Shrapnel into the Ether

I've been writing a lot, albeit (obviously) not here. For the most part, nothing I've secreted away in a notebook - or, in paperless desperation, clumsily typed into a blank note on my phone - has wanted or needed an audience, even one as small as this. Nonetheless, I may as well shake off the dust here with a handful of bursts of thought and send a little unnecessary shrapnel into the ether:

The older I get, the dumber I feel. It seems contradictory to be hypersensitive of such a dulling, but there you have it.

Ginkgo trees are another contradition I'm struggling to reconcile. They are at once beautiful in their golden feathering and nauseating in their miasma. Every fall, they scatter their leaves in their ancient shape, tiny fans scalloping the pavement. They also drop their hell-fruit to be crushed underfoot, reeking of baked dog shit, or vomit rotting in the musty stacks of an old library. Sidewalks and shoe soles will only be safe come winter.

Adam took me to feed some spotted deer in a park. Their muzzles were soft and muddy and I felt the kind of joy I imagine must be typically reserved for Disney princesses when squirrels braid their hair and songbirds hang their laundry. Also, translated from Korean, their name is "flower deer" because Korean can't leave cute things well enough alone.

My anxiety is changing, and I've begun to recognize its old weight in the new guise. For years, it's felt like a bird sewn where my heart should be, with useless, beating wings and a burning for air. Lately, the bird has quieted; rather, it's been favoring the form of a wet stone, rolling just under the split of the ribs, scraping the sternum without the calm of a current. It's the slow turn of a river rock, worn smooth and cold by worry and want for sleep.

I feel myself quieting, too. I've never been one to command a room, but I'd always been able to hold my own in conversation. More and more often, my legitimate comment will go unnoticed to be posited verbatim by another for discussion minutes later, a joke slipped in only to be retold by another and laughed at the second time around. When I assert myself, I sound abrasive to my own ears; if I withdraw, I appear aloof. As a mumbler, I try to speak up, but I always doubt others' will to listen.

I fear being forgotten, and I have picked up the unfortunate habit of ostracizing myself even further when it happens.

I ran 100 miles in about 40 days. Now I don't want to stop.

If you want to pick a fight with me, try pigeonholing me as anything. If you want to make me happy, walk with me where there are trees. Or tell me I remind you of Amy Poehler.

Experience and age are not the bedfellows I believed as a child. Some people will have something to prove at any age, at any cost. I have met people who have covered enough empirical ground to understand that being a fully-realized person isn't a zero-sum competition those around them. Others navigate conversations like their own personal Hunger Games arenas, clutching their insecurities in one hand and wielding half-formed opinions like weapons with the other.

Months from now, I will be surrounded by elephants and I don't yet have a plan for what to do when my mind and body shut down from sheer excitement.

I would trade many things for some good bourbon, some good wine, real cheese, and my cat, but I wouldn't trade my years as an expat for anything.

Kind of a Big Deal

Things have been happening since April.

I flew back to the U.S. for a short visit, which was filled with family, friends, forced cat cuddles, rehearsed answers to inevitable questions, hectic running of errands, walking in good weather and good company, and a LOT of good food. I felt a little out of place and as if the time was spent in a vacuum of premature nostaligia, but it satisfied a need for the familiar and it satiated a craving for the trappings of "home" a little while longer.

I started wearing jean shorts again for the first time since my early teenage years, body image be damned. My legs, like the rest of me, aren't getting any younger, and if I can't bear to bare my skin now, then when? I'm trying to pay less mind to the matters of thighs and the blues and purples of veins whispering through thin skin.

I've had my first patbingsu of the summer, the cold, sweet clarion call of the season.

Most importantly, I've made a decision. It's kind of a big deal, and it affects quite a lot. After much research, deliberation, and support from Adam and my supervisor/mentor at work: I've been accepted to a teaching certification program, and next month, I begin the first course. It's a big commitment on top of my current teaching schedule over here, but it's also a big step toward a future I really want. Doing this requires a certain sacrifice and a little change of immediate plans, but if all the logistics work out according to plan, I'll be a certified teacher by 2016.

