I'd rather be napping

This whole blog-every-day thing is cutting into my nap time. Oh well.

I came home from work, did a pilates workout dvd that I'm not convinced does a damn bit of good, and then tried my hand at a new cheddar/chutney dip recipe to take to Mel's party tonight. It's in the refrigerator setting up, but I do believe we have a rousing success on our hands.

Learning to cook isn't something that has necessarily come naturally to me. I still remember my first cooking fiasco. My grandma had ordered me a Betty Crocker children's cookbook by redeeming thousands of BC box tops and UPC codes. Of the many great things that can be said about the woman, she certainly knows how to make the most of a rebate. Anyway, I was thrilled and set about flipping through the pages to find out what kind of tasty treats I'd soon be able to create. I settled on banana bread. It seemed easy enough. My mom wasn't too thrilled about the idea, but finally she set me loose in the kitchen with some over-ripe bananas and a "Don't make a mess!" I carefully measured out the ingredients, mixed them up, and poured the gooey mixture into a bread pan. I set the oven timer and paced around the kitchen waiting. About 45 minutes later, I checked my "finished product," only to find out it was still a soupy mess. I checked that the oven temperature was correct and decided to give it a few more minutes. Twenty minutes later, the situation was still the same. Finally, I yelled for my mom to come take a look. She looked at the liquid banana bread and at the mess of ingredients on the counter. Her eyes narrowed. "Did you put any flour in it?" I looked across the counter...there was banana peels, baking soda, various spices, but sure enough, no flour. "Can't I just add some now and throw it back in the oven?" I asked. Needless to say, baking time was over for the day and for many days to come.

This story (and a couple of others stikingly similar to it) came up last Thanksgiving when I contributed to the family dinner with my favorite Indian potato dish and a carrott souflee, which were flawless by the way. "This is pretty good." someone said, "Better than the time you tried to make banana bread, remember?"

In this family, how could I forget.

Warming Up

I came into work at 7:00 a.m. this morning because at 3:00 p.m. I'm leaving to go see my baby sister's sectional volleyball game in some godforsaken small town in Southern Illinois. If I don't post tomorrow, you can assume I'm lost in the hills somewhere with banjos playing.

Volleyball is pretty much the only sport I can watch for more than five minutes. Even sitting in the stands, I feel something tug inside me when I watch them play. I scream at the ref. I call the ball out with them. I yell side-out, even though rally scoring kind of makes the term obsolete. In general, I make a complete ass of myself because I want more than anything to be in the thick of the game instead of living it vicariously.

So many of my memories in high school are tied to the sport. When in other aspects I felt like I didn't fit in, being good at volleyball was my identity. The court was the one place where I felt confident, like I was appreciated for being myself. It was where I bonded with the girls who would become my friends. I remember silly things like wearing matching Nike headbands (an aside: I saw a woman wearing one at the gym the other day--these headbands were not as cool as we thought), braiding each other's hair before games, eating jars of disgusting baby food on the way to road games (b/c we heard it was a good source of light-weight protein), and being terrified of our coach's bad driving. I remember warming up before games with Stephanie and trying to beat our record number of passes without dropping the ball (I think, it reached over 500 at one point). I remember all the little superstitions like not washing our knee pads when we were on a winning streak, wearing my "lucky" maroon hairband, and not cutting our fingernails the day before a game. I remember salt and pepper, quick hits, and queens of the court. I remember how the team from the Mennonite school in Arthur, IL was our biggest rival and the few times we beat them. I remember the day in practice when I hit my chin on the floor during a diving drill and bled all over the place (I still have the scar from that one). I remember that invincible feeling of flying through the air and the snap of my shoulder muscle when I put the ball down. I remember the thrill of competition and the high of winning.

In some ways, cheesy though they may be, I could credit the Lady Falcons with teaching me about the fine line between competitive spirit and teamwork, the value of pushing myself, and maybe even the most basic "girl power" feminism. Even though I haven't gotten a chance to play competitively in years, even though all those "priceless" varsity letters and trophies are god-knows-where in my parents' garage, no other experiences of playing in college or later in leagues has ever quite matched the magic of that little high school team.

A Staring Problem

"It's not nice to stare at people" is something I heard more than once as a child. Maybe part of it comes from being a writer, but I'm a people-watcher from way back. Put me in a high traffic area, and I can entertain myself for hours studying the characters passing by. Beautiful, unfortunate looking, it's all the same to me. I love to look at the way their faces fit together, their wardrobe choices, mannerisms, expressions. In my head, I make up stories about them, who they are, and where they might be going.

