Small Town Wren

Between my server going down and a ridiculous amount of work that had to get done yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to post. Much apologies for the interrupted service.

Let’s see, what have I missed? Well, there was the earthquake that happened yesterday morning. You know, the 3.8 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter about 12 miles from my domicile that woke pretty much everyone up at exactly 4:00am. I had the added pleasure of having a puppy launch herself onto my body in a fit of panic.

Another thing that happened yesterday was a touch embarrassing. I was taken out by a first grader. And I don’t mean on a date. I was pretty much bowled over by an autistic seven-year-old. Sweet kid and, to some extent, my fault. If I’d been watching my buddy a little closer I could have stopped him from waving and thus prompting a bit of a freak out on the other child’s account. Gosh darn my kid being so friendly! Luckily, it turned out okay and I managed to get my buddy out of the way so I was the one who got run into and not him.

As for today: today was a special day. Today was 100 Day! Our kids had their 100th day of school today (thought it’s only my 97th; shhh). So I got to wear my educational tshirt on a non-friday and was given an awesome sticker. And boy did we count to 100 a ridiculous amount of times. Out entire day was filled with math activities involving counting to 100 and kids brought in collections of 100 things and it was awesome and silly.

Out of curiosity, what with the turbulent economy of late, I poked through Craigslist to see what rooms were going for in San Francisco. Anyone who’s known me over the past year and a half has known that my longterm dream is to move to San Francisco. My sister took me on a long weekend there in July, 2008 and I fell immediately in love. It’s been the only place that has felt truly like home in a long time.

Anyway, I ran the numbers, and I could afford it. Today. It would be tight, but I could do it, even if I couldn’t find a job for a year; I could do it. Which is an incredibly comforting thought. I can actually get out of here after grad school, if I want.

That might seem odd, the girl who named her blog Small Town Wren (the girl being Wren herself) is fantasizing about leaving the Midwest forever for a big city? Yes, because being the small town has never been the ideal. But, having grown up in a small town and attending high school in an even smaller town has always been central to the construction of my identity. During my childhood, Batavia had less than 18,000 people. Even now the 2000 census puts us at 23,000 (and the trend growth suggests the 2010 census will put us at around 28,000). Back then, there were more cornfields than neighborhoods. And I spent my high school years living in a northern Michigan town of ~600.

Growing up and coming of age in the middle of nowhere isn’t something you can ignore in your worldview. And those who don’t know me might suggest that it makes me an ignorant fool. They’re entitled to their opinion and their ignorance. I’ve experienced more diversity than a number of my friends back in New York City have.

I’m a city girl and I loved New York City. But I missed the trees, and the sky and weather that didn’t make you feel filthy all the time. San Francisco has always been the balm to New York City’s problems. And I’m thrilled that it looks like I can make that dream a reality.

My mouth tastes like cigarettes. Almost certainly because over the past three days I’ve smoke almost an entire pack of Marlboro Lights. My New Years resolution was to quit smoking. Already that has been a fantastic failure.

I really don’t want to do this anymore, but I don’t know what else to do.

Yesterday was my first full day of break. And how did I spend my time? Reading textbooks of course!

Yeah, it’s a real super party. But, I figure, I have the time now. I don’t really have anything better to do with my time, so I might as well get ahead while I can. Having finally made some friends in the vicinity of my parents’ house means that I’d like to have more free time so I might have a more active social life this semester. You know, the semester where I’m taking four graduate courses.

I’m kind of bummed out though: I checked my credit card statements today and almost threw up. $479 on textbooks (and just textbooks). I even got several of them deeply discounted, (50% off or more). And I still need to buy school supplies. I need more binders and post-its. Tiny post-its. Expensive post-its.

It’s pretty rotten when your books cost more than 10% of your tuition costs. Even with a lot of them purchased for a more than fair price. My bank account is going to suffer so dearly this semester.

I found this cute little guy on my sink last night.

Cute little 9/18 spotted ladybug. Probably what that wolf spider the other night was stalking. I prefer the ladybugs. They’re symbols of luck!