So things are happening, and I'm excited. Here goes nothing, and everything.

The Threshers in the Grain

I am an anxious existentialist. I arrived here reluctantly, but am quietly resolute, without proud convictions or comfort in belief. I understand death as a kind of erasure, final and empty, a soft smudging-out, then nothing.

(I sometimes imagine death smells like cold perfume, at least at first - insistent, with designs to be subtle but cloying instead, like Easter lilies and alcohol. Maybe that's why I find the over-air conditioned shopping malls of summer so oppressive.)

I once thought people who subscribed to this brand of thought might live with a sense of freedom, a sort of resignation-come-liberation: if nothing matters, then there's nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, I am not one of this ilk (or maybe fortunately - I would most likely be an asshole). In fact, I do quite the opposite. I worry constantly. When I can't busy myself with distraction or am not tired enough after giving priority to the details of daily life, insomnia and fear of oblivion blend into a nighttime mental paralysis. I often envy the solace some find in their faiths, but sometimes I desire doubt. After all, reincarnation sounds so pleasant. An Elysian afterlife appeals to me enormously. But I can't accept them. I asked too many questions for my Roman Catholic heritage to handle and so I abandoned most of its trappings after my first Confession, although I have a lingering fondness for its rich ceremony and colorful aesthetic. (I wore St. Christopher around my neck when I surfed and sometimes even now, but only then for misplaced cultural longing, and now, out of nostalgia. I often wear a St. Benedict medallion from Mexico tied loosely around my wrist, dangling from a strand of clay beads the color of rust after rain, but I don't believe it will ward off evil - although I wish it could ward off indecision. Curios that catch my eye in crowded markets hold no special power; I imbue these trinkets with nothing to worship but second-hand sentimentality.) I don't have the confidence or selfishness to entertain solipsism, and I find most religions too myopic, too limited in scope to satisfy me. Instead, I pick and choose the values I find valuable and collect them as tools to navigate whatever I encounter, too practical or paranoid to harvest from only one crop. None of them, however, change the ending of the story.

Momento mori, and all that.

I have a long-held affection for Rosencrantz's simplistic, rambling thoughts on the matter (although, unlike myself, he seemed rather nonplussed about it):

"Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, laying  in a box with a lid on it? Nor do I really. Seems silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account that fact that one is dead. Which should make all the difference. Shouldn’t it? I mean, you’d never know you were in a box would you? It would be just like you’re asleep in a box. Not that I’d like to sleep in a box mind you. Not without any air. You’d wake up dead for a start and then where would you be? In a box. That’s the bit I don’t like frankly. That’s why I don’t think of it. Because you’d be helpless wouldn’t you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean you’d be in there forever. Even taking into account that fact that you’re dead, it isn’t a pleasant thought. Especially if you’re dead really. Ask yourself: if I asked you straight off I’m going to stuff you in this box right now– would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally you’d prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You’d have a chance at least. You could lay there thinking well, at least I’m not dead. In a minute somebody’s going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out. (knocks) "Hey you! Whatsyername! Come out of there!" [...] Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment, in childhood when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory like that. And yet, I can’t remember it. It never occurred to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we knew the word for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and squaling…with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there’s only one direction and time is it’s only measure."

Quickly-derailing trains of thought like this are why I lie awake at night, fretting over nothing – or, nothingness. There are things my tiny human brain cannot ever comprehend, only entertain (like space - I can't even). I am not equipped with the ability to encompass such notions without a very primal fear kicking in, and kicking hard. Yet I kick back. I kick and scream and wish I could squeeze these oceans of thought – the kind thousands of better-qualified philosophers have pondered before me – into droplets small enough to seep in.

I am a scared little field mouse, wishing she couldn't see the threshers in the grain.

