tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84080628594103230622024-03-19T04:17:06.531-04:00der LandstreicherYou'll need this for when the Prussians come.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-44150003558675533022016-05-02T11:47:00.001-04:002016-05-02T11:52:14.494-04:00der Landstreicher Has Moved!<span style="font-size: x-large;">You can find new posts by Marisa at the new iteration of this blog, <a href="http://landstreicherin.wordpress.com/" style="font-style: italic;"><b>landstreicherin</b></a>, at <a href="http://landstreicherin.wordpress.com/"><b>landstreicherin.wordpress.com</b></a>.</span><br />
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<i>Landstreicher</i> is German for hobo, tramp, vagrant, drifter, wanderer, roamer. Someone who doesn’t hold a job for long, who rolls across the land as the wind pushes, making what he can of what comes. Wanders the land to see what he can see, and doesn’t have a home.</div>
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A <i>Landstreicherin</i> is a woman who does the same.<br />
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With this new website, I am reclaiming a place on the web for my words. I write about places, whether new or old to me, and books that I’ve read, and the life that I’m building. I’m always seeking the optimal arrangements for happiness and beauty in my home, I’m trying my hand at gardening, and I’m working on learning Turkish. I love to stare off into the distance, to appreciate landscapes, to see the world as it once was and could later be, as well as how it is now. I’m a devotee of trains, commuter up to transcontinental, and I love animals: house cats and fat collegiate squirrels and the wild beasts I wish had more freedom to roam the earth.<br />
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When I first took the name <i>Landstreicher</i> from Hermann Hesse’s novella <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Knulp-Three-Tales-Life/dp/1478200200"><i>Knulp</i></a>, I was about to move to Germany for a year, and I was excitedly imagining my semi-nomadic future. I visited thirteen countries over the course of that year. Then I moved back to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and have lived here ever since. I have no great attachment to the specific character Knulp, the carefree, wandering man who avoids career and commitment, who over the course of his life experiences neither the trouble nor the rewards of responsibility and loyalty. I could not be happy without a home. But I do want to live a life that doesn’t cost me forty hours out of every week, one that is flexible, mobile, meaningful. I want to dabble in different interests, to travel the world, to explore ways of living. So I’ve adapted <i>Landstreicher</i> to <i>Landstreicherin</i> for this new iteration of my blog.<br />
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<b>Please follow me at <a href="http://landstreicherin.wordpress.com/">landstreicherin.wordpress.com</a>. You can also find me on Instagram as <a href="http://instagram.com/mapooka">mapooka</a>.</b></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-16294159287293386522015-11-07T23:37:00.002-05:002015-11-07T23:43:20.559-05:00Sundowner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I can't believe I never instagrammed this. What an amazing place to eat a custom ice cream sandwich, as the cows are about to get their evening meal. Moomers, you are delicious. Chocolate salted caramel ice cream, amazing; cookies for the sandwich—underwhelming, will not repeat.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I can't blog tonight because of an intense sugar craving and irresistible exhaustion. Maybe tomorrow will be the day I actually write some posts.</div>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-70626898317514875012015-11-06T23:00:00.001-05:002015-11-20T15:09:55.789-05:00Lunch Break Reflections (While Eating a Grilled Cheese Sandwich in the Cafeteria)<div style="text-align: left;">
So last night, when I could have been blogging and SHOULD have been getting ready for bed, I decided to move one of the couches a little bit to test out a new idea I had—a new idea involving <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2015/11/stubborn.html">diagonals</a>. I was pretty sure it wouldn't pass muster with Cooper, but I wanted to see. The big couch barely fit there, but shifting it did change the shape of the room, breaking free of the tyranny of not enough space and too many doors, which had forced us to line up every piece of furniture along the perimeter of the living room (and in the bedroom, too).</div>
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A simple solution is to just get rid of some stuff, so things don't feel so tight. On the one hand, I'm not as in love with my red leather couch <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2011/11/lets-all-get-couches.html">as I once was</a>, but on the other, I like having two couches with room for five people, since I still harbor fantasies of having friends over and I like to have a cozy place to hang out with them if it ever happens again. So fallen from grace or not (it's an insistent red that wants to dictate every other element of design; it's holding me back!), we keep the couch, because now is not the time for a new one, and two armchairs instead of a new couch would also certainly cost too much. I can't say the red Klippan sparks any joy anymore, but it seems I'm just not ready, and not rich enough, to fully accept Marie Kondo's tantalizing prescripts and throw it away. Instead, I succumb to logic and stubbornly and reluctantly hold on to this couch that still functions, dammit, even if its existence pisses me off once a week.<br />
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But maybe, in partial acceptance of the reality of our social lives, we can turn that red loveseat that Cooper and I rarely sit on away from the TV—since we almost never manage to have people over, the likelihood of a group movie night has plummeted to zero, and we like to share one couch together—which opens up one...or maybe even two! possibilities in this tight space. Because, you see, the diagonals really didn't work. Diagonal one was promising, but couch number two on an angle leaves a super weird open triangle of room behind it, which couch one (the only couch we ever use) has to stare at. So instead, I moved the big couch farther, ninety degrees from its customary position, and put the TV in a much weirder place so that the grey couch sitters (two humans, two cats) could still see the screen, and...I don't know.<br />
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I affected change! It's kinda cozy! Whether we try out the new layout or return to the old, we need a bigger living room rug. And the lighting is currently bad in this new arrangement, there's still an awkward useless corner next to the front door where junk will probably accumulate, and not a definite spot to add in an armchair (long cherished dream; ignore what I said about already having too much furniture).<br />
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Jury's out, and so's my confidence.<br />
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<i>If you come back tomorrow, maybe there'll be photos. If it's sunny and I can get a good one. But that would take the surprise away from Cooper, who doesn't return from California until Sunday night...so, we'll see.</i><br />
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<i>Photos 1 & 2: Before. Photos 3 & 4: After.</i>Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-82704155232363367342015-11-05T23:17:00.000-05:002015-11-07T21:55:04.757-05:00StubbornLooks like chaos. Feels like the path to a breakthrough.<br />
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An hour later, it turns out none of it was a breakthrough. Now I have an entire living room to move back. Some other time.<br />
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-60290468093218012772015-11-04T22:19:00.001-05:002015-11-05T13:55:10.666-05:00The Plus Side of Winter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Although the mountain country of North Carolina in the eighteenth century is a whole different world than this one in which we live, there are elements to aspire to. I give you <i>Drums of Autumn</i>, book four of Diana Gabaldon's <i>Outlander </i>series, which is sprinkled with beautiful scenes and feelings of homeyness:<br />
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<i>The winter held off for some time, but snow began to fall in
the night on November 28, and we woke to find the world transformed. Every
needle on the great blue spruce behind the cabin was frosted, and ragged
fringes of ice dripped from the tangle of wild raspberry canes.</i></blockquote>
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<i>The snow
wasn’t deep, but its coming changed the shape of daily life. I no longer
foraged during the day, save for short trips to the stream for water, and for
lingering bits of green cress salvaged from the icy slush along the banks.
