Really, I Just Don't Have Anything Interesting to Say

Is there anything more self-indulgent that writing a post about why you haven't been writing posts? Is there anything more self-centered than assuming that others care if you've been too busy, or too uninspired, or whatever to write? Perhaps not. That said, I'm going to do it anyway.

So I haven't done much blogging lately. Which, if you read this at all on a regular basis, may be obvious. I've been busy, blah blah blah. Unexpectedly, I have actual work to do at work these days -- about f'ing time -- and I'm doing some campaign stuff on the side, which is taking up most of my "free" time these days. As much as I like to write, after spending a day writing at work, and then coming home and writing press releases for the campaign, writing a blog posting is about the last thing I want to do.

But really, I just haven't had much interesting to say.

I've learned I need a slightly hollow mind to come up with ideas and concepts beyond the everyday. I need a mind that is not filled to the brim with to-do lists and swirling emotions. I need time to ruminate on nothing at all, and the space to allow ideas to bounce around inside my head for awhile. Ironically enough, I've always considered myself as someone who "performs at her best" when things are hectic and crazy and the stress level is high. And generally speaking, that's true...but performing at your best and having time for big thoughts are two different concepts entirely. I'm only just learning that.

I've also been going through some issues, both positive and negative, of a deeply personal nature. The free thoughts that do find room to move around in my mind are all centered around things I don't want to blog about. While blogging may well be, at times, nothing more than a public diary, I have reservations about posting anything too terribly personal on here. Indeed, a part of me thinks my recent posting about my mother probably crossed that line for me.

I have no intention of this blog being a check-up on my life. It's about thoughts, not events. If you want to know what's actually going on in my life, call me. (And one of these days, I'll stop sucking and return your call....). And so while I was greatly appreciative of the outpouring of support I received from friends after posting about my mother (seriously, to all of you, a huge thank you. It truly meant a lot), I'm a little embarrassed and a little disconcerted. It strikes me as a bit of a cop-out to share such huge news with people through a website. That said, I haven't really reached the point of being able to talk about it much, so in many ways that's the only way I could get that out there. It was nice to know that my good friends knew without me really having to have that conversation.

(Because it's always an awkward conversation to have, isn't it? There's nothing really to say on both ends, yet you both feel like you should talk about it for a respectful number of minutes...like, at least 4 min, right? I mean, it's cancer. It needs to get at least four minutes. So you say things like "I'm so sorry" and "I'm sure it's going to work out" and "Let me know if you need anything" and "Oh don't worry, I'm fine" and while you sincerely mean everything, and you truly do care, you still just end up both feeling a little awkward and a little powerless to make anything better. Am I right?)

Besides, I don't, in the end, think a diary-modeled blog is very interesting. Restated positively, as an old professor would chastise me into doing, diary-modeled blogs are often real bores.

Conclusion being, I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas that inspire me to write postings, that accurately reflect my state of mind, and that stay away from those topics I'm trying to keep off-limits. And that aren't boring.

What else is a real bore? A long posting about why I'm not posting. So I'll wrap this one up, because at this point I'm even boring myself.

Thank You, Sheltered White Boy, For Your Opinion

Today's Metro (the free "news" paper distributed on the T in Boston) decided to take on the tough issue of crime in the city. Specifically, it decided to ask a few dedicated Metro readers "How they feel about violence in the city?"

(For non-Bostonians, let me note that violent crime rates -- and in, particular, shootings/homicides -- have risen dramatically in the past year or so. I should also note that these crimes have primarily affected certain neighborhoods in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, the South End, and Jamaica Plain -- read: lower-income African-American neighborhoods where gang violence is a huge problem.)

So who did the Metro choose to ask about crime in the city? Perhaps someone that, say, lives in these neighborhoods?

Nope. Here's the interviewees:

Dan, a student from Allston (another note for non-Bostonians: Allston is the predominately white neighborhood in the west of the city where all the BU/BC college kids live. Far, far from the neighborhoods where crime has been a real problem) would like us to know that he's "never felt threatened or intimidated. You just need to be smart about where you go and what time you go there."

