An actual Big Thought

I'm reposting because what I wrote below is vague, shallow, and silly and really, who cares? Here's what really stopped me in my tracks in Texas:

We threw a giant outdoor festival for the survivors of Galveston. They've been through two storms that essentially wrecked the island, and we wanted to help and encourage them. Part of my job was to stand on a chair with a bullhorn and tell the incoming folks what they'd find inside. Three things made them look like they wanted to mow me down so they wouldn't miss out: Free haircuts (because who has money for that when you've lost everything?), free family portraits (these folks had lost all their pictures), and a small gold ticket for free groceries. I didn't know whether to cry or throw up, the need was so great, and what I could offer so small. All I could do was smile, try to convey some love and encouragement, and run through my mandatory shpiel as fast as possible.

A friend who was in the prayer tent told me about one woman he met who was hoping God might help her husband get off of drugs...but this was the THIRD thing on her list, after a safe place to live and a job.

I asked a fellow Vineyarder, the wife of our national director, "When does this stop breaking your heart?" "It doesn't," she said, hugging me. "That's the gift of compassion." Here's the thing, though: I don't have the gift of compassion. But what I saw there rammed through all my defenses and made me want to do whatever I could to help these folks. And sometimes the best you can do is run through your shpiel as fast as possible, and then pray for miracles as the crowds stream by.

Big thoughts from a big state

So sorry to have disappeared for a week. I know that violates the cardinal rule of blogging. And it was a week full of bloggable moments, so it broke my heart a little to have no internet connection in the conference center and an iPhone that didn't want to play nice with Blogger.

In a nutshell, the conference was awesome. It was a morning, noon & night kind of event (I'm not sure my blogs would have been coherent had I posted) and I'll likely spend the better part of this week processing it all.

There were great reminders about how easy it is to get off track from what we're called to do with our lives by the urge we all have to please the people around us. So today, I'm thinking about how to resist that without becoming one of those weird creative types who thinks the world is out to get them.

I saw an VERY gifted public speaker who challenged me to raise my game when I speak--when you're really prepared, I realize, you can connect with the audience at a whole different level.

And I met some folks who have been pursuing big dreams for years, and realized that pursuing big dreams is challenging. I tend to forget that. But if something is easy, it probably isn't worth dedicating a whole life to, right?

So that's what I'm mulling over today, now that I'm back in NY with the hawks, our neighbor's pony, and the chickens down the road.

More tomorrow :)

No snakes on the plane (or at the hotel, or in the conference center...)

We're flying to Galveston, Texas this morning for the Vineyard National Conference. I'm excited! I dig getting together with folks from all over the country who like to talk about God and the cool things that can happen when we pray instead of freaking out. As someone with a propensity to freak out, these kind of get-togethers are good for me.

(Especially since I just did a Google search for a picture of Texas to put with this post and found, in addition to the usual "don't mess with Texas" logo, a photo of a guy holding a terrifyingly gigantic Texas rattlesnake. NOT what I was looking for. Granted, it was on the Urban Legands website, but their version of "disproving" it was to say that the perspective of the photo might be off, and that the snake might be "only" seven feet long, rather than nine. LIKE THAT MATTERS!!! I'm already fighting off queasiness because the plane we're taking out of Ithaca is so tiny it has the word "Dash" in the title; I hadn't even thought about snakes. Esh. Note to self: Don't freak out. Pray....)

I'll be twittering from the conference. If you're curious about life down South (or this Northerner's take on it) you can follow along at www.twitter.com/trishryan.

All week, I've had the song "Deep in the Heart of Texas" going through my head, despite the fact that Galveston isn't in the heart of Texas at all. There must be another Texas song, right? Anybody have one? (It will give me something brave to hum on the plane...)

Mop Flop

Sorry for the radio silence this week--I was sick. The good news is that it had nothing to do with pigs or the flu. But suffice to say that the few thoughts I had yesterday were not of the bloggable variety.

Feeling better today, and have an admission to make and a question for you all. First, the admission: on Tuesday, I mopped a floor (several, actually) for the first time in my life. I'd done the whole sponge-on-the-end-of-a-long-stick kind of mopping before, but never the swingy-strings-that-could-substitute-for-a-pretend-horse-when-you're-five kind of mopping. You know, REAL mopping. Given the grungy state of the linoleum floors in our apartment, I went into the endeavor with high hopes and big expectations.

HUGE letdown.

I mopped with all my might, but the floors look essentially the same. No scum was scrubbed off. The dirt barely even budged. The only solace I take from all that effort is that our floors are now VERY disinfected (I wasn't sure how much Pine-Sol to use, so I opted for the "if some is good, more is better" approach.) So now I have dirty floors you could eat off of, and the whole place smells like one of those scented cardboard trees you buy at the gas station to make the inside of your car smell better. A strange result, and probably not enough to inspire me to mop again.

So tell me, helpful, domestically-able readers: Why do you mop? Did I miss something?

Up, Up, and Oy Vey!

If you've read my book, you know that I spent a large portion of my childhood secretly convinced that I was Jewish. I also aspired to be a superhero, meeting with Wonder Woman and Superman at the Hall of Justice every morning to get our assignments for saving the world. (There's really no stopping a little Irish girl from Maine with lots of time and a big imagination...) Until this morning, though, I never saw the connection between these two dreams.

Then I saw a random reference to a book which is now my favorite contender for best title ever: Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History Shaped the Comic Book Superhero.

I mean, how funny (and fabulous) is that??? I'm going to email A.J. Jacobs right now and suggest he devote his next yearlong memoir project to superhero training. After all, it's in his genes!

Then I'm going to search my family tree for one little branch of Jewishness...

Is THIS what Elton John was singing about?

I'm sitting in my office watching a gigantic bird of prey circle over the field across the street. That, along with the HIGH mortality rate of roadside animals here on our the mountainside, is bringing me much closer to the whole Circle of Life thing than ever before. Not sure how I feel about that.

Like many people, when I'm not sure how I feel about something, I analyze it. For example: When I saw the circling bird, my first though was, "Yikes." My second thought was, "Wait...it's mid-afternoon, and almost 90 degrees outside. Wouldn't any lunch-like rodent lying in black dirt right now be broiled?" Then, after a few minutes, I thought, "Maybe the birds like that...perhaps it's a seasonal treat they look forward to all winter?" This, my friends, is why I barely passed biology.

In other circle of life news, Steve's laptop blanked out over the weekend...if you're a Mac user, best avoid Safari 4.0 until they work out the kinks.

Happy Monday :)

Lydia Fair 2009

If you're anywhere near Boston this weekend, you'll want to check out this amazing event at the Greater Boston Vineyard. It's a gathering of artists--musicians, poets, dancers, painters, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers (okay, I'm not sure the butcher has confirmed, but you get the picture)--who have created pieces around the theme of "RESCUE."

Before I moved, I was asked to film a few thoughts about how this theme plays into my writing. If you've read my book or my blog, you know that I'm a huge believer in rescue: happily ever after, princes on white horses, the hero arriving to save the day at the eleventh hour...so this was fun. Here's the video--my thoughts are at the beginning and the end, with some of the other awesome artists in between. (And if you hit the pause button to freeze-frame us at different times when we're talking, it's quite amusing).



One of the pieces in the show is an actress doing a comedic monologue from my book. When Christopher Greco--the director of the show who did the adaptation--asked me if I'd be okay with that, he said he'd be pulling material from a certain chapter. I looked it up and saw that it was the scene where my ex-husband threw a giant jug of change at me and called me a variety of expletives. I thought, "umm...comedic monologue???" Turns out it's a different scene. Which is probably a good thing :)

If you can get there, check it out.
Happy Weekend!