Jamie and Ian ceased their work of log felling and field clearing, and turned
to roof shingling. The winter drew in on us, and we in turn withdrew from the
cold, turning inward.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>We had no
candles; only grease lamps and rushlights, and the light of the fire that
burned constantly on the hearth, blackening the roof beams. We therefore rose
at first light, and lay down after supper, in the same rhythm as the creatures
of the forest around us.</i> </blockquote>
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<i>We had no
sheep yet, and thus no wool to card or spin, no cloth to weave or dye. We had
no beehives yet, and thus no wax to boil, no candles to dip. There was no stock
to care for, save the horses and mules and the piglet, who had grown
considerably in both size and irascibility, and in consequence been exiled to a
private compartment in the corner of the crude stable Jamie had built—this
itself no more than a large open-fronted shelter with a branch-covered roof. [...]</i> </blockquote>
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<i>With few chores to do outside, there was time to talk, to
tell stores, and to dream. Between the useful objects like spoons and bowls,
Jamie took time to carve the pieces of a wooden chess set, and spent a good
deal of his time trying to inveigle me or Ian into playing with him.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Ian and
Rollo, who both suffered badly from cabin fever, took to visiting Anna Ooka
frequently, sometimes going on extended hunting trips with the young men from
the village, who were pleased to have the benefit of his and Rollo’s company.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“The lad
speaks the Indian tongue a great deal better than he does Greek or Latin,”
Jamie observed with some dourness, watching Ian exchanging cordial insults with
an Indian companion as they left on one such excursion.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“Well, if
Marcus Aurelius had written about tracking porcupines, I expect he’d have found
a more eager audience,” I replied soothingly.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Dearly as I
loved Ian, I was myself not displeased by his frequent absence. There were
definitely times when three was a crowd.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There is
nothing more delightful in life than a feather bed and an open fire—except a
feather bed with a warm and tender lover in it. When Ian was gone, we would not
trouble with rushlights but would go to bed with the dark, and lie curled
together in shared warmth, talking late into the night, laughing and telling
stories, sharing our pasts, planning our future, and somewhere in the midst of
the talking, pausing to enjoy the wordless pleasures of the present. </i>(Pages 380-383) </blockquote>
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Photo: Snowy evergreens in Bavaria, on a visit to Schloß Neuschwanstein in 2008.</div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-63880949201367487202015-11-03T22:54:00.001-05:002015-11-05T13:58:03.904-05:00Porch Season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wrote <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2015/05/porch-dreams.html">this post</a> about my fire escape in the spring, and never followed up with photos of what I did. Mainly what I did was buy mostly-boring pots, and set up a little kitchen garden outside the bedroom, and then unroll a colorful rug woven of recycled plastic during patches of good weather when I thought we'd go out there more just to water the garden. The rug is pretty great, but I think sunshine was also an essential component of my modest renovation.<br />
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Basil, parsley, tomatoes, basil. A cutie red Kalanchoe to go with a turquoise pot. Spiders lived in it all summer.<br />
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A pleasing setup with the rug, and our cilantro that went to seed almost immediately. Cats who desperately need to join their humans outside (streng verboten).<br />
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Everyone out for some sun. Our previously majestic thyme (now languishing in the sunny stairwell.)<br />
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Looking out of the bedroom to the fire escape. Picnicking on the floor with leftovers and champagne.</div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-89698648947353778342015-11-02T22:46:00.001-05:002015-11-05T14:01:20.746-05:00Mornings in Turkey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The first morning back in Europe, five years after I’d
packed up my bedroom in Vauban, toured Aschaffenburg and Berlin each for a
second time, and flown out of Frankfurt back to Michigan for my final year of
college.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No fear or apprehension, to be back in Frankfurt Flughafen. I
ate a pretzel, messaged Emma (still in Ukraine) on Facebook, wandered to find
my gate for the next flight—the flight to Istanbul. I’m not sure how we landed
in Frankfurt; it was dark still on arrival, I think, but soon morning gave way
to this thick spooky fog out the terminal windows. I alighted in Istanbul at
1pm, waited a long time for my bag, couldn’t find the sign with my name, for
the taxi to my hostel in Sultanahmet. Didn’t like it one bit. Once at the
hostel, a fog of sleep, a shower (maybe), an unavoidable nap. I ventured out in the evening dark to
see the Hagia Sophia and find sustenance, but couldn’t shake the overly friendly
young Turkish man who just wanted to practice his English with me over some tea. I went home hungry to the hostel, couldn’t sleep. After that first
night, Emma and I had no reservations for anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
On the second day, I bought us plane tickets to <span style="color: black;">İzmir for that afternoon, reserved the last room at a recommended pansiyon in
Selçuk, wandered the gardens of the Sultan’s palace, and took a shuttle back to
Atatürk International Airport, in search of meine Emma, arriving from Odessa.