(Read: Just stay out of those crazy black neighborhoods, yo, and you'll be fine.)

Matthew, another student from Allston, notes that "it's not as bad as people make it out to be."

(Read: I dunno, I don't see anyone with guns in my neighborhood. I think they're all exaggerating.)

Jennifer, a business analyst from Chelsea (suburb north of the city) feels that "it's terrible that such a thing can happen in a city where you feel safe. It seems to be centralized in certain neighborhoods."

(Well, at least she acknowledges that it's a problem for some people in the city.)

Don't get me wrong here -- it's not as though I've personally been affected by the violence in the slightest. The closest I've come to any of it is knowing, peripherally, someone whose son was killed and having a friend who witnessed a shooting on her street. My (predominately white, gentrified) neighborhood feels perfectly safe to me at all hours. I'm not saying I have any better understanding of the violence going on in this city than Dan, Matthew, or Jennifer.

I'm just saying that it is incredibly insulting that the Metro would publish Dan, Matthew, and Jennifer's views on violence in the city -- all people who have admittedly not been affected in the slightest -- without going out and talking to people who have been affected.

Of course, that would mean sending a reporter to Roxbury or something, and who's going to be crazy enough to do that?

Fuck this Shit (That's How I Really Feel)

My mother has breast cancer. These foreign words roll off my tongue and I don't know what they mean. My mother has cancer. What does that signify? What does that represent? What meaning can I possibly derive from these words except the end of life as I know it? My mother has cancer.

I've always known my mother was someday going to have breast cancer. Somewhere in my gut, I have been waiting for this conversation my whole life. Her mother died young, in her mid-40's , from the disease, and my mom has been vigilant about mammograms and tests and all the rest. It's as if we've all known it was coming one of these days and we've just been hoping to get the Paul Revere in time.

Oh, it's early stage, or almost pre-cancerous, or non-invasive, or something. "It's good that they caught it so early," my mother says. She's trying to cheer me up, she can hear me flipping out even though I try so hard to keep my voice calm and steady. She's worried that they may have to do the surgery during our planned family vacation in a few weeks. It eats me up inside that even as she must be dealing with the realization that the disease that killed her mother has come back for her, even as she is dealing with her own impending mortality, she is worrying about keeping my spirits up. About making sure my vacation is enjoyable and stress-free.

So I'm reading about stages, metastasis, survival rates. Breastcancer.org cheerily informs me that the 5 year survival rate for early stage breast cancer is almost 100%! (They note that after that the rates drop; they don't tell me how far.)

Five years! Five years. Five years is nothing. Five years is my brother only just turning 18. Five years and I'll still be a floundering 20something, still, I'm sure, as in need of my mother as ever. Five years is barely time to remodel the kitchen the way she's been talking about forever. In five years there's no time to go on the trips she's mentioned or read those books she's been saving for a rainy day. Five years is nothing. Thanks, Breastcancer.org, for trying to cheer me up. It's not working.

I was sitting on a bench in JP when I got off the phone with my mother. We couldn't talk about it much - she was at work and I know she didn't want to get into it. Besides, she goes to see the doctor on Monday to find out what the real scope is. What stage, what treatment, what chance of recovery. In the meantime it's all conjecture and the glass is half full.

It took me five minutes before I could even move from the bench. I wanted something, someone, some support, some lifeline, so desperately and I couldn't even figure out who I should call. That's when I realized that the person I really wanted to talk to, the one person who could give me the comfort I'm craving and convince me that it's all going to be okay, and the one person I couldn't go to right now, I couldn't be weak for...is my mother.

Right now, I just really want my mother.

