Thirty Voices

Up until about a week ago, Georgia (the whole southeastern US actually) suffered from extreme, exceptional drought conditions. In June, Atlanta imposed watering restrictions, meaning once per week you can water your garden. No one is supposed to wash their car. We’re supposed to be rationing the laundry.

Early July brought some rain, but towards the end the rain died off and in August the temperatures soared into the triple digits. I began walking the dog at midnight because it was cooler. That’s when I discovered all of the midnight watering taking place. Neighbors who we commiserated with by day about the drought and heat were out in baseball caps and dark pajamas pointing a hose at their flower beds with the porch lights turned off.

As Rufus and I passed they turned their backs, and I looked the other way. No understanding nods passed between us, no apologetic glances.

Now I understood why a freshness emanated from certain yards when I walked Rufus in the mornings, why their yards smelled sweet and the ones next to them smelled dead. For every three or four yards where the grass was browned out or even the ivy looked stressed, there was at least one yard where the vinca bloomed profusely and the fescue thrived. Uh huh! Midnight waterers.

Truth be told, I was pissed. And envious.

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I had a wonderful job interview today where they asked me a question I’d never thought of for an interview before: “If you could talk with any one person, living or dead, who would it be and why.” Well this interview was going so well that I didn’t think it was odd, but later I realized just how significant a question like this could be.

My answer, as may be obvious, was Abraham Lincoln, though as I told my interviewers, Aristotle was a close second. But the significance of the answer seems relevant from the perspective of this: how do the people in your world that you respect, living or dead, influence what kind of person you are and want to be?

I have spent so many years just trying to make sure I could come up with rent money for me and my girls, that I’ve lost sight of the “idealistic me”. The part of me that wants to be part of something bigger, brighter, important for others around me and maybe the world!

So, it is armed with this new insight, and a reinvigoration of my idealistic side that I will forge ahead and not settle for the first thing that comes along, but will wait until that PERFECT job, that fully engages and challenges me to be a better me and make a better world, comes along! I’m hoping it might be the one I applied for today, but if not, there WILL be one. THAT was worth the 2 hour interview alone!

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What do you have trouble committing to? What do you have no problem dedicating your time to? Why do you think that is?
Have you found ways to juggle your time that others might find useful? What was your biggest commitment? What does the word commitment conjure up to you? Does this naff poster sum it up? (ok last part is a joke!).

This post will be short and sweet. Lately I have discovered an amazing character whom I totally worship- doctor Gregory House. What can I say, I have a thing for anti-heroes.

- he’s a cantankerous cynic – something I can associate with

- he’s a substance addict – warms my heart to see the weakness befalls even the greatest ones.

- he is a softie underneath all of this – rouge with a golden heart is simply irresistible

- he’s simply sexy and smart, and like good wine he gets better with age.. and he’s in touch with his feminine side

It happened at the sunset hour at one warm spring day in Moscow at Patriarch’s Pond. Two men sat on a bench discussing religion in general, and Jesus in particular. One of them, Ivan Bezdomny, was a poet who wrote a derogatory poem about Jesus. The other one, Mikchail Berlioz, an editor of a highbrow literary magazine and chairman of the management committee of the largest Moscow’s literary clubs, was trying to convince Bezdomny that the core of the problem is not that Jesus was evil but that he didn’t exist at all.

In the fervour of the discussion that didn’t noticed when they were joined by a stranger. The stranger wore an expensive grey suit, spoke with a foreign accent and had a limp. He told them that not only did Jesus exist, the proof of this being that the stranger knew him and spoke to him, but also; to emphasize the proof; the stranger told Berlioz that he will die with his head cut off by a female member of a Konsomol…… (more…)

I have lately slipped in the frequency of writing my blog contributions for which I dearly apologise. Reasons for this being several:

- I decided to take a very adult step and start house hunting – a step considered close to lunacy in a property obsessed London

- I went sailing with a group of colleagues in Polish lake district, which almost lead to two deaths by drowning and one death by being knocked down with a portable loo (full to the brim) – more about it later

- I have spent a night in a castle attending a ghost hunting event – more about it next time since I still shudder remembering the experience

So, a couple of weeks ago I was invited to join a group of colleagues to sail across Polish lake district. No sweat! We rented a couple of boats, the weather was supposed to be beautiful. I was looking forward to getting away from civilisation, enjoying dramatic sun sets, silence, nature and picturesque landscapes. (more…)

“We must, we must, we must increase our bust.”
“We must, we must, we must increase our bust.”

Say it with me now, “Are you there God? It’s me Margaret” by Judy Blume.

I read this book when I was nine years old, the same summer Barbara B. and I were scandalized by seeing Luke rape Laura in the disco on General Hospital – only later to have her fall in love with him – an utterly irresponsible move on the part of whomever was churning out that soap opera, but I digress.