Try Not to Blink

Most posts like these hover closer to the turn of the calendar: heralding a New Year, pondering all it may portend while probing the experiences of the one so freshly left behind. Accomplishments are crowed and hopes are cooed, bearing the standards of our midwinter rebirths. The good is grasped tightly in writing so any bad beyond the horizon can't blot it out entirely when the world feels darker and colder. This post attempts these things, of course; however, it requires that I slide the scale a bit. My last and coming year are not framed by the beginnings of Januarys, but the ends. January 25 marks our anniversary of living in Seoul, where we've just signed on for another contract to end February, 2015. My year is therefore slightly shifted from the usual count, and my reflections are skewed accordingly.

'Expect the unexpected' is a trope of the traveler, and, as expected, the past year it has proven it true enough.

I've learned a new language - not enough to hold a conversation, but enough to form grammatically-correct sentences with a little struggle, and more than enough to survive. I learned to read and write a new alphabet in less than a week. I can navigate the subway and direct a taxi with the basics. I can peruse a menu and order the usuals, and while my vocabulary may not always suffice, I can at least amuse those patient enough with a decent accent.

I've tried to embrace the cultures that have welcomed me as a guest, even if there are times I've wanted to fold my arms and click my heels on the off-chance such a transplant doesn't require a tornado and a head wound.

I've visited three countries outside of Korea, four if you count a few steps beyond an invisible line into the negotiating territory of North Korea. Malaysia, Japan, and the Philippines have shown me glimpses of worlds to which I'd never previously given much thought beyond romanticized stories or fingers tracing a map. I've stared like a child at whale sharks and guarded my belongings from unscrupulous monkeys. I've sipped soju on rooftops and tasted corner store sake on my boyfriend's lips. I played darts with an audience of chirping geckos and learned how to shuffle cards like an adult. I've wandered through painted palaces built, burned, and rebuilt over thousands of lifetimes before mine, and I've spent several cumulative hours looking for a place to pee. I've collected prayer beads from cool-tiled mosques, shrines in caves, and temples on the edge of the sea. I've retraced countless steps and found my way before I even realized I was lost. I've confirmed an uncanny ability to know my way around by recognition of subtle landmarks, and I've thanked God for Adam's sense of direction in the face of my hopelessness (without a handy compass or the convenience of tree moss, I've accepted that I will never have those bearings - seriously, where the hell is North?).

My ability to endure spicy foods has grown to a point at which I am not filled with dread to try a bite of something new (and instead, every so often, I'm filled only with mild regret and temporary pain). I saw Basquiat's art and remembered to try to make some of my own, too. I nursed bruises and scrapes from a Spartan Race and hunted mosquitoes with vengeance. I explored with my parents when they came for a surreal visit. I climbed a mountain with terrifying, humbling views, afraid to reach the top, but more afraid not to. I was caught by the monsoon in the park when we lingered too long for the summer sun's liking. I cried under cherry blossoms and laughed in the glow of thousands of lanterns floating through crowded streets. I played in the mud, sang in sweaty bars, and fed neighborhood alley cats in the rain.

I've fallen in love with teaching and had my heart repeatedly broken by dozens of unfairly-adorable 6-year-olds. I encouraged sarcasm in a couple third graders, fanned infant flames of feminism in a few others, and asked "Why?" a million times.

I've forged new friendships while aching for the ones on the other side of the world. I've seized opportunities across oceans while missing milestones at home - weddings of dear friends, the birth of my nephew, my cat learning patience - and knowing there will be more. Technology helps to soothe the pangs of these particular casualties of my time here, but sometimes the sense of removal is strong and homesickness flairs when I can only celebrate these occasions via Skype. I also feel these things knowing that one day, I will feel the same for my life in Seoul. There is a certain peril with this brand of adventure: the heart-seam-ripping feeling of longing for home and longing for hazard abroad, as if one can be ignored or made dormant while the other is satisfied. This longing exists, dully, just under my ribs, with semi-frequent  bouts of acute immediacy. It has taught me that Home is not where, but with whom (which seems to make things infinitely more difficult), and it spurs a selfish desire to transplant everyone I love to wherever I happen to be.

I've been reminded over and over again of my luck, that I get to share all of this with someone I love in ways I never knew possible. He has taught me more about living - and about myself - than I'm sure he ever intended. I couldn't ask for a better partner (or a better travel buddy, to boot). I wouldn't be where I am without him, physically and otherwise, and I'm excited for our next year together, and the year after, and the years after that.