This would be the spider hanging out on the mirror above my sink.

A: When you walk out of work and a sheet of ice is covering all your windows inside your car. Thank goodness I was stupid and touched the windshield in front of the driver’s seat a few months back so that part didn’t freeze over.

I’d have a picture of it, but there’s no way in hell I’m going back outside.

Every year I’m surprised by how much I’m not a fan of Thanksgiving. I’m not really excited by standard Thanksgiving fare (turkey is not my strong suit). I’m kind of nonplussed by the “working vacation” aspect that school always assigns the holiday. I tend to get into fights with everyone I encounter, too. I’m not really sure why, but I’m particularly prone to snapping at people in mid-late November.

It just messes with my groove in a way that no two-day holiday ever should. School work becomes even less appealing but, as is the case now, it is more imperative to get it done. Somehow all of my final papers and such are due by Friday this week. But let’s not talk about that. I don’t even want to think about that.

Perhaps it’s the for-real break preview aspect. There’s just enough time off to get me thinking about free time and reading a book for, you know, fun, but then WHAM!, it’s back to the grind. Only the grind is a million times worse. And it’s a sprint to winter holidays and real rest time. Time that I want now, dammit!

Almost three years in the making, I finally finished The Beauty Myth in the wee hours of the morning. It’s just a shame that the most dated part of the book is the last chapter. It is an artifact of a past that already seems like ancient history.

The Beauty Myth was originally published in 1991, when I was four. The vast majority of my life has been spent in a world where Naomi Wolf’s rallying cry had already been heard. I think I’m much better off for it, too. The way my mother approaches her body and the way I approach mine are in two completely different categories. The biggest feature of note is that my mother flat out refuses to leave the house without any makeup on; it’s an odd day when I leave the house with makeup on.

I never bought into it. I was always part of the rebellious crowd, but somehow the parts of the myth that latched on to my sister and my peers never found its way to me. I don’t know if it’s because I never wanted to feel like anyone but myself, or if it’s because I’ve spent half of my life with some form of overt baldness. It’s hard to feel shame for your looks when all of your shame and self-consciousness is rooted squarely in your hair.

Or maybe it is because I was blessed with a naturally slim figure and a rightly colored face. It was a running joke at my boarding school: I’d devour six plates of food at dinner and the health services ladies would still think I was anorexic. They weighed me constantly, and lectured me on how eating is good for you, thinness isn’t everything. They had no idea I held the candy arsenal in my dormitory or that I routinely won eating contests against the burliest of the burly men on campus.

This isn’t to say weight hasn’t been a big part of my life. My mother had to defend herself when my elementary school thought I wasn’t being fed due to being so underweight. I ate ice cream every night and was part of that dreaded “Clean Plate Club” at dinner. When I shot up to 5′7″, girls began poking at my sides in the locker room and asking me how I did it. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.

A lot of it has to do with my mood. When I am happiest, I tend to weigh more. Depression makes me drop the pounds as if they were nothing. I started this past summer out at 145 pounds. Depression clubbed me over the head in September and by mid October I was hovering at 123. While the sadness has eased its grip again, the new medications I’m on are of the sort that make you lose weight. I’ve lost two more pounds in the past week. I haven’t seen 120 since I was 16.

It frightens me. I don’t like being this skinny. Once you are of a certain thinness, the pressure is on to keep it. People tend to leave you alone though if you’re even 5 pounds heavier than that thin. I’m not anymore, though. My skinny jeans are just straight legs now, and I have to belt them in so tight to keep them up. I eat, but the weight keeps falling.

The bug has hit me again. I found myself pouring through Duotrope this morning, pondering submissions. Which is naturally silly as I don’t have any material I would consider suitable for submission.

The good thing, though, is that I feel that need, that hunger again. That need to succeed will drive me to start writing again. Writing for myself isn’t something I have done in quite some time. I began writing poetry again on and off about a year ago. We’ll see if the fiction comes back, too.