Friday night I went to the Art Museum with Lara and Ken to see the Dali exhibit. Dali has never been my favorite artist, I’m just not so much into that whole surrealist thing. Symbolism isn’t my thing, it tends to make me overthink, and then I don’t get it, because I’m straining my brain to figure out what they really meant, when it was actually pretty obvious. Although I don’t think Dali is ever obvious. But having seen the show, I’ve realized what an incredible, masterful artist he was. Really gifted!
Saturday was beautiful here, a little warmish with the sun making a much needed appearance in the sky. Cindy and I went to three thrift stores and the Italian Market. Our third stop was an enormous emporium of used crap at Broad and Girard that shows Bible videos on four tvs mounted in the middle of the store. Their prices for a sweater range from $.85 to $7.95 (it’s very random). I called my mom while waiting for Cindy to check out and it turns out that she used to go to that thrift store 35 years ago. That’s why I love living in Philly, the sense of familial continunity that resounds for me.
Sunday was an all-day Subud gathering at Simone and Bob’s house. I had been dreading devoting my whole day to it, but it turned out to be a really wonderful day.
Okay, it’s time to get to work!

My current job is just fine. Getting up in the morning and going to work doesn’t bring me dread. However, it doesn’t bring me joy or inspire me.
I help administer a summer internship program, and we had a meeting (we is the Program Director and Associate Dean) for all the students that we’ve accepted into the program so far. The PD and I had explained the paperwork that the students need to fill out if they are going to complete the program, and then it was time for the AD to talk. He starts out by talking about the different between “book knowledge” and “mother wit.” It is “mother wit” that the students learn and learn to understand in our program, because they are working in the community, interacting with students in different disciplines and having a “real world” experience. But he proceeds to say that the paperwork part of the program is meaningless.
The part of this program that I’m responsible for? Paperwork.
Now I do know that he did not say this to diminish me. What he meant was that the thrust of this program is the experiences and interactions that the students will have with the people they’ll meet over the course of the summer. But it still stung because I’m struggling with my work and my purpose right now, every day, and many times I already feel meaningless for the 40 hours a week I sit in my basement office.
What makes it doubly difficult is that I am graduate student age, working with graduate students, but I’m not a student in this world of students. I always excelled at school. I was a good student, I was skilled at managing the demands that being a student puts on you and I was always smart, outspoken and appealing to teachers and professors. But my boss, who is a professor, doesn’t see me as a student. He sees me as one of the many “girls” who have worked and will work for him. I can type, fax, xerox, reserve rooms, obtain phone numbers and get things done. But my identity chafes at being lumped into that group of women who have worked assisting others. Part of it is elitest and snobby, I know that and work on diminishing it. But part is that I have so much to contribute and I’m given so little opportunity to do so.
People keep telling me that I should take this as a sign to go back to school. The problem I have with that is that I am marginally talented a whole number of things, so much so that nothing jumps out as the obvious right thing to do.
I talked to my mom while I walked down 15th Street today, with tears streaming down my face. She reminded me that really the most important thing, above all others is how you treat people. And that will just have to be enough for the time being.

I’m in a state of generalized, unspecific yuckiness. I would really like it to go away, but instead, it hovers. It hangs on my cheeks, making smiles feel hard and tears feel easy. It sits in my throat, leaving my voice diminished and scratchy. It weights on my chest and no matter how hard I cough, I can’t rattle it loose.
I feel stuck in my life right now. My job makes me restless and discontented, no matter how many times I remind myself how much worse it could be (and has been, at other jobs).
An image of how I feel just ocurred to me. In the movie, “A Never Ending Story” the character Atriu and his horse are stuck in a bog of quick-sand that only starts to suck you down when you start to feel sad or sorry for yourself. I am in the bog, feeling sad, so it is starting to suck me down even further. And what do you do once it starts to suck you down? You start to feel even sorrier for yourself that you are sliding down into this bog of muck and sadness, but it feels so much easier to stay sad than to change your attitude and tell the bog to stop claiming your sadness as it’s own.
Hmmm.
How strange, I’m actually feeling a little better having written all that.