When her face finally emerged from the crowd spilling out of the international
terminal, I was so happy. She was wearing a striped sweater whose twin I had also packed for the
trip. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year and a half.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Morning three in the Old World,
morning two in Turkey, we climbed three flights of turning stone stairs to the
pansyion's terrace, picked out for ourselves one of the little circle tables that
ringed the bench that wrapped around three sides of the terrace, and were
presented with a feast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
**<br />
I wanted to write about mornings. Early morning, when the
light’s still a little blue and the breeze is so fresh that you always get a
twinge of nostalgia for something – first days of school past, the end of hot
summers, waking up early in a tent or on a lake or for a peaceful journey
through a city still mostly aslumber.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-10490480285730334382015-11-01T22:00:00.001-05:002015-11-02T12:13:28.294-05:00Aiming Too HighHello, November, and the depths of the fall. I've meant to be writing here so much more, but setting aside the time is never high enough on the list, and so it doesn't happen.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have a misguided approach when I feel behind and overwhelmed, when there are too many things to prioritize, because simply facing the entirety of the list is enough to shut you down. I tell myself that none of the parts are imposssible, and I just have to start them, and they won't be so bad. <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">That part's reasonable. But then I remind myself that once I have done All the Things, I'll have time to relax, breathe, reflect—in place of all the panic-procrastinate-go-to-way-too-many-unnecessary-websites breaks that I take all day instead of accomplishing things. Just do one thing, and the next, and the next, until you've done everything. Then you can start fresh with a system and increased satisfaction from your quick followthrough. I do this at home and at work, even though I know a better way to finish everything is to admit that not everything matters, and cut the unimportant and unfulfilling out of the list. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">But oh, I cling so hard to the dream of clearing everything off the list and basking in the glow of open possibility.</span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Luckily, today I finished a fairly deep clean of the living room, to add to the bathroom, bedroom, and reorganized (but again filthy) kitchen. The home sphere is ready for a new month.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">A month of cooking regularly, to take some burden off Cooper and feel happy when I've made something, and cleaning systematically, because surely it's possible to live an easy, clean life when your apartment is under five hundred square feet. A month of exercise again, because obviously, I haven't learned this lesson about not being able to do all the things, and I strive for perfection. (Ugh, please no. But moving my body is one of the best things I can do to help myself cope with life.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">A month for cozying-up our living spaces for the dark months to come. New lighting for the improved kitchen, new rugs for our cold floors, and hopefully some good ideas for spaces Ali and Drew want help with. Oh yes, and a month for meeting and loving and cuddling Ali's and Drew's little son—arriving any day now. No one can wait!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">And a month of reading—Elena Ferrante number four, I'm almost ready for you, finally!—and writing every day in this space, the things I've wanted to write all year, and whatever comes to mind now, because it's NaBloPoMo, and I've never regretted doing it before.</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">So, here's my manifesto. I'm not ready, but here goes.</span></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-58584921965511924522015-09-29T22:45:00.003-04:002015-11-05T14:13:12.738-05:00Reichstag<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“During the Cold War, the Reichstag—its cupola wrecked, its
walls bullet-pocked—was an abandoned relic in the no man’s land of central
Berlin, just inside the British sector. The Wall, built in 1961, ran a few
steps from the back of the building.</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I start to read this profile of Angela Merkel in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/quiet-german">The New Yorker</a></i>, warm in my apartment in
Michigan, colored lights twinkling on my Christmas tree in the corner. I feel
comfortable with the historical introduction to Berlin that begins the article,
though there’s a momentary twinge of shame at this self-satisfaction. This
history that I’m familiar with is so basic, bare-bones, and I fear my knowledge
doesn’t go much deeper, despite the B.A. I hold in German, despite the many
walking tours I’ve been led on through that city, both literal and literary.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s strange to me how much I warm up inside when a topic
dear to me comes up. But I feel rusty on Germany, not confident on the nuances of
really anything that’s German, anymore—my convictions about living there, the
people, the way things work, grow fuzzier with time. I know by rote the words I
used to say, but the immediacy of experience is held hostage beyond the barrier of time. I don’t feel as though I can really back up my old impressions and rusty knowledge—I don't think I have enough left of those experiences to plunge deeper, think anew.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reading the sentence, though—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the wall, built in 1961, ran a few steps from the back of the building</i>—I
remember it. I took pictures from the Reichstag, standing in what used to be West Berlin, watching people walk along a path
just outside that marks where the wall once separated West from East.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think that Berlin in icy January was probably a fitting
introduction. Black and white, the weather forbidding, even if nothing else
was. Historical Berlin is so many things, but first and foremost it is bombs
and Nazis and Russian soldiers; the Wall, <a href="http://thefunambulist.net/2012/01/21/cinema-der-erzahler-the-storyteller-in-wim-wenders-wings-of-desire/">Wim Wenders’ angels in heavy overcoats</a> in a world of quiet poetry, but no color; and spies,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> inoffizielle Mitarbeiter</i>, everywhere.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Berlin was cold; my classmates complained all through the
long, long walk of history our guide led us on. Nazi buildings, Checkpoint
Charlie, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Geisterbahnhöfe</i>—the ghost
U-Bahn stations located on lines that didn’t stop on that side of the city,
because it was on the wrong side of the wall. The tour was long and not the
most compelling, but I overdressed, heavy Aran sweater under a wool coat, with
leggings under jeans and thick wool socks in hiking boots, so it wasn’t so bad.<br />
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</div>
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I have <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2010/02/theres-something-about-february.html">another picture</a> out a Reichstag window, of the cobblestoned plaza that
extended so far out ahead of the building, before reaching the great park, the
Tiergarten. Cold stone, ice, and little people scattered
about, some with cheery red accents. I used it to symbolize the brutal
length of winter, but I loved the scene all the same.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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When you travel, place after place, the intoxication wears
off. After six months in Europe, sights sometimes just felt like old stuff—and
while before, Very Old Stuff was exciting just for the fact of its age, after
