42

This has been a strange couple of weeks for sure. A rocket launch, an exam, white sands, crying students, ridiculousness and unease. To top it off, I spent this evening watching a movie that I have heard about to a ridiculous degree over the last year and a half or so. So much that I was anticipating plot twists and dialogue of a film I've never seen about a book I've never read. Even odder is that none of the people so apt to mention it were present when I watched it.

I thought Sci-Fi night was over for good. I guess I was mistaken.

Lessons

The lessons you learn about love are different at 18, 20, 23 and 27. Perhaps that's a good thing, but perhaps it's more an indication of how jaded one becomes.

Patience

I really loved magazine writing. And while I say "loved", it should really be present tense. Though I don't have opportunities these days to write magazine pieces myself, I still love reading a meticulously crafted, 8-10 page magazine article.

It's a lovely length, really, perfect for a break from writing proposals or analyzing data or typing up lecture notes. It's so rewarding to have a story unfold in front of you and I'm always impressed by writers who have a measured way of revealing details, facets, then facts and opinions, sometimes swaying you in a way you never could have imagined.

Perhaps it's because I've had a rough month as research goes. Perhaps it's because I had a rough student week, but I no longer feel I'm able to do that. Not that I ever wrote anything Pulitzer-worthy, but for all the time I spent in journalism and creative writing classes, I do think I was able to craft a story.

Perhaps it's because I'm down on economists' writing skills in general, but mine have really gone down the toilet lately. Introductions befuddle me. Literature reviews are scattered and unfocused. There is no nuance or subtlety to my writing anymore. And in no way do I find myself exercising discretion in the big reveal. The process of putting words on the page is almost painful sometimes and I find it equal parts appalling and fascinating.

FT warned me that the more time one spent in school, the worse one's writing skills were. Though I lamented the decline of my fiction writing years ago, I thought this profession would give me at least enough practice to hold onto my general, persuasive, and non-fiction skills.

Right now, I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere. I've neglected most forms of writing in order to polish my economics writing and am failing miserably in that department as well. My mom always jokes that if something terrible happened with her job or whatever, she could always change bedpans at midnight, referring to basic skills she could fall back on in case of emergency. I don't think I could even convincingly write police wires right now.

Hops for Hope

After 42 hours of training to volunteer at the Boulder Safehouse, I think I can safely say that conversations on race, gender and sexuality are sorely lacking in our society. In particular, I will add that being a member of a marginalized or minority group makes it incredibly difficult to make your voice heard.

Despite the long hours of sensitivity training and responsibility-taking and realizations that floated through the air over those three weeks, I was rather surprised that there was very little talk of sensitivity training around serving people with disabilities. In my limited time working the crisis line (an hour, yes, I know, it's minimal), I've already come into contact with victims of domestic violence who suffer from learning disabilities, physical disabilities that resulted from abuse and victims with perhaps undiagnosed neuroses.

However, I am also aware that I might be hyper-astute when it comes to such issues. Though I often tell Ryan that I forget she is in a wheelchair, there are times when it is painfully obvious. Last week, we went for a swim at the CU rec center. The lifeguard appropriately offered her the pvc pipe chair to go down the ramp, but after her insistence that she didn't want it, he hovered. He came right up to us and stood over her as she moved from her chair to the ground and into the water. During our entire swim, he paced along the lane with her and he was no less vigilant when we got out of the pool an hour later. I have been a lifeguard, and I understand that you want to avoid accidents, to minimize response time should something happen, but following someone who is clearly a competent swimmer because she presented herself in a wheelchair is no less discriminatory than following a black man around a store because he's black. The lifeguard's excuse was "I've never seen you around here before", but it was simply code for "I thought you were going to f* up". Unless he does it for every swimmer that comes in, it's simply a discriminatory practice.

I don't know how I got going on this. The purpose of this post was to note that I was very fortunate to attend a fundraiser for Ryan's physical therapy program this weekend at the Auto Museum in Lakewood. Ry has been working with SCI Recovery Project for almost two years now (?) and has always immensely enjoyed her time there. Dave Hart (above) and his gang do a great job of fostering independence and physical strength in patients with debilitating spinal cord injuries.

I'm very grateful for each day that I get to spend with Ry, and I'm grateful for each day that she gets to spend at SCI, getting back in shape, working on her core strength and generally improving her quality of life.

Oh, the wonders of photography

A very cool article from the NYTimes to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I can hardly believe it's been twenty years. I remember it so vividly and I was so little.

1359

I've never really known that many people that blog, besides Quico, that is. Or to put it more correctly, I've never known that many people who had managed to keep up on blogging for long. Most people did it on a whim, on an extended trip abroad or something, a way to keep in touch without flooding inboxes with daily updates about dahl. Given that, I find it funny that I now know quite a few women who blog and almost all of them took part in National Blog Writing Month, posting every single day. If you don't think that's funny, at least humor me when I say I barely opened this blog during NaBloWriMo, as it's so lovingly called.

Today was kind of tough, and though I certainly don't like to come her to just bitch, I won't say that it hasn't happened once or twice (or several times). However, this evening I was compelled by a very unique dinner and drinks experience.

Right about the time I was trying to convince Jen to love the Women's Bean Project as much as I do, the women who I was introduced to WBP with suddenly came back into my life. In middle school and high school I went through friend phases, just like every girl going through that stage, but these women were there through the whole thing. Despite our unwillingness to own up to the nerdiness of what we were actually doing, 1359 was an incredibly safe space for me growing up. It didn't matter that we weren't taking classes together, that we had switched schools or didn't hang out every Friday night. It was a space for volunteering, for escape and though I don't think I realized it at the time, I very much cherished the variety of experiences that made up our little group.

It shrunk, of course, over the years, and ultimately we ended up with six of us finishing our senior year. Some, we reminisced, we had sort "mean-girl"-ed out of the group. Others, who knows. Over margaritas and really hot (temperature hot) Mexican-ish food, we laughed about choreographed dances and sock-hops and puppy chow and the ridiculousness that was 1359.

We are just as diverse as ever. Three married, three not (one of the latter in NYC and couldn't come). Two who eschewed the Mrs thus far are working on the Dr instead. We are a firefighter, an interior designer/sewing machine salesperson, an internal auditor for gold mines, a vet-to-be, an economist.

And two hours just flew by. Even after ten years, there are still things to laugh about.

Happy Diwali

That's all I have for today. It's been a long week. Maybe some Indian food is in order...