This is My Love Letter to Mumbai

As you may have heard by now, terrorists set off 7 bombs on crowded rush-hour commuter trains in Mumbai, India yesterday. Almost 200 killed; more than 700 wounded. Places I loved in India being bombed is starting to feel like a recurring theme in my life: first a restaurant I'd eaten at in the Old City section of Varanasi; then the Jama Masjid temple I'd visited in Delhi. Now Mumbai, the bustling, chaotic, beautiful city I fell hard for...and enjoyed so much that I changed my travel plans just so I could come back for a few more days.

I feel almost an obligation to talk about the city and the time I spent there...as if that will make any of it any better. As if that will fix a damn thing. An ode to Mumbai, a love letter of sorts, is all I've got right now.

Mumbai. Equal parts modernity and old world magic; the glamour of Bollywood side by side with some of the worst slums in the world. Embracing the West, with its malls and movie theaters, but ultimately rejecting it in favor of uniquely Indian homegrown desi-cool. (Desi, loosely translated, means local...but so much more.)

Mumbai was when I started really having fun on my trip. Where I started to learn to roll with the punches in India, to start to laugh when I was once more frustrated, befuddled, confused, or even cheated...instead of crying. It's where I started to really appreciate the culture. In Mumbai I embraced everything Western I found - true bliss, after almost two months travelling through rural India - and yet came to love all things India that much more for the comparison.

I arrived in Mumbai after a taxing 24 hour bus ride, and I instantly ran to the first "modern cafe" (I'd heard they had them here!) to pick up a real Western breakfast. Coffee (coffee!), french toast, a newspaper in my hand and, strangely enough, the Oscars on the television.

I appreciated Mumbai for the food: pizza (not the best, but passable), the first chicken I'd had in a month, brownies, western-style sandwiches and pasta and, of course, breakfasts. A "grocery store" where I could buy Cheddar cheese (well, sort of) and walnuts, strangely enough the two food items I had be craving the most. All the foods were pale imitations of their western counterparts, but after a month and a half of all Indian food all the time, it was like manna from heaven.

I met an amazing group of girls at the hostel where I was staying, and for the first time in awhile, felt like I had a real group of friends...if only for a few days. We toured the city, shared laughter and swapped stories over meals, caught a few Bollywood flicks and even tried our hand at "dressing up" and going to one of the famed Bombay clubs.

The markets and bazaars where hectic, crazy, even a little scary. I learned to haggle. I learned to tell someone off, and mean it enough that they'd actually leave me a lone. I spent one day with a girl I'd met in the hostel (Jo), learning to take the public train system (the same one that got bombed) to the 'non-touristy' parts of the city, getting amazingly lost but having a great time. The hawkers were pushy: they would surround us, block our paths, not let us through, until we either bought something or caused a real scene. We were on the lookout for a "sporting goods store" -- I wanted a new Nalgene to replace the one I'd lost, and she was looking for some camping gear. It ended up being a small office where the owner had a bunch of equipment in boxes...you told him what you wanted and he got it out for you! (Sadly, there were no fancy water bottles; the seller informed me that 'in India they like to use cheap bottles" and held up a disposable plastic drinking bottle. )

One evening, Jo & I went to Chowpatty Beach, a famous evening hang-out. Chowpatty is famous for its "Bhelpuri," a snack made with puffed rice, onions, lemon, cilantro, some other stuff...and a sauce...tastier than it sounds, I promise. When you head to the food area, the vendors literally MOB you. We had at least 20 people shouting at us "bhel puri, bhel puri" - here madam - come here - over here...one guy whipped out a table and chair for us...and then we realized they didn't even sell bhelpuri at that shop. We finally managed to escape the mob and find a place to sit, but it was one of those distinctly Indian chaotic, hilarious situations.

(Chowpatty is also known for its "Head Massagers" - vaguely creepy and incredibly persistent men that will come up to you offering a "very good head massage" for some number of rupees. We both passed -- what sort of qualifications do you need to be a head massager, anyway?)