New places especially bring this out in me. A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days in Chicago visiting my brother. We took the L or walked everywhere, and during those times, I saw some of the most interesting people. Ordinarily, words are my preferred artistic medium, but I found myself wishing I had a camera to capture some of these unique images. A big camera, of course, so I could pass for a photo journalist, instead of some weirdo taking pictures of strangers.

There's something compelling about photography. If I describe the scenes and characters for you, you will (hopefully) have a vivid mental image of what I've described, but you only get to see as much as I've described. And unless my description is carefully sterile and objective, the way I choose to describe the scene will affect what you see. With a photo, there's the possibility for you to imagine your own version of the unspoken narrative.

That said, I don't know the first thing about photography. I'm not even sure I have the desire to learn. So here's my word photo album from the last few weeks.

A mylar balloon bouquet tangled in the powerlines high above the hub bub of Dressel's patio on Saturday night, sparkling in the street lights against the backdrop of the late night sky.

A young mother in a cool white ankle-length skirt,walking down Halsted on the way to the corner bus stop, holding the hand of a dark-haired toddler dragging a golden teddy bear by one hand along the cement.

A couple waiting for the L, late on a humid Saturday night, facing each other, her arms around his neck. Both were clad entirely in black leather outfits and accessories that made me think of dungeons and whips. Her face looked too old for a mini dress and platform thigh-high boots. They didn't seem to notice the temperature or anyone else on the platform.

A woman in her mid-thirties, in khaki pants, white t-shirt, and flip flops, slouching in her seat on the train, talking loudly on her Blackberry. "No, she reached over and grabbed what she thought was a bottle of water and took a big gulp and spewed it out all over the place. Yeah, it was tequila....Lynard Skynard? Who's he? Yeah, I'd go to that show."

Some of the best people sightings were on the roof of some friends' apartment building. The surrounding structures towered on three sides of the roof-top deck. The thousands of uncurtained windows rising up around me were like so many movie screens. A middle aged woman was making a late night pasta dinner with red sauce and fresh garlic. A group of teenagers played what must have been Wii tennis (although I couldn't see their televisions, only their movements). From behind a shade, one shadow press another against the glass. A cat stared back down at me from another window. The stars barely glistened past the electric lights and haze.

It's a good thing I don't live in a high rise.

Phases

It takes a long time to grow a personal style. But there are glimpses of it along the way. Clothes are like costumes to me. I wear them to express a mood, a feeling, an attitude I want to project. I remember flannels and baby tees. Calvin Klein. Flowing floral skirts and Doc combat boots. Thrift store sweaters. A time and place when wearing khaki pants on speech days was dressing up.

The summer I was fifteen, I wore a black and white bandana, dew rag-style, over my long, straight hair almost every day. With flared leg jeans and white t-shirts. With giant hoop earrings and dogtags. With sundresses. With soft army fatigue shorts. My mother hated it. She couldn't tell if I was trying to be country, or punk, or ghetto, or hippie. All of the above. I was trying to be me. Whoever that was.

Whoever I am.

Mind Travel

I should be working, but I'm not. I was just starting to read the blogs I peruse on a daily basis. I usually start with Greek Tragedy. And today Stephanie's words inspired me more so than usual. She was talking about how she falls asleep at night thinking about the "where I've beens." Isn't that what writing is all about? Remembering where we've been?

Even as a child I've always been uber aware of myself in the context of the greater scenery of which I am a part. Walking down the street, I imagine what people see: a lamp post, a man walking his dog, the tall girl adjusting her barrett in a shop window. This obsession made me acutely aware of scene. I remember so many of them in my life. Moments embellished by where they took place. I want to start a series (probably intermittantly) of moments of place and time that stick with me. In no particular order, here's the first one:


I remember countless summer afternoons that slowly stretched into summer evenings spent sitting on the rotting wooden picnic tables under a single pavillion in the one square block of a park in my hometown. There would be three or four of us, slurping on cream sodas and sticky clumps of fruit rollups we'd bought at the corner store on our way. The air always seemed cooler and damper under that sagging roof. We'd make plans, talk about who was going to kick whose ass if they ran into each other here. I often found myself walking around the structure, to each individual table, each supporting column, even the rafters, reading the grafitti scratched in the chipped gray-white paint. Some missives were written in thick black permanent marker. Some in pencil, barely legible. My favorites were the ones carved deep into the wood, the ones a fresh coat of paint wouldn't cover. Stephanie ♥s Aaron forever. David's a pussy. AC/DC rulz. Fuck. I would run my fingers over the grooves and feel the words. I longed to carve my own Fillmore Park propaganda. I wasn't even sure what I wanted to say. I was certain my dad would find out. Vandalism. Immortality. One night after the street lights had come on, my best friend stood watch. Digging deep into the cracking paint and soft wood, I left a piece of myself, a piece of me to stay behind when I left and never came back.