Profound revelations :)

The upside of a long cold is that it justifies daytime sleeping and long, steamy showers. The downside is that after a long, steamy shower, I'm so tired I transition immediately into daytime sleep. It's a vicious cycle.

In happier news, here's a link to the talk I gave Sunday on finding your purpose in life. An eternal question of human existence, SOLVED in a mere 30 minutes! :)

And in the midst of my hectic shower & nap schedule, I'm working on a bio for my new post here in NY, which requires me to divulge a weird fact about myself. Where to begin???

If you had to divulge a weird fact about yourself, what would it be?

Speedy Delivery

So the good news is that we ordered a washer & dryer yesterday, and the nice store people said, "Would you like that delivered tomorrow?" Why yes, we would! (This saved us from our next stop, which was buying new towels and undergarments to get us through the week...)

The not quite so delightful news is that the store called...at 6:30 this morning...to confirm delivery. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I mean, I like doing laundry as much as the next person (okay, I LOVE doing laundry). But I'll take an extra hour of sleep over that any day of the week.

Gotta go--it's 8:08am and they're here!

Live, from New York

Oh, where to begin?

We're here, in our new townhouse in the mountains of New York, listening to the wind blow and wondering where we packed our underwear. Good stuff :)

The move was amazing. I think I'd lost track of how good it feels to let other people help. Sounds ridiculous, right? But I'm rather independent, and that--combined with a strange worry I have about not wanting to bother or inconvenience anyone--led me to build a life where there aren't many situations in which I need to ask for help. But moving all of our stuff out of a third floor condo? There's no way I could pull that off on my own. (Ditto for moving stuff into a three floor townhouse).

So we asked. And I was simply flabbergasted by how generous our friends were with their time, effort and (let's be honest) muscle. Moving out felt a bit like one of those impossible challenges on The Biggest Loser, where teams go up and down stairs endlessly trying to complete the task. Turns out we have more stuff than we remembered, and our friend MacGyver Man stayed in the truck doing all manner of miracles to fit everything together, creating a puzzle that might have earned him a PhD in geometric problem solving had we thought to take pictures.

Then, the next day, after eight hours on the road--Steve in the giant truck, THAT DOG and I following in the car, the two of us communicating by walkie-talkies I picked up at Target (which, it turns out, are WAY more fun to use when you're a grown up), we arrived in Ithaca. And a team of people--some we'd met before, some who only heard we were coming and wanted to welcome us and help--pulled in one by one and moved us in. It was amazing, and humbling, and one of those experiences I'll remember for a long, long time. Sitting around afterwards, eating pizza and comparing notes on where to buy food, register a car, and get a great deal on a washing machine, I thought, "This feels like home..." And it does.

I'm a tired, but grateful girl :)

More tomorrow...

Today's story of stuff

As I'm packing our world into boxes and bins, I've realized something strange: As much as it's become an American pastime to complain about how much stuff we have--how we really should throw out more/buy less/get organized/simplify--that's not true for me at all. Maybe it's because I've moved a lot, or because we've always lived in tiny condos, or because there are whole swaths of my history I have no desire to commemorate...but my experience of packing has not been of the "I'm so overwhelmed/how did we accumulate all this?" variety. Rather, it's made me oddly grateful.

Is it totally uncool to say, "I like my stuff"???

Let me clarify: nothing in these boxes defines me. I'm not overly proud of it, or excited to show it off. There's a chance you could offer the entirety of my possessions at a yard sale and not make enough money to order pizza for friends and family (Unless of course THAT DOG set up a booth to sell autographed pics, in which case you'd clean up...) But for the first time in my life, I guess I feel like I have what I need to set up camp in a new place. Before, with each move, there was always so much I knew I'd need--like there were endless trips to box stores in my future trying to make my new digs a home. I don't feel that this time. I feel like it's the life that will be new for us in Ithaca, not the stuff. I'm excited about that :)

(Omigosh, I just re-read this and it's just a bunch of pseudo-philosophical babble. Readers, I apologize. You deserve better. But I'm on day four of heavy cold meds, and that really is what I'm thinking about. Pitiful (and worse, pedestrian...) but true. I'll be back, hopefully off the meds and with a new internet connection in the great state of NY, next week!)

But if you LIKE my delusional, fogged out musings, I'll be twittering (tweeting?) from my iPhone for the next few days here. Want to see how DayQuil affects my ability to navigate a moving truck down I-90? Come on along!

And now, a question: Do you secretly like your stuff, too?

Pass the Tissues!

I'm not so good with goodbyes. I'd forgotten this about myself. It's been a long time since I've relocated...not since I landed here in Cambridge nine years ago hoping life would somehow get better. It did! But now I'm leaving, which means goodbyes.

The reality of this hit me like a train yesterday. As most of you know, a few years back I wandered into a church where I saw my whole life turn around. Yesterday was my last Sunday as a member there, and let's just say I was unprepared.

Yikes, it was the full-on ugly cry. I have a cold which didn't help, but most of the liquid was the product of a sudden, slightly paralyzing awareness of how much this place and these people mean to me, and how much I'll miss them. I think I've watched one too many episodes of Friday Night Lights, as my mind did one of those montage flashbacks to every important and poignant moment from the past seven years, blinking them through my head one by one. By the end, it's a miracle I could breathe :)

And yet it was an amazingly happy day, in the midst of all those tears. (Maybe that's the difference when you leave to go to something, rather than just run away?) My friend Dave gave an inspiring talk about how Easter doesn't mark the end of Lent so much as the beginning of something new and altogether different, where miracles are really possible. My friends Christopher and Kristina sang songs about hope and possibility that had me up on my feet and clapping, even as I blew my nose (I'll never say I'm uncoordinated again, because this was an amazing feat of multitasking). And right in the middle, a surprise I never saw coming: My friends (and favorite band), Ryanhood climbed onstage to sing the title song from their new CD, The World Awaits.

I was dumbstruck, jaw on the floor, tears running down my face...It was like God sent Ryan and Cameron from Denver or Minneapolis or wherever their last tour stop was just to let me know that even though I'm sad to be leaving, this is absolutely the right thing to do; that Steve and I are going to something good and exciting, and we won't lose what we have here...we'll build on it.

I found this clip on YouTube that you should check out. Listen carefully to the first thing Cameron says as he introduces the song; it sums it up pretty well:

"You're in your house. You have a front door. And you have to go through it."

The World Awaits.

I just need to mop up my face first :)

Big News #2: As Seen On TV...

Okay, that title makes it sound a bit like I'm announcing my appearance on some new reality show...which I'm not (although I take a little time each day to work on my moves in case So You Think You Can Dance should call). You'll understand the title in minute. But first, the Big News: We're moving! Here's the scoop:

Last spring, the first stop of my book tour was Ithaca, NY. I fell a little bit in love with it there--it's a funky city, like Cambridge, but incredibly beautiful like my home state of Maine. I came home from that trip and told Steve, "We really need to visit there sometime." We went back in the Fall to see the leaves change, and it felt like home. A few months later, Steve noticed a job posting on the website of the church we'd attended, the Vineyard Church of Ithaca. Now, Steve is a biotech guy--he wasn't exactly surfing church postings looking for a career change. And yet, it felt like something he was supposed to check out. So we drove to Ithaca in the middle of a blizzard to check it out...