In Mumbai the young men all ride around on their motorbikes, yapping into their cell phones. The woman, at least those with money, are dressed to kill. There is money here, big money. And yet there is so much poverty. The city is filled with huge slums; the railroad tracks are inevitably lined with these pockets of extreme poverty. (Catch a morning train through the city, and you can see the people lined up, using the dykes of the train tracks as their restroom, sacrificing their privacy, carrying out their morning ablutions in open view, because they've nowhere else to do it.)

I came across the following line in a news story:

The people who live in small houses at the side of the track came out to help the injured, too. They carried sheets and saris out for makeshift stretchers and took water to the injured.

What the article doesn't point out that many people living in these slums only have one sheet, one spare sari. They brought out what may have been one of their only possessions and gave them over willingly, knowing that there would not be stretchers, knowing that these supplies were needed to get the injured to hospitals.

Mumbai claws at you. It will not let you be. Even back in your hotel room, the sounds carry from this city that does not sleep. It seduces you with its promise of making it big (attractive young men and women travel from across India in the hopes of being cast in a Bollywood Blockbuster; the down-on-their-luck come from all over their country in the hopes of finding fortune in the country's financial capital) and then refuses to let you fall to your knees, even if you think you haven't got anything left.

The articles in the press have been filled with tales of Mumbai's resilience, it's indomitable spirit, it's refusal to be cowed or to be slowed. Mumbai has weathered attacks like these before, massive flooding, natural disasters, civil unrest...and it's always back to work the next day.

And I know in my heart it's all true; of any city I've ever been to, I cannot see this city being stopped.

Channeling Dean Moriarty

I spent the Fourth of July weekend having a wonderful mini-vacation in Martha's Vineyard, full of biking, relaxing on beaches, more biking, lighthouse-spotting, shell collecting, seafood eating (mmm mmmm mmm) and a little more biking. I wanted to write up a posting and maybe put up some pictures from the trip all last week, but some combination of low energy and post-trip blues kept me tied up in bloggers block.

Before the moment is lost entirely (though I fear it may already be gone), I'd like to do that. I hate when I have an inspiration -- something I madly want to get down on paper (so to speak) and have half composed in my head -- and don't get around to actually typing it. Soon enough, that magic is gone...and when I try to return to a topic, try to re-capture that initial burst of passion and energy, it's really an abject failure.

Type now, I need to remember, or forever lose your thoughts.

I wanted to write about the magic of travel. How incredibly good it felt to fill up my pack, strap it on my back, put on my Chacos, and hit the road. How much I relished the maps and bus schedules, the ever-changing itineraries and unexpected pleasures (and setbacks) on every corner. How I loved sleeping in a dormitory hostel again, using my sarong as a towel, meeting people from all over the world over breakfast.

I miss traveling. I miss making my schedule up as I go along. I miss meeting new people and dealing with new challenges. I miss being a little bit dirty (travel dust, you know) and a little bit unfashionable. I miss getting plenty of physical activity just from moving from one place to another in the course of a day (walking, biking, carrying a heavy pack) instead of going to the gym. I miss laying on a beach all day, having time to think. Or not think. Or whatever. But having that time and space just for me.

I think about India every day. (Side note: there was another bombing today, this time in Mumbai. Lots more on that subject; I'll try to write about that tomorrow.) I met an amazing couple from India at the hostel, actually, and I could not shut up about how much I loved the country for at least half an hour. We spent hours (perhaps boring my traveling companion, I fear, though she was a good sport) talking about cities they were from and I had visited...Restaurants, roads, customs, stories. I want so desperately to go back. I want that freedom again.

So it was good for me to get away and leave the city; it was good for me to get out of my routine just a little bit. Four days was far too short, but it was enough to both calm the jittery travel bug inside me for a little longer and, at the same time, whet my appetite for more.

E for Effort

I learned something new and important about myself this weekend.

I am a good waterskiier. I have a talent for waterskiing. You might even go so far as to call me a natural.

On my fourth try ever, I managed to get up on the skies and zoom along behind the boat all over the lake. Wakes were no match for my prowess. (Well, at least for a few minutes.) It was all surprisingly easy...and incredibly fun.