relentless journeying, the spark had been diluted, deactivated. But when I stood for the second time (seven months after
the group trip to Berlin, it was summer) on Bebelplatz, the square where the
Nazis burned books, and I read Heine’s prescient quote from the previous
century, I shivered—and I shiver a little inside every time I think of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Dort, wo man Bücher
verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen</i>.”<br />
“Where they burn books, so too will they burn human beings
in the end.”</blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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It’s sort of nuts to me that I’ve been so many places, and
my parents haven’t. Because I also don’t think it’s so odd that I’ve traveled
as much as I have—I know many others who have too, or who will surely surpass
me by far. My parents had comparable educations to mine, but unlike me, they started adult life
without debt, with employed summers and cheap tuition. They may have tottered
on the path to gainful employment as I did, but they also went to Europe more
than once.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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More than once in one decade, then never again, although it
wasn’t until the next decade that they started a family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My mom has been places I haven’t—Arizona and England,
Denmark and the Virgin Islands, Minnesota and many other states, I’m sure. My
dad lived in Germany a little while, like I did, and together they moved to
Indianapolis, before happily returning to Michigan for the rest of forever. All
three of us have been to New York City, Munich, parts of California; two of us
to Montreal (none of these trips with all three of us together). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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I don’t think I’m going to stop. My life is already
different than my parents’, and it will remain that way. But it’s still strange
that I’ve stood on the D-Day beaches, I’ve gazed at the galleries of the Hagia
Sophia and taken a ferry up the Bosphorous, seen Charlemagne’s throne, and
stood on the western coast of Ireland, staring out across the Atlantic toward
North America—and they have done none of these things. Never seen Paris?</div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-69961947105815297002015-08-23T13:00:00.001-04:002015-11-03T16:14:47.032-05:00Beyond Small Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"What are you up to now?" a friend recently asked me one morning, when a group of us were hanging out, brought together by his re-emergence in America after a while away. I answered about my full-time job at the university, where I've been for just over twelve months now. I probably gave the shorthand answer about why it's a good job for now. I think that line of conversation ended about two minutes later, max. It's always an easy transition to where Cooper is going to go next, what sorts of jobs he's thinking about and whether or not we want to stay in Michigan.<br />
<br />
Afterward, I realized that it wasn't the answer I wanted to give, and it wasn't the answer I had to give. No, a year later, I still haven't come up with a concrete plan for my next step, an end-goal or a career path I'm excited about. (I am excited about my first real raise a couple months ago, and thrilled with how much money I've been able to save this past year.) But there's no reason talking about my job needs to be a fun conversation; it's a job. Going to an office and making money forty hours a week isn't the only thing I'm up to. It's not the only thing I do.<br />
<br />
I reread Outlander books 4-6 this winter, then finally read 7 and 8 in the early spring. It was a glorious, intoxicating pursuit and I loved every minute of it. I read the third of Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan Novels in June, after long holding back, and was sucked into the anguish of being a woman in 1970s Italy, of being a poor worker anywhere in the world. Life is hard, guys.<br />
<br />
I spent a few days reorganizing my Pinterest, and many more hours dreaming up new layouts for my apartment (although the quarters are too tight for any of them to really work), plotting new combinations of colors to give a new perspective and a brighter view. Cooper and I put together a garden of pots on our fire escape, and now every couple weeks we pluck a batch of basil and make pesto for dinner—just like that, pasta and chicken sandwiches and decadent egg sandwiches for breakfast. I spread out a mat between the plant pots sometimes and eat my dinner al fresco on the floor out there. Summer is glorious.<br />
<br />
It's been some weeks on, other weeks off, but I've been running outdoors many mornings, as well as going to the Y. My goal is to feel the ache of exercise every time I get up from my desk at work—a vivid sense of satisfaction at my commitment to my health and my goals. It doesn't happen every day, but I think it's getting easier.<br />
<br />
I've gotten so frustrated about the injustices so many people face in this country, even as the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act and legalized gay marriage across the country. The plight of the people and the planet is so serious; mass incarceration and violence and de facto segregation of neighborhoods and therefore schools and therefore life; and not enough money allocated to any of it, even if we really knew how to fix it. I've been reading articles about poverty and homelessness and student loans and money money money and the lack thereof, for years of course, but everything feels like it's coming to a head. I started to follow Bernie Sanders (and then Hillary Clinton) on Facebook; he was showing up on my feed every day because my friends kept liking his posts, and I read along, thinking, "Yes, yes, yes," so many of his succinct and successful messages on social media are things I agree with, but then I just don't even know. There are so many things that we should do as a community, a state, and a country, but in Michigan, the cards are stacked against us, and anyway, how could we ever do all these things?<br />
<br />
So I've been up to reading, and attempting to write but never finishing anything. I've turned my creativity to my tiny garden and my home, and itched to do the same for my parents and my friends (alas that everyone has more important things to do and money doesn’t grow on trees). I've amassed my small fortune, increasing my savings with every raise, big or small, that comes my way, and I've despaired, again and again, over the state of our world.<br />
<br />
But I've done my small part in my family circle. Ali and I reunited with Rachel in Florida; Cooper and I with Emma in New York. I drove my mom out to see her sister in Rochester, New York, the first time we'd made that trip in about four years. I helped my brother with a scholarship application, and then with the planning of the trip to Germany and the coordination with the host bakeries there, when everything seemed too big and too hard for him (I write emails for a living, although not usually auf Deutsch). The biggest victory in bettering someone's life is that I got my parents to sit down at the table with me, and put together a budget based on all of the past year's expenses, and then dig out the details on their separate retirement accounts and my dad’s small pension. Finally, my mom could see that the money was there, that they wouldn't have a lot, but it wasn't worth her working 'til she was eighty, or even until sixty-six. And so she's retiring in two weeks, at which point we'll all have to do our parts to get her working toward a healthier, more mobile life again. I hope, I insist, I decree, I demand.<br />
<br />