And here we are four months later, packing our stuff into boxes and heading out on a new life adventure! Steve will be an associate pastor at the church, I'll be on the speaking team (which means there will be regular opportunities for you to listen online as I talk about the embarrassing things I do...in case reading about them here on the blog isn't enough).

(I'll be Twittering the move--everything from the giant truck we've rented, wrestling our mahogany dining room table down three flights of stairs, to the fabu rest stops along the NY Thruway--here if you need a chance to laugh AT someone, rather than with them.)

Speaking of which...we've been packing. And my sister was in town, which means I'll try all sorts of crazy things I might not do on my own, including....SPACE BAG. How excited were we to stuff piles and piles of stuff into bags and then vaccum out all the air??? WAY TOO EXCITED. I even took pictures. We started with two pillows:

Then we crammed them into the little bag and tried to use the super-zip plastic device to close the bag. Turns out it's extraneous and we just sealed the bag by hand like a giant zip-lock.

Then out came the vaccum cleaner and WHOOSH! We sucked out every last bit of air until the two pillows looked like this:


Incredible, right? We were beside ourselves with glee, spastically searching for other gigantic things we could squish to one-sixteenth their actual size.

But then, we noticed something sad. The pillows were growing, sort of like one of those monsters on a cartoon you think you've killed but then comes back to life. Twenty minutes later, they looked like this:

Sigh. The Space Bags went back to BB&B, and I'm left to contend with bulky fluffy items with no new and exciting technology to help.

Cheer me up--what are your favorite packing tips? Anything you'd never try again? Share!

Big News, Part 1

I was in Barnes & Noble this weekend, and saw the paperback edition of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not on the shelves!!! They had several copies, right out there for the whole world to buy, almost three weeks before the "official" release date. Elegant creature that I am, I just stood there clutching my latte, staring at the shelf like I'd lost my mind. (THIS is why I'm not on a reality TV show...I'm simply too much of a dork).

Of course I bought a copy, secretly hoping that the girl at the checkout would notice that the name on my credit card and my B&N membership card matched the name on the cover of the book. (Again with the dork theme...) Alas, she didn't (or perhaps she thought I was truly pathetic and was simply kind enough not to mention it?) Anyway, here it is!

The cover totally matches the dress I wore to my senior prom, which means that I have to post a picture as soon as I can dig one up. (If you're having a tough week, now you have something funny to look forward to.)

When I got the book home, I looked it over to see if there were any differences between this edition and the hardcover (aside from the 121 places I'd misspelled my favorite singer's name in the original). Perhaps the biggest change is here in the author bio, and offers a hint at the next part of my big news:



Can you spot the difference?

Reader's choice

I'm running out the door but will be back to post later. I have three blog-worthy items vying for priority in my head: one funny, one about a big life change, and one about the book. (They're somewhat interwoven, but that would make the longest post ever, so I'll split them up.)

Any preference for what comes first?

Accidentally On Purpose

I'm working on a talk right now. The topic is "Finding Purpose" which (I'm realizing now) is a subject so deep and wide that it's pretty much unfathomable. (I did a Google image search to find a picture to post here, and the stuff was all so sappy and impossibly grandiose that I settled for this t-shirt, figuring that at least it's sort of my life purpose...) But in the midst of all the clouds and stars and silly promises, the quest is leading into some unexpectedly great reading:

First, my publisher sent me a copy of Kristin Armstrong's new book Work In Progress: An Unfinished Woman's Guide to Grace, and I dropped everything I was doing and sat right down to read. Here is the first (but by no means the last) thing I underlined:

"We cannot strive our way into being beautiful. We have to relax into it; we need to breathe."

Could I please get someone to follow me around and remind me of this in 5-7 minute intervals? Kristin is gorgeous and elegant and has been through more than most of us can imagine in terms of relational ups and downs. I'm THRILLED to have her thoughts on moving closer to grace. I think it's part of life's purpose, but it's not something you can just do; you (or at least I) need a guide. This is a good one.

Second is Po Bronson's What Should I Do With My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered The Ultimate Question, an unexpected find that jumped off the bookshelf at me as I was browsing through a completely different section of the store. It was misheleved, and I'm grateful to whoever was too lazy to put it back where s/he found it. WSIDWML is a collection of essays about his interviews with people at the beginning/middle/end of some major life transition. Here's my first favorite quote:

"When I started this book, I thought the Question ["What do you do?"] was a scourge on our society, a contagious mental virus transmitted via verbal exchangees. But I'm starting to see that the Question serves a valuable role. The Question is how we hold ourselves accountable to the opportunity we're given.... if you don't like the Question, maybe it's partly because you don't like your answer."

Um, yikes. So harsh, and yet so true. I've spent most of my life HATING the Question, either because my impressive answer ("I'm an attorney") was actually ripping me apart inside, or later, because my pathetic answer ("Um, well, today I took a bath, then petted the dog for awhile, and then spent five hours wondering if and how my life was worth living") wasn't exactly cocktail party material. And yet, I think he's onto something with this idea of accountability. Has me thinking about this whole "opportunity" thing in a new way. Love that!

What do you think of the "What do you do?" question?
(More importantly, are you relaxing/breathing? I hear it helps the pretty!)

City Fun

The Woz was voted off last night. Somebody, somewhere needs to get that man his own reality show. In these dire economic times, we need joie de vivre on a segue scooter!

Speaking of which...my sister and THE NEPHEW are coming to visit tomorrow! There will be elevator rides to the top of skyscrapers (they live in Maine, so skyscraper = anything over five stories) and then we'll drive back and forth through the Big Dig a few times saying, "Hey--we're UNDER the city!!!" My sister and I will pretend it's for him, but hey--we grew up in Maine too. You just don't put your roads under buildings and rivers where we're from (which is why the welcome sign when you enter the state says: "Maine: The Way Life Should Be...").

There's an IMAX movie about bugs I'm pretty sure would haunt me for the next sixteen years, so we'll skip that, along with the one about risk that gives you a real-life feeling of skydiving. I can barely ride an escalator without getting queasy, so I don't thing that's for me. Here's my question: WHEN will the do the giant IMAX film on SHOPPING??? Going into all the biggest stores with an aerial view so you can be the first to spot the bargains??? That, I would stand in line for.

If I see an official looking person at the theater tomorrow, I just might mention it.

The Wizard of Woz

I'm not much of a fan of Dancing with the Stars...as I said in one of my Facebook posts, it's pretty much The Love Boat with more feathers and less water. BUT THEN I saw The Woz, and everything changed.

Two weeks ago, I was channel surfing and saw Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder (and contestant who looks most like an apple), dance like nothing I'd ever seen before. Because of him, this show is must-see-TV for me. He's simply fabulous. (They even showed him in rehearsal, asking for "a five minute thinking break." That's priceless!)

If you're having a rough day, bookmark this video. It's guaranteed to make you giggle:



Go Woz!!!

Balderdash

We were hanging out with friends this weekend. After dinner, they pulled out the board game Balderdash, where you try to make up crazy (but convincing) definitions to all sorts of words most of us have never heard of. It was SO fun.

It reminded me of how much I love these sorts of games, the ones that let you use your grown-up brain in a little-kid sort of way. Pictionary, Cranium--anything that forces you to be creative. Plus, they make you laugh really, really hard, which I count as aerobic exercise.

