I definitely do not hate you because you're beautiful--better you than me!

Back before my site had to be reconstructed, I had written in regards to another stereotypically beautiful woman (blond hair, blue eyes, slender) who had disappeared in a probable kidnapping, possible rape and/or murder case. I had written how happy I am not to be stereotypically beautiful myself because it keeps me safe from prowlers. Well, yesterday as I was walking around the same lake that I wrote about walking around early last month, I realized there are even more advantages to not being beautiful than I had previously considered:

*Even if per my previous post I don't feel completely secure as a woman walking alone after dark, I am much less likely to be abducted or harmed than a stereotypically beautiful woman. This gives me some sense of ease and security, even in shady areas.
*Because I did not really date in high school or college (not for lack of wanting, but for lack of interest on the part of the male population in my school), I was able to focus on developing my intellect.
*I did not worry about dieting or exercising before my wedding because I knew that even doing so would not guarantee hot photos. I am so far away from stereotypical beauty, that I saved myself a lot of pre-wedding agony by skipping the whole sham of losing weight just for the "big day."
*I rest assured knowing that most of the men who have expressed an interest in me over the course of my life were most likely not showing interest simply because of my appearance.
*I rest assured knowing that I am hired for jobs based on my qualifications rather than my bra size.
*I am perfectly comfortable being the only woman in the weight room at my gym. I do not have to worry about being bothered by some lecherous men while I bench.
*I never had to worry much about being hit on by sleazy men in bars. I actually remember a couple years ago going to a bar in Annapolis with a friend from high school and being told by a sleazy bar man that he was interested in my friend and not me. As if I cared! My friend is the tall, leggy blond of stereotypical beauty fame.
*My lack of stereotypical beauty has made me more empathetic with my female students who have listened to society's lies that without blond hair, blue eyes, and long, slender legs, they have no value. I can better help them understand that a person's worth is far deeper than outside appearances because coming from a stereotypically beautiful person, that message would sound like a bunch of BS.

Mandatory Celebrations

I am generally not a party pooper, but I'm getting pretty tired of being asked to shell out some cash for department birthday celebrations. In addition to the schoolwide social dues that all staff are asked to pay, I'm asked to give $5 every time someone in our office has a birthday in order to help pay for snacks that I don't even partake in. These birthdays seem to happen at least once a month and this week is the second week in a row that I've been approached for cash. I usually grudgingly cough it up, but I'd rather just skip the whole thing. Truthfully, I'd be just as happy if no one had to shell out money for my birthday either. I don't need the recognition of my advancing age. While $5 isn't a great deal of money, it certainly adds up. We'd be better off saving our wallets and our bodies from monthly snackfests in favor of putting our money into the scholarship fund that our department developed in lieu of giving each other cheesy Christmas gifts this year. Maybe I am a party pooper and a tight wad and a scrooge, but I don't care if those are my labels. I don't want to have to conform to spending money on what are unquestionably true frivolities for the sake of office politics when my husband and I have pretty big debt to pay off and every $5 helps with the mess we are in.

Rent

Because he knew how much I loved the live production, John took me to see Rent. When I saw the musical live, I was in London and it was three years after the initial Broadway release. I found the stage version to be so powerful and moving that I listened to the soundtrack almost nonstop for the next couple months in order to relive it. I was excited to see the movie thinking that with most of the original Broadway cast, the movie would have to be good. For the most part, the movie held to the play, but some of the power was lost in transferring the production from the stage to the screen. Perhaps the power was lost in the increased dialogue. I am not sure why the director felt the need to have the actors talk some of the words that were sung on stage. I suspect it might be to make the transition into song seem more natural, but, let's face it, musicals are not natural. People don't go around singing and dancing in the streets anywhere else but in a musical, and the effectiveness of the art form is lost when the songs are shortened. Beyond the increased talking, some of the scenes looked a little different in the movie than in the play. Admittedly, I saw the stage production over 7 years ago, so it is certainly possible that some of the details have slipped my mind in that time. Or, it is also possible that scenes were adjusted in order to make the story more relevant to life today. Even though the musical may seem to be modern, the fact is that it's somewhat outdated from a medical perspective. For a graduate school project a couple years back, I interviewed an HIV-positive pastor. He had been living with the disease for over ten years, and with the great medicine out there today, he told me that the disease wasn't even detectable in his blood anymore. While this man may not be as impoverished as the bohemian artists of Rent, as a pastor of a tiny (20 people max) independent congregation, he's certainly not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. Untreated, people may die of AIDS as quickly as in the time of Rent, but most of the characters in the story were being medically treated, as is evinced from their "AZT break" comments. So medicine has changed, GLBT rights and presence in our country have changed, and stories that used to be culturally relevant have become passe as culture has changed. While at its heart, I am sure Rent is still moving when performed live, I walked away from the movie theater less moved than I was when I walked away from the play house in the summer of 1998. I cannot be sure how I would have reacted to the movie if I had not first seen the play, but because of my emotional experience with the play before, I can only give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.

