinets, something needs to be done about the floor. And the floor guy can't come until late July, so maybe I should do it myself. But I'm not sure I know how to do it myself, and then there are the cabinets. Can I use Ikea ones, even though I usually hate everything from Ikea? And how do I install cabinets by myself, anyway? Oh, and I really need new electrical throughout the house. How much is that going to cost? And would it be easier for an electrician to do that before I do the floors and the cabinets?<br /><br />As you can see, I'm paralyzed. This is why my kitchen is always so messy, isn't it?Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7289846.post-52006117587204318442009-06-09T22:12:00.003-05:002009-06-09T22:42:36.648-05:00GraduationSo, I survived my first year. Tonight I led a line of ten graduates in green gowns to their seats, and I sat in my full regalia (such as it is, at BA plus nothing), while they walked carefully across the stage, not tripping, waving to their friends, and collecting the empty frame that will someday hold their diploma.<br /><br />It's over. I did a year.<br /><br />Here is what I learned:<br /><ol><li>To the average person on the street, "I teach Calculus" sounds more impressive than "I teach algebra to kids who hate math." Since I was teaching academic kids for the first time, I thought they would be better behaved than they were. On the other hand, I thought the math would be harder than it was. So, in the end, it was a wash. Doing either one well is hard. If you do either one and do it well, then I am impressed with you.</li><li>Some kids have an easier time doing a u-substitution if they treat dx as just another variable when they substitute it out for du. I'm just saying.<br /></li><li>School spirit can be oppressive. To the kid who didn't stand while the rest of his classmates chanted a cheer during the graduation ceremony, what else do you call it? He's alienated and alone while surrounded by a concrete example of group-think in green gowns. I remember how turned off I was every time my own high school principal ended her daily announcements in her thick Iowa accent with the words "Rocket pride." It's worse when everyone drinks the cool aid. Or eats the cake, as the case may be.<br /></li><li>Even for a tech-y teacher like me, technology won't get used in a school-setting unless someone outside of the classroom supports you. And by "supports you" I mean "gives you a phone number to call if the technology fails" and "prods you to see new ways of using the tools to reach more kids" and "catches hold of your enthusiasm for creative uses of technology in your classroom".<br /></li><li>Leaving your room is important. Next year, I'm going to have to leave my room to team teach two periods a day. I can't wait to form new relationships and get to know new parts of my building. I spent one year on the Island of Alex. Year two is all about building a boat.</li></ol>Congratulations to the class of 2009.Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00893347878238444805noreply@blogger.com0