I Wore Red

I'm not terribly political. I believe what I believe and I vote how I vote and I don't make much of a secret of it, but I don't make much of an issue of it, either.

This week the Supreme Court, in case you've been living under a rock and missed it, has been hearing arguments on Prop. 8 and DOMA. I hope your Facebook wall is as full of red and pink profile pictures as mine is. It warms my heart to see all of the support this issue is getting. I changed my profile picture.

And on Tuesday, I wore red.

Now I'm a reasonably intelligent woman.

I know that me donning a pair of red Chucks is not going to result in equal rights any more than me buying a pink Mixmaster is going to result in a cure for breast cancer. Changing my profile picture will not result in legal marriages for everyone who wants to be married any more than -- well -- changing my profile picture will help to prevent child abuse.

But still, I wore red.

I wore it not because I thought it would actually change anything -- it won't -- but because I wanted to make an outward show of my support. I wore it for the same reason I wear the colors of my favorite team to a football game -- or even just to watch the game in my own home. Go team. This is a lot more important than a football game, though. This isn't about numbers on a scoreboard, this is about the rights of my sister, my daughter and so many of my friends to enjoy the same legal privileges that I have just by virtue of the fact that I am hetero. It wasn't a choice. I was born that way. 

So I wore red.

I wore red because I am madly in love with a man who can, by virtue of our marriage license, cover me with his insurance and visit me in the hospital should I need to utilize said coverage and make decisions regarding my medical care should I be rendered unable to do so. The thought that that same right -- that same protection -- is not extended to everyone who is equally madly in love is repellant to me.

I wore red.

It didn't change anything.

But it reminded a lot of people who I love that I'm on their side. And also some people I like. And also some people I don't even know. And also some people I don't like very much at all. I'm not passionate about this issue because it has an effect on people I love. (It does.) I'm passionate about this issue because it is right and it is fair. 

Peace. Love. Equality.

Potential

When I was teaching, I got into a heated and passionate exchange with a student when we talked about the potential of the mind. Every person is born with a wide range of potential -- they can choose to achieve at the lower end of that potential, the upper end, or anywhere in between. My student felt that everyone has unlimited potential -- that if they put their mind to it, anyone can achieve anything. It's a nice thought, but it's not so. While that range is vast and most of us do not ever reach that higher limit, that limit is indeed there. 

Go back to school with me for a moment. I'd be willing to bet a hard-earned dollar that there was someone in your class who earned straight A's with little or no effort. I'd be equally willing to bet that there was someone in your class who worked their ass off for C's. I guess I was pretty lucky in the school arena. I could pretty consistently pull B's with no effort at all and could bring it up to an A with a little bit of work.

My parents were fond of telling me that I did not live up to my potential.

God, just typing that made me roll my eyes.

I believe it's like that with our bodies, too.

Some people have nice bodies, according to the grading system known as society, and maintain them with little or no effort. Some will catch themselves losing a little bit of tone and put a little effort in and be right back where they want to be with just a little bit of effort. Some work consistently, every day, to maintain their above average physiques. Some work their asses off just to be average. That last one is me. And, in almost a year, I haven't QUITE achieved average. I guess I'd be a solid D student, if we were extending the analogy. I get tutoring. I study hard every day. I'm hoping to one day bring my D up to a C. 

A C would be a huge win.

For some people -- for a LOT of people -- a C is as good as a fail. But not for the people who work really hard for that C. A hard-earned C beats an easy A any old day in this former teacher/mother's book.

I have to work really hard to achieve the physical goals that most people meet just by waking up and breathing.

Just like the student who busts their ass for a C, and is judged poorly next to the person who just rolled out of bed and pulled a B without even cracking the book.

I've already confessed that -- in the student analogy -- I was one of the lucky ones. Not one of the luckiEST ones, but pretty darn lucky. But I've worked with those students who wanted it BADLY and had to really really work for it. The day that D student pulls a C+? Well, that's a happy day. That is an honest, hard-earned grade that he/she deserves to be ridiculously proud of.