Today was my friend Georgia’s birthday, and to celebrate Georgia’s mom Karin had us (my wonderful group of girlfriends) over to her house for dinner. We had a great time, the food was terrific and lots of stories were told about our respective pets (I think that Una’s cat win’s the prize for most unique behavior, he gets in the shower with her every morning). But for all the fun I had tonight, it leaves me a little sad. Sad, because I’ve chosen to live 3000 miles away from my mommy. She can’t have all my friends over for dinner for my birthday or be part of my social life at all. I have other friends who’s parents live in the area, and I love meeting them, knowing and interacting with them. It’s really fascinating to see a good friend with their parents, because you get an opportunity to see where their quirks and unique characteristics come from. These are the people who shaped my people, my family away from my family, and it’s nice to see from whence they sprung (that last statement sounds like something my dad would say, but most of your {all five of my regular readers} wouldn’t know that)! But on the other side of this same note, I have to admit that I had to move from Portland to Philadelphia. Not because my family is mean or dysfunctional or in anyway troubled. I love them more than just about anything (including my baby blanket) and am very (VERY) close with them. I talk to my mom every day, sometimes as many as five times a day. But I needed space to become an independent person. I needed to establish my identity in the Unitarian church and the Subud group away from the personalities of my mom and dad. The problem has become that I’m established. I have a life here and my dreams and future plans typically involved a life that takes place in Philadelphia. My experiment worked a little too well, I think, I certainly created myself as a person who could exist on the other side of the country from my family. Now I have to find out if I can find away to someday create an identity for myself that includes them, instead of excludes. We shall see. But enough deep thoughts for the evening. I’m now going to sucumb to my food coma and crawl into my fluffy, feather-y, comfy bed.

My co-worker/boss Elissa and I have been interviewing students to participate in our summer internship program. Right now we’re meeting with Public Health and Creative Arts in Therapy students, who attend the campus in Center City. Because I’m hardly at this campus, I don’t many of these students, in many cases, these interviews are the first time I meet them. So I was pleasantly surprised when a cute boy I didn’t know came into the interview room. He seemed smart, bright and interested in community service and so my “hmmm, interesting” antenna started sending signals to my brain. But with all cute, smart, bright and interesting boys, when they seem too good to be true, they probably are. My first indication was when he mentioned that he grew up in Utah. When he said a couple minutes later that he wanted to stay in Philadelphia this summer because he was involved in his church, my heart sank.
I knew what was wrong with him.
He’s a Mormon.
Mormons wear special underwear, breed prolifically and have a historical tradition of polygamy, it’s just not my game.

Tonight I braved the Nor’easter that’s dumping snow on the east coast (I’ve heard of Nor’easters, but I think this may be my first intimate contact with one) to be a volunteer usher at the Vagina Monologues at the Prince Music Theater. I’d never seen the Vagina Monologues until tonight, and I’m glad I saw it. I’ve read snippets of it, but there is nothing like seeing it live. Much has been written about the VM, I don’t think I have anything new or groundbreaking to add, except that it made me realize how lucky I am. I’ve always had a pretty darn good relationship with my vagina. We get along pretty well, in fact, I’m awfully fond of it. (On another note, I have to say that being a volunteer usher is one of the best secrets I’ve discovered recently. Donate an extra hour or two and see the show for free. I love it!).

Night!

I was never an athlete. I’ve never played a team sport or single-mindedly pursued a solitary sport. P.E. class was an exercise in torture, whether the class was twice a week or every day. I was uniquely gifted with both insecurity and a certain amount of clumsiness along with a certain something that invited teasing and no small amount of ridicule from my peers (especially the ones who could pinpoint weakness with a single sniff). Without desks that other classes furnished, to anchor these emotional vultures to individual locations, the increased access that gym class gave them to me turned it into the period of the day where I just worked really hard not to burst into tears.

