I’m kind of in love 13 May 2008

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.

BLOGIVING: thursday edition 1 May 2008

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.

BLOGIVING: Make It Right 29 April 2008

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.

BLOGIVING 28 April 2008

This is another title I’ve been sitting on for a couple of days.  Too cute?

This is National Volunteer Week, and to celebrate I thought I’d start something I’ve been thinking about for a while.  Use the blog to share inspirational stories I’ve heard, or link to nonprofits that you dear reader can support, or talk about helping people in big and small ways.  The big and small ways that people help me all the time.  Hopefully I’ll have BLOGIVING posts once a week, but this week I’m going to TRY one every day…because I know if I’m too busy to think about helping other people, I’m too busy.  (Call Oprah. I just had a moment.)

Today I’m going to start with an easy one.  The blog’s about running right? (or at least it used to be…) Well it sure is lucky that running and doing-good are easy to combine.

In 2 weeks (oh god, just 2 weeks…) I’m running in THE KITCHEN RUN, a 5K supporting–you guessed it!–The Kitchen, and all the amazing work they do for our homeless neighbors in Springfield.

This is super-exciting for a few reasons.

• 1) I get super-excited about most things.
• 2) This is the first race that I’m doing specifically for the cause.  Sure my half-marathon helped St. Jude, and I was glad to do it, but that race was more about ME.
• 3) The race is still about me. I’m going to try to place in my age bracket. HAHAHAHA. No seriously.

So, dear reader, if you are a Sprinting Springfieldian as well (oh you better believe I just said that!), you should also run.  Just don’t run faster than I do.

 

60 Minutes 29 October 2007

Monday 10/29

An hour. Really? How do I even mentally prepare for that? Not sure.
33 days until the big race. That’s not just too many days.
39 degrees. Hard core.
Oh but I just want to go back to bed so badly…

8:05-9:05
One solid hour. SOLID.
today’s iMix:
This American Life “In Dog We Trust”
1234—Feist, not Coolio
Nice and Easy—Frank Sinatra, sly devil
Somebody Told Me—Killers
Block Party—(My legs are at a rave and they are freaking out)
Crazy—Gnarls Barkley
Desperate Guys—The Faint
Hang me up to dry—Coldwar Kids
Too good is true—Rascal Flatts (heard this as I was walking, an HOUR ago)

Woah, my stomach is like “dude, what did you DO! We want cereal!”
I can’t believe I just did that.
The fall leaves are beautiful!
I love the feeling of doing something I’ve never done before. I have NEVER run an hour until today, but now I did it. And now I’m ready for the next challenge. Man, I can’t believe I never got that about exercise before. It’s not all about competition, or at least not with other people. There is something about performing physical feats that you’ve never done before…

Working on a sweet blister on my right foot. Discovered this with about 25 minutes remaining. Tightened shoe, tightened jaw, and decided to experience pain in manner of zen monk. (Did adjust foot positioning in favor of non-pain, however.)

At Campbell and Central there’s an old abandoned bldg for sale, like an old gas station, and I started thinking what kind of business I would open there (with a hypothetical lover. Why do I have to add a hypothetical man to my business ventures?! How very unliberated of me…).
And it got me thinking again about Random Crafts of Kindness…my imaginary nonprofit that somehow combines social networking for creative twentysomethings with helping the less fortunate in Springfield… Certainly something (else) to think about.
Meanwhile, I need a shower. And am too sexy for words.

Huh. “when I run my gums hurt” came back on my blog tracker today. So either 2 people in the blogosphere are having the same problem, or the same person liked my blog and came back!! Either way, good stuff.