Stuff I Dig

Everything is very doomy and gloomy recently, ain't it? Strangely, I've been in a remarkably upbeat mood. This might be because times like this are sort of good for contrarians like myself. Today I feel like spreading the love. Here are five things that I really like a lot.

One: Craft root beer. I am not a big soda drinker. And I grew up on diet sodas (literally--my mom drank Tab when I was very little, Pepsi Lite when I was in elementary school and the weirdly addicting Diet Coke since). So I just generally do not drink regular sugared sodas. HOWEVER. I make a special occasion exception for craft root beer. Henry's, on tap, is my favorite (although I know it is a little too sweet and too smooth--if in fact root beer can be too smooth!--for some). But I also like Mt. Angel. Those monks make some very tasty root beer. I do not, however, love craft root beer as much as this dude.

Two: Pilot G-2 Extra Fine Gel Pens. It isn't so much that these are my favorite pens ever (far from it), but they are ideal for grading. They come in a variety of colors beyond black, blue and red (none of which I like to use to grade with). I particularly like the purple and burgundy ones because I find them easy to read against the black and white. They are nice and fine, but don't clump. I think I went through about 5 of them last term alone. (And if any of you feel like bitchin' about how little I blog, think about all the writing I'm doing on student papers.)

Three: North. Since I have now been there the last 4 weekends (or so) in a row, I think I can call this "my new bar." North is unpretentious and small and neighborhood-y. You can put music on the jukebox for free, and they have Kenny Rogers. There is also a lot of Bruce Springsteen. The clientele is somewhat eclectic. Mikey J. likes to sit at the bar. This is ok by me. The one drawback is this older guy we've seen a couple of times who drinks wine and tries to listen in on our conversations and smirks at everything I say. I could do without that dude. However, last week I told Mike that I was ready to rumble with the guy if he gives me any more attitude. Mike said, "You are not prepared to rumble with that old guy." I said "seriously, I'm ready to take him down." Then Mike told me that this might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever said.

Four: Iced Lattes from Peet's. Here's the thing: I know that Peet's is a chain and all, but I had just given up ordering lattes anywhere. Everywhere I went it seemed like I was getting coffee-flavored milk. When actually what I wanted was coffee with a lot of milk in it. (See the important distinction?) Peet's lattes taste like milky coffee. That is delicious, and just what I want sometimes (when I'm not in the mood for an Americano or cafe au lait, which are much more my "everyday" coffee drinks). Peet's used to really be marvy because they kept soy milk (for my Americanos) out with the cream, but they have ceased to do that, so I'm back to having to ask for it at the bar. I don't like that as much. It makes me feel high maintenance to have to ask.

Note: I do realize that 3 of the 5 things so far have to do with beverages. I like beverages. I think--and do not freak out about this--that I would rather stop eating solid food than stop drinking fluids.

Five: Chelsea Handler. OK. I realize that she is actually a person that I like, and not so much a thing. I resisted for a long time. But I think she's really funny. I can't help it. And--this is weird--she and I are exactly the same age. Check this out: Drew Barrymore was born on February 22nd, 1975. I was born the next day. Chelsea Handler was born on the 25th. I find this totally bizarre. CH clearly seems older than me. They dress her real old and adult-like on that show, and she dates the president of E!, who is sort of old. Drew Barrymore--I don't know. I guess she seems older too. But it is hard to say when you are talking about someone who is crazy and went through rehab at 13. I was just barely getting through Drama I my freshman year of high school. (Ask Qwanty. She will confirm that I spent a lot of time in the "little theatre" staring off into space and crying.) My point is this, don't compare yourself to famous people who were born the same week you were. It starts to make you feel sort of weird and bad, but also glad that you are NOT famous and so, thus, no one cares if you wear your kitty jama bottoms and beat up Chucks to the grocery store at night.

Oh wait. Except that was not my point. My point was, Chelsea Handler is funny.

And my larger point is this: you may not have a job past March 18th, and you may have a condo in Austin that just refuses to sell, and you may be turning the UNGODLY age of 34 in less than a week, and the American economy may be a disaster, but you can still take pleasure in the small stuff.

Merry Christmas

There is about a half an hour left in the west coast Christmas day, and I wanted to take this opportunity to wish my friends and other readers (like you, Marcus! We missed you today, but really enjoyed seeing the kids. I beat the Lady M in Sorry by one move. It was a badass Sorry game!) a really terrific holiday.

And if it hasn't been a terrific holiday (because I can certainly understand that), I want to wish you a better 2009.