So...I am timidly contemplating giving up TV for a few months. Not forever, but just for a little while to see what happens in life when I don't have that to lean on. I will probably make an exception for the next season of So You Think You Can Dance, and Red Sox games on Sunday afternoons. But there will be rainy Saturdays, and random Thursday nights with nothing much to do--the perfect chance to increase my board game skill. But which games?

Recommendations?

Tips for Unitasking?

I must stop multitasking. I've spent all of 2009 so far in a frenzied blur of good intentions and half finished projects, darting from one thing to the next like a spastic chameleon who can't decide what color she wants to be on any given day (or any given five minutes, for that matter).

Think I'm exaggerating? In the past ten minutes, I went from reading an Anna Quindlen article about how to write both fiction and non-fiction (an article I clearly need to read, given than today I haven't written much of either) to suddenly remembering that my hair needs gel so it doesn't frizz up, to pouring cold water on the eggs I just boiled, to thinking, "I have to focus...but first, this might make a good blog post..." And so goes my day.

I think things got truly out of hand when we put the condo on the market. There's ALWAYS something when you're in the middle of that--every mark has to be scoured off the counter now, every shed bit of fur from THAT DOG swept immediately. Not to mention the mind games of what your possessions might say to people who come through ("Omigosh I have to hide that copy of The Purpose Driven Life or people will think my life has no purpose!") (And yes, I'm aware that there's some potent metaphor in there about our hidden lives and how we all need to pursue inner and outer synchronicity, blah blah blah, but I'll save that for another day). But even now that we have a great buyer (who may or may not care in any way about my book collection or what drives me) I can't seem to shake the frantic distractedness.

Help! How do you NOT multitask? How do you complete one thing (reading an article, making lunch) without getting distracted and sucked into twelve others?

The World Awaits

I got a fun package in the mail the other day. It was from my friends Ryan and Cameron, guys I met probably 4 or 5 years ago. Our meeting is funny for me to remember, actually, because when I asked them what they did for a living and they said, "We're musicians," I'm quite sure I gave them that barely-concealed, oh-isn't-that-nice-that-you're-manifesting-your-destiny eye roll reaction (the same one people give me when I say, "I'm a writer.") I figured they were your typical wannabes--nice, fabulous, awesome guys--but wannabes nonetheless. You know, like Landry on Friday Night Lights, practicing with his terrible band in his parents' garage.

So you can imagine how shocked I was when I went to hear them play, and they let fly with this:



Amazing, right?

That's when I learned that they have four (now five) CDs out, tour all over North America, the whole deal. Um, not exactly Landry in his parents' garage!

Their band is Ryanhood. The package they sent was their latest CD, The World Awaits. It's amazing. Check out Back Into Blue (my current favorite) and the title track. Goosebumps. It's like they GET the full range of emotions that goes through most of us in any given day, and they've somehow captured it in these songs.

If you're a writer, this is music to write to.

It's reminding me of that quote by a famous dancer (whose name I can't remember right now) about how we're each here to create something, and unless we do the work to create it, the world will be less than what it should be. Good (and hard, but hard in a good way) to remember.

"Go! The world awaits you..."

Thanks guys!

The Flash

So I'm walking into the Mall the other day to buy an assortment of unfun but necessary things, and I'm feeling pretty good about myself. You see, I've been trying to be more careful with what I eat, and it seemed to be paying off--I could feel my jeans hanging low on my hips, fitting in an entirely different way than they did the last time I'd worn them. As I got close to the door, it actually felt like my pants might fall off, which seemed bizarre--I mean, how much weight could I have lost in one week? Still though, there was a bit of a happy saunter to my step.

Then I saw my reflection in the door. My pants felt like they were practically falling off because they were COMPLETELY UNDONE. The hook & eye thing at my waist had unhooked, the zipper was down, and the only thing that kept the whole world from knowing what came between me and my Calvins is the fact that I had my t-shirt tucked in under my sweater.

When I fastened my jeans (which is REALLY hard to do subtly in a mall parking lot in front of the door) they fit exactly the way they did before.

Secrets to Happiness

I am thrilled and slightly depressed...it's only March, but I think I've already found my favorite book of the year.

I've been waiting for Sarah Dunn's follow-up to The Big Love for what feels like forever, so the odds of it disappointing me were high. It soooooo didn't! Secrets to Happiness is one of those amazing, subtle, deep, real stories that pulled me in and wouldn't let me go. I didn't want it to. I felt like I knew these characters. Their reactions and choices made sense even when I knew, as the reader who can see into everyone's minds at once, that they were heading for disaster. Two days later, I still feel this bizarre longing to hop on a train to NYC and visit my new friends, just to see how everyone is doing.

One random thing that shouldn't be important but (if Amazon reviews mean anything) is: The dog on the cover is not part of the story. There are two dogs, but not this dog. If it helps you to know this, then I'm all for helping to set expectations accordingly.

Hope this helps make your March weekend a little bit happier :)

Thanks for the offer, but no.

Monday, I got an official-looking letter in the mail. It was from a collections agency that said they'd been assigned my outstanding debt to Verizon Wireless and were authorized to offer me a negotiated settlement. The terms they laid out were that they'd cut my debt of $198.07 by 50%. To accept this offer, I was to send them a check or my credit card number, and the matter would be taken care of promptly.

Quite a deal, right? EXCEPT that I don't have an outstanding debt (of any amount) to Verizon Wireless. I've never even had a Verizon Wireless account. And what's truly pitiful about this was that I didn't even realize that I don't have a Verizon Wireless account until Steve came home and pointed it out. The letter had me so freaked out, I assumed I must have missed a bill somewhere along the line. Thank God for his level headed reminder, "Um, Trish--we're with AT &T..."

Is this the new scam in these dire economic times? Are evil people sending out fraudulent collections letters, figuring that some folks have so many of these coming in that any deal offering a 50% discount sounds like a bargain (especially if it's in a small amount, say under $100) so they'll blindly send checks and okay credit card payments? That's just evil.

Fortunately, we're in the middle of mortgage stuff for our move, so I have a recent copy of my credit report handy. I looked it over to make sure no one was doing anything funky with my identity. After that was all clear, I started fuming.

Here's my question, in case any of you know: am I supposed to do anything with this letter, or report it some how? Or can I just deep-six it and move on with life?

WOW!

Check out this fun interview with me and the lovely Susan (wait, should it be the lovely Susan and I??? Oh well, whatever...) about the paperback release of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not in this month's edition of Wow--Women On Writing. Thankfully, she didn't ask me about grammar, but she did have some fun questions about motivation, writing about people you know, and other memoir-y topics. Yay!

(That has to be my record for the most links in one sentence. Not sure why that feels like such an accomplishment, but hey--any excuse to celebrate!)

Speaking of which...Happy St. Patrick's Day! I am an Irish girl, and named after the great man Patrick himself, so this might be a great day of revelry and merriment for me...if not for the fact that after a long New England winter, the color green makes me look rather purple. So I'll be lifting up a mojito in July :)

No need for therapy

Here's my new discovery: The answer to the March blahs is...

Puppies.


These are not the actual puppies who effectuated my psychic rescue yesterday, just the closest approximation I could find online. But still, you get the idea, right? It is absolutely impossible to feel blah when you see creatures like this wrestling each other so enthusiastically that they don't notice the big hole THAT DOG dug, fall right in, and keep wrestling. Sigh :)

Happy Monday!

Simple or Complex?