I've felt unsure more times than I thought tolerable. There were stretches when depression stole the throne, as it does from time to time. I've known discomfort as a constant shadow, and I've let fear drive discovery.

I've been happy.

Altogether, 2013 delivered more than I could have imagined; I'm sure this year has much more in store. I'll look forward to good things - expected and unexpected - and try not to blink.

The oldest and wisest we've ever been

A nearly 2-month-long inability to write anything decent - or even coherent - for this space is ridiculous. My thoughts have been weak and my attempts to write them weaker. So, allow me to lift something I wrote elsewhere, tweak it a bit, and lazily deposit it here (self-plagiarism is all the rage):

Today, at 26, I am in a place - literally and metaphorically - I never planned for, even as little as 2 years ago. Right now, I'm working on that whole being-in-my-twenties thing by living life as I can. Some days, it's an adventure of exhilarating reaffirmation that I exist, and other days it's the kind of soul-rending, mind-enfeebling, heart-crippling "What Am I Doing With This Life" wandering that - obviously, and appropriately - plagues all twenty-somethings. I think we sometimes feel like we've reached a point at which we believe we know what we're doing (or believe we should) because - quite simply - each new day, we're the oldest and wisest we've ever been. We have only hindsight to teach us and hope to guide us. We are careful to keep old wounds closed and learn to analyze the scars, pouring over the lines as if they will map out the future. I expect this is a notion that can carry us well into our old age, right up until death, when all our oldest, wisest-ness will be just a comfort, if we're lucky. Maybe we should take comfort now in knowing what we can, feeling what we do, and putting the pieces together as we find them.

Today, you are your oldest and wisest. Let's all have a drink and take it a day at a time, because our days are quick to build the lifetimes we may never see coming.

Here comes the feeling you thought you'd forgotten

*****

Ancient fingers on spage-age screens: someone's grandmother (great-grandmother, ancestor), her weathered face cragged and proud like the mountains of her country, hunches in her too-big coat lined with downy memories of colder days. Her feet scrape like gravel while her knot-jointed fingers skim with a surprising deftness along touchscreen technology. She is taking photographs of cherry blossoms - at once old and new, having bloomed and slept and bloomed for centuries, maybe as she has - on an impossibly sleek iPhone. It is not often you see generation gaps closed so easily when two eras rush to meet each other. After all, I am here, raising my eyes and arms in exactly the same way, my veins just beginning to consider the kind of transparency hers have earned.

*****

My mind is a rabbit's warren best barricaded by distraction. I have been moving unrelentingly, mentally and physically, since I have been here. My days are long and my nights mostly quiet - a few hours with Adam, studying Korean, watching mindless shows - before trying my best to sleep. Weekends are time for devouring culture, winding our way through the subway to new discoveries, while reserving the mornings for reaching across oceans of internet to loved ones littered around the world. Because of this routine of bustle and motion, I had pushed down the unruly, mutable part of myself into a place where truer emotions and more dangerous thoughts could be safely tucked into restless sleep. This internal stonewalling works fairly well. With the exception of a few particularly self-aware minutes eroded into exposure by the vulnerability that comes just before falling asleep or waking up, the threat of release is reliably tempered. But with the thawing of spring came an end to this hibernation of the heart.

A few weeks ago, I was running my usual route and, as they usually had over the last few days, my favorite stand of cherry trees slowed my steps and drew me in. I intended to stop for only a moment; I had already taken dozens of photos of these familiar trees. Instead, something lengthened my pause. I sat at the base of one of many stark black trunks in the twin rows, following the lines of branches tapering overhead, bold rivers of night trickling into the pale of early morning. Here, sitting to catch my breath, the world caught me instead. Here, beauty broke a dam.