I know it's not always the best topic of conversation for people who don't know everyone I do, but it turns out that the thing that matters most to me in life is my family and my friends (felines included). I thought all I wanted was to move away for college, and then when that didn’t happen, at least to move away after college, but despite the occasional regret, this is good. These people are my world. And so next time someone asks what I've been up to, after a year or two of little communication, I hope I say something more like this, and not my latest career update. It's just a little patch of who I am. <br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-62803543881506094012015-08-05T11:10:00.000-04:002015-10-04T13:07:02.754-04:00Summertime Sadness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been in something of a funk at work these past two or three weeks—not quite busy enough to feel the pressure to succeed. None of the work feels big enough to be worth doing—or else it's too big, but unimportant, and not something I can completely do on my own. I don't like that.<br />
<br />
Last week, part of it was PMS, and then yesterday my cramps were bad enough that I let myself stay home sick after lunch. But it's mainly the lingering feeling of worthlessness from the previous weeks, at this point. It seems to me that I've been doing a bad job, so I am a bad worker, so I will do a bad job, can I go home now?<br />
<br />
I know that every day is a new day, every day I can start fresh and I can do a great job and cross off a lot of things, even in fewer than eight hours. But if I can fix it any day, why do it today? Why not wait until tomorrow? Self discipline is hard. Fewer hours day after day, and then you try to work long and diligently and it just feels neverending.<br />
<br />
Instead I want to read about the Greek island of Milos, where Emma is right now, and maybe chronicle a little of last year's travels in Turkey. Emma wants to take a boat to Turkey, and make her way to Odessa from there. I want to find podcasts to listen to while I work. I want to read <i>Testament of Youth—</i>we saw the movie on Monday night and it was so good!—and also read about nature and cultivation and wilderness, like Cooper's always trying to get me to do for him. Even though it's not like we share a brain, and I'm not going to take notes for him.<br />
<br />
I want to leave early so I can rent a kayak before they stop allowing the river journey for the evening, so we can practice for our trip to the UP. I want to watch old Daily Show episodes because we watched it last night, Amy Schumer and Ta-Nehisi Coates with possibly my favorite television person in the world, Jon Stewart, whose show I've barely ever watched between boyfriend number one and now. I'm sad that the era is ended (Jon Stewart, not bf#1), and I didn't even take part in most of it. And the same for Colbert, but that was already over.<br />
<br />
When I sit in my new office at the NCRC (right now I'm three days at the old office, two days at the new one), I think of ways to decorate it, to make it welcoming, truly mine. The big window is great; I love it. But it's not enough, especially knowing that for half the year, the trees will be naked and the ground and sky grey. I have an entire shelf above my new desk there, that I'd like to fill with books and maybe a small lamp and other pretty things. But my job requires zero books. There is no reason for me to surround myself with any. What a sad reality. All I need to do my job is an internet connection and this horrible window into bureaucracy and email. Nothing real like a book. And yet I have to sit here every day.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-68320086420170115592015-05-06T10:42:00.002-04:002015-05-06T12:40:05.016-04:00Porch Dreams<div class="MsoNormal">
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Right now I’m fixated on the back porch, the balcony—the
feature of my apartment that doesn’t really exist. (In the background I’m also
shopping for a new rug in the bedroom, obsessing over lighting and decor
options for my drab taupe box of a windowless office, and wondering what color
scheme would please me for pillows in the living room…and that’s just for
spaces that are mine.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spring is here in Michigan, and so, like everyone else, I
want to be outside. I want to own my desires and bring them to life, I want to
bike through the fresh air and nap in the sunshine and read on the porch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before we moved to this apartment, our small but sufficient
one-bedroom, I was already thinking about the fire escape. I knew a previous
tenant had grown herbs on this fire escape, and I have fond memories of the
fire escape to the apartment I shared with Emma, which was big enough for a
table and chairs, three stories up in the trees. I thought of all the New York
City stories that include ducking through the window to catch some air on the
steps; hanging a string of lights and claiming a small patch of the sky for
oneself. Sure, we have a bathroom with a tub in it, a bedroom separate from the
living room, two closets, and a kitchen. We have space for our bikes in the
hallway, and windows in three directions. It’s enough, but it also isn’t
enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I imagined us, having just moved in together, mixing drinks
and carrying them through the apartment, one of us locking the cats in the
bathroom so they couldn’t escape, and then opening the door at the back of the
bedroom and stepping out into the early evening to sit on the steps and savor the
last of summer together.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
It’s a good vision. Alas that our first September in the
apartment came with a wasp infestation, centered on that back wall of the
bedroom. I was checking out the fire escape, in the early days after moving in,
and when I turned to go inside, I put the full weight of my leg down onto a
wasp with my bare foot. That was the last time I went out that door until the
following spring—and that wasn’t even the worst of it. After our maintenance
guy and then an exterminator had sprayed three or four times, we started to
find poisoned wasps languishing, first on our bedroom windowsill, and then all
over the bedroom floor. Two, four, six, thirty, until, the final day, Cooper
came home to somewhere around seventy-eight dead and dying wasps writhing on
the carpet at the back of the room and under the dresser we had under the
window, while a sadistic cat looked on. After that, we covered the cold air
return in the room, and the rest of the wasps died and were no more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That horror stunted my fire escape dreams, and although I
swept the little landing at the top of the crooked wooden steps a couple times,
nothing came of it. Until now! This year, I ‘m ready. I’ve got some copper-wire
fairy lights I bought at Christmastitme but don’t really like indoors. I bought
Cooper a curly parsley plant this weekend—supposedly it’s one herb that can
actually do well inside, so hopefully he can permanently give up buying bunches
of parsley that are always too big to use up in time. Soon we’ll add some other
plants to enjoy for the summer, although they won’t want to winter with us
(basil, thyme, some flowers). We can bring out a stool or two folding chairs,
and sit on our miniature deck and look at the leaves in the trees, and into our
neighbors’ windows.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w0GqgsaMzQI/VUoDtfpgvyI/AAAAAAAANd8/6aq_zTFq8-8/s1600/IMG_4042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w0GqgsaMzQI/VUoDtfpgvyI/AAAAAAAANd8/6aq_zTFq8-8/s1600/IMG_4042.JPG" height="640" width="486" /></a></div>
It’s not an obvious space for enjoyment. It’s about three feet by ten or twelve feet (nothing like the beautiful
66 square foot original patio of <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-brooklyn-terrace-in-may.html">that great blog</a></span>). You could fit four folding chairs on it, awkwardly in a row,
or you can fit two next to each other and have a nice time together. You could
probably fit a very small bistro table, or one of those half-moon little
balcony tables, and then two simple chairs. We won’t. Maybe one stool with a
plant on it, a plant that can move to the ground if we want the stool. Folding
chairs in the bedroom, just inside the door, if we don’t want to sit on the
steps.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The structure is made of wood, nailed together well enough