I'm thinking about simplicity today. Not in the usual way--truth be told, the whole "live simply" thing drives me a bit bananas. I've spent most of my adult life looking for excitement. Exciting things are rarely simple, and I don't buy for a second the idea that organized closets really make us all that happy. Sure, we can find things easily when they're folded and labeled (we're selling our condo right now and have unexpected showings all the time, so I'm test-driving a pared-down and organized world that would make Julie Morgenstern proud) but how much does that really matter if we don't have interesting, captivating things to do, work on, fret or dream about? I think deep down, I like things complex.

And yet in small doses, I get the simple pleasure idea. I think yesterday's Barry Manilow post was part of that. But it can't be the whole thing--I mean, Mr. Manilow probably has a complex and interesting life, he doesn't just sit by the window all day singing "Mandy" or "Two Ships that Passed in the Night," right?

Not sure what my point is here, but that's today's deep thought of eternal significance :)

Maybe someday if I start a magazine, I'll call it Real Complex. (Although now that I see it in writing, that looks like something for people recovering from their inner child wounds. Never mind...)

Are you simple or complex? Do you like it?

At the Copa...

Those of you following me on Twitter know that I've been in a bit of a musical time warp lately, humming Barry Manilow tunes under my breath and thanking God I work at home where no one else can hear me. Mock all you want, but the guy knows how to pen a catchy tune, and in these gray days of March I'm all about anyone singing about Daybreak and letting the sun shine, shine, shine all around the world.

I received flowers on Saturday night--completely out of the blue--and I'm amazed by how much they've sustained me after spring hinted at it's arrival and then dove back under three days of weather than only the U.S. Postal Service enjoys. I don't know much about flowers; I can't identify many beyond a basic rose or tulip. But I'm really surprised by how happy this bouquet on my desk has made me over the past few days. It's like a visual reminder that this is just a gloomy season--it's not forever, spring ALWAYS comes--and that color like this will soon burst out all over the place. Let's just say that I'm ready for a burst of color.

The flowers are starting to get that musty smell now, so I think today is the last day of their reign in my office. But it's been nice having this pick-me-up to, well, pick me up.

In the midst of this, I'm reading a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide last September. It reminds me that none of our pick-me-ups last forever, that we all need to find that thing that keeps us going long-term. I wish DFW had stuck around. I would have worked hard to finagle some sort of conversation with him--I mean, he conducted press interviews with big-name publicity outlets at his local KMart after one of his books came out. That's just funny. Instead, I'm reading everything he put to paper, and thinking about how capturing thoughts like this creates a legacy, no matter when or how your life ends. Grim, but strangely encouraging. Especially when I'm humming, Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl...

Okay, let's end on a happy note: What's your favorite Barry Manilow tune?

And she's back

I spent the weekend at a women's conference. It was one of those times I suspect I'll look back on in terms of "before" and "after," as I went there in one of those obnoxious, snotty moods that are almost ubiquitous here in March--frustrated, angry, certain that God had lost my file, wondering what on earth my life was about and quite sure that none of the scheduled speakers had anything at all helpful to say. You might say I was a bit attitudinal on that first night.

Then I spent three days having my attitudinal doors blown off. I'm a happier camper now, thanks to a host of of recalibrating realizations, wise words, and encouraging (and butt-kicking) conversations to get me back on track.

Today, the sun was shining, most of the snow had melted, and I'm looking at flowers some very loving friends surprised me with last night. It's good to be back :)

What do you do to get through the end of winter?

The Tax Man Cometh

I'm working on our taxes today. For writers, this is quite a process, especially in a year you have a book come out. The good thing is that there is income to report (YAY!!!) and expenses to deduct. The challenge is wrestling all those little receipts into some sort of order so that I'm not that frazzled woman with an overflowing shoebox full of paper when we head into the accountant's office.

I may download that Beatles tune to keep me company--both for the jaunty, stay-awake rhythm and the reminder that however complicated my taxes might be, Paul McCartney's are worse.

This is the one day a year where I voluntarily do math. Wish me luck :)

Spelling it right seems like the first step

I'm reading a book called A Resilient Life this morning. It's inspiring--a gentleman in his mid-60s talking about the way good, hard everyday decisions pay off in the long run, giving us the strength, stamina and overall je ne sais quoi that lead to that sense of liking who and what we are as we get older.

He talks about how a family friend once identified a "quitter gene" in his lineage, and how since that day he's spent a fair amount of energy resisting that tendency to give up. What's provocative (to me at least) is that all his hard work has been totally worth it, at least from his perspective. He's achieved many of the goals he set out for his life, enjoys good relationships with family and friends, and has a sense of overall fulfillment that we don't hear much about these days.

He asks this provocative question: What if satisfaction is more important than enjoyment in the long view of life?

The things that lead to satisfaction--discipline, forgiveness (asking for and giving), hard work, doggedness--seldom offer much in the way of immediate enjoyment. But they pay off in the long run with tangible results short term enjoyment can't offer. Books written. Teeth shiny. Body fit. Mind alive. (Okay, I know that's a strange list, but I'm just sort of blabbing this all out before I loose my grip on it and revert to something easy like how THAT DOG seems to be enjoying the new season of The Real Housewives of NYC).

I want those things. But I battle the quitter thing, too. I'm not sure if it's genetics or simple laziness, but I can feel intertia pushing me, suggesting that perhaps tomorrow I might do this or that hard thing, but for today I should just relax...

Here's the question: am I willing to do the the hours of time in front of the computer with just a page and my thoughts (rather than my crew of blogger/facebook/twitter friends) that need to happen to write a third book? The gazillion treadmill sprints necessary for me to get back into my favorite jeans? The endless exfoliating, tweezing, flat-ironing and lip gloss application that keep me from feeling like the "before" footage from some makeover show?

I hope so. Because when I'm in my mid-60s, I want to write a book and say, "All that hard work was worth it. Every bit. Life is good." To do that, though, I need to do some hard work, right?

Today, I'm going to try. I'll let you know how it goes :)

Movie night

We tried to have a movie night last night. Complete failure. I borrowed movies from the library, feeling proud for being so frugal. But five minutes into the first one we realized we'd already seen it ("The dad fell in the well," Steve said, before there had been any mention of a dad or a well). And the second one was simply too bizarre to follow (apparently we lack either eternal sunshine or spotless minds.)

We switched over to DVR'd episodes of Leverage, a show that's ridiculous, but entertaining. I want to be the blond girl who can leap from high places, but I'm not sure a few highlights are enough to make that happen. Then we transitioned to Friday Night Lights. Holy misery, that show has gotten grim. It's good that they have so many low buildings in Dillon, TX or there would be a whole lot of jumping from buildings by non-blonds.

By that point, I was a little past tired, flying headlong into punchy. Steve and I actually had an entire conversation about creating THAT DOG a Twitter account, speculating about the multitudes that might follow. Truth be told, she knows the key to the happy life. Right now she's curled up in a ball on a pile of blankets at the foot of the bed. Later today she'll chew up a few tissues, chase a squirrel across the back yard, and engage me in a game of hide-and-seek with a rawhide chew (why does this ploy work on me? I don't even want the chew...) She's got leadership skills. If she only knew how to type...

(Missed) Photo op

I gave a talk at one of my favorite churches on Sunday. It was so fun. The topic was "Traveling Light"-- how we can walk out forgiveness and not be defined or weighed down by things from the past. As most of you know, this is a subject near and dear to my heart, and I'm always surprised by how sharing my messy, awkward history can be both funny and hopeful.