At least we're all not still waiting to finally see Twilight, or to hear Chinese Democracy, or for the election. We have lived through a lot of stuff already. Proof that we can persevere.

Time and the Secular Sacred

In my early 20s I went through a period of time when I thought very seriously about converting to Catholicism. (Well, not really converting, since that suggests moving from one religion to another, and since I was raised basically agnostic, I was really just thinking about joining the Catholic Church. "Converting" is a better and more interesting word than "joining"though.) My reasons for pursuing this were complicated, but also sort of strange, so I'm not going to go into that here. And that isn't the point anyway.

What is useful to know is that, for at least one year, I attended church regularly--first on Sunday mornings, and then on Sunday nights--and for several years I went for the major holidays, and one year I actually did "Inquiry", which, for the uninitiated, is sort of confirmation class for adults. Somewhere in there I heard a very, very good sermon on the liturgical calendar. The priest talked about how the Church calendar is split up into three kinds of time: feast time, fast time and ordinary time. He explained that the purpose of the fasting time is to give us a structured opportunity to meditate on our lives--to slow down and think about the blessings in our lives, but also to consider the nature of suffering, to remember (history, those who have died), to look within ourselves and evaluate our relationship with God, with others and with ourselves, and to identify space for improvement. The function of feast time is to celebrate, to give thanks, to bless one another. To live in joy. Then he argued that the important thing about both feast and fast times is the way in which they can (and are meant to) impact our lives within ordinary time, which constitutes the bulk of the liturgical year. Feasting and fasting provide perspective through which to see the rest of our days--the not-so-special days--imbuing them with more meaning and more intention.

This is one of the things that I find beautiful and profound about the Church; something I can recognize and incorporate in my life, even though I have ultimately decided that Catholicism is not something that I can really do.

***

For the past week my friend Nikki has been staying with me. She is moving out of Texas, to take a great job and to be closer to her family, and to be in a place that she loves, and doesn't just have to tolerate. She had to be out of her place by the 1st, but wanted to stick around another week, so she came here. And it has been great to have her. Not just because she is fun and we have a good time together, but because we are at similar points in our lives--both ending one chapter of our lives and opening another. We are both very much in transition.

Major moments of transition are a secular version of feast and fast time. When you have one foot in one world and one foot in another, life suddenly becomes so much more than it is in ordinary time. Time moves more quickly. There are more opportunities for celebrating and for socializing, but also for becoming introspective and for noticing the profound. It is a time for intense feeling and also for intense experiencing.

I feel lucky to have been able to have my transition overlap with Nikki's, because it has meant that I have been able to spend this non-ordinary time in a kind of communion with her. And over the course of the past week we have squeezed in a lot of living by:

Drinking (a lot) at all our favorite establishments.

Spending an hour in Best Buy trying to buy a radar detector from a nice (but rather clueless) guy named Daniel L.

Returning the radar detector when we realized that well-meaning Dan didn't sell us the right equipment.

Watching the whole third season of Weeds and the whole first season of 30 Rock on DVD.

Running into "the monster" three nights in a row.

Arguing over yoga (her for, me against).

Eating at suburban chain restaurants and hanging out at the mall.

Getting lost on the way to AAA and then ordering Trip Ticks that will take us to opposite coasts.

Staying up until 4 am every night.

Hanging out on my rarely-used patio furniture so that she could smoke and we could talk. Mostly about "moys" (Nikki's word for guys who are chronologically men, but still behave like boys.)

***

When she left this morning I walked back into the house and felt how empty it was and it was that much easier to put things in boxes. Tonight I had dinner at Rebecca's with Laura and Amanda and Tim and Brooke and we talked about our ultimate deal-breakers with men and then about religion. After the group broke up I went to Laura's to pick up the things that she has been collecting from my house over the past two or three years. CDs (how have I lived without my copy of Standing by the Sea for well over a year?!), my boxed set of the My-So-Called-Life DVDs and lots of books--most of them about bibliography. Rebecca left us there, and when the door closed I started crying, because I thought she was mad at me. She came running back in the door 15 minutes later, worried that I was mad and her and telling me that she'd gone back to her place and cried while she did the dishes.

We sat at Cafe Laura and they smoked and we talked about marriage pacts and how my lack of boundaries sometimes causes me to be rude. And Rebecca said, "When people know you are leaving, they feel urgency to show you how they really feel about you."

Feasting and fasting. Living that is more vibrant on the one hand, and deeper on the other. Within two months I'll be living in ordinary time again and it will be different, infused with more meaning and wisdom (I hope) because of this time.