And so it is with my feeble progress in the fitness arena. I am not good at any of the things I do. I grunt and posture and pose like I am sometimes -- and people indulge me, the way one would indulge a child who felt the need to announce how great they are at everything. But the truth is -- even though my achievements might not look like much on paper -- I have worked hard for them. 

And I have to keep working -- keep working hard -- just to maintain the progress I've made.

If that student we've been talking about missed a class or two, he/she would have to work like crazy to catch up. It wouldn't be a matter of just reading a couple chapters -- like it might be for someone with a different range of potential.

It's like that for me, too.

If I let things slide -- even for a couple days -- I get so far behind that it's hard to see how I'll ever get back.

I want to reach the top of my potential. 

That point, I've come to realize. will not be an A on life's report card. But if I could just pull that C... 

I Feel Like a Morning Star

Each morning of this vacation I have risen well before the sun so that I might have the privilege of watching it break through over the horizon in a glorious colorful display of anticipation, optimism and potential. Sunrises are the best wherever you may be, but sunrises over the ocean are magical. This week there has been a morning star just above the horizon in the hours before sunrise. I watch it rise higher in the sky each morning until it is obscured by the light of dawn. It does so with no where near the drama that the sun displays following the same course, but it is lovely nonetheless.

I keep hearing the refrain: I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star going through my head, but I'm not really sure what it means. A quick google search reveals a variety of possibilities and I decide -- since there is not a universally accepted right answer -- to allow myself to interpret it in a way which rings true to me.

A morning star is out of place.  An anachronism. A remnant of the night sky existing in the early light of day. It doesn't belong. 

A morning star is solitary. It shines alone. It doesn't seek approval -- it just does what it does.

A morning star does the same thing the sun does, but gets none of the glory.

It does what it does and it does so dependably and with no need for recognition. It does it because that's what it does.

I have scientific friends who will no doubt want to point out that the morning star I'm seeing is probably not a star at all, but a planet -- making my comparisons to the sun invalid.

I have spiritual friends who will no doubt want to point out the mystical significance of the morning star.

I also have friends who will take these words for what they are: the early morning musings of someone who is just trying to figure out her place in the cosmos.

So You Had a Bad Day

Things were going well. A little tooooo well. I started saying (ok, typing) things out loud like, "I am ridiculously happy" and "things are really coming together" and "ain't gonna let the elevator bring us down" -- ok, that last one was The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, but you get the idea. I was walking on sunshine,  I got up and nothing got me down, baby I was a star. Apparently I had also time traveled to the early 80's, but that's ok. That's better than ok. That's awesome. That's TOTALLY awesome. We wore great colors then. And those shoulder pads really balanced out wide hips.

Yep, things were going very well indeed.

Things going well is one thing.

Saying it out loud is another.

I acknowledged the good and sent my gratefulness out into the cosmos. Thank you world. Life is good and I am lucky. I'm lucky, you're lucky we're all lucky. Thank you.

It's like the world heard that as a wake up call - wait! - did she just call me a slacker?

Within 24 hours my vacation was cut short by a day and my feelings were ridiculously hurt by the circumstances surrounding it, I tripped and fell HARD bruising and jarring my whole right side, there was an epic kiddle meltdown, my gmail was hacked (Some of you reading this are aware of that. Sorry again.), and I found out that I thought Tom was paying a particular bill and he thought I was and it turned out no one was and I got a not-so-friendly call about that. By the time that call came, actually, I was almost giddy from the rapid downward spiral. 

Beaten up physically and emotionally, I debated my options. Curl up on the couch and shut down, laugh like a lunatic or head-down-power-through. I opted for all of the above. I figured I deserved to climb into myself for a second or two, because - Come on! - to go from so good to so silly bad in a 24 hour period is unsettling. I don't have a lot of patience for people who live in a constant state of feeling sorry for themselves, but I do believe that sometimes we need a few moments (or hours or days - depending on the severity of the setback) to just allow ourselves to digest things. So I took a moment to internally wail, "Why me?" And then I had coffee with a friend and bitched and moaned the way you do when you're with someone who you know won't judge you. She offered validation, which was exactly what I needed. Then came the laughing. Not just because I was passing time on a school night with a friend, but at the general absurdity of the situation. The crying is a necessary step, but the laughing is where the healing begins.