Holiday Giving

While I enjoy the holiday season and the good cheer that everyone wants to spread, sometimes I get frustrated that this is the only time of year that a lot of us consider the less fortunate. During this time of year, charitable contributions are at an annual high and churches are more likely to send their members out into the front lines of the inner city. We use this time of year to make up for the rest of the year when we are less generous with our time and money. But the needy are in need all year, not just during December.

Before I continue, let me clarify that I am no better than anyone else in this regard. During the holiday season, I may jump on the serving bandwagon to go deliver food to the homeless, but the rest of the year you will catch me in my climate controlled house rather than walking the streets of DC or Baltimore with food in my hands. I am just as guilty as the majority of turing a blind eye during the non-Holiday time of year, and I am aware of how hypocritical I am in this case.

Wednesday of last week, I was anxious to leave work and go home for the four-day weekend. I did not want to be held up by the family that was supposed to come to my office on Tuesday to pick up the basket of food that the staff had donated to them because of their great need. The closer the hands of the clock crept to 2:30 on Wednesday, the more antsy I was becoming and the less patient I was feeling with waiting for this homeless family to figure out a way to get here. I called the friend's house where the family has been staying. They have no car, so the mother asked another one of her friends to come to collect the food.

At exactly 2:30, this friend showed up. He was in a wheelchair and he could barely speak. But he smiled and took the food, and painfully thanked us for caring. He then wheeled his way across the street to wait in the cold for the bus to take him and the food basket home.

This man stopped me dead in my tracks, stunned at the selfish life that I lead when there are so many who have so little. I am disgusted at my complaints of not having enough when I have so much. I am disgusted at my skill of looking the other way when someone with nothing asks me to spare some change. I have no right to want more when I am not even a good steward of the resources I do have, selfishly squandering them on myself more often than sharing them with others. I'd love to tell you that I have resolved to change my ways and become more generous year-round, but I hesitate to make a promise that I have failed to keep so many times in the past.

Redefinition

The book I just finished reading has got me thinking about the ways people change and redefine themselves. As someone who has personally attempted to redefine myself, and as someone who has watched up close while others have tried to redefine themselves, I have become cynical about our ability to simply will ourselves to be different. We try every year with our New Year's resolutions, but statistics show that most of those resolutions have failed by springtime, if not before. Like the cliched leopard, we cannot change our spots.

This is not to say that I don't belive that people can change. Certainly, people can and do change every day, but I do not believe that lasting changes are a matter of will because our human wills are weak. So, if we do not change ourselves, then it must be life that changes us. People we meet, things that happen to us, mistakes we make, consequences we pay, events that are beyond our control. Life changes us, we do not change life. Life may not "will" us to change, but life often leaves us with no choice but change if we are to survive.

A Good Book

I just got finished reading a book that I literally could not put down. It was not a brilliantly written book by any means. If anything, it was written in a way that made me think, "Hey, maybe I should try writing a book. I could do better than this!" But in spite of its glaringly obvious foreshadowing, I couldn't help but get caught up with the characters. I suppose my inability to separate myself from the story indicates that perhaps it takes a genius to weave together a story with unoriginal metaphors and unmistakable hints that still snares the reader into its web. I was so caught up, in fact, that I was embarrassingly sad when the story ended. I remember reading books like that when I was a child (yes, before I got to college and had to read them en masse, I actually enjoyed reading books)--the kind of stories that I would continue in my head for days after closing the cover on the book simply because I could not let the characters go. Books like that were the reason that I became an English major in college. Of course, my college professors would surely scoff at how moving I found the book I just read. Their influence on me is still strong enough that I'm embarrassed to even name the book here. No matter how blandly written, sometimes there is beauty in a simple story. I remember a discussion in Shakespeare class I took in college when we talked about story lines. Part of why Shakespeare is still read today is because the stories he wrote transcend time, even if the language that he wrote the stories in does not. Love, passion, jealousy, sin, death, new beginnings, betrayal, redemption. These themes cut across cultural barriers and cut to the core of the human experience. That's what makes Shakespeare live on. My latest read was no Shakespearean sonnet, and I am sure it went straight to paperback, but I found myself caught up in the book nevertheless because of those human themes which the author wove into the story in shades of gray. I am a firm believer that life is more interesting when its in the gray and not in the black and white. And, while I'm sure there are plenty who would contradict me, I think that Chrisitianity is about shades of gray, too. The Pharisees saw things in black and white; Jesus looked beyond that. Yes, there is a clear delineation between right and wrong in the Bible, but there is not always a clear delineation between people. Love the sinner, hate the sin, or whatever. Even if characters in this book may have made choices that some would consider morally questionable, I couldn't help but rooting for them anyway. And in the end of the story, the heroine returned to the truth of her God with a deeper understanding of what that truth is and what faith means in her life. I left the story with two things: first, a warm fuzzy feeling that the predicable ending came to fruition even if it was "wrong," and second, that maybe I should, like the heroine, rise above my fears and run my race with more gusto and less anxiety. All that inspiration from a poorly written novel! Perhaps inflated language is nothing more than simply inflated after all. And perhaps, even a untalented writer like myself could address human themes in an unoriginal way and still move and inspire. Or perhaps not. But I find a smug satisifaction in imagining academia proven wrong.