Judy Blume put me inside the head of Margaret and helped me pre-live all that I was anxious about having to go through. Margaret came first, then Deenie, and Blubber. We worked our way through every Judy Blume book we could get our hands on until eventually we found it–the Holy Grail of teen fiction: Forever. Forever came with us on the Girl Scout camping trips, select passages read by flashlight. I liked to boast that I had read the whole book, not just the racy scenes.

When my niece was born, I waited patiently for her to hit the age markers when I could introduce Barbie dolls, The Wizard of Oz, and finally Judy Blume. Sam enjoyed all of these delights with appropriate doses of appreciation doled my way, but the real gift came when she began introducing her discoveries to me. There’s a lovely book called The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen that’s so well written I don’t have to consider my adoration of teen fiction a guilty pleasure any longer.

Ruth, 37, Los Angeles, USA

re: communicating in the age of technology…

often times, i’ve felt that the more ways that we have to stay in touch, the less that we truly know each other. everything is getting shorter and shorter, words have cut down to single letters, emotions articulated through emoticons represented by colons and parentheses. hearts are now transcribed with arrows and the number three. i wouldn’t recognize a full sentence if it bit me with my friend’s own hand in most situations. in my last relationship, i realized several months in that i had no idea what his script looked like.

it isn’t that i’m standing in a bubble, not using technology, and lamenting what it’s doing to everyone else. i myself am part of the problem. i have conversations with my friends while typing on my BlackBerry. i spend a large amount of time lost in the interworld. i isolate and choose to stay in touch via mass email or social networking sites, especially as my health worsens, but i’m fully aware that the more ways that i have to be in touch, the easier it is to be more and more superficial and less involved with my loved ones. with every ‘forward this to five people…’ and ‘why god made men…’ forward that i open, i’m more inclined to reply with ‘lol’ and less inclined to actually have a conversation.

i used to tell people that ‘fine’ was a cop out answer and to tell me how they really were. now, i hit forward. reply. lol. and log out. technology has given me more info than ever before but made me even less aware.

Last night as the dreadfully charming Mr. Right and I were snuggled in bed reading the new Harry Potter aloud, I turned to him (between Horcruxes and Hallows), pecked him on the lips, and said, “Life is good. This is fun. I love you.”

Then I got up to pee. And as I was walking to the bathroom, it hit me: I am turning into my parents.

See, this “life is good” thing is a family trait. Sitting around a dinner table, or on a beach walk, or watching a crackling fire, my dad will invariable say (and these are his exact words), “This is PER-fect. Now isn’t this perfect? This is PER-fect.” My mom, for her part, will hold her palms up in that lotus pose and sigh, “AAAHHHhhhh…” (This means she’s happy.) Then she’ll breathe in through her nose (pphhhhhh), eyes droopy with pleasure, and say with a soothing yogi grin, “Life is goood.”

When I was a surly and cynical teenager, this drove me crazy. I developed a theory that they were saying everything was so perfect more in an effort to WILL IT TO BE SO, than because it actually was. I mean, how many perfect dinners, beach walks, or fires can one person have?

But now I see that that’s not so. For my parents, hanging out almost ANYWHERE with their (actually pretty well-behaved and pleasant, if I do say so myself) kids was the pinnacle, the zenith, or–as my grandfather once accidentally said in a speech to an auditorium full of people–the “penith” of existence.

And now that I’m older and less cynical and have got my own dreadfully charming Mr. Right and Bungle of Joy, I realize that hanging out with them, appreciating the little things, that feels to me like the penith, too.

Janna, aka Happily Even After, 35, Seattle

I have been an avid reader from a very young age. I was kind of a geeky, chubby little kid and books were my escape from the mean boys in 2nd Grade, or the boring lectures in my 6th grade science class. I usually kept my favorite novel at the time, “The Girl With The Silver Eyes” inside my text book while Mr. Allen was going over our homework.

There have been many books which like songs hold memories about specific times in my life. One book in particular was the book by Pamela Des Barres, called “Im With the Band” which was given to me by my first boyfriend at 13 years old. Peter was a musician and this book was about the whirlwind life of a groupie in the 60s. It somewhat brought me closer to his 16 year old hippie self or so I thought!

I tend to also find authors whom I love and stick with throughout their careers. I’m definitely a contemporary fiction/non-fiction lover and have enjoyed books and stories by authors such as Raymond Carver, Toni Morrisson, Chick-Lit Goddess – Jennifer Weiner, Michelle Tea, Ali Libegott, and of course J.K. Rowling

I can’t forget my comic books! My buddy Chynna Clugston has one of the best series for people who love comedy. Check out Blue Monday (Oni Press!). One of my favorite series recently ended: Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore was one of the most insane stories that I have read in that medium. It was part mystery, part soap opera and the two main characters were lesbionics! I’m so sad that the series is no more, but I heard he will be putting his talents to great use in the world of Superheroes!

My last bit of books that I adore is the more recent literary genre of memoirs. I love reading about other people’s lives and despite the fact that some of it may be completely off the wall (ex David Sedaris), it makes me think that maybe my family isn’t as crazy as I think.