ok i know i haven’t written in two weeks.

And i’m not going to write for two more.

BUT when i do get back in two weeks, I’ll have lots to say

about moonlit accordion music 
and gelato
and shopping
and history
and traveling with friends
and flying
and eating and eating and eating
and hostels 
and marble
and paintings
and frescos
and la dolce vita
and scooters
and gondolas
and wine
and amore
and all of that.

ciao!

I love nerd camp.
Nowhere else do I get to see 330 kids do Japanese Taiso on MU’s quad in the morning, teach a class and watch students get excited about writing / designing the MSA newspaper, hold a discussion on facebook and philanthropy (learning some cool new websites for myself in the process), see a steel drum band (did you know they originated in Trinidad and Tobago?), sit in a master class with Missouri’s Poet Laureate, all in one day.

It’s the happiest place on earth, but I’m also exhausted. You may have noticed I haven’t written in two weeks. The days here are so long, and yet the weeks fly by so fast.

So I’ve had a lot on my mind in the last two weeks (obviously. I’m working at a camp made of, by, and for gifted people…)

One theme that keeps popping up in my life is randomness. Mainly the complete randomness of friendship, and the random appearance of inspiration. Some examples:

1) Amanda and I went to a “The Network” event a few weeks ago, and sampled wine with other young professionals. I giggle at that term, “young professional”, though I suppose it applies. I am young. I am employed. I am trying my best to be successful and involved in the community. I own more than one pair of The Editor pants.
Anyway, we’re having a grand old time sampling wine and pretending to be grown up, and I start thinking about how strange it is that we came to be friends. We didn’t live in the same dorm freshman year, but we started to know each other because we both chose to take tap-dancing as our 1 hour activity credit. (Yes, destined to be BFFs.) We were acquaintances freshman year thanks to that, and then randomly ran into each other at the pre-class BBQ sophomore year. We sat with some friends and watched the fireworks (Drury! Nostalgia!) and then decided to meet for lunch the next day…and we met for lunch ever after.

2) I was apartment hunting in between meetings one day, walking near the square, and this cute little family stops me saying, “are you from the area?” and asks how to get to the nearest Braums. I point them in the right direction. Later that same night, I’m walking back to my car after A Midsummer Night’s Dream, feeling all warm and happy, and this car-ful of girls calls out to me, over the blasting Rihanna, “do you know how to get to Icon?” Why yes, yes I do. I’m cooler than I seem. Let me point you in the right direction.
Neither of these moments really had all that much significance, I realize, but I tend to pull significance out of the smallest corners of the day. It just made me really happy to imagine being a citizen of downtown, and knowing it’s my neighborhood. Let me show you around.

3) Finally, one night I was running to Dillon’s for some late-night grocery essentials, around 9:00, and I happened to overhear a conversation taking place near the display patio furniture. Some employees were taking their smoke break, and one of them was telling a story: “My son got the strangest voicemail the other day. Got it traced, and the number was in the Marshall Islands. All it is, is this foreign guy saying LIFE! LIFE! LIFE!”

The randomness of life is so beautiful. Every day 10,000 poems go unnoticed.

Ok so next. Love. Oh, if this isn’t on my mind at MSA and anyplace else… I really am working on curbing the obsession, and I’m making good progress. I didn’t read too much into the fact that the short films I liked the most at The Animation Show were the ones about awkward love. But seriously, watch this one.  (um…don’t watch it at work!)

In trying to think less about love, I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot. I’d like to think that it’s in a more healthy way. In observing how my mind works, hopefully I can figure out what isn’t working, and fix it before I get anywhere near a relationship again.
For instance, I had a little epiphany at the eye doctor last week. Will reserve any metaphors about “seeing clearly” and what not. But I’ve been thinking lately (partly thanks to Eckhart Tolle, partly thanks to various hit-and-miss boy situations, partly thanks to MSA and all the amazing people it brings my way) that I could be “in love” with everyone. Now I don’t mean that literally, of course. What I mean is the intense interest, the heart-pounding excitement at life I can feel while talking to someone, should not be reserved for those I’m “in luv” with…this is a big lesson to learn: that connections with ALL people can be valuable, because all people are valuable. And we are all connected. Knowing this also makes those near-misses easier. I don’t need just ONE person to fulfill my need for relationship. (well, some good old fashioned monogamy and all that goes with it is what I ultimately want…hear that, universe?) But there’s something about community. Something about being open to sharing life with everyone I meet. Being open to recognize the LIFE that is within them.

