Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

Apparently a blog is forever, since this one is still hanging out there. I could be using it to write about being a traveler, but that's been done and most of my thoughts should remain private anyway (they are *not* flattering). So I'm going to track my 2021 reading challenges instead because that's the only set of goals I'm really setting for myself this year. (2021 goal = have fewer goals.)  League of Extraordinary Penpals It's a secret! This challenge is part of a penpal group that I pay to be in, so they don't want people sharing the challenge. I'm going to try to figure out how to review and track these books here without sharing the challenge in ways that aren't okay.  For now, I'll just say that I'm tackling the Genre-tastic, Book Club, Around the World, Dewey Decimations, and Social Butterfly challenges, not all of which involve reading a book.  Current point tally 4/5/21: 150 5 Countries I'm in an Around the World group on Goodreads ...

Thoughts from last Thursday: Tonight we set up our Indie Bits game, and I'm consumed by nervous anticipation. I imagine this is not unlike when your firstborn child goes to kindergarten. OK, maybe it's not that serious. But the feelings of, please don't bite anyone , and I hope you make friends translates roughly to please don't break while someone is playing you , and also please no one play this game because What if you don't like it?  What if people hate it? What if it doesn't work? What if it's uninteresting? What if the puzzles are too hard? There are so many ways this can go wrong. These are not feelings I typically experience with the things that I make, as I usually make things just for myself. I've always been more of an engineer then an artist. At middle school art camp, I was competent at various techniques, but I never had any great ideas. We would be set free to our own creative devices with a new method, and I sat there, feeling inad...

I'm depressed. Not acutely. Not newly. I feel like an addict. I won't ever be not depressed; I just live with it. It's my superpower - the ability to detect the pathos in any situation. As I've learned to live with being depressed, I have begun to think of it just that way. I feel like the Hulk in The Avengers.  His secret is that he's angry all the time, and in the same way, I'm always sad. Even when I'm happy, I'm sad. I don't think depression is what gets you though. I think it's feeling dissatisfied with feeling depressed.  It's the wanting to feel better. It's wanting to leave your little rain cloud behind for a day. So a few years ago, I decided to try accepting it, to try to see the sun while the rain is falling. I'm a stronger person for it, unfazed by things that distress others. I'm working at the hospital these days, and hospitals are difficult, hard places. People are damaged and dying, hurt and suffering and o...

Day 2 (no photos) wasn't nearly as much of a challenge. For me, pictures fall into a kind of dichotomous key:  - photos of me    A) for the public (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vine)    B) for my friends (Snapchat, SMS)  - photos of other stuff    C) for blogging / professionally    D) fun things! Photos of me are a strange topic because I hate them. I have an idea about how I look, and then when I have a photo taken, I always think, "That's how I look?" I have always felt uncomfortable about my appearance and it's been a bit liberating to take more photos of myself and to put them out there. I don't need people to tell me how great I look for comment; it's more about saying, "Yes, I do look like that, and that's okay."  Photos that I take for private functions are less of an issue because I'm so busy these days that I don't really have much time for that kind of social activity. Not taking photos of other things was ...

Yesterday was the first day of the Bored and Brilliant challenge from WNYC's New Tech City, and the goal was to keep your phone put away (either in pocket or in a bag) during transit, so phones out only at destinations.  Having tracked my phone time for about 3 weeks, I know that my starting point was that I was spending an average of 155 minutes per day on my phone. I don't think Moment counts time when it's playing music or a podcast but I am not looking at the screen.  I use my phone as a Kindle a lot, so I'm not sure how much time I can cut down without losing my reading time, but we'll see.  It also doesn't seem to take into account time I'm making phone calls if the screen is off. So I kept my phone in my pocket.  I forgot once early in the day because it is such a reflex to pull my phone out of my pocket when I have a "blank" moment. It was much easier if I kept it in my bag. Other than that one time, I really enjoyed it. Not looking at ...

I read a book today. A whole book. It was pretty wonderful, both the experience and the book. I'm not sure what led me to suddenly decide to read some Pearl S. Buck. I've long looked at her book covers and thought, One day , but for some reason the melancholy that I've always mentally associated with her (for no reason I can cite) fit feeling like death today, so in the waiting room at the Urgent Care I started reading Peony and I read until I was finished, through the brewing of tea and my hot bath which I had hoped would clear my sinuses and did not. I want to start it all over again. I feel like I devoured it so quickly that there are things I missed, conversations I want to have with the book and my thoughts that I didn't give myself time to have.  A few thoughts though, before I lose the thread. There are so many dichotomies in this book, so many choices weighed and options considered. David must choose between the old ways of his people represented by marriage...