Our friend Moses was in the back of the room taking pictures while I spoke. The results were hysterical. I should have warned him, as it's not his fault: last year on my book tour, I learned the hard way that I make a bizarre array of weird faces when I speak, rendering me utterly unphotogenic. Put me in front of an audience and suddenly my face is like Jim Carey in The Mask.

Here's one of the "better" shots...


One can only imagine what the rest looked like!
(For those of you that know me--do I do this all the time when I talk??? Nevermind...not sure I want to know!)
Still though, it was totally fun.

What's the worst picture you've ever had taken?

Mauving on

He Loves Me He Loves Me Not has a new cover for the paperback edition (now available for pre-order on Amazon.) I didn't pick it, but I guess it's nice trip down memory lane for those of us who wore dusty pink to the prom.

In other news, I'm twittering now. Or trying to twitter. Struggling not to make internal jokes about how this makes me a twit.

Any advice? You can follow me here. So far we haven't gone anywhere yet, but I expect the bus to leave soon!

Going to the Dogs

We took the niece and nephew to see Hotel for Dogs this weekend. (Oh, to be under ten and have your whole body react to the sugar infusion of a few sips of root beer!) We had fun and they were very brave during the scary parts.

Me? Not so much.

WHAT is the deal with the plucky orphan theme in kid's entertainment??? (And don't even get me started about the sad death of that Golden Retriever at the pound...) THIS is why I my favorite movie is How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Nobody dies. Is that too much to ask for?

To All the Presidents, Everywhere

Happy President's Day!

I'll confess that this holiday doesn't make me think of our nation's top executive so much as it reminds me of my friend Ned. From the time he was a little kid, Ned wanted to be president. The best training for this, he believed, was to be president of smaller things so that when the time came to run the country, he'd be ready. So...

Ned was president of his junior high drama club, the math team, and his high school student council. As an adult he's been elected top dog of his local chamber of commerce and the committee to bring Christmas trees to kids in the hospital. He runs his condo association, a businessman's breakfast group, and the board of a local animal shelter. If you ever want to know who's in charge, look for the guy with the name tag that says "Hi, I'm NED."

I'm not sure he'll ever reach his ultimate goal, but still, I love what he's done. Setting his sights high inspired Ned to take on a lot of things he might not have bothered with otherwise, and I think the people who know him have benefited from his courage. I love the idea that we can still pursue wacky and outlandish dreams even once we're grown up.

So here's to you, Mr. President!

He's just that into her

Right now, as I type this blog post, there are two raccoons up on the three-story house across the street...balanced on top of the chimney...making the next generation of raccoons. It's like some bizarre, pay-per-view circus act. I mean, not only are they working without a net, they're perched over a 110ft. shoot that will plunge them into a fiery furnace if they slip. Yikes.

I called my sister, because she's the nature lover in the family (the only girl I know who did her bridal registry at L.L.Bean) She offered a different perspective: Valentine's Day is coming up, she said. Maybe watching the sun rise over the Boston skyline is the new "it" date in the romantic lives of small city mammals?

She has a point. The view must be spectacular. (Do you think they saw one of those articles about "keeping it hot" and took things a bit too literally?) And I thought the squirrel was strange...

One Random Thing

Have you seen that thing on Facebook, 25 Random Things About Me? I'm a fan of random things, so at first I loved it. But then the lists stared to pile up. Soon I had approximately 9,457,38 random things swimming in my head, and I lost track of who wants to join the rodeo, who eats cold hamburger for breakfast, and who went to kindergarten with one of the Backstreet Boys. So I decided to break this down into more managable information chunks:

Tell me ONE random thing about yourself. Funny, memorable, embarrassing, dull, obvious...you pick.

Here's mine: I just read this article by Peggy Orenstein about how paranoid we've gotten as a society about trying to keep kids "safe." It made me realize how glad I am that I grew up in a time before bike helmets, car seats, and the sad belief that salt and fat are bad for us (I still think they're delicious gifts from heaven designed to make our lives happy, but I know I'm in the minority....)

What's your one random thing?

Thinking Long Term

I meant to put up a new post yesterday, but I kept seeing the bit about Gladys and it made me laugh so hard I couldn't think of anything else to write. Steve and I agree that at some point, we're going to get a puppy or a fish or a gerbil and name it Gladys, so we'll think daily of this woman. "I love Jesus, but I drink a little..." Priceless.

(Okay, I'm pretty sure we won't get a gerbil. Rodents gross me out.)

I'm reading this book right now, which is a pretty amazing piece of work. The author, Caroline Knapp, lived here in Cambridge. When I first discovered her writing I was thrilled about this, and immediately began plotting ways to meet her. You can imagine my sadness to discover that she died several years ago, at the age of 42. But as glum as this made me--when you read a memoir, and then discover the person is no longer with us, it's a bit like losing a friend-- I was astonished by the productivity in her life, and how her work has outlived her. She has four books still in print. (And one you can get for $19 from "certain sellers" on Amazon). That's impressive.

So what's my point in telling you this? I'm not sure, exactly. Except perhaps that Gladys and Caroline have me thinking about what makes life--however much of it we have--work. I think a key for me is keeping a sense of humor, and building towards something that matters on most days. (Last night I attempted to make meatloaf for dinner, and I'm counting it in both categories.)

What would you add to the list?

The Gospel According to Gladys

"I love Jesus but I drink a little."



What can I possibly add to that? Now I know what to write for "religious preferences" on my Facebook page.

Truth In Marketing

I was at the hairdresser's the other day when the rep for their new hair care line came in to check on inventory. I mentioned to Andrea, the genius who wrestles my hair into submission every six weeks, how I liked the smell of the shampoo. She told me something about the type of protein in this product, and how it's better for your hair because it comes from humans, rather than vegetables. Overhearing us, the Rep came over and joined our conversation, describing how vegetable protein can build up on hair and damage it. "It's much better to use protein that comes from humans, so you don't have a problem with overproteination."

"I've never thought to worry about overproteination," I admitted, struggling to keep a straight face. Then I asked what seemed like the next logical question: "How do you get the human protein?"

Silence. A panicked look crossed his face.

Me: "Are there rooms filled with women in third-world countries, all sitting over bowls and wringing the protein out of their hair to sell to Americans?" He didn't find that funny. Then the lady next to me said something about boiling hair to get the protein out, after which another hairdresser piped in with, "I thought they harvested it from dead bodies?"

The poor rep looked like he was going to pass out. I'm pretty sure he spent the weekend memorizing his fact sheets for "Answering Tough Product Questions." Really, though, he shouldn't worry too much. My favorite moisturizer "Contains the proteins found in young, healthy skin!"

Makes you wonder what they mean by "found"...

Back to basics, I guess

A real estate listing I saw today:

"This exceptional home features a fully-peaked roof and sheet rock walls."

Seriously, walls are a feature now? And a roof with a point on top? (As my brother in law pointed out, what does it say about the floors in this place that they're not even mentioned?)

I'm calling our realtor first thing tomorrow to ask him to add "sheet rock walls" to our condo listing.

Chicken a la Trish

We're in the midst of keeping our condo really, really spiffy-clean so our realtor can show it to prospective buyers. There's a chance I'm finding this a little stressful. There's a chance I just pulled a container of chicken stock out of the refrigerator, only to have the top fly open, sending eau de poultry ALL OVER the kitchen. There's a chance I uttered an expletive. There's a chance I uttered five.

(And there's a chance THAT DOG now hears swear words as a call to arms...she came flying into the kitchen and set to work immediately, licking at the floor and cabinets...)