In that moment, under the trees, I felt everything. Every emotion, every joy, every pain, all the exuberance and grief and nameless churning I'd buried for months spilled out like the petals at my feet. I'd needed for numbness and dumb, mute strength to function in the face of the monumental upheaval I'd invited into my life with moving across the world, and under the canopy of pink, the numbness and strength just fell away. I cried. I cried, bursting back into feeling as I sat on the ground, surrounded by elderly women wearing baffled half-smiles. I cried in my stupid-bright blue running shoes with my stupid-bright blue waeguk eyes blazing in red rims. I cried knowing I and everyone and everything will die, yet these trees will outlive us without care or remembrance. I cried for everything. For, finally, the relief of release.

Gratefully emptied into silence, I looked up and let myself take in the fleeting sight of the blossoms. With their contrast of strength and fragility, delicately demanding attention, these cherry trees deserve all the glory and awe they get. Their beauty is soft and gently riotous - if fireworks didn't roar, but whispered. They are branches of angular shadow and sprawling lace, wading in the shallows of the sky. As I write this, they are gone, ghosts overtaken by the green of impatient summer. But I'll remember them - living briefly and dying with grace - and remember to let myself wake up, to balance the dark with the light, and be okay with the illusory lines often crossed by both. 

The Foreign Becomes Familiar

Now that we're comfortably settling into our lives in Korea, there are quite a lot of things I've learned - at least, as much as you can learn in nearly 3 months. Korea is a beautiful country with exquisite palaces, breathtaking mountains, and endless opportunities in urban discovery; every weekend is filled with as much exploration as we can pack in. As with everything, there is a balance of good and not-so-good, and some lessons weigh heavier in my mind than others. Through it all - and it is all so much - sometimes it is enough to just keep my head above water and finally make time to write. To complement my often-fragmented thoughts of late, here is a fragmented list of 10 things I've learned, through teaching, traveling, or just living:

1. The Seoul subway is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite form of transportation. Depending on the time of day, it is either a smooth, quick, and efficient way from here to there or a harried, nauseating meat-packing facility on rails straight out of a claustrophobic's nightmare.

2. Skype is made of magic.

3. I will never be able to speak Korean nearly as well as my 6-year-old students can speak English. It is mind-blowing to think that my classroom of Kindergartners are speaking and writing complete sentences in a second language when Kindergartners in the U.S. are barely writing their own names in their native tongue. This speaks volumes about America's educational deficit on a global scale. However, American students have a childhood in which they can play outside after school and spend time just being a kid. Creativity is fostered there, but here, creativity is frowned upon as frivolous. Korean children are instead shuttled from school to school, from academy to activity, from the time they are old enough to hold a pencil, and play is a luxury. As far advanced as my kiddos may be academically, their adult-like schedules rarely allow unadulterated time for childhood. Both systems sacrifice something, but in my eyes, I'd rather my child have the ability to balance academics with getting to be a child.

4. To force myself past the Ick. While the majority of my Kindergartners are heart-wrenchingly adorable and achingly sweet, it doesn't make up for the fact that their bodily fluids occur at times and in places you wouldn't expect, and this is made worse by the kids' inability to keep their hands (and mouths) to themselves. I even concocted "Touchy" the Alligator, a visually-reminding friend I drew on the board with a big toothy grin. Each time I saw/received inappropriate touching, I erased one of Touchy's teeth. This character has evolved into a tiger who loses his stripes, mostly because I got tired of drawing an alligator and I prefer the alliterative aspect. Now, if the touch is accidental (like a kiddo wanting a hug and his or her hand inadvertently lands on a boob), I'm not going to promote body shame; I simply move the hand away without a reaction. However, when a kid grabs my hand and puts it in his mouth, or a girl comes up behind me to squeeze my ass, giggling, or a particularly snotty child wipes her nose before grabbing my hair for a yank, I calmly explain why we don't touch that way while gagging or screaming "Why?!" inside. This system has lessened the amount of snot and saliva I encounter on a daily basis, but that still hasn't stopped the putrid parade in its tracks. I'm still figuring out the best self-therapy to deal with the most recent incident in which I thought one of my Kindergarten boys was approaching me to sit on my lap, only to start rubbing his junk on my knee. I am coming to terms with the fact that I may never recover and will just physically recoil whenever the memory resurfaces.