Hm.

Ok one more thing. Decided the day before I left, over a delicious turkey sandwich at the Mudhouse, that I was going to try to eat vegetarian at MSA. At least one meal each day, if not entirely. I tried it for a week at MSA 06, after watching Supersize Me and reading Fast Food Nation at the same time. I love the IDEA of being vegetarian, for the health benefits, ecological consequences, animal right issues, all of it. I also think the structure of cafeteria food, though its selection may not be the best, is at least outside my routine, and so this is a good time to attempt something new. It’s actually been going really well. I think I’ve only caved TWICE this week. One chicken sandwich, and maybe some fish here and there. I’m not letting myself become smug, and I’m trying to not make too big a spectacle of it…though I am pretty excited. I’m falling in love with tofu. I’m all about hummus. I’m digging the leafy greens.

1)  It’s summer dishes time again!  My favorite aisles at Target and Wal-Mart are filled with colorful plastic kitchenware…all for 1.99 or less.

2)  Foxboro Hottubs:  Green Day does 60s rock = my new summer soundtrack.

3)  Good friends who love nerdy board games.  Favorites:  Apples to Apples, Quiddler, Settlers of Catan, any and all trivial pursuit…

4)  It’s summer movie season.  Batman will be here before you know it.

5)  New Mountain Dew flavors! Glory be!

6)  David Sedaris has a new book, y’all: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

7)  In just one week I will be hanging out with 330 of Missouri’s smartest kids, working with the most positive, creative staff in the world. 

8 )  Ira Glass in St. Louis in September…though fall is really to far away to even imagine right now.

It’s all good.

It is past 3:00 a.m., and with the weekend I have ahead of me (bachelorette weekend! wine! friends! catching up!) I should be asleep.  But for good reason I’m not tired.

Just saw The Sex and The City Movie, and it is perfect.  It is all that I hoped it would be, and I can’t wait to see it again with any and all friends who would like to.

Leaving the theater, chattering with 2 girlfriends of mine, I was caught up in the buzz of excited voices, 100 other friendships blending together in the hallway.  The EXPERIENCE of this movie is every bit as enjoyable as the movie itself.  The moments of spontaneous applause.  Collective shock.  Full House soundtrack-like “ooooh”s.  Delicious.

At a scene near the very end (which I can’t reveal, for fear of spoiling)  I was crying, for reasons bigger than the movie…and that’s when I realized a bunch of different things at once.

This movie IS bigger than the movie.  For me, what makes this whole thing meaningful is so much more than shoes and romantic plots and snappy dialogue.  

I feel like these characters are friends, in a way, in that I can see bits of myself in each of them.  In their flaws, their failures, their friendships, their f*ing things up, their figuring things out. 

Sitting there, tearing up in the theater, I realized this moment and this show are about friendship. Hokey as it sounds.  Not the friendships in the show, though they are fun to watch, but my friends.  The episodes we’ve watched over glasses of wine, the trivia games, the ex-boyfriend comparisons, the “that reminds me of the episode…” moments.  It’s all silly, I know, but it’s also REAL.  This show is something I’ve shared with many of my friends, and thousands of strangers.

The show is about so much more than shoes. 

It’s about how men can do terrible, unforgiveable things in relationships. 
It’s about how women can absolutely do the same.
It’s about how sometimes two people can seem to have it all together, but inside be falling apart.
It’s about how sometimes two people have every reason to fall apart, but find a way to stick together.
It’s about making the same mistake until you finally learn from it.
It’s about second chances.
It’s about PUNS. Glorious, snarky, eye-rolling puns.
It’s about WRITING.
And yes, it’s also quite a bit about shoes.

So I cried, feeling all those things in one split second, and realizing also for all the 100s of reasons that are more complicated, this is perhaps the most easy to explain:  Jason and I will never work because this is a moment (this movie, these feelings) he wouldn’t understand.

I recall a fight we had A LONG time ago (long enough ago that I would’ve been defending Spongebob Squarepants.  Oh, 19-year-old me…) when we weren’t getting along, and I was making friends with a boy who got along with me quite well. I liked Spongebob, as did this friend, and Jason did not. I don’t remember any details really except for him saying, “you would break up with me over Spongebob F*cking Squarepants?!”

And I didn’t then.
But I would now.  

Coulda Woulda Shoulda.