There was one instance though, where easy access to tears paid off. Towards the end of 8th grade, the guidance counselors from the neighborhood high school came to my middle school to get us registered for our coming matriculation and pick classes for the coming year. P.E. was compulsory for all 9th graders, a reality I was not willing to accept. So, sitting there with Mr. Skye (my counselor for all four years of high school) and my mom, I started weeping. I know I freaked out Mr. Skye, I’m sure he thought that if he put me in a P.E. class, that I might turn suicidal. When I got my schedule in August, P.E. was absent from my schedule. I hadn’t been waived from the requirement, at that point I was just putting it off. But when I got thrown from a horse two years later and broke my ankle, I found my escape route. I never took P.E. again.

So about two years ago, with this baggage firmly packed, I started exercising on a regular basis. I live in a building with with a small gym, that costs $50 a year. I had no excuse. I wanted to get healthier and lose some weight. I started walking on a treadmill several times a week. My boyfriend at the time was a runner and wanted a running partner. He encouraged me to start running a little bit during my walks. It started out that I could run a REALLY slow five minutes. I remember the first time I ran 15 minutes straight, I was really thrilled. The relationship ended, but I kept running.

And yesterday I hit a milestone. For the first time in my life, my treadmill cut me off. Let me say that again, MY TREADMILL CUT ME OFF! I had run for 60 minutes straight (wow!) and the treadmill shifted into cool down mode. I turned the treadmill right back on, so I could finish my five miles. I’m pretty darn pleased with myself these days, that I’ve committed to running and stuck with it. I’m going to do the Broad Street Run in May, which is ten miles, so I do still have a ways to go, but I’m confident that I’ll get there.

Having gotten to this point in my athletic pursuit, so far away from the kid I was in gym class, I wish that just one of the gym teachers I had could have shown me how much fun it is to be active and exercise. If only one of them had said, “you can run the mile, but you have to build up to it. Start by running five minutes and then build on that. Every day do just a little more and you’ll get there.” But no one ever said that. They just said, “Okay, today’s the day we’re doing the mile, start jogging.” I’m really happy that I’ve developed this relationship with my body and it’s ability to move and I’m not stopping, but I’m sad for the kid I was then. I don’t think I would appreciate my achievements now without having been the kid was, so I’m just going to keep working towards my little goals, a little more each day, knowing that she’s cheering me on.

Tonight I went to Jen Hurley’s 7th annual “Beat the Winter Blues” party. Everyone is supposed to wear blue, there is blue punch (which tastes like cough syrup, but has a high alcohol content and then all of the sudden it tastes kind of good) blue food (my uncle Andy would be horrified at this party, the only major conviction he has in life is that you don’t eat foods that are blue), blue leis, blue lights and blue hair (but not the kind that is only found on little old ladies). If you don’t come to the party wearing blue, you are then painted blue or drawn upon with a blue eye liner. It was a good party, made better by the fact that I invited my roommate and he in turn invited about ten of his friends. They really bulked up the party, which it needed and extended it’s life by about an hour and a half. I have no major conclusions about the party at this time, maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to make some of the moments at the party clever and cute and appropriate for parental consumption (hi mom and dad) but for now I must sleep.

Also coming tomorrow (or really later today) is the story of my five mile run today (yesterday)…