to work, but with no thought to craftsmanship. It was painted a bland
bluish-grey a few times, and the paint is forever peeling off, every time you
sweep the leaves and branches off the porch. Straight ahead from the bedroom,
you see three wooden bars, and between the bars (if you’re seated low) or above
them (if you’re standing), you can see a bedroom through a neighbor’s window,
the curtain for which she never fully closes. She could certainly see us if she
looked out. To the right, south, there’s the brightest sun and a nice apartment
building across the street. To the left, north, another building. There’s also
a door to the other upstairs apartment, making this space less private, a
little less welcoming to a takeover. Oh well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m not sure how nice we can make it. It doesn’t really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">matter</i>—there are so many parks nearby,
bike paths and the river and picnic tables. There are patios and decks and beer
gardens downtown, a short walk away. After almost two years in this space, though,
it’s a fun challenge to try to add another room, another dimension, to our
lives here. An easy little escape—all I have to do is open that door that is
usually just a window.<br />
<br />
So I’ll see if I can grow any plants to block the house next door. I’ll see if the herbs will do okay back there, at the southern end of the little platform. Maybe with a little outdoor rug, and the fairy lights, it will become a porch instead of a crumbling afterthought. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bANrjeubHos/VUoDvUM6gdI/AAAAAAAANeE/baZ1TXWWUlA/s1600/IMG_4045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bANrjeubHos/VUoDvUM6gdI/AAAAAAAANeE/baZ1TXWWUlA/s1600/IMG_4045.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-57577277315254411572015-04-11T12:45:00.002-04:002015-04-21T18:20:29.695-04:00More Than Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--lPkcF-E79U/VSlPY5ZNh5I/AAAAAAAANaU/rDyNc28IPXs/s1600/IMG_3324%2B-%2BVersion%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--lPkcF-E79U/VSlPY5ZNh5I/AAAAAAAANaU/rDyNc28IPXs/s1600/IMG_3324%2B-%2BVersion%2B2.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2014 was a year that I really tried to put what I wanted
to do ahead of work. That meant giving up my pay to visit friends in Florida
and California, requesting long weekends off for my birthday and Labor Day,
going Up North for a full week, and taking an unpaid two-week vacation to
Turkey and Germany, since I’d only been a permanent employee for two weeks when
I got on that transatlantic flight. I got lots of drinks with friends and
starting buying myself books again, made a list of summer activities and crossed
them off one by one: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kayak the Huron</i><i>,
Cinetopia Film Festival, Shakespeare in the Arb, </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">drink lots of sangria</i> (could do better
at that one).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s a mixed message, because the rest of the time I was
working over 50 hours a week—extremely bitter about that fact, as I had not
requested that many hours and couldn’t get rid of them. I planned to quit all
three pointless jobs to make room for my trip to Turkey. I didn’t have to,
though, because I got one real job instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CrlcSAQs-Js/VSlNtmkBWxI/AAAAAAAANZ0/dMQIveBn76s/s1600/IMG_2858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CrlcSAQs-Js/VSlNtmkBWxI/AAAAAAAANZ0/dMQIveBn76s/s1600/IMG_2858.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FnJNHVLppRU/VSlN0taYQzI/AAAAAAAANZ8/73UEs4q_AaI/s1600/IMG_3342.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FnJNHVLppRU/VSlN0taYQzI/AAAAAAAANZ8/73UEs4q_AaI/s1600/IMG_3342.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2014 was not a year I tried to really work on what I wanted
to do. I didn’t submit to the translation contest that spring, or the extra one
that summer, although I’d completed a full first draft and liked that text more
than any of the others I’d previously attempted; I didn’t keep, or even make, an
editorial schedule for my blog like I had intended; I didn’t make any business
plans or take any classes or really try to envision my ideal life, beyond <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fewer work hour</i><i>s, more sunli</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ght and freedom</i>. Instead I read extensively about a lot
of successful <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">solopreneurs</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">creatives</span>, obnoxiously/appealingly/but
not too outrageously well-off and hard-working people in the blogosphere, and
envied them, and then switched tabs to my money spreadsheet and stared at my
savings account’s steady growth, thanks to better wages, controlled lifestyle
inflation, and too many hours at those three pointless jobs.</div>
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You know what I did at the end of 2014? I cut my monthly
contributions to my emergency fund ($16 IS TEMP fund) in half—since my employment
was no longer temporary—and started what I named the BIG MONEY fund. Maybe I
should call it the Big Dreams fund. Maybe I should stop thinking so hard about
my savings, but although the level of my obsession and reveling in these
details may be unhealthy, I love it, and I won’t. The Big Dreams fund could
help pay to move to another city in a year or two, or buy my own car in a new
place (though I'd rather it not). It could help throw a once-in-a-lifetime party and buy a
once-in-a-lifetime dress. Maybe it will start a business, or buy a house. Now
it’s time to get to dreaming and planning, so when the money’s there, I know
what to do with it.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<i>1. The beach at Olympos Valley on Turkey's Mediterranean coast</i><br />
<i>2. My little desk chez moi</i><br />
<i>3. Lunch under the citrus trees at Bayram's in Olympos Valley.</i></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-88583504257739113812015-02-28T14:21:00.002-05:002015-03-19T15:21:33.355-04:00Laps, Lapse, Hello<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z24zbqLyb7U/VPITmXbTWWI/AAAAAAAANZQ/7QniQUuwXns/s1600/IMG_3681.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z24zbqLyb7U/VPITmXbTWWI/AAAAAAAANZQ/7QniQUuwXns/s1600/IMG_3681.JPG" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So 2014 has come and gone, and so has January 2015. I’ve
been exercising regularly again, after a lapse of more or less two years. I tell
myself that this time, it’s going to stick, as if I can go to our local YMCA
3-4 times a week this week, and next week, and the week after, and again and
again. (Of course, I could. This is attainable.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As if I can win the battle with myself, whether or not to
leave my cozy home or head straight from work to the gym without dinner, 200
times this year, and 200 times next year, until suddenly, I am sleepwalking to
the Y, without a care in my mind. (Automation is the highly improbable end goal of my many habit-forming attempts.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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I’ve barely run at all since I fulfilled my last gym requirement
in high school. I’ve used ellipticals, finding their movements fun, usually
painless, easily accommodating of simple books or TV shows. But lifting one leg
and pulling it forward and setting it down again, and then lifting the other and moving my body forward in
space? I’ve barely tried it since escaping the gym teachers, and
felt miserably out of shape every time I did.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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But now, I’m going back and forth between the elliptical,
and running tight loops around the track at the top of the Y building. Because
running hurts, because I don’t want to discourage myself too quickly, I’ve
started small. I’m running just over half a mile now, when I run—8 laps.