5. When you eat nearly all of your meals with chopsticks, a fork can feel surprisingly heavy and unwieldy. How quickly the foreign becomes familiar.

6. Not to compare myself to the typical Korean woman. While I am by no means overweight, I do not have legs like a deer stretched on the rack, nor a waist appearing to be sucked in by forces akin to a black hole, nor wrists delicate enough to snap under the pressure of a firm handshake. As much as the American social conscious is preoccupied with image and struggles to deal with the omnipresent, media-fueled pressure to attain an idealized, packaged beauty, Korea seems to transcend such consciousness into virtual obsession. It's inescapable: I can't go one subway stop without seeing an advertisement for plastic surgery in which the (perfectly lovely) Before is transformed into an altogether unrecognizable After with features verging on the cartoonish - any "flaws" have been molded into an acceptably narrow jawline, exaggeratedly rounded eye shape, or tucked-away ear placement deemed pretty by social standards. All personality and traces of real life are erased and and replaced by blank, uniform "beauty." Worse, it starts  young - I have been told by more than one 6-year-old that she is not pretty because her eyes are small and that she doesn't like sweets because they will make her fat. Six years old. My heart breaks when a child can't enjoy a piece of candy because it has been laced with fear and shame. It devastates me even further when they tell me I am beautiful or have pretty hair, because in race toward "pretty," they see Western traits as something to achieve rather than celebrating themselves as they are. Why are these 6-year-olds even aware of this pressure to be thin and have uniform faces to be... successful? Attractive? Worth love? In a related vein, the fact that I even have an ass at all is probably going to be a problem when it comes time to shop for pants.

7. I am not and probably never will be okay with the smell of silkworm chrysalis sizzling away on a street vendor's griddle. I love so much about experiencing new cultures and the accompanying foods, and I never want to be that person who gags at another culture's common snack, but the clouds of steam billowing from cooking worm pupa just reek of death and dishwater. I'm really sorry, guys. Gross.

8. Cherry blossoms. I get it now. The yearly frenzy over the trees is totally justified, and I will do my best to explain in a post next week.

9. If I start thinking about space, I can and will spiral into an existential depression. (Okay, this one isn't entirely new, but I relearned it.) The parameters of the human brain can only handle so much, and my mind especially cannot emotionally handle such functions like entertaining ideas about the universe, real or theoretical, because: What lies beyond the edge of the universe? There has to be something, right? How can nothingness exist? Oh my god, what is really going on inside that nebula the size of 15 Earths stacked on top of each other and black holes are what?! I can barely handle philosophies about existence on THIS planet, much less a whole universe, because I will never stop thinking about them and will eventually lose my mind when answers run out. Case in point: Adam recently showed me the Planck mission's map of the universe, charting the lights and limits of space, and I nearly imploded.

10. A job can be both stressful and satisfying. My days are long, requiring diligence and mindful dedication. You cannot mindlessly pass your workday when you are helming consecutive classroom hours of Kindergartners, second-graders, and third-graders until 7:30pm three days of the week, then grading and developing lesson plans until 5pm after morning Kindergarten on my 2 "short" days. You must be vigilantly adaptable, always engaged, and constantly thinking ahead.

BUT.

I see the difference I and my fellow teachers make every day. I work with people who genuinely care about what they do and about each other. My students actually WANT to learn, and (for the most part) like to listen to what I have to teach them - even when my sarcasm takes over. I was tapped to provide sketches for a new grammar textbook developing in Adam's research and development department, and when it is printed, I will have a credit as a published illustrator. For all my teaching, I am always learning. I have access to free Korean food for lunch and dinner if I want it. My demanding schedule and extraneous duties are compensated for with a rent-free apartment and a generous paycheck, and I'm watching my savings steadily swell. And when I am crying with co-workers over devastating news from home displaying the worst depths of humanity and have no idea how I am going to smile for my Kindergartners, I can walk into a classroom that evil has left untouched and all it takes is a hug from one of my kiddos as I sing them their favorite Muppets song to remind me of the overwhelming goodness that exists to mend shattered hearts.