I'm taking the My Big Fat Greek Wedding approach to this fiasco, trusting that Windex will make everything better. It will, right?

Wise Words on Writing, Part 2

Here are the other pearls of wisdom Heather King shared with me about her writing process (and the questions they raise for me):

I might spend an hour at my desk, another day I might spend eight, but in a way, I’m always writing, even while I’m asleep. I’m pondering, sifting, experiencing, observing, making connections.

I just spent 10 days in New England with my family, for example, during which I didn’t write at all. I don’t keep up with the news much, and when I arrived home I read something about NY Times reporter David Carr’s Night of the Gun, which others are apparently touting as “saving” the memoir and which I, after reading a bunch of stuff about it, decided was complete bullshit. With my pent-up energy I went into a kind of fugue state, and spent probably 15 hours writing a 1600-word piece about truth in memoir, which I sent off the next day to the first place that came to mind, the L.A. Times op-ed page, and which was promptly rejected because they’d already run a piece about the book two weeks before. Which was disappointing, but it was 15 hours well-spent: hours of absorption, challenge, and joy. The ideas I honed will stand me in good stead.

The point is, something moved—in me, in the universe. And though that might appear on the surface to have been an impulsive act, I’m very aware of and controlled about my resources and energy. I have a pretty strict discipline of prayer, Mass-going, exercise, etc., which is exactly what has given me the freedom to write about exactly what I want, and, I believe, why I’ve been able to make a living (amazingly, and however meager) these last few years from my writing.

I particularly love two things about this:

First, the idea that we're writing even when we're not, as our mind sifts through all manner of stimuli, connecting things in unexpected ways. And second, the idea of being aware and in control of our resources. I'm great at the first part--writing even when I'm not writing. But the discipline part drifts in and out of my life like the tide, which is a bummer because I'm SO much happier when I'm in some sort of good routine.

How do you find the best shape for your days?

Heather King on motivation

You've heard me wax poetic about Heather King and her amazing memoir. A few months ago, I emailed her, asking (although I may not have put it in quite these words) for a kick in the butt--thoughts on how to keep on keeping on as a writer. Now, on the eve of REDEEMED's paperback debut , I thought I'd share her wise words. Here's part 1:

An interviewer asked me recently if I had any advice for aspiring writers, and I replied, “No. Either you have to write, or you don’t. If you do, you won’t need my 'advice'; and if you don’t, you’re doing something other than writing as I know it." I return again and again to this quote from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

"In the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied to you to write. This above all--ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: Must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this shall be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple I must, then build your life according to this necessity; your life into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it."

So it’s not a matter of staying motivated: do you have to “stay motivated” to want sex with the person you love, to breathe? Rilke’s point is that you have to go inward; the motivation, if that’s the word—I like desire better—has to be to take writing literally as a matter of life and death, and to arrange your life accordingly. The way you arrange your life isn’t going to be the way I arrange mine, but that’s the beauty of it; our entire lives, each precious and unique, become an act of ongoing creation. I think what makes writing “hard” is when your goal is to get attention and praise for yourself, or some variation of that—which, trust me, I am as prey to, if not more prey to, as the next person. But if you’re burning to tell something, out of love for the world, for God, to give glory to Him; because you’ve gotten a taste of the “living water” and you’re on fire with astonishment and wonder, then nothing can hold you back. Your life will order itself, and so will your writing day."

What matters to you so much that you arrange your life around it?

My story of stuff

We're selling our condo. Which means we've spent the past three weeks decluttering, just like the folks at HGTV suggest. They have a point...when I start to think of this as someone else's future home, it just seems rude to leave my junk all over the place.

I'll tell you--nothing makes you realize your hidden pack-rat tendencies like preparing for a move. For example, I have suits I haven't worn in more than a decade. I don't want to wear them again--they were uncomfortable back then; I can only imagine what a day in them would be like now. But I save them because--say it with me!--What if I need them someday???

We have a blender, but we don't blend; a Pampered Chef gadget designed to stomp on veggies and cut them up, but our knives work just as well and are easier to clean; a pile of plastic plates and cups (who even knows where they came from?), but in the rare instance where I manage to cook something other folks might eat, real plates are clearly called for. Don't even get me started on the abandoned electronics that might work again someday, or the 72,496 plastic hangers I keep crammed into a bag in the basement.

My friend Opera Girl just moved. She told me, as we packed up her stuff, that she never realizes what she doesn't need until she moves into a new place--that her Goodwill drop is always after the move, rather than before. I can see her point. Who's to say I won't learn to love a blended smoothie in a plastic cup, as I suit up everyday to I craft brilliant prose on that electric typewriter? Stranger things have happened...

...but not that often.

Help me! What are your secrets for sorting, moving, and/or dealing with stuff?

Big Dreams Come True

I have an embarrassing admission, here on the eve of inauguration day. I was just reading my friend Dave's blog, where he talks about how powerful it can be to have a big dream, and to tell people about it (even if sometimes those people think you're nuts). This is what my whole life is about, in some sense--the idea that God gives us these audacious, crazy dreams than can only happen if we let Him help and guide us. Given this, I am stunned and mortified to realize that until just now, I've never read the full text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream Speech. (Maybe I read it, but I've never READ it, if you know what I mean...)

If this is you, too, I'm posting it below. READ it. Think about how much of what MLK saw back then--in his heart, rather than with his eyes--has come true. Consider the possibility that the dream God put in your heart might be true someday, too. And then tell someone about it.

"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

What's your dream?

Tough Love on Memory Lane

Omigosh, I cannot wait to see the movie version of He's Just Not That Into You! I don't even know why--maybe I'm a glutton for punishment? It will probably be two hours of torture, a chance to relive all the times I refused to see that various hes just weren't that into me. You'd think, given my book and all, I'd have had enough of that by now. Apparently not.

I feel like this movie might mark some sort of turning point for women and dating and relationships. And let's be honest...we could use a turning point. I wonder, though: as much as the book launched a whole new vocabulary around male/female interactions, how often do we use the title phrase in the way it was intended?

Have you ever told a friend, "He's just not that into you?"
Has anyone ever said it to you?
How'd that go?

Salt doesn't make me light

Last March, I came out of the closet as a salt-a-holic. I confessed my weakness, threw out all the little packets of soy sauce lurking in our fridge, and went cold-turkey. Hooray for salt-free me.

For months, it went well. Admittedly, I never reached that fabled point nutritionists all insist is possible, where my taste buds "adjusted" and realized that the true flavors and textures of my food were subtle, wonderful, and oh-so-much more enjoyable without the salt enhancement. That, my friends, is simply a lie. But I lost that puffy look and regained my peripheral vision (which disappears when your eyes swell up--have you noticed?) So all in all, it was worth it.

Then last week, on a cold day when I was at home feeling gray and hungry, convinced there was nothing worth eating in our entire house, I found something bizarre in our cupboard: a small bottle of Lowry's Seasoned Salt. (And the fact that someone took the time to make a video review to sing this product's praises suggests that I might not be alone with my salt issues). I have no idea how the bottle got there--I didn't buy it; Steve has never heard of it. It's as if some salt demon showed up at our house and booby-trapped our kitchen.

Well, it worked. I was off to the races. Over the course of the next thirty-six hours, I had myself a salt extravaganza. I've made popcorn, butter & pasta, grilled cheddar cheese wraps...all liberally enhanced with LSS. Worst of all, through a mortifying process of self-justification, I convinced myself that Lowry's Seasoned Salt isn't really salt...it's Lowry's. Pitiful!