Death by Sadness

Sometimes I wonder if I was born sad. Like maybe my DNA has a flaw in it, or a missing piece that makes depression an inevitable struggle for me. But then I remember my childhood. I was happy and carefree as a youngster. I didn't become sad and hopeless-feeling until puberty barged into my life. Maybe my genetic flaw is linked directly with those hormones that surged through my body when puberty forced its way in. I'm sure that depression, like other mental and physical disorders, could have genetic ties, and perhaps in some of us, those ties are sealed with the release of certain chemicals into our physiologies.

On the other hand, even before I first felt the looming sadness and hopelessness of depression, I remember thinking as a child that I was too happy and my life was too good. I actually remember thinking even in those days that if there should be tragedy in my life. So maybe its not genetic at all; maybe I wished the sorrow on myself. Maybe my depression is something I created for myself to help me to feel real (as the Goo Goo Dolls said, "When everything feels like the movies/Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive"). Or maybe it is a spiritual problem that I brought on myself because the missing piece in my DNA makes me uncomfortable with contentment.

In spite of my thoughts, words, and actions to the contrary, I buy into the theory that sadness is an internal problem and not an external one. Every time I start a new job, I get depressed because it does not instantly fulfill me or make me happy. I have changed careers--not just places of employment, but total career--three times since I graduated from college in May of 2000. Since I began my most recent job, I've already started looking for ways to get back into my previous field. With these frequent switches, I am looking for a satisfaction in my job that I won't find. I want my job to fill the emptiness that I need to work with God to fill before I even step through my office door. I am happy with my marriage, but even my husband does not fill the voids in my soul. Sometimes I get mad and frustrated, because I want John to have more power than he does in making me whole. In the name of finding wholeness, I have made Florida out to be a warm paradise where I could move and never feel sad. But I know that moving to Florida will not make me happy. It may be a temporary feeling of happiness, but in the end, that move would prove empty and meaningless, too. Just like the writer in Ecclesiastes noted, everything in life amounts to nothing more than chasing after the wind.

Ultimately, I am convinced that sadness is what killed my father and both of my paternal grandparents. I see these feelings eventually destroying me, too. Even if I can get them under reins with counseling or medication (neither of which I am utilizing at the moment), the sadness will triumph if I do not trust God to fill the voids within me. I have to hold onto the fact that His grace is sufficient for me to walk through my seemingly endless pain. My hope should lie in my belief that eternity will not hold sadness. But I do not trust myself to believe this 50 years from now when I am still chasing after the wind and finding everything to be for nought.

Catching up

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to a bridal shower for a former college roommate. She was my maid of honor in my wedding and now I going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. The shower was a great opportunity for me to catch up with friends from college, a few of whom I have not seen in five years. It's interesting because at the same time that so much has changed in five years, it also feels like so little has changed. Of the 9 of us, three of us are now married and one is going to be married in February. One is working on her PhD. All but two live in Maryland not too far from where we went to school. Even though our conversations focused on what we're doing now, our connections seemed to pick up where they left off. There was no awkwardness and no lulls in conversation. We were so happy to see each other that it makes me wonder why it took so long for us to hang out again. Anyway, here is a picture of a few of us. Ironically, the two people I'm sitting directly next to are the only two people I've actually kept in touch with over the past five years:

Spouse Swapping

The majority of adulterous affairs begin by relationships that were established through work. Last night, I went out to dinner with my friend Allison. I told her about the pattern of infidelity at my current place of employment, which, by the way, far surpasses similar patterns at other jobs I've had even though I've worked for much larger companies than this one. Another counselor in my department is a married to a teacher here. When they met as employees at this school, he was married to someone else and she was engaged to someone else. Both of those committments ended when they found each other instead. The varsity field hockey coach that I worked with here is also a homewrecker. He has successfully managed to get another teacher who he met here to leave her husband and two young children for him. She is not even divorced yet and the two of them have just purchased a $650K home together not far down the road from where John and I live. The athletic director here has wrecked his own marriage by telling his wife that he wants to be a bachelor again. He left her with her with their child and moved in with the husband and kids of the teacher who the varsity field hockey coach ran off with. We have so much drama here that they may as well rename this school Days of our Lives.

