Why Can't Life Be Like TiVo?

Sometimes I wish I had a fast-forward button for life. Especially when I'm moving for the 7th time in six years. And even more so when I'm moving to a condo on the third floor. 

The condo is gorgeous! The stairs are the most hideous thing I've ever seen. My suitcases screamed out, "Oh no! Not that! Don't carry me up these horrid things!"

But I did and now I sit here in an almost empty room, pilfering wireless from some unsuspecting and hopefully understanding new neighbor, ready to start over again. This time it really feels like the end of an old era and the beginning of a new one. Maybe it's just the New Year catching up to me now that it's almost February, but I feel like I've finally entered adulthood, the transition having ended sometime when I wasn't looking. 

I wonder what will happen in the next year. I wonder if I will make it to London (GOD I HOPE I DO!!!) and if I will find a place for myself there. I wonder what my job will be and who I will love (other than the obvious people who have already earned a place in this little girl's heart). 

It's like looking out at a calm sea on a beautiful morning. You know that so much lies beyond your view; that you are only capable of seeing it if you jump in and start swimming. And, of course, one must expect turmoil, rough seas and challenges. 

Upon admitting this, I often find myself asking: Am I ready to take them on? Or will I find myself drowning in the sea of possibilities? Overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of what I am capable of doing, rendering me unable to actually do any of it? 

Hmmm. Well that's not depressing now, is it? 

I guess I'll have to write a super uplifting post on Monday when this particular storm has past, rather than try to fake it today, when it is looming on the horizon. I've got to go now, and get through it somehow. Just like every past storm. Just like every future one.

Where there is a Will, there is a way. At least I've got determination to a fault. 

Say WHHHAAAT?

Today I drove past a Starbucks and didn't get that urge to go in. It was one of those tiny moments with a lot of meaning for a girl like me. 

Normally I drive past a Starbucks and you can bet your sweet bootie that I am in there even if it means I risk minor lateness. Just ask my professors. I think my saving grace was that they were usually in line with me. Sometimes a lecture is a lecture, even if you are the one giving it!

So does this mean that the love affair between coffee and this little girl is over? Not so much. Not yet. 

I've simply become a less co-dependent. And I can't say that's a bad thing in which way. 

Exponential Impact

Please go check this dude out. Chris Jordan is an artist with a voice of such succinct vision! Using the cumulative power of small components to make a gigantic statement. More specifically, his creative flow makes clear a tangible snapshot of our own wastefulness. And when you look at it through this lens it is overwhelmingly inspiring. 

It's so easy to make a difference if we all make even a small commitment. What if everybody bought a Sigg bottle and a water filter. Think of how many plastic water bottles we would keep out of the system! Think of the positive trickle down affect that would have on our world. 

www.chrisjordan.com

He earns the little girl l BIG VOICE stamp of approval for sheezy! 

Coming Soon: The "Vita-Cosmo" !!!

Kudos Mom, Kudos to Jan Eliot for channeling my spirit in her comic strip. This has been me all week, trying to ward off the first cold of the winter.

Even funnier is that I went to a bar with some friends in Oregon and actually ordered water in a whiskey glass just so I could make an Emergen-C packet to go along with my usual Gin and Tonic. But damn it, never thought to combine the two! Such an obvious connection. A "Vita-Cosmo"? Sounds good to me. Maybe it'll be the next big thing!

I can copyright that name by dating this post right? Anybody?

And so begins the presidential election bender (we’ve been in cocktail hour for sometime now). It starts off with a few tempting treats and they turn out to be so good, that you just have to have more. Then Super Tuesday rolls around and you stuff yourself on polls, analysis, second-by-second vote count updates with blog commentary attached, Anderson Cooper and high flatulent campaign promises out the whazoo.

By the time we get to North Carolina in May—let’s just be honest—we’ll know the outcomes of both primaries and the only reason the left-over states will actually have theirs is because they can (and law students, correct me if I’m wrong, but probably have to by constitutional mandate as well). Technically, every vote does count. It just really makes me want to whine, like only a four-year-old can, knowing that due to the mad dash for primacy in the primaries we saw in state congresses all over the country last year, my primary vote may not mean anything.

Or will it? Isn’t that the question we are searching to answer this election year?

“Do the voices of dissenting Americans really matter anymore?”

They mattered when patriots were fighting for freedom from the Crown. They mattered when Southern and Northern states locked heads in one of our world’s epic civil wars. They mattered when women stood up and demanded a vote and when Martin Luther King Jr. told us all about his dream.

But do they still matter today? Does that idea of one voice, one vote still mean something in our culture? It seems as though a lot of people in this country have grown cynical about their role in America. They remember from grade school that it’s supposed to be important (and that many died fighting for it), but I fear we may have grown so complacent and hopeless, that we have forgotten what a unique and noble foundation we have here—AND must to work to support. Think about all the work that our grandparent’s generation put into America. Work that we've
put to shame in this generation.

My musing has brought me to wonder: Are the people of Tom Friedman’s ever-flattening earth going to reach their tipping point this election year? Are they going to use the power they have found in the Internet and new media to make noise which cannot be ignored? And will they have the strength to make demands that carry enough weight to actually inspire political action over the course of the next presidency and beyond?

Are the American people angry enough—and hopeful enough to give this country a kick in the ass to get it going before things really do start to crumble?

We are at a very precarious point in our journey as a nation, one that may affect us for centuries to come. And all I can say is: God give us the courage to make tough choices, to stand for something positive again and to have the conviction to work tirelessly for everything we hope to see made real.

Fast As You Can = 20 Days 18 Hours and some change

Well. I ran 15 miles on a treadmill for two hours on New Year’s Eve—but I made it. 150 in 20 days. Number 45 out of 765 and only one of 50 who actually finished.

Definitely more running than I’ve ever done in my life, college pre-seasons included.

And you know what?

I’m addicted.

After four very intense years in a high level Division I volleyball program, I found myself so burnt out on working out. I knew that I loved it. I craved that feeling you get after you’ve pushed yourself to a new level. But I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more than go through the motions.

It was, in truth, monumentally depressing to my spirit and my identity as an athlete seemed to be slipping away.

Moral of Story: Sometimes you click a mouse and get yourself into something that you didn’t pause to think through. IDIOT! SO STUPID! WHY! And then you realize the kicking your ass is going to get from that decision is exactly what you needed and you thank God, Elvis and Gandhi for your burst of impulsivity.

I’ve always said that I am too ambitious for my own good, but in this isolated case I think I will count that as a strength rather than a weakness of character.