Love Gifts

I remember the first time I fell in love with Palak Paneer.  It was out of a box.  My boyfriend at the time made it for me.  

It was a Love Gift.  Here's the thing.  There are hundreds of new things we encounter every day.  So many things, in fact, we often don't remember how or who or what introduced us to the given novelty.  Who knows the first time you had pineapple on pizza or watched a Tarintino film?  Unless it was a Love Gift.  Love Gifts are the little novelties brought to you by someone you love and often will remember forever.

Now, I admit, there are some Love Gifts you don't want to get, like herpes or the knowledge of how to file a Child Protective Services report.  But barring these unfortunate exceptions, Love Gifts are pleasant reminders of the love we have felt, even when the person we loved may be gone from our lives.

I am grateful for my Love Gift of Palak Paneer.  Thanks, Siri.  And thank you Christina for The Grizzly Man.  Metallica, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Toby Keith, Walnut Creek Park, How to Drive a Motorcycle, Bel Air Market Coffee, Pig Candy, 100 Years in Solitude, Trader Joes, Freezer MacnCheese>Boxed MacnCheese, How Far Dupont is From Georgetown, Whiskey and Ginger ale, The Fact That I Am An Ambidextrous Fork User. 

Love Gifts teach us one, very powerful, very novel lesson: how to love.  The best Love Gift of all.

A Running Seesaw Metaphor for Your Reading Enjoyment

I went to the bank today to deposit a couple checks. Before I handed the checks to the teller, I happened to notice the memo lines. They were labeled "inner peace" and "professional development", respectively. I couldn't help but giggle at the dichotomy; those two memo lines did a great job of summing up the struggle I seem to be facing these days.




Graduate school isn't exactly conducive to life role balance. I have found the great majority of my time is spent on matters concerning my professional development. Inner peace? Well, it's fallen a little to the wayside. It is like a seesaw, with "professional development" on one side and "inner peace" on the other. Basically, "inner peace" got off to go on play on the swings and "professional development" just kept sitting on the seesaw. I figured I would just let the seesaw stay unbalanced and push through- graduate school is only two years after all!



Unfortunately, seesaws are no fun with just one person. Likewise, life is no fun if it's unbalanced. I found that out the hard way this week, when after my second flat tire in two days and another epic battle with financial aid, I just lost it. I just cried bitter, angry tears, that I quickly realized had very little to do with student financial services or my tires. Rather, I was tired. Tired of the tunnel vision sort of existence I had been living. Tired of my total lack of perspective. And tired...literally.



The great thing was there were plenty of people willing to get on my life seesaw with me, to help me re-establish balance. My boyfriend, my boss, my parents and roommates and girlfriends. I'm lucky- not everyone has people who love them enough to take on the life seesaw. Likewise, not everyone has friends silly enough to write "inner peace" on a check memo line....

Epic Snow Win

It snowed again. In Charlottesville. I know, shocking, especially considering all of Al Gore's talk about global warming. Global shwarming if you ask me. Anyways, this is not a political discussion. This is a tribute to snow.

I am not usually a fan of snow. Around age 12, much to my Christian parent’s absolute horror, I began to refer to it as "Angel Shit". Ahhh, the things you learn in 6th grade. Truly, I've never seen much use for snow. It's cold. It impedes my travel. It's only pretty for the first 2 hours and then it's polluted by the general ilk of mammal excrement.

Yesterday, gentle readers, I changed my mind about snow, because yesterday I sledded down the best sledding hill in Charlottesville with 30 other people. How did I accomplish such a terrific feat, you may ask? The simple ingenuity of drunken college students, that’s how!

See, my roommates and I didn't have a sled. It was sad times, but we improvised, because we are smart graduate students. We had a raft. And as we walked through the field towards the hill, all eyes were on us: those f-ing brilliant sons of bitches with a raft. Watching all those sledders using dining hall trays, garbage can lids, cardboard and recycle bins hang their heads in shame was a moment of epic glory for my roommates and I.