Back to the blogging roots…a few notes on running:

iMix:
The best is yet to come—michael buble
You know me—the format
Somebody told me—killers
Rebellion—arcade fire
The last time—gnarls barkley
Closer to mercury—wheat
Be gentle with me—the boys least likely to
if you really love me—stevie wonder

Running. I’m happily addicted once again. I don’t know how I was able to take a break from it for so long. (Well, I wasn’t able to really.  Winter was rough.  Stressed, depressed, back with ex-boyfriend for a while.  A dark time.  Then along came the spring, and thank God life is turning around.)  It’s still the best way to clear my head and feel better about everything in general.

I like running after the rain (aside from the super-steamy feeling). The splashing feet, the smell of wet grass.  Downtown Springfield in the rain smells like fishing.  At one point like Silver Dollar City…you know, the mixture of pavement and plants and soggy shoes?  I did learn a handy tip today:  you’re supposed to put newspaper in your shoes after a rainy run.  Thanks, google.

Sorry I have been gone for so long, dear readers.  What with the semester ending, planning for MSA in June and two weeks in Italy in July, and a couple other big changes that are on the way, I just haven’t had the time to sit down and write.  Plus I’m trying to finish many books at once…

• The God of the Small Things (I have to finish this for MSA Reads)
• Eat, Pray, Love (want to read this again before Italy)
• As the Romans Do (obvious reasons)
• Truth in Comedy (being funny is hard work, and I have to take 6 weekends off from performing)
• Donors are People Too (this has a lot to do with the new big changes)
• PLUS skimming all my writing books for good readings/exercises for the class I’m teaching…

AND after the recommendation of multiple friends, I started Twilight, a 500 page teen-romance-horror monster that I can NOT put down.

Suddenly I’m 14 years old again.  I giggle at the intensity of this high school romance.  And also just can’t believe how intense my feelings used to be.  The things you imply as a sixth grader that you have no intention whatsoever of fulfilling… (at least I didn’t, and I still can’t fathom that some twelve year olds DO. DAMN!)  This book is just delicious. It’s 500 pages of pure literary junk food, and I’m eating it up. 
I honestly love that I get to work at a camp for sixteen year olds this summer, because I KNOW that a large number of them will love it too, and we can chat about it and I can forget for a minute or two that I’m almost 25.

PS it’s going to be a movie…check the trailer, also delicious…

But what are these “big changes” all about, you ask?  Well, all in good time, dear reader.  There are some important people in my real life who do not know, so I feel like I should tell them first.  Plus I have to have some suspense to keep you coming back when I don’t write for 2 weeks at a time…

Let’s just say I’m learning that when you say to life: “I’m open to something new,” sometimes life listens.  It’s exciting and challenging and a little scary—as most good new things are.

Now don’t get any ideas, dear reader.  It is springtime in Springtown, and what with all the green grass and bunnies hopping and clear nights fit for strolling, a single girl’s in extreme danger of getting a little antsy.  But the love I’m talking about has nothing to do with a boy, and everything to do with just hanging out with me, and some totally amazing excellent discoveries.

1)  Park Central Library

I had some time to kill between meetings downtown last week, so I decided to kill it in the new downtown library. And I’m totally in love.  I can’t wait for the semester to end so I can spend some quality time with my computer and my Italy guidebooks and feel 10x cooler than I am while doing it.  (It’s that kind of place.)

I’m reminded, of course, of my first love:  Christian County Library in Ozark.  When I was pre-kindergarten-ish, mom would take me to story time in the kids section. 

This is where I memorized Old Hat New Hat before I was old enough to read. 

This is where I had my first experience at laughing out loud at a book, some book of poetry about vegetables…I don’t even remember the title, but I remember how excited I was to discover I could take it home.

This is the first place I put together “books” and “magical”, and somehow between the huge paper mache dinosaur, and the friendly little old ladies, and the story-themed costume parties, it stuck.

I’m still kind of in love with libraries.  I love holding a book from the Drury library that hasn’t been stamped checked out in eight years. 
Twenty years.

It’s just been waiting, all this time, for me. 

2)  RadioLab

I think I might just have a new favorite podcast.  It’s funny, smart, interesting, tells a good story, teaches good facts.  (Shoot. If it gave good hugs and looked good in shorts I’d ask it to marry me.)

RadioLab from WNYC is the perfect blend of nerdiness and “woah cool!” facts and humor and human connection.  Seriously. Stop reading and go to iTunes and download one.  I started with “Stress” and moved next to “Laughter”.

(A highlight:  female baboons prefer “Alan Alda” to “Schwarzenegger” males. “When it comes to evolution, nice guys do not finish last.”  Oh this makes no sense, you say?  Trust me.)