Even though I, and all of the aforementioned people, work in education, and one would think that the leaders of the school would want to show the students an example of a happy marriage in light of everything else that the students see going on at this place, it turns out that the quite the opposite is true. My husband and I both work at this school, but we never see each other unless we go out of the way to see each other. At the beginning of the school year, we ate lunch together every day (eat lunch, not hold hands or kiss or coo sweet nothings to each other, nothing inappropriate at all). Then our principal saw us and told us that such behavior is forbidden. At first I thought this was because as a counselor, I do not get a lunch break (or a planning period whereas the classroom teachers here have a lunch AND a minimum of two planning periods). But then I read in my contract that I am entitlted to take lunch. Just not with John, apparently. I don't see these other adulterous relationships being dealt with and they all occur under this same roof. Yet John and I are punished for wanting to be with each other instead of someone else. The majority of adulterous relationships begin at work. From my perspective, John and I should be encouraged to spend time together during our breaks so that we do not create another scandal in this school. But that's not the way our leadership sees it. Maybe spouse swapping is the new family value system that our school wants to show our students. Or maybe there are so many unhappy couples that they don't know how to handle a happy one.

Perks

Even though I don't love my job, I have to admit, it has some perks. As a high school counselor, college recruiters are interested in telling me all about their schools so that I can tell my students all about them. While this in itself does not sound like a perk, these colleges are willing to pay to fly me to their campuses so that I can see their schools first hand. To me, that is a perk because I get to leave my office and be flown to different parts of the country where recruiters try to turn me on to their programs. Personally, I always prefer working outside of my office to being in here. Next Wedensday, Ohio State is flying me to Columbus, OH for a tour of their campus. The Wednesday and Thursday after that, Ball State is flying me to Indiana so I can check their school out first hand. I am now waiting for schools in Florida, California, and Hawaii to call me so that I can go check out some warmer locales on someone else's dollar. The next time I complain about my job, I'll try to remember that it's not ALL bad.

Stalwart German

My dog Felicia impresses me. She is a miniature long-haired dachshund, but even with her short legs, she can walk further and faster than many longer legged dogs that I've known. A few times a week, John and I treat Felicia to a 2-mile walk at a nearby park. The first time we took her there, I was worried that she wouldn't be able to make it. Two miles is a long way for tiny dog to travel without a rest. But Felicia did more than just make it. She trotted along at a pace that gave John and me a workout, too. We thought she'd sleep most of the evening after that walk, but she wasn't worn out or tired from her exertion at all. I can't get over how sturdy she is for being so small and petite. I'm pretty sure it's the German in her breeding that makes her so stalwart. And I'm pretty sure it's the German that helps her make her presence known whereever she goes. Felicia spent this past weekend with her three cousin dogs at my mother's house. Even though all three of these dogs are significantly bigger than Felicia, Felicia outstands all of them in her destructive capabilities. Felicia can destroy clothes, shoes, belts, papers, and toys with one quick snap of her jaws. With only slightly more effort, she destroyed an entire section of carpet in my former bedroom when she was locked up this weekend. It appears she was trying to dig her way out under my old bedroom door. It also appears that she almost made it. While I sometime resent having to stow my possessions out of her reach, part of me is proud of Felicia's fiery personality because I credit it to our common German heritage. Nobody expects such a small creature to pack such an enormous punch. And she does it all while softening hearts with her charming tail wagging and adorable good looks. It's hard to be angry at a such a carefree little animal, even after she shreds your house.

Bad Neighbors

John has never handed out candy to his neighbords on Halloween. He tells me he usually turns out all the lights and goes to the basement to watch TV. Since we are now married and living in what was his house, John decided this year that we could do the domestic thing of handing out candy to the little munchkins who came knocking on our door. Since John never gave out candy before, we did not know how many kids we would get. We figured five giant-sized bags of candy from Target should cover us for the evening. We were wrong. We live in a townhouse community with many other young families, and we ran out of candy in 45 minutes. In fact, we ran out in the midde of a group of kids, and we ended up having to give out granola bars to the rest of the kids in the group. We then turned out our lights, but people kept coming. I told John we could start handing out instant oatmeal packs, but instead we fled to his parents' house to escape the madness. Even though we gave out five bags of candy, I was very embarrassed that we ran out before the end of the festivities. To all those families who came later, we look like cheap, unspirited neighbors. Next year, we will have to get at least 12 bags if we're going to make it through the evening.