Guess what?  My bruises are getting less tender, my vacation is still on -- it's just shorter by a day, the bill got paid and the computer virus -- well -- while I am still terribly sorry that I passed it along, these things happen. We survive.

I may not be back to feeling like a boss, like I'm on top of the world, like I am the champion (my friend) -- but that's an extreme anyway. I'm feeling strong and even and ready to give the world a hug again, if not quite ready to teach it to sing.

Stay Weird

I had to work on New Year's Eve.

No big deal, except that it felt like the rest of the world was off -- including my whole family -- and I was feeling a little sorry for myself. All three of them had been off for a week and a half and I didn't get to spend any of it with them. So much was to be accomplished over that week and a half. We'd discussed it -- I thought we had a plan -- I didn't think I was a bitch on wheels yielding a honey-do list -- I thought we had mutual goals. I was mistaken. Throw that on top of my resentment over having to work -- even on the weekends -- when it felt like the rest of the world was off -- shopping, going to movies, watching marathon sessions of whatever, partying with friends -- add in a little bit of not drinking anymore and -- I think you might be able to understand why no one wanted to share their NYE with me. 

I was a big fat ball of disillusioned miserable.

So I was at work on New Year's Eve, resenting people who are less dedicated, less educated, and less experienced getting more money, more benefits, more respect and more privileges (I told you, I've been a true joy to be around this week) when one of my co-workers looks out the door and says, "Get ready, here comes a bunch of weirdos."

It was my family, bringing me lunch.

Feeling wicked, and knowing they'd find it amusing rather than hurtful, I called her on it right in front of them. She was mortified. She apologized profusely. Later she said that she had always been strict with her children -- with how they present themselves to the world -- because she wanted to protect them from -- and here she blushed -- people doing to them exactly what she had just done to me and my family.

I spent the rest of the day worrying that maybe I'd called it wrong and maybe my family WOULD find it hurtful. What she said -- that was on her. But if my family was hurt by it -- that was on me -- because if I hadn't told them, they never would have known. And ignorance is supposed to be bliss.

I didn't want to hurt them. I never want to hurt them.

Besides -- they ARE weird. WE are weird. It wasn't a missed call on her part. An ignorant call perhaps. A mean call for sure. But not a missed call. 

Like many brilliant weirdos before them, they know -- and generally embrace -- who they are. Weird is interesting. Normal is boring. I love quirky people. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a social situation with a bunch of normal people. I have to be around normal people sometimes. They make me want to scratch my eyeballs out just so that something interesting will happen. And that's drastic, because I have a real thing about eyes. Such is the extent of my distaste for normal -- for suburban conversations. I drop the girls off at school and watch the other girls walking from the parking lot. Pretty. Vanilla. Interchangeable. Nobody would ever call them weird. Nobody with any sense would ever call them interesting. Their lives will be easier. Things will come to them because they have chosen -- or their parents have chosen for them -- conformity. They will marry clean-cut men who wear golf shirts and they will sport the right hairstyles and go to jobs they hate -- or, if they're really lucky, stay at home while their husbands go off to jobs THEY hate -- so they can have the latest countertops in their kitchens and the latest SUVs in their garages or whatever status symbol will be deemed relevant at the time. It will all be very tidy and predictable and no one will ever call them weird.

And maybe that will make them happy.

I don't know.

It doesn't seem to. But what do I know.

I have always been envious of my family and my friends who truly walk the weird walk. (That's sort of like a silly walk. Only weirder.) I tend to walk the line. I want to be weird. I'm weird at heart. But I always feel a little out of place. Too weird among the normal; too normal among the weird.

If I were to make a resolution for the upcoming year, I think it would be to be truer to my inner weird -- not to try to hide it or even sand down its edges -- to live it loud and large with every bit of myself. To geek out about the things that I geek out about -- even if they're not the things the people around me grok. To put myself in situations where creativity and intuition are valued as much or more than lobotomized conformity.