I got my braces yesterday.  So, the experience. First, you walk in and there are a lot of implements. Like, a lot.  All that for my face. It's a little nerve wracking. On the right on the tray you can see the strips of plastic with my braces attached. They prepare them ahead of time so that they can be attached en masse.  This mostly worked well for me. One of the braces on my molar didn't stay the first time, and then they ended up moving two of them, so they had to take them off and put them back on individually. I wish I had a picture of the remover because it looks like the thing you use to skin catfish except that they pry a bracket off your tooth and it makes a loud cracking sound. Not what you want to hear while you're laid out in a dental chair.  They put a large circular tarp in your mouth, and then something that looks like a transparent horseshoe with suction and a light that you bite on. I felt like a bit of a baby as the first half was honestly pretty s...

So, turns out that having teeth that are twice as long as usual takes some getting used to.  For about 3 days I couldn't bite anything without a lot of pain where my teeth would crash into each other. I still can't really bite things normally, but as long as I think about it, I can now bite soft things.  Anything hard a no-go. My overbite is still massive, but now the pressure on my front teeth is at a new angle, so there's all sorts of new pain and new sensitivity. Additionally, bite props are a pain, literally. It means that all the attempts that I make at chewing put all the force of contact on 2 molars on each side instead of all of them, so by the end of the day, those two molars are killing me.  Given what everyone says about when you first get your braces on, this seems like good prep. I've just figured it out and am almost eating normal things again, and tomorrow the braces go on! Also, when I am stressed, I do things to my hair. I'm a redder head now....

Warning: there are about to be a lot of pictures of my mouth.  It's kind of gross.  Feel free to ignore.

Six years ago, a man broke into my house in Nicaragua while I was sleeping and I woke up to feel his hand on me knee. I held my breath as I tried to convince myself that the presence I felt in the darkness wasn’t really there. There was a struggle, a hand over my face, and then he was gone. For months, the slightest sound at night would wake me up, and I found it hardest to sleep when I was home alone. The worst of it though, was that I just knew deep down that somehow it was my fault. I’m a feminist, have never shied away from the term. I hated slut shaming long before culture gave me a term for the feeling.   I knew that victim blaming is repugnant, but I became my own persecutor. Earlier that night, there was a fiesta, and my friend Norlan had walked me home, and I’d invited him inside for something to drink. We’d left the doors to my house open so no one would think anything was happening inside. I was trying to respect the cultural mores of Nicaragua, but maybe that h...

I'm getting braces. In three weeks. For non-cosmetic reasons.  For the past 20 years, I've been destroying my front teeth, slowly but surely wearing them down with every chomp and utterance. It's now time to fork over massive quantities of cash to get this fixed or else they are going to die and I will have 6 (6!) dead teeth in the front of my mouth.  Not good for anyone, but especially not for someone who works on speech for a living. The problems: I have a huge overbite! Duh.  My front teeth actually point inward. I had no idea.  Severe overcrowding on the bottom despite having 3 teeth removed when I was a kid. The only reason I don't have severe overcrowding on the top is bc I had 4 teeth removed, including both my canines.  I guess they tamed me early.  Severe wear on my front teeth, uppers and lowers, thanks to the front teeth grinding together inappropriately during my bite.  My snaggletooth.  Spencer and I will no longer match in t...

A few different people have asked about my new oil cleansing routine, so what I've figured out is below. I'd read about oil cleansing for a long time, but really could not get down with that because it was terrifying. Then I read this post about honey cleansing, and decided to give it a try along with the oil. Then if one was terrible, I'd at least feel like I was making some changes.  http://empoweredsustenance. com/wash-face-with-honey/ I bought my honey at Whole Foods and it's raw, organic honey, not crazy expensive. It's pretty solid and I like that because it makes it easier to scoop and put on my face. I just grab a clump and put it on my fingers, get a little warm water and smear it around. I usually leave it on while I make my coffee and then wash it off in the shower. Sometimes I end up just putting it on in the shower if I'm in a super hurry. It turns out that my skin is pretty dry, so while she mentions a half water / half ACV toner, I ma...