Yesterday I went to the PHENND conference (Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development) and once I got there, it was a really interesting day. Getting there was an adventure though. It was held at Widener University in Chester, which is a pretty straight shot down I-95 from my place. I mapquested it before leaving work on Thursday, and it said it would take about 25 minutes to get there. Knowing Philadelphia traffic, I decided that to be safe, I would double the amount of time. I needed to be there at 9 am, so I ended up leaving Center City a little before 8 am, thinking that that would PLENTY of time. It was not to be. I was cruising along 95 through South Philly, feeling really good about the time I was making, when, just past the airport the flowing traffic started to resemble Broad Street after an Eagles game, when you haven’t been smart enough to take Septa. It was absolutely locked down, we were moving about two miles an hour. I passed a couple of exits, but I don’t know that area south of the city well enough to attempt to get off and take surface streets. I did finally get to Widener, after two hours in my car (and XPN was NOT playing good music) magically found a parking spot and located the University Center.
(On a side note, most of the time I really enjoy driving a car with a manual transmission, I get a charge out of really working the gears and getting the most from my little four cylinder engine. However, on days when traffic is moving at a glacial pace, an automatic transmission begins to sound like a really intelligent way to go).
Anyway, the sychronicitious part of this post is this. On Monday I sent my resume to the director of the Civic House as Penn. I had mentioned to a friend (Amy) last weekend that I had seen the job posted and was thinking about applying. The only thing that was holding me back was that the job had been posted since December, because that meant in all likelihood, the interview process was over or close to being over. Amy just happened to know the director, and emailed him about me on Monday. My assumption was correct, they were in the second round of interviews and were hoping to hire someone soon. But David, the director, told her to tell me to send my resume on, just for kicks. I sent it and really expected that would be the last I would hear of it. On Friday, the first workshop I pick to go to was one led by Bruce Schimmel, who started the City Paper years ago. It was really interesting, and actually made me start thinking that maybe I should look into becoming a journalist, I found everything he talked about really fascinating. But who should sit down next to me in the workshop? David, the director of the Civic House! Pretty interesting!
Then, later that afternoon, I’m in a workshop that’s dealing with keeping recent college grads in Philly, and Carol, the woman who was my teacher/advisor at the Philadelphia Center five years ago was there! I sit down after the workshop to talk to her, and a young woman across the table from me looks at me and says, “Didn’t I talk to you on the phone yesterday?” It turns out she works at the Philadelphia Committee to end Homelessness and I had called there about a placement for a medical student. Philadelphia, especially the non-profit/University world is VERY small.

Tonight I’m out to dinner with Georgia, Cindy, Una and Una’s newish boyfriend (I’m not even sure if were allowed to call him her boyfriend yet). We’re going to see Ellis Paul at the Tin Angel and then off to Jen Hurley’s beautiful house for the annual “Beat the Winter Blues” party.

and counter tops. I painted it yellow last May, and put up some shelves, but it hasn’t changed substantially since 1966 when my grandmother moved in. The cabinets are metal with fake wood grain laminate on the doors. All the shelves used to be lined with turquoise rubber that matched the counter tops, but after 35+ years, it started to harden and crumble off in little bits. I love to cook, and my little windowless galley kitchen is not my ideal, but I still love it. I love that it is MY kitchen. I can cook there, and create food that brings people together, fills their stomachs and leaves them satisfied and content. When I cook, I think and I pray. I tell the food how wonderful and nourishing it is. Combining food and flavors is a language I speak well and really enjoy.
Tonight I was cooking my sister’s speciality, “Quinoa, Bean-wa and Green-wa” is my favorite yellow (matches my walls) Dansk pot. It is from the 1970’s and is the perfect size and shape. Rachael Ray has one just like it on her show, which I get a kick out of. She even said once that it was her favorite (on the show where she cooked a veggie and garbanzo bean stew). I admit it, I love Rachael Ray. She was at Kitchen Kapers on 16th st. a couple of years ago, and I couldn’t get out of work to go see her. The only problem with her is she used an awful lot of pork products. It’s not that I don’t eat pork, but my mom is Jewish, and I have an instantaneous guilt onset when I eat it. Best to stay away!
Anyway, back to the yellow pot. The only problem with it is that the lid has a lip that catches food and liquid and has to be cleaned carefully. I have a brush which is designed for cleaning baby bottles (I don’t really know why I have it, I found it in the apartment when I moved in, I think it must be leftover from when my sister and I were really little and my mom would need to clean our bottles. My grandparents never got rid of a thing)! These days there aren’t any baby bottles around here (thank god!) that need to be cleaned, so I mostly use this long, skinny brush to make sure my pot lid gets clean to my slightly complusive standards. Everytime I do it, I check to make sure that my roommate isn’t around, because he already thinks I’m a little crazy when it comes to cleanliness, no need to further encourage that mostly accurate assumption.

I live in apartment 2024, in a high rise in Philadelphia. My family has lived in this apartment since 1966. The first time I came to this apartment I was 3 months old, it has been the most consistent home in my life, and I feel so lucky to have such a safe and comfy place to live. On the other hand, it does have it’s problems. Like the fact that I am the youngest peson in the building. The elevator doors are timed to close so that the slowest person with a walker is able to get to the door. It can be a little infuriating.