Everything Is So Much

Dreaming by David et Myrtille

This is not a real post. Rather, this is as disjointed and unfocused as my general thought process has been lately... so at least it's accurate?

10 points/observations/odds and bodkins of the last few weeks as my life is gradually turned on its head:

1. Our apartment is empty save for the boxes and last-minute items for packing cluttering the corners. The walls look bleak without my canvases, our collection of streetlight-stolen concert posters, the Haitian, papier-mache-with-pages-from-old-newspapers-in-French taxidermy giraffe head. We've sold, donated, or given away most of our belongings, and our few remaining pieces of furniture have been promised to friends. Most days, I feel good about our progress and our contained chaos, and I can keep my emotions at bay. Most nights, however, I feel overwhelmed and my emotions sweep back in with the evening clouds. I expect this cycle to continue with greater intensity in the coming weeks.

2. To provide a bit of distraction during the more tedious tasks, I watched both White Christmas and Holiday Inn for the first time (thanks to Stacy for the recommendation years ago). I enjoyed both, but I think Holiday Inn was my favorite of the Bing Crosby-fests (barring the atrociously racist black-face routine commemorating Lincoln's Birthday. Yikes, you guys).

3. Speaking of Christmas movies, Adam and I will continue our tradition of watching our perennial contradictory favorites, Elf and Bad Santa. Unfortunately, we won't be able to spend Christmas proper with each other this year, so we'll be having our 4th annual Elf/Bad Santa Christmas tonight with the only officially appropriate pairings: cookies and candy with Elf and whiskey with Bad Santa. Obviously.

4. Against the odds of the holiday season and moving stress, I'm finally developing a 6-pack. Well, right now, it's the top 2 with the middle 2 about half-defined, but I'll take it. We'll see how long it sticks around with all the empty Christmas calories destined for a home in my thighs (see #3).

5. While alone in the kitchen, I was curious to see if I could fit inside the box in which our suitcases were shipped. I climbed in and curled up, and the results were twofold: (1) Yes, I could totally fit, and (2) I am a child.

6. All I will say about Newtown is what I said on Facebook, without mention of sociopolitical policy issues: We can't do this. I cannot bear the trend of waking up to news of such baffling, senseless violence every few weeks. The emptiness of devastation, the fruitless attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible, the dread and rage and sadness all waging a renewed war in my stomach - I can't accept this. I'm so sorry, Newtown. I'm so sorry, children.

7. I truly love my usual process of making/purchasing thoughtful gifts for my family and friends, but this year simply hasn't allowed it for a number of reasons. However, I was able to at least frame up a few little pieces for my mom and brother and sister-in-law. I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out, and I'm especially tickled about the idea that sprang to mind for my brother and sister-in-law in Long Beach, CA (that's a peek at it below, with the west coast making up the left outline of the heart). Not gonna lie, I think it's pretty damn clever, and I'm going to be smug about it. So there.

8. Last Friday, I donated blood - something I do as frequently as I can (every 56 days) - and as of that donation, I have given 2 GALLONS of blood to the Puget Sound Blood Center, contributing to hospitals all over the Seattle metropolitan area. I'm proud to be able to do this small thing, literally giving of myself to help others in such a uniquely intimate, human way. After all: give blood, get a cookie! What I'd really love to do is join the national bone marrow registry - I've been wanting to for years - so when I get back from Korea, that's one of the first things I'll be doing.

9. Roasted cauliflower with curry powder for dinner. Do it. Your mouth and belly will high-five each other.

10. As Joy the Baker said, the best way to describe these days and the ones ahead is, "Everything is so much." But as she also said, it helps to think of newness as to distract ourselves from the temporary shortcomings of nowness. I can't help but take this advice and see it as the wisdom it is in times like these. So in the breathlessness of Now, let's refocus on the coming new, shall we? Beyond Now, in the coming new year, lie infinite new adventures, new loves, new losses, new everything. What is Now but groundwork for the road ahead? Celebrate the Now - especially this time of year - and with it, celebrate the Nows that were and will be. They're fleeting, and they're all we've got.