Of course I’m reminded of my first love:  This American Life.  It all started when I would listen to these while I did dishes in my apartment last year.  I’d heard good things and caught bits of episodes here and there, but it wasn’t until I stopped to really appreciate it by myself, for myself, that I discovered I was kind of in love with it.  Watching Ira Glass live a couple of weeks ago only made the heart grow fonder.  Hearing him say that at least 50% of his creative process is just trying to come up with good ideas, and that it took him a long time to get good at what he does.  It gives me hope. And it all has a lot to do with #3.

3) Stories

This one is not as easy to articulate, but I’ll try.  I’m fascinated by people’s stories, how stories are how we define ourselves, how life and relationships gain deeper meaning through them.

I often (and this is where it gets weird, stick with me) get caught up in the stories of strangers.  It’s why I love a good true story on TV, am drawn to nonfiction writing, and often find myself inspired after trips to Wal-Mart… 

There’s a middle-aged, fatherly man running the speedy checkout one Sunday night.  As I walk up he looks lonely, tired.  I strike up conversation, nothing terribly meaningful, just that my one item is possibly my smallest purchase ever.  And as I walk away I smile and so does he.

What’s weird is part of me really wants to know why he is lonely and tired.  Part of my heart wants to help him.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately that stories are a way to help. 

People who are lonely, depressed, overwhelmed, often just need to feel heard and understood.

Nonprofit organizations need money, there are plenty of people in this town with money to give, but the link has to be more than a vague “cause”, no matter how important the cause may be.  The cause has to be about people, the story of the real man who battles mental illness and can’t hold down a job, the real kid whose life is forever changed by seeing Peter Pan on stage for the first time.

Real connections that remind us we’re all in this together.
Hm. I could think about this for two hours. So I’ll stop now.

…

So let’s not kid ourselves here, all this talk about being in love is bound to make a girl think about being in love, especially with the amount of Michael Buble and Cole Porter I’ve been taking in lately.

I’m trying my hardest to live what I believe to be true:  that what matters is that I’m in love with life, that I’m enjoying things exactly as they are right now, and if I can handle that, then eventually I’m going to bump into the guy who is kind of in love with the same things I am.

Or I won’t.  And that’s the thing, right? I’m supposed to be okay either way…I think I can do that, but sometimes I worry I’ve seen too many Meg Ryan movies, and I won’t be okay until Billy Crystal runs to me on New Year’s Eve and makes me cry through affectionately recalling inside jokes.

Ok, so I’m a little behind on posts.  Please forgive.

Just thought everyone should know, if you search for “bitchin running shorts” on google, my blog is on the first page of search results.  Something about that makes me very, very happy.

Lately people have also done A LOT of linking from “Brad Pitt” searches.  Lesson learned:  mention celebrities, get more blog traffic.

Ok here’s the scoop.  I’m super-tired.  But I promised that I’d write something every day for volunteer week, so today I will just be lazy and share some good volunteering websites with you.  Check ‘em out!

Volunteer Match

Donation Dashboard

Don’t Almost Give

Art for Change

826 Valencia

All this reminds me that I am very excited that I opened a del.icio.us account this week.  Love me some social bookmarking!

(Some kids are watching Fight Club in the lobby, and right now all the buildings are exploding and The Pixies are singing.  This has nothing to do with anything but it’s a fun moment to hear through a wall.)

Night night.

I realize I would be doing a disservice to National Volunteer Week to only talk about giving money, when there are zillions of other ways to give and serve.  Philanthropy, after all, is at its base a LOVE of PEOPLE.  And you can love people for free.

• (Quick tangent. Indulge me.  Driving home tonight, and there’s a Justice Jewelers commercial on the radio.  417 folks no doubt have heard at least four-hundred-and-seventeen of these ads, always with Woody Justice telling us he wants to be our jeweler.  I sometimes feel a little upset at these, because he targets the “clueless but love-struck male shopper” demographic, and reminds me that though I know plenty of clueless boys, not a one of them is buying me a diamond. [AND I'm not quite sure I'd want him to either. Fair trade and all.]  Well tonight’s was especially alienating.  And I quote, “to be truly happy you have to have someone to love.  Have you found someone to love?”  No Woody Justice, I haven’t.  And I don’t need your diamonds to be my best friend.  Thanks.)

That tangent was not quick. Apologies.