Lest you think my ego is out of hand here, let me back up and explain just why this is such a ground-breaking, confidence-boosting unexpected phenomena in my life.

You see, I suck at sports. Seriously. I'm bad at them. I lack the coordination, I lack the talent, I lack the drive, and I often lack the physical ability. I'm a terrible runner. I can't throw, I can't catch, I can't hit the ball, I can't make a basket. It's embarrassing, and I try, as much as possible, to avoid situations in which I'll out myself as the klutzy non-athlete that I am.

When I was in second grade, I won a paper certificate for being able to do the third most situps in a minute (32, for the record) of all the girls in my class. I treasured that certificate - my only athletic award - for years. I based my identity around "being good at sit-ups." (For the record, I'm not. I lost that skill long ago.)

Playing sports as a child was often a traumatizing experience. I will not soon forget the time when I was 12 and at softball practice, and couldn't hit the ball. I'll not forget the embarrassment of standing at the plate in the hot sun, whiffing at one ball after another, my face getting redder and redder, for well over half an hour, my coach insistent that no one quit until they'd made contact with the ball at least once. I'll not forget my teammates - those bitchy 12 year old girls for whom athletic ability came naturally -- and their snickers, their exasperated sighs as I swung, and missed, yet again, their eye-rolls and exchanged glances, their snarky comments later at the bench.

I'll not forget my summer soccer league at age 15 -- that community sports program that was supposed to be all about "having fun" and "learning the game" and "getting exercise." Except, of course, the team was coached by the Varsity soccer coach and filled with all the soccer team girls. In other words, we took our community soccer league awfully seriously.

My fifteen year old self wanted so badly to be, if not befriended, at least accepted by that click of oh-so-popular soccer girls. Step one: I had to have the right clothing. So I saved up my baby-sitting money and bought a pair of Umbro shorts (because everyone wore Umbros) and a beautiful pair of blue $60 Adidas -- about three times more expensive than any shoe I had every owned. I loved those Adidas. I spent weeks picking out the perfect pair of sneakers at the store. Once I had them, I couldn't stop peaking in at the box every few minutes on my way home. This was the way to social acceptance: a pair of blue Adidas sneakers and some Umbros shorts.

On the first day of practice, I was made fun of for not having cleats. Sixty-dollar Adidas notwithstanding, I still had the wrong shoes.

My summer soccer experience did not get much better from there. One memorable low point: the time I tried to stop a ball soaring through the sky with my chest -- the way all the other girls did it -- and ended up getting knocked to the ground because I caught it in the jaw instead. Oh, everyone got a good laugh out of that one.

Other athletic experiences were not much better. I couldn't make the basketball team in 7th grade - despite the coach's warnings that having a good attitude was more important than skill, and I know I had a far better attitude than most of those girls on the team -- because I made exactly 0 out of 20 free throw attempts. I was usually among the last to be picked for teams in gym. In fact, if anything, I developed a real talent for avoiding as much physical activity as possible in gym class. I am a grade-A bench sitter.

With all of that history behind me, you'll understand, I hope, if I brag about my waterskiing just a little. If I take a little pride at being unexpectedly good at something that seems to require some physical ability. If I relish the feeling of being, for one afternoon, better than almost everyone else in the group at a sporting activity.

Take that, you nasty girls of my childhood. Take that.

I Think I'm in Love...

with the Prime Minister of Japan.

Yeah, okay, so he's a little on the older side.

And yeah, okay, his politics aren't the best.

But the man keeps his hair long and rakish while leading a country known for its adherence to conformity. And he has an unwavering love for Elvis, as demonstrated at this weekend' s media/state events at Graceland with Bush this weekend.

Oh, Koizumi. I had a crush on you before, it's true.

But when busted out the Elvis sunglasses, swiveled your hips, belted your rendition of "Love Me Tender," and put that awkward, embarrassed look on Bush's face, I knew it was true love.