Sometimes I feel confident and run fast; a lap later, I’m out of breath, a
stitch in my side. But with the tiny track, it’s almost like progress happens
on its own. The laps are so short that it’s easy, sometimes an accident, to go
one lap further today than I did the time before.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I want everything to be this easy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-62791850669317347492014-11-01T23:24:00.000-04:002015-02-28T14:22:48.133-05:00The Fortress of Europe<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Jr3PhQVu0SBaLw6V7KBRV6055oynsf2dA0S9S3z4tojJae6rRolaaZCBg3nq_zGkncCdjqBKwO1-47aeHPJ2ZdCohidSdEfvSLpqe9c4YsN_ZKZ99y7L8A7OhF2EgfRmkd3AVJy5RqHq/s640/blogger-image-1802042327.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OjlQTT8RArc/VFaFdbtt-jI/AAAAAAAANXk/YWbFf2vIjdU/s1600/IMG_3187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OjlQTT8RArc/VFaFdbtt-jI/AAAAAAAANXk/YWbFf2vIjdU/s1600/IMG_3187.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As viewed from a ferry in the Bosphorus. Built across the strait from the older Fortress of Asia. Instrumental in Mehmet II's conquest of Constantinople. I really get a kick out of the name: the Fortress of Europe.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Happy November from a person who is happy to be back on Michigan soil, after a beautiful trip to Turkey and Germany.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">(More photos on <a href="http://www.instagram.com/mapooka">Instagram</a>, and more to come, here and there.)</span></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-62756701307504645722014-09-09T22:42:00.002-04:002014-09-09T22:48:02.281-04:00AccomplishedSome days I write one sentence that I like, and I'm satisfied, content to read it over and over and congratulate myself.<br />
<br />
But then, that good sentence, it needs to be followed by another good sentence. That can really freeze you up.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gM9tBkxJ1Gg/VA-3L4CLfxI/AAAAAAAANWU/xEM3kKZDur8/s1600/IMG_2814.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gM9tBkxJ1Gg/VA-3L4CLfxI/AAAAAAAANWU/xEM3kKZDur8/s1600/IMG_2814.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
On Sunday I overcame the handicapping perfectionism and said fuck it, I want to see these pictures on the wall. The gap's been haunting me <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2014/05/slippery-slope.html">for months</a>.<br />
<br />
I hung them up, without a ruler or a level or any kind of template. I even changed up the layout halfway through.<br />
<br />
And it's great. I look at it, over and over, and feel a twinge of happiness every time.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-1783570067397894862014-07-28T21:30:00.001-04:002014-07-28T21:31:15.754-04:00Emma Is Still in Ukraine*, and the Dolphins Are Exactly As Far Away From Her As They Should Be<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://instagram.com/p/o9RGUcTKFP/?modal=true"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinEXCaY_A6x_BzNViXa0mibRu_mc-fb1bsWJB1cNjRil941ZAM2EAd5U4M9cz0Bw8WNONYvxTrOeKswSQZJyG5dYRI1-EjgYccjAUbtwjW9rI2ZQowIflANCs38IqUUD51rjBEil6xqcj1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-28+at+8.25.09+PM.png" height="638" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I may be watching the sun set on Lake Michigan from a house on the bluff, but I'm also oh-so-jealous of these villas by the sea:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></span>
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;">Emma: </span></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;"> meow</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> hi<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">how
are you?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> I
spent a day and a half in a seaside dacha<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> ooooh<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> it
was great<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 13px;">but also very headachey</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> the
people weren't creeps?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">oh
no</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">they
were goofs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">a
lot of them were my students though<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and
there was a lot of vodka and chicken marinated in mayonnaise<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
think I have accepted the mayonnaise<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> ha</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">I
got my own little room at the top of the house and when I woke up I could see a
line of sea</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and
there was a porch and it was all like dilapidated white stucco<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> oh
my god<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> and
I went swimming and there were swans and dolphins exactly as far away from me
as they should have been<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> DOLPHINS<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> YES<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> that's
amazing<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> and
the water was cool and green<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and
rosebushes and beautiful green lizards<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> eeeeee</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 10pt;">soon
we're going to the dacha of one of my favorite students I guess</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm
so excited<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">he's
so weird and fun<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>me: </b> is
it seaside too?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Emma: </b> I
think so<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
just want to live in dilapidated villas by the sea<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
hate my washer it always sounds like it is full of forks</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*Okay, so she's on the Baltic right now, but until last week, she was in Ukraine.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://instagram.com/p/qtLO_2TKJG/?modal=true"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU9MHOmECvUN-X2kSa3fc1Tl4AiudYlDb92DsAjvWOOkEW0dfESiXscmPmOb6weTXvv9_LXMkyi80l2Lwbul2YxEhfYbzV5NToUdO38PJLy114vy0HqHuPXgZ8uzhS0sujWeXjraTQetn4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-28+at+8.26.11+PM.png" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://instagram.com/p/qXez40zKE0/?modal=true"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1tN1v14aozkV_HEgIyrzl2tN-XzQ0zxHnt4iKTO52EDIQ6OWR5XsmoHkJr2wlTgtG4BR26rL-VmNmeo3J_MlSxhiobwCDnrW00EoRQ5tWZ7xj8csfMeDSZkO9pmjtm3CjWTyP77uWh343/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-28+at+8.25.39+PM.png" height="638" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(All photos stolen from Emma's Instagram, <a href="http://www.instagram.com/marjoriestrees">@marjoriestrees</a>.)</span></span></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-74285665537563405122014-06-13T12:13:00.000-04:002014-06-13T12:13:27.182-04:00Slack SummersBecause I still have no real idea, or at least no set goal, about what I want to do with my working life, I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I <a href="http://www.thebillfold.com/">read about</a> people's money philosophies, life philosophies, shitty jobs they had, dream jobs and how they got them. It seems like most of the time that I manage to post something on this blog of mine—which used to be about living in Europe, and then was a mishmash of having cats and being a person who read and wrote things occasionally—it's usually about work. Not that I ever seem to get anywhere in my career ruminations—I mainly just think in circles, trapped in the web of constant commuting, budgeting, and scheduling.<br />
<br />
It's normal for young people to devote a lot of time to their careers. For many people my age, without families and obligations, it's what this phase of life is for.<br />
<br />
But I also think it's silly. Part of why I have such a hard time with the career thing is that I've never felt like a job was going to define me, or knew what I should do. What mattered were my books and my plans and my friends. I miss learning. I like to read and eat and make things and see pretty places. (Not that I don't appreciate the fulfillment of a job well done. I just haven't yet found a good job that is worth doing.)<br />
<br />
Even as I'm trying to find quiet moments of clarity for soul-searching, job-wise and life-wise, I also wish I made more time to just daydream. That's one of the things summer is for. I used to lie down on my bed and stare out the wide, open window at the sky above the houses and trees. I'd think about living—all the different things I could do once I was done with school, out of there. It was sometimes scary, but it was often a lot of fun. There wasn't so much pressure, or so many boring necessities to consider. No accountability, not like there is now.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thehairpin.com/user/29727/taisia-kitaiskaia">Taisia Kitaiskaia</a> describes it beautifully:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One moment you’re wrapped up in all manner of activities and the next you’re standing in your darkened apartment kitchen, an endless afternoon circling with the ceiling fan. The feeling is not unpleasant. It’s like slipping outside of time—societal, human time. It’s in these slack summers that I feel most immortal, as unknown and useless as a god, unseen by any mortal eye and somehow full of a vain and hopeless majesty. ("True Summer," <a href="http://thehairpin.com/2014/05/true-summer">The Hairpin</a>)</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
