Small Town Wren

I spent some money. About $140, actually, over the past 24 hours. Which for me, is quite a bit. It takes me over 10 hours of working to get that, or over three days. So it’s not chump change.

But I’m pretty happy with my purchases because they open a world of possibility for me. The most exciting (to me anyway) is my brand new Keen Newport H2s.

Purchased at Geische Shoes for $102 including tax. I’ve bought pretty much every single pair of shoes that I wear today from them. We’ve been buying shoes from them since I was a kid and I’ve never been unhappy with the service or the shoes. All three (yes three!) pairs of Birkenstocks come from their shelves, as well as half the pairs of heels I own. So this is my fifth big spender purchase at Geische, and I’m happy to support a local store over a chain.

My other purchase was a Bell Faction multisport helmet:

Not quite as cool as the Nutcase Melonhead helmet, but also $20 cheaper. I’m just glad it doesn’t look stupid like those aerodynamic helmets do.

What makes me most excited about these purchases is the possibilities they open up to me. I finally have good kayaking and hiking shoes. I can finally ride my bike to work and to other places. I can finally do stuff.

Tony and I and a bunch of other people went to the Festival of Colors last Saturday, which was held in Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville. It was, how do you say? A pretty rocking time. Basically I got to spend an afternoon chasing little kids around trying to cover them in green and yellow flour. As you can see, I managed to get quite colorful myself.

The Festival of Colors is an Indian thing welcoming the coming of Spring. It was really amazing, punctuated by  delicious Indian food. It really made me wish that American culture had more active cultural festivals. Ours are far too passive. It seems that our culture is becoming more divided and making us feel more isolated. Sometimes all I want to do is reach out and touch somebody, make them acknowledge that I exist, and they exist, and we exist.

How is it that I feel most alive when I play on borrowed time?

Photos courtesy of Tony Thomas.

You smoke two cigarettes. One to mark your sadness. The second is to solidify your anger. There are monsters out there who refuse to recognize their own wickedness. They will believe that niceties are all that is owed. This is, in fact, false. These trolls, who would believe themselves men, refuse to accept the atrocities they have committed, and so insulate themselves with sympathetic but uninformed ears. They will lie and steal if necessary.

It is this egocentric-ism that becomes offended by these words. They talk themselves into believing that such words are dishonorable because how could anyone dare speak so ill of them? They bury the knowledge that the pain does not come because the words are lies, but because they are actually truth. And it is in this way they continue on through their lives, acutely aware of their misery but still refusing to investigate the true source. Instead, they blame those around them as much as they can, absolving themselves of all responsibility.

This suffering is their penance. It follows them and will continue to follow them until, in some moment of revelation, they realize blaming external sources will never kill the monster in their hearts and minds. They will never become men of happiness until they make amends for the horror they have sewn. It is the rare breed who recognizes this, I’m afraid.

How you recognize such pathetic goblins is through observation of behavior. Sadly, this is the only way to identify them so it is hard to keep them out of your life until the damage is already done. It’s always a tragic realization when you come to know someone as a monster. They will treat you terribly and convince you that it is your fault. This wretched species is doomed to repeat the mistakes of their pasts until they acknowledge their own terribleness (you will recall this is a critical part of many 12 Step programs).  They wrap themselves in their selfish blankets and continue on in life wondering why happiness is always eluding them. They will blame you and do everything in their power to dismantle you.

You cannot let this happen. It is tempting to try and rehabilitate the monster on your own, but this is a therapy that will remain fruitless. This will, in fact, only provide them with more opportunity to destroy you. Often, the best and only thing you can do is cut contact. They will try to apologize furiously when they realize this is the course of your action. False apologies are not to be accepted. True apologies can be considered, but only if they have the critical element: What can I do to make it better? Anything that lacks an offer of amends can only be a continuation of the parasitical behavior. A monster can only help itself, and the only true marker of this stretch for change is the true and complete apology and a cease & desist of tyrannical behavior.

I lost my job today. Not because of anything I did, but because the economy sucks and there’s a big union working to push me under the bus.

