A few thoughts from "Eat, Pray, Love"

Today while I was reading "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert over my lunch, I came across a couple of passages that really touched me/made me think. The writer, at the time, was 34, as I am, and no longer married, which I have never been. The things she says seemed extraordinarily relevant to me and my life and I thought I would take this opportunity to share them with you. First one:

"
...To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find a continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. I rediscover this truth every time I go to the big reunion of my mother's family in Minnesota and I see how everyone is held so reassuringly in their positions over the years. First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety-year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem - you're the person that created all this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate, and moreover, it's universally recognized. How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy - If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me?

Virginia Woolf wrote, 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword.' On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct.' But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, 'all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.' Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous."

In the second, she talks about how she has battled depression (melancholy) in her own life and how the melancholy of Venice affects her:

" Yet I don't get depressed here. I can cope with, and even somehow enjoy, the sinking melancholy of Venice, just for a few days. Somewhere in me I am able to recognize that this is not my melancholy; this is the city's own indigenous melancholy, and I am healthy enough these days to be able to feel the difference between me and it. This is a sign, I cannot help but think, of healing, of the coagulation of my self. There were a few years there, lost in borderless despair, when I used to experience all the world's sadness as my own. Everything sad leaked through me and left damp traces behind."

Calling all readers.....

Ok, Y'all, I've been wondering if anyone ever reads this things and I've had a few people email me recently about things that I'm posting, so SOMEONE must be reading this. If you are, please let me know. Leave a comment or drop me a line. If you have any suggestions for content or style changes, please let me know. I'm open to all of them.

Take care and I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?......

Book #8 of 50 completed

I've finished book number 8 of the 50 the I need to read for this list. The 8th selection was "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortinson and David Oliver Relin. It's a true story about a man who is building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The schools are especially built in very poor areas of the country and with the goal in mind that girls should be educated. It's a great story and an even better cause.

Books #9 and #10 (currently being read): "Eat, Pray, Love" (341 pages) and "Cane River" (500+ pages).

I may need to switch to some Dr. Seuss books for their brevity!

I need a friend to go to a concert with me

So, my friend Patrick is a loser head (not really but it's funnier if I say he is) and he's decided that since the weather is so nice for the next few days, he's gonna go to Kentucky to jet ski instead of having our usual monthly dinner with me tomorrow evening. We were supposed to go to see Missy Higgins, who is an Australian female artists I randomly started listening to about 6 months ago. I never thought she'd come to Indianapolis, but I'm thrilled that she's gonna be at the Music Mill tomorrow.

Now I just need someone to go with me. If you're interested, take a listen at www.missyhiggins.com. The tickets are $15 at the door, the show starts at 8:30 and doors open at 7:30. I think if you have dinner early at their little restaurant, they let you in early, so I'm probably gonna get there at 6:30. Drop me a line if you're interested and thanks for taking a listen to what I think is a great artists.

What's to be done?

Yesterday Troy and I took advantage of the amazing weather to get out and take a long ride on our bicycles. We packed up some water, a few granola bars and a frisbee, slathered on some sunscreen and hit to the trails. We left about 3:30 in the afternoon and traveled about 10 miles up the Monon Trail, which is a wonderful biking/walking/blading/running footpath through the city.

They've really done quite a bit of work to make the path beautiful. Some parts of it go through some questionable neighborhoods that are more industrial than residential. The city (or private groups) has taken it upon themselves to have local artists paint murals on the backs of some of those buildings that face the path. Some of them are just really well done and it was great to get to experience them as we rode by. At one point we even stopped at a little park to enjoy some water and a granola bar. We even tossed around the frisbee for a bit (so sorry about putting it on top of that port-a-potty, Troy).

We finally decided to head back around 5:15. We thought that since it was such a lovely day, we would just stop by the store and grab a few things for dinner. We'd had such a good time and just marveled that we are so lucky to be able to have bodies (and bikes) that carried us through the day so well and to have Troy's house in such close proximity to all of these activities.

It wasn't until we were nearing the store that all of this bliss was interrupted. As I rode along the rode, a white SUV with 4 20-something males in it decided to be (excuse my french) jackasses! One of them stuck his head out of the car and made one, loud, blood-curdling shout/bark/noise, which startled me. I assume that was his intent. Then, as he passed Troy, he did it again. Of course, by then, Troy had heard the first one and wasn't startled.

This kind of thing just pisses me off! What the hell would possess someone to do such a thing? Essentially, he was invading my (and Troy's) personal air space with the intent of causing mental anguish. This is the point when my blood starts to boil. Too many times in my life has this happened. For some reason, these people (those who think themselves funny by being dicks) decide that they can say/yell/gesture something at me without any recourse. I tend to disagree. I've had enough and I'm not taking it anymore. My solution? Confront them. Yes, I admit that I am a 30-something, overweight, white woman, but I will certainly do what I can to inflict my wrath upon them. I'm certain that at some point this will be the end of me. One of these pricks will pull out a gun or knife or something. Luckily, for now, I have the element of surprise on my side. They don't expect me to say anything, so when I do, in some ways, they are simply shocked.