Today, I look like someone punched me in both eyes. My fingers are so swollen I can barely type. You don't want to know about my feet (Most people have "fat jeans" they keep for these sorts of days, but "fat shoes"???)

So here, before you, my blog family, I'm climbing back on the wagon (as fast as my swollen arms and legs will let me). I'm going out to the kitchen right now to throw away the Lowry's...lest succum to temptation and bake up this recipe for Hot Dog Casserole that popped up when I Googled Lowry's!

Tell me something you've successfully given up--coffee? chewing gum? exercise?

Chinese Woman, 107, Seeks First Husband.

What advice would you give this 107 year old aspiring bride about life and love?

Problem, meet solution

If you've been reading for awhile, you know we have an extra resident who likes to hang out on our deck. He's a bit of a party-boy, and has a way with the ladies.

I'm going to leave this article out there this afternoon, just to make sure he knows how good he's got it. (Still, he should be careful-I've got English blood somewhere in my family tree...)

Would you eat squirrel?

Important questions, important answers

I'll admit, it never once occurred to me over the course of the 2008 Presidential election to wonder about Sarah Palin's lip color. Which is odd, as I'm someone who wonders about these sorts of things (believing as I do that lip gloss is a gift from God and tangible evidence that he loves us).

But apparently everyone else on the planet was having this discussion, because I found the super-secret lipstick combination in perhaps the least likely of places...page 19 of this week's New Yorker. I'm fairly certain this is the only makeup tip I've ever found in it's austere pages:

"For a full day of wear, cover your (entire) lip with L'Oreal Automatic Lip Pencil in Nudes, soften with a brush or smudge it with your finger, and add a thin coat of Carmex. Top with a swipe of Chanel Glossimer in Giggle, and you are good to go."

Now we know.

THAT DOG Loves A Parade

I found Don Miller's new blog after hearing through the grapevine that he had a new puppy. There's not much that provides better blog material than canine hijinks, so naturally, I had to check it out. I got more than I expected, in the best possible way. His most recent post, about how friends of his started a neighborhood New Year's Day parade because their kids were bored and whiny, was too fabulous not to share. Enjoy!

(If it weren't garbage day here on my street, I'd be tempted to round up my neighbors right now...)

This got me thinking about THAT DOG'S first parade. It was Memorial Day, and a certain former President with a summer residence in my hometown was slated to speak when the parade stopped in the town square. THAT DOG was about five months old, and I'd brought her with me to "socialize" her (which is dogspeak for "do your best to make sure your puppy doesn't freak out around strangers." That I ever thought this necessary seems hysterical to me now.)

Right before the President's speech, THAT DOG made a lighting-fast move on a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup dropped from a passing toddler's hand. Before I could stop her, it was gone; she licked her chops and looked at me as if to say, "What? She dropped it...it was fair game..."

Chocolate is poison to dogs. I freaked out, trying frantically to calculate the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter in an RPC, wishing I'd paid some sort of attention in high school math class (or science class, or any class that teaches you how to eject swallowed food from a living creature's body), and watching THAT DOG for signs of convulsions.

I needn't have worried. As it turns out, THAT DOG is built for culinary danger. Her digestive system is essentially just one long tube passing from one end of her to the other. Four minutes later--just as the President began his speech--THAT DOG assumed the position...and deposited the peanut butter cup (along with whatever else was in her) in the middle of the town square.

It was her first (and thusfar only) act of political protest.

How about you--have you ever been in (or disrupted) a parade?

To meet or not to meet

Author Joshua Henkin (whose book, Matrimony was one of my favorite novels last year) just sent me a link to this article about his experience visiting book clubs as they discuss his book.

I did a few of these when my book came out. The ones where I visited in person were SO much fun--it was like discovering a roomful of new best friends (because honestly, what bonds women faster than discussing our romantic hopes and failures over a nice Chardonnay?) The phone in calls were a mixed bag, though. Some groups were open and friendly, and I felt like I was right there with them, laughing and considering different perspectives. But others were incredibly awkward, as if I'd somehow found out they were discussing my book and called in without warning to crash their party. I wasn't sure what to make of this, until I had this interesting conversation with a young mom I sat next to on a plane.

We were making the usual small talk. I was on tour for the book, so that came up, and I (trying to spare her from making the obligatory "Oh--I'd love to read your book!" comment) segued into my favorite conversational topic, asking "What do you like to read?"

She told me about her favorite authors, and recommended a few titles she'd really loved.

"Which author would you most like to meet?" I asked next, caught up in her obvious enthusiasm for escaping into stories.

"None of them," she said, a baffled look crossing her face. "I don't want to meet authors, that would give me too much information. What if I decide I don't like them? Or they see their stories differently than I do? That could ruin everything. If I like an author," she said, "what I really want them to do is stay home and write more books..."

This got me thinking. I LOVE meeting authors. The vast majority of them have exceeded my expectations in terms of how openly they share about their inspiration, their struggles, the funny little things that happen in the course of writing. And the ones who aren't nice are not nice in such a memorable, over-the-top way that it's still worth the time to drive out to meet them. When my book came out, I was excited to join the ranks of the fun, open authors, and excited to meet the people who had read my book. It never crossed my mind that they might not want to meet me...

But as I sat there on the plane, pondering the young mom's comments, I could totally see her point. And even Henkin admits that his scenic tour of book clubs has delayed completion of his next novel.

How about you? Do you like to meet authors (or other people whose work you've either loved or hated)? Or do you prefer to keep a wall between those worlds?

Another way to say: Game On

I just found this gem of a New Year's post on the blog of awesome author, Holly Kennedy. I'll link to it, but I wanted to quote her here in full because it's just so fantabulous:

"Whoop! 2009 is finally here.
A fresh start.
Time to kick away the stool and take some risks.
Time to focus on what's ahead vs. the puddles we may have had to jump in 2008.
If you're a reader, I hope you're in the middle of a gem of a book you didn't see coming.
If you're a writer, I hope the characters you dream up this year make your [work in progress] stand out from the masses.
And for everyone else, I hope 2009 is a year you'll never forget, in the best possible way."

Amen to that!
Time to kick the stool away, friends...happy January :)

(And when you find that gem of a book, let me know...I'm always looking for a new read!)

2009 !

Happy New Year!

2009 is off to a fun start here in Ryan land. I'm fighting off a bit of a cold, but it's the good sort of cold, if you know what I mean: I feel just woozy enough to spend the day curled up on the couch with a blanket, but not so bad that I'm forced to down knock-me-out meds 24/7. The upshot of this is that I've already read two very cool books on spirituality and life that have broadened my little horizons, which is for me the happiest way possible to start a new year. (I know, the cover on the second book looks incredibly grim...trust me, no one was more surprised than me to find such great stuff inside. If you like your spirituality straight/no chaser, these books are filled with stuff to keep you thinking for months to come.)

I realized yesterday that New Year's Day might just be my favorite holiday. It's a day of both relaxation and possibility, where we actually have the time we always say we want, to sort out our lives and decide who and how we want to be in the days to come. As someone who loves to think about the future, this is my kind of day off! And I'll confess, I'm pretty excited about 2009, both because of some fun things I know about (the paperback of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not comes out in April, and we're planning a move to a new house between now and then) and some stuff I'm hoping for, but not sure exactly how it will all play out.

A friend of mine defines happiness as "when life exceeds your expectations." That's the kind of year I'm praying for in 2009--for me and for you, my fine blog friends. Happy New Year :)