I’m done playing this game.

Okay, okay. I’ve run out excuses. I’ve been back in the country for a week and still have yet to post about my adventures. I’ve had a heck of a time recovering from all that travel and all the horrible things that happened. Namely, my passport disappearing, and then my camera getting stolen. Luckily I had most of my pictures off, but I still lost a bunch.

The picture of of my Spanish tutor, Herberth, me, and my sister’s instructor, Wilberth. I had such an amazing time in Spanish school, even if I technically only had three days of school. And I made a bunch of friends, including Herberth and Wilberth! And also Mikelle and Nikolaj, friends from Iowa and Denmark respectively. Sadly, their pictures were among those jacked with my camera.

The good news is that I have all of my pictures from the Aurora Zoo, the zoo in Guatemala City. My sister and I got to go with our hostel owner and his two-year-old son. This is good news because now you get to see the most excellent David Bowie impersonating rooster ever.

Need I say more?

So about that Mono…I’m starting to feel a lot better. I’m still having my sicker-than-anything moments, but I feel okay more often than I don’t. I finally have enough energy to do more than sit on my sofa in a sad, sick, stupor watching Law & Order reruns.

Which is nice, because it’s just in time for my first spring break! One of the perks of being in a teacher-education program and working in a public school is that I get two spring breaks. I’m out of classes this week, and at the end of March I’m out of work for a week, and most of my classes that week have been cancelled. It’s nice to have professors who work in the same sector.

This whole mono thing started several weeks ago when my sister threw her birthday party at Delilah’s that she didn’t attend due to having mono. We still had the party though, and I went, and had my last huzzah before I got mono. Well, since we’re both feeling up to being people again, we went into the city for a makeup party at Tavern. This was the first time out I’ve ever had to buy a drink for myself. I guess one out of four is still okay, but not what I’m used to. For record: at the first party, I paid exactly $0 and got 2 glasses of wine, 4 shots, and a gin & tonic. I don’t really drink a lot, but when I do, I drink whatever is bought.

Also for the record: the drinks at Tavern are awful and overpriced. Regardless, we had a good time. Lots of friends showed up, a game of impromptu charades was played, and there was lots of random fake-dancing. I also got to show off the arrows I’ve been drawing on my fingers of late at work to help redirect my buddy’s focus.  They were definitely used in the night to point out random things to a bunch of drunk 20-somethings. I’m just glad I didn’t get groped by the bros who weren’t in our group. Random gropings from bros is probably the biggest reason why I don’t go out very often.

I’ve had to deal with an astonishing amount of unprofessionalism today. I can’t even wrap my brain around all of it. Nothing like someone breaching your confidence, but then not evening getting that breach right. Nothing like having your ass over the fire due to something you never even said.

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.

1. I will write everyday.
2. I will make the world a better place.
3. I will not forget myself.

These are the three promises I have made to myself. They are part of my goal to be a functioning, independent human being. It’s not that I’m not these things already–I am–but I sometimes forget this. I often forget myself, and I often put myself last. This has made me an incredibly vulnerable person at times. I’m tired of being a person prone to falling apart, teetering on the edge of despair.

So I’m giving myself a head-space make over. And writing is a key component. The seven years and nearly half-million dollars invested in my education as a writer is important to me and has shaped me as a person. Writing is something I have always done, since the days when I first became verbal. I’ve come to learn that when I don’t write, I start to wilt, and that withering causes me to not write. It’s a vicious cycle that I refuse to feed any longer. So I will write. Every day, Wren. Every day.

Committing to make the world a better place might seem like a vague and tall order, but it really doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as saying “thank you” and holding the door, or it can be far more. Either way, being mindful to stewardship and being kind is a moral and ethical obligation to me as a human being.

I’ve already touched a bit on not forgetting myself, but this is important. I really need to learn to put myself first. This has always been really difficult for me, for as long as I can remember. I’ve had altruism drilled so deep into my brain that it feels wrong to take care of myself. And it shouldn’t be that way.

And it won’t. I promise.

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.