So, yesterday I did just that. When they had to stop at a light, I rolled up next to their car (the windows were all down, of course). I overheard to the one who had made the noise say, "Ooh, he's so pissed." (He was referring to Troy who had flicked him off and was ahead of me at that point.) I pulled up to him, and simply said, "What are you doing?" He said, "What do you mean?" and barked/yelled right in my face again. (DICK!) I said, "What is wrong with you? What makes you think you can do that and get away with it?" At that point, he said, "I've got Tourette's, bitch" as they pulled away. My only comeback was, "Well, someone's a bitch." Lame, true, but I felt so angry and I'm REALLY not good at witty comebacks.

So, what's the solution? Seemingly there's no recourse for such horrendous behavior on the part of these punks. If I had reached in and punched/slapped him, I'm certain I'm the one that would have been in trouble. Would any of the occupants of the other cars around have come to my aid? What if I had just maced the whole car? What about carrying a device that would allow me to slit their tire and be on my way? I know that I am supposed to turn the other cheek and I feel like I confronted him calmly and respectfully, but to what avail? He's more than likely still going to act in such an abhorrent way. After all, his friends were chuckling right along with him.

Maybe you've found a solution. I would love to hear your thoughts/insights/suggestions.

My own personal PSA

Bad News/Good News:

Bad News: So yesterday, I did a stupid thing and accidentally left my newest cell phone (which I just got at the beginning of May) on a flower bed bench that I was sitting on. It was there for maybe 15 minutes, max. When I went back to retrieve it, it was gone. When Troy tried to call it to see if maybe I had put it in my bag or it had fallen into the bushes, someone "answered", he heard gibberish and then they hung up. Despite my repeatedly trying to call it back, no one answered again. I don't get new phones very often and I try to keep very close tabs on mine, so it felt a bit like I'd been displayed naked in the town square and beaten. It was the new Envy2 with the great full keypad for texting and I liked it a LOT!

Good News: Luckily Troy has Verizon as well and they have a neat feature where you can dial *611 from any Verizon phone and cancel service on a phone. So, I did that right away. Luckily I also have the insurance ($4.99 a month (ugh)), so I called them this morning and I should have a brand new replacement phone by tomorrow afternoon! Then I just have to go and have the service reconnected to the phone, I think.

Even Better News: In the course of trying to find the customer service number for Verizon online today, I found they have a great new feature where you can back up your contact lists directly from your phone. That way if it is lost, stolen, damaged, etc and you aren't able to take it into a Verizon vendor and have them move the contacts from your old phone to a new one, they can download it to your new phone. This is a genius idea! How many people have had this exact situation happen to them? If they are anything like me, without their phone, they don't know how to contact anyone. I remember when I was a kid, I had everyone's number memorized. Now I can barely remember my own if I don't have my phone with me. Unfortunately this backup doesn't work for me right now since I didn't do it, but luckily I still have my old phone and will be able to transfer the numbers that way.

So, here's my own personal Public Service Announcement to all of my readers. If you have a Verizon Wireless phone and service, go online right now and back up your contact list!!! If this can help one person, then my job here is done. http://www.verizonwireless.com

Perhaps THIS wasn't the best time to try to get that 401k to grow.

I'm not sure if any of you check the items on the 101 list that are currently in progress. I put them at the top so they are easy for me to update. If you HAVE been watching, you've seen that the progress I've made towards having $XXX,XXX in my 401(K) has been going the WRONG direction. This isn't because I've foolishly been dipping into it to feed my wild lifestyle (HA!). It's simply because it has been losing money. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat.

At first, I wasn't terribly bothered by the dip in my balance. I kept reassuring myself that I was buying those stocks On SALE every time my contribution hit my account. In fact, I even upped my contribution %. I thought, "They're on sale! I should stock up!"

Let just say that my enthusiasm for this line of thought has wained considerably. Despite raising my contribution level, I have "lost" over 10% of my account value since the beginning of the year. That means that, despite having put about 15% of my pay into my account since the beginning of the year, my actual account balance is only VERY slightly above what it was on January 1, 2008.

Now many of you, myself included at times, will say that I haven't actually lost anything. I still own all of those stocks. I don't think that really counts when they aren't worth as much and the value keeps dropping every day.

All of this is to say that perhaps trying to get to a certain dollar amount by July 15, 2009 may be out of my grasp. When I made the goal, I had to earn a tiny .023% of my account balance each day or 8.7% annually. Because of my losses over the last 9 months or so, that amount has grown to 23%. Now come on, people! Is that really going to happen? After all, I don't think we're in the Clinton administration anymore, Toto.