Where was I…loving people! right! One of the simplest ways—and most obvious, but easy to forget—is just through words.  Sometimes I wish there was a stronger word than “thanks.”  This word gets tossed around to everyone from your grandparents to the Starbucks drive-through guy.  Not that it’s bad to be generally polite, but sometimes I wish there were words beyond “thank you” for those moments when I want to tell someone they really saved the day.  Gratitude is so simple, but can mean so much.

I’m also really touched by Charlie Gibson’s sign off at the end of the ABC Nightly News. Have you seen it? He wraps up the news story, previews the ABC line-up, then just says, “I’m Charlie Gibson, and I hope you had a good day.”  I know, I know…it’s generic and ultimately impersonal, but the couple of times I’ve seen it, it has made me feel warm inside.  Just knowing that there are so many people who might be lonely or overworked or hopeless and who might just need a couple of kind words to start to turn things around.

Volunteering is about more than words though, too.  I love the quote Todd Parnell used in his inauguration speech at Drury just last week:  ”Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.”  In order to truly make change, there has to be some action to match the words.  To bring a little Jesus into it, there has to be some fruit or ain’t nothing growing.  To paraphrase.

This concept became real to me one Saturday in February.  We had a work day at The Skinny Improv, where everyone was required to be there and do odd jobs, organize costumes, build things, etc.  It is true that I volunteer to perform there, but that (most of the time. ha.) doesn’t feel like work. I love it.  There’s something different about giving yourself to an organization to do the dirty jobs.  To be on your hands and knees picking up trash.  To have sticky fingers from changing the soap dispensers.  It’s not glamorous of course.  It’s not the high heels and the black shirt.  But it’s all important.  It all adds up to giving people a break from their everyday lives, to making little moments of magic happen on stage, to creating something new that wasn’t there before and won’t happen again.

Helping people, volunteering, giving is made up of both the glamour and the grime.  Often heavy on the grime.  And I don’t mean “glamour” narrowly in the sense of recognition/fame (though that’s part of it I guess.  Giving money can get you recognition.) I mean also non-monetary rewards, like someone saying “thanks.”  That kind of recognition can be much more meaningful anyway.  

I’m learning, though, that there will be a lot of moments that feel thankless. There can be lot of fighting uphill when you’re trying to do what you think is right.  But that’s not a reason to stop.

Hm…and now real life is a metaphor for running…if that seems random, you have some catching up to do. Go back to July and start reading.  I’ll wait.

I was only able to catch a few minutes of IDOL GIVES BACK this year, but the show delivered enough warm-fuzzy moments and celebrity cameos to make my little heart happy.  (I stumbled upon it during last year’s Idol season, and I remember loving Ellen’s quirky co-hosting and also crying a lot.  Inspirational television philanthropy gets to me sometimes.  Let’s not talk about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  The phrase “move that bus!” brings on friggen pavlovian tears at this point.)  This year perhaps the most exciting celebrity appearance was Brad Pitt.  Tell ya what, ladies, that is one seventh-grade crush that I will never outgrow.  (My real seventh-grade crush, on the other hand, has been off my radar for about six years now.  I think I heard he has a kid.  I used to think his opinions mattered so much, and now I have no idea where he even lives.  Yeah, no, I get it now God. Thanks.)  

It’s silly, but I just admire him so much.  Not only is he beautiful, and has local-boy charm that you just have to love, but he cares about making a real difference and uses his celebrity to help people who really need it.  

Cutest moment by far:  he’s interviewing these kids in New Orleans, about their hope for the future, and one little guy says he wants to be a baseball player/lawyer…in space.

Make It Right is working to build homes for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina, so kids like that little guy can have some hope of a future.  It sounds so cheesy, but don’t let it be.  There are real people right now who still have no home.  

I remember watching the early footage of New Orleans on TV after Katrina.  I was a senior in college, and sat in the comfy chair in my comfortable dorm, and just couldn’t believe that this was really happening.  I got really sad and angry.  And then I decided to start a drive for the Red Cross.  It almost makes me laugh that this was the next logical step for me.  I couldn’t just sit in my chair and be sad.  I had to do something about it, no matter how small.

So here’s something that can still be done, for people who are still hurting—over two years later.  Even a little money can help. (Jimmy Buffett is listed as a recent donor on the site. Dude has made a living out of singing about the beach.  If he can do it, you can!)  You can help give little kids the chance to be athlete/attorney/astronauts by giving them a home (an environmentally-friendly one at that!)  

And you’ll make Brad Pitt smile.

He will squint at you until you give.