So after a couple of good runs, we noticed some college kids with an air mattress getting all up in our territory. Bitch please. We obvi had to challenge them to a duel- a sledding duel. We strategerized. Refilled some air, put the fat kids in the front. Unfortunately, an air mattress just fits more people than a raft, and weight ultimately wins in feats of distance sledding.

While we trudged back up the hill, we noticed a new set of air mattress college students had arrived. The hill just wasn't big enough for all three (and the 1500 little kids whose lives we were constantly putting in jeopardy with our boat sized sleds). So, like any good mildly drunk twenty somethings, we came up with the ingenious idea of putting all of our vessels together. The sled of justice was born.

Now, obviously, the best way to string together two air mattresses and a raft are by laying people across the three, and then laying more people across those people. Duh. And so it went. Boys on the bottom, girls on the top, and one really unlucky drunk guy who got stuck in the bed of the raft under at least seven other people. It was more than 30 people all together, and let me tell you, those damn kids on sleds- they got the hell out of the way.

What came first? Bob Dylan or Seasonal Depression?

I've started listening to Bob Dylan on repeat again.  It's the tell tale sign that seasonal depression is upon me.  I spend my time listening to Bob Dylan, ruminating and being crabby to those around me.  I also have been experiencing sincere apathy to....basically everything.  

It's worse this year because I have a graduate degree I am supposed to be getting and I am just not as engaged as I was last semester.  It's like the cold has seeped into my bones and sucked the life out of me.  It also happens to be the one year anniversary of when I stopped sleeping regularly, which also makes it one year that I have been trying to figure out why I f-ing can't sleep anymore.  I've chalked it up to age, along with my heartburn and loss of night vision.  

Bob Dylan may have alerted me to the presence my dear friend seasonal depression, but the interest inventory I took yesterday for my career class really brought it all home.  Out of 177 possible careers that I could "strongly like", I only picked one- race car driver.  That's either sheer apathy or I have an untapped affinity for danger.  Secret agent was not on the list but perhaps if it were I would have "strongly liked" two careers.  

Anyways, so I went to the gym today for the first time in two weeks, rocked out to Bob and recommitted myself to not being a bitchy slug.  I am too fabulous to let February get my goat again this year.  My tactic?  Punch February in the face.  That'll show her.

Resolutions

It's a new year friends! I absolutely love the New Years holiday. I mean, in actuality, it's about as pointless as groundhogs day, presidents day or any other random holiday that doesn't actually celebrate anything. It's just another day. And yes, it's technically a new year too. But nothing really changes, other than having to buy a new calendar.

I have to give a hand then to human ingenuity. At some point, somebody really smart said "Hey, let's make the new year a holiday. And to celebrate, let's get rip-roaring drunk. And then, let's not go into work the next day." Brilliant. Think about it- it's a nearly world wide boozefest. And if I could move the pumpkin pie from thanksgiving to New Years, I would be in absolute heaven.

The only downside is, of course, the resolutions. Judging by the gym today, the resolution-making aspect of new years is certainly holding its own. But like I said, it's just another day. The only resolution I ever feel like making on January 1 is to never drink as much as I did on December 31st ever ever again.

I guess people like the idea of having the chance to clean their slate. From what I have seen of humanity, there seems to be a draw to starting over. When a relationship ends or a job is lost, people find a bright side in the "fresh start". People move across the country- or across the world- just to feel like they can totally "start over".

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to want to start over, or to recommit oneself to personal betterment. In fact, I think there should be more of this sort of commitment, and that it should happen everyday. What's wrong with waking up literally everyday and wiping the slate clean? Each day is a new opportunity to be a better person. Whether it's June 12th or January 1st doesn't matter- it's just a day after all.

So in honor of new years, I guess I'll just give in and make a resolution. I resolve to make a fresh start every day of 2010. And I resolve to forgive myself if I royally f-up, because I'll have the next day to start over. I hope you, gentle reader, will think of doing the same. And thus, I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes. Cheers, my friends, to a bright new year.

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow". -Mary Anne Radmacher