I've barely posted here for a while because I've been SO BUSY. I have: * moved 99.9% of my possessions to Durham, and completed most of the paperwork that goes along with that. * procured all the required paperwork, etc. to begin grad school in August (this includes some shots) * purchased a moped * worked on wrapping things up at my current job - this includes supervision of the summer undergraduate research program * taken 3 summer classes * sold many of my worldly possessions, working on selling more In essence, I am tired, but I'll post pictures of my bright orange moped after I have it. :)

Sometimes I'm very hard on myself, and getting ready to start school again full time has me in a bit of a tizzy, so today I started listing all the stuff I've done that I think is cool.  It's a good pick-me-up, and you should do it too.  Then tell me about it so I'll know how great you are. In no particular order: 1. Raised and trained a puppy. 2. Taught myself to knit. 3. Crocheted some extremely complicated, beautiful things. 4. Learned to tat (and crochet) from my momma. 5. Saw the ocean floor in a submersible. 6. Been a published author of scientific papers, one of which won an award. 7. Lived in a foreign country. 8. Taught high school. 9. Taught in a foreign language. 10. Studied alligator genetics and mussel microclimates. 11. Cultivated my love of solo hiking despite my fear of injury due to my insane clumsiness and crappy knees. 12. Joined Seal Team. 13. Refinished furniture. 14. Owned and operated a full suite of yard maintenance equipment, whi...

I got busy! I fell in love, I got into grad school. I took an epic road trip. These things will appear online very soon, but in the meantime, all information regarding Speech Language Pathology (SLP) matters will be posted on my new blog, Babbelje . Check it out.

* Trigger warning for sexual assault content. It's coincidental to the story, but it's in there.

I'm in Love. As in all romantic comedy story lines, I met my love while life was not going me well. In fact, it was kind of kicking me in the nuts. I have issues with depression, and my psychiatrist told me to work out five days a week. Know what sucks worse than being depressed? Working out at the gym five days a week by yourself. My boyfriend broke up with me on a sidewalk, and obliterated me from his life in an impressive 15 minute purge-a-thon of social media. Work was kicking my ass, and grad school applications were filling me with anxiety that no amount of fish oil or emotional eating could mitigate.* I was down, feeling unsure of my ability to make change, ready to embark on a quest of some sort. Maybe I'd drop everything and go on an around the world tour getting to know myself. But alas, not enough money! Maybe I could have a summer fling who would teach me how to trust my inner voice, but the seasons speed by for no woman. And then, surprisingly, unexpectedly...

★ ★ ★ ★ I read this whole book in a single day. It was an easy read, but good.  Audrey Niffenegger is also the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, which I've also read. I enjoyed this book a lot more although there are clearly some themes that the two books have in common. The theme of individuals traveling and communicating in ways that aren't typically possible is at the forefront, as well as some rather twisted personal relationships. I was incredibly uncomfortable about the romantic relationship in The Time Traveler's Wife, which, although made to seem beautiful, was in actuality somewhat disturbing. He knew her as both an adult and as a child, which is, at the least strange, and at the most somewhat perverse. In Her Fearful Symmetry, there are ghosts, two sets of twins, and some very strange familial/sexual relationships. The tone of the book is sufficiently dark that you can anticipate the plot twists with relative ease, I thought. Basically, if there is a...

★ ★ ★ I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I felt like there was too much going on for me to become involved in any one character. The book is the story of a family holding onto the past and trying to make sense of what's happening to them and to their nation. With so many characters who all have a different response to what's happening, it's somewhat confusing as to what viewpoint we're supposed to identify with.  There are also a lot of themes at play here - racism, colonialism, family struggles, the relationships between generations, traditionalism vs. modernism, and a large group of people attempting to make sense of the world in the midst of incredible changes of a magnitude that far exceeds their ability to cope.  In some cases, this plays out almost ironically. When Daniel Dorai decides to return home to Chevathar and reboot the family farming colony, he finances the endeavor with earnings from his skin whitening cream. He knows how to be...

★ ★ ★ ★ When I saw this book on the shelf of the Edisto Island Bookstore this summer, I was instantly interested in reading this.   I should admit up front that part of the appeal of this book was that it was fictionalized Jewish history. I love books about Jewish people.  When I said that to Patrick, he looked at me like I was crazy. It does sound exoticizing*, but I feel this way because books about Jews make Jews less exotic, not more.  Growing up in South Carolina, I knew one Jewish person, and I had no idea what it meant to be Jewish.  I certainly never got any history lessons or world culture lessons about Jews.  I did not understand, for instance, that they are a vast and diverse culture spread across the whole planet that is made of many different groups with their own individual cultures.  Even more interesting is that I was raised in a Baptist church and grew up with the stories of the Old Testament, but no one ever told me...