I have a head start. I don't socialize much, but when I do it is generally with people who would not exactly be considered average. Are they super-cool or super-weird? Well, that just depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

A friend sent this to me last year, and I printed it out and pinned it to my bulletin board at work:

Weird isn't for everyone. If there wasn't a norm, how could one deviate from it? 

I wanted normal once.

I held on to wanting some of the vestiges of normalcy long after.

I don't want a bit of it anymore.

Take it, if it's for you. I won't judge (much. I'm working on that...)

As for me and mine? We're gonna stay weird.

Rock and/or Roll

So the 2013 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been announced. As usual, there were some glaring omissions, but two of my oft-mentioned faves made the cut: Rush and Heart.

I have become quite the clothes whore in the past month -- ever since I started fitting into straight size clothes -- and I bought a bitchin' new blazer last night.

No, this isn't one of those random thoughts posts -- I'll pull it all together, I promise.

I wanted to wear a Heart shirt or a Rush shirt under my new blazer today, but they were both in the laundry. I bought the blazer specifically to wear over the concert shirts and geek shirts that I spend way too much money on and then only wear to the gym and to bed. I reluctantly settled on a B-52's shirt as I set out my outfit last night and went to bed.

In the middle of one of the nocturnal fiery interruptions to my sleep (every two hours like clockwork) I remembered that I have another Heart T-shirt. The one I mentioned here, but that I never wore because it was too small. I had framed it so that I could look at it every day.

Today I won't be looking at it unless I'm in front of a mirror.

And that?  Rocks.

Every Fairy Tale Needs a Good Old-Fashioned Villain

It's a lovely day here in Central Ohio. 

The calendar says mid-November, but the sky is blue, the temperature is moderate and the breeze is heavily scented with drying leaves that crunch delightfully as we ride over them on what will probably be our last bike ride of the season. Tom rides ahead of me with his arms spread wide, looking so young and free that my heart almost aches with joy. Our life is not a fairy tale and no one would ever mistake it for happily ever after, but in this moment he is my handsome, carefree prince and there is a hint of magic in the air. All is well. All is so, so well.

I am flying. I am free. Riding a bike is transcendental. I am fifteen. I am eight. I am fifty. I am happy. I pass him on the left, smiling over my shoulder at him. He returns the smile and says something wildly complimentary about my posterior. It is inaccurate, but sincere and I smile even wider -- for no-one this time. For me. For the universe. For this moment.

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! Look!" he says, interrupting my internal reverie.  I slow down and look over my shoulder. He has gotten off his bike and is looking towards the woods. I get off my bike and head towards him.

"What is it?"

"Every fairy tale needs a good old-fashioned villain. The words are Moriarity's but the role in my personal fairy tale was being played by a sinister serpent, lying in wait by the side of the road, replacing my peaceful sanctuary with cold fear",  I typed. 

"What are you writing?" 

"Blog post. Let me read it to you so far." I did.

"Sinister serpent? It was a garter snake."

"I'm scared of snakes. It might be irrational, but I am. You're afraid of some irrational things, too, y'know." 

He looked at the ground for a moment, temporarily chastised. "It's true, I am. But it was just a little garter snake. I can't believe you're going to blog about it." 

"It was horrifying." 

"It was taking a sun bath by the side of the trail." 

"I rode right by it without even seeing it. I would've never known it was there if you hadn't stopped." 

"See?" 

"No! That's the scariest part! I was completely unaware of the lurking danger." 

"You were not in any danger. It was a garter snake. It was camouflaged. It was not going to hurt you." 

"Lulling me into a sense of confidence and well-being before striking at me with its venomous fangs."  

"Garter snakes do not have venomous fangs." 

"I can't believe you're defending it." 

"I can't believe you're vilifying it!" 

"It vilified itself when it decided to be born cold-blooded. It's unnatural."

So. Cold-blooded, cold-hearted villain or misunderstood innocent? You make the call. I'll respect it, even if I don't agree.

Photo courtesy of Diane Wiegman.  Tom says our snake looked pretty much exactly like this. I wouldn't know. I didn't look at it long enough to make a note of any of its particular physical characteristics.