Over summer vacation, as the heat got oppressive and the books ran out, as friends disappeared on family trips, grilled cheese for lunch stopped tasting good, and the days wore on, parents would forbid us from saying we were bored. We were supposed to do something about it, not complain. These days, I'm only bored when I'm chained to a place of work that is demanding very little, or even nothing, from me.<br />
<br />
Three jobs and no definite priorities (just a lot of <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2014/05/master-of-contingencies.html">contingencies</a>)—that's why I feel boring, so much of the time. Shuttling from one obligation to the next, with nothing worthwhile to report. Sometimes I read an article online that gets me thinking, but those thoughts are dulled as I return to copy-and-pasting or whatever other banal task I'm currently burdened with. Ultimately, the thoughts are forgotten in the shuffle of job after job and the neverending pursuit of responsible adulthood.<br />
<br />
I'm aching for those real summers. You don't need to feed me, you don't need to entertain me. Let me read that stack of books, physical and imagined, that I've been building the past few years. I love the breeze through the window. I don't mind shutting down my mind when the afternoon heat gets too heavy; I am fully capable of staring at the cats and doing nothing else. Let me write angsty poetry by the light of the streetlamps outside the window like I used to. Life was real, even if I was doing nothing.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-21079203412406050302014-05-29T21:46:00.000-04:002014-05-29T21:47:41.191-04:00Slippery Slope<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://instagram.com/p/omavvkN0vC/"><img alt="@mapooka on instagram" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zxII49NQ404/U4ff44WbysI/AAAAAAAANQQ/UsBDB64GEms/s1600/IMG_2458.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
I'm the kind of person who can't get started on something before she knows every single step she'll need to take along the way, and preferably the outcome as well. This worked out fine in middle and high school English classes where we still had to write formulaic five-paragraph essays. Don't get me wrong, I hated doing it, but the concept of an outline of arguments and examples worked great for me. I still have a hard time understanding people like my boyfriend, who start writing a paper with the main ideas and information in mind, but won't figure out the final flow, or even the point of the whole thing, until the end. (Maybe not 'til the fourth draft, months after it's been turned in and graded.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With things like job applications, I have to convince myself I could do the job, I could want the job, I would be able to commute to the job, and someone might consider me for the job, before I can sit down and try to convince anyone else, via the cover letter, to consider me for the job for even a moment. I don't want to hang a picture or pick out new curtains until I know all the other pictures I'm going to hang and what the new duvet cover will look like. It's all or nothing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With the jobs I already have, this can translate to deep (and undeserved) loyalty. The better I know the job, the less likely I am to leave. Inertia is a powerful thing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
This might be the most deeply-rooted facet of my personality. Procrastination justified by a difficult requirement of certainty.<br />
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<i>This acceptable configuration (of disparate things) did not make the cut.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Loyalty is not a bad thing. If you're my friend, I want you to be my friend forever, and I'll do what I can to make it so. If taught convincingly, a lesson is set in stone in my mind. Perfectionism, though—I've been warned against it my whole life. It's a great way to get nothing done and go nowhere. My family taught me that.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-57282675699628427452014-05-12T22:50:00.000-04:002014-05-14T11:53:35.386-04:00Master of Contingencies<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I worked three jobs, which isn’t unusual. My plan: three
hours at one office, three hours at the next office, then half an hour to get
to the restaurant, where I would be the opening host out on the rooftop deck.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wore my red, lightweight cropped pants with a long,
lightweight, pink blouse and a belt. My fake woven-leather flats (my favorite).
A navy blazer, a bike helmet. It was supposed to be hot today, hitting 80 in
the afternoon, but I’m always cold in the first office, and often in the
second, and the chance of rain in the evening hours was variable, hovering
around 30 or 40 percent. A blazer is better than a sweater for rain, and better
than a jacket for the office (and my jackets aren’t waterproof anyway). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I stuffed my little red backpack to the brim. At the bottom,
my planner and my small notebook, along with a novel to read in case I
found myself stranded, unwilling to make my way home, and needed to hide in a
café until a storm passed. Then my makeup bag, so at the tail end of job two I
could do my face for job three. My workout clothes, in case I made it downtown
and was told to go home right away, or close to it—in which case I could go to
the Y, and a soggy walk wouldn’t have been completely for nothing. I tied my sneakers by the laces and hung them on the outside of the bag, from one of the straps, because they
wouldn’t fit. I also had a little tupperware of apples inside my tupperware of
rice and chicken for lunch, which I put off eating until after two so it would
tide me over through dinnertime, or as much as it could. I wasn't going to have time for dinner, not with a 3:45 start time on the deck. My water bottle, of
course. A pair of cheap Old Navy flip flops I’ve had for six years, shoved down
one side in a plastic bag—they’re the most compact and least destructible
change of shoes, a slippery but convenient backup in order to keep my real shoes
dry in a rainy commute. In the other corner, I had slid my umbrella. On top,
cell phone and sunglasses case and extra plastic bag, in case my bike seat got wet and I still wanted to ride.<br />
<br />
The deck was closed tonight. It stormed; it threatened tornadoes. I made it to work,
mostly dry, although I had to abandon my bike halfway there. I clocked three and a half hours working inside, and I am very tired. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-31969336215578272332014-04-29T16:15:00.000-04:002014-05-29T21:50:28.189-04:00In the Rain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ANOL8DOs5IQ/U1_dU0PDE_I/AAAAAAAANO8/f0IWAmtrk_k/s1600/IMG_2382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ANOL8DOs5IQ/U1_dU0PDE_I/AAAAAAAANO8/f0IWAmtrk_k/s1600/IMG_2382.JPG" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
When I woke up this morning, the apartment was dark and moody, cozily and quietly separate from the rain pouring down outside. It was such a morning for staying in (says the girl who wishes she could stay home every day, I know, I know), and I would have loved to light a candle on my desk, let my fingers plod through the day on my laptop in a little sphere of candlelight, alone in the dim bedroom.<br />
<br />
Instead, I picked a comfy dress and leggings, pulled on my tall, red galoshes and my trench coat, and walked to work in the storm. It was fairly warm out, and kind of nice.<br />
<br />
When I turned the corner of the Modern Languages Building, I saw that <a href="http://public-art.umich.edu/the_collection/campus/central/89">the fountain</a>, which was uncovered last week, was full of water and fully functional, sending streams of water up even as so much rain was coming down.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kHRJL6m7pNs/U1_dsB-GW9I/AAAAAAAANPE/_Jxs_1M6r-Y/s1600/IMG_2383.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kHRJL6m7pNs/U1_dsB-GW9I/AAAAAAAANPE/_Jxs_1M6r-Y/s1600/IMG_2383.JPG" height="512" width="640" /></a></div>
The fountain brought a thrill for summer, and a wistfulness for the first summer I spent here, in Ann Arbor. The summer of <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/search/label/Krankenhaus">the Krankenhaus</a>, when I read histories of Europe in the sun on the Diag and spent sixteen hours a week in a Spanish classroom in the MLB, eating lunch outside under the bell tower every day, dreaming of all the countries I would visit once I lived in Germany.<br />
<br />
Now, I have three jobs and little time for lounging on the lawn, and I sometimes think that if I could go back, I would have just begged the rest of the rent money from my parents and not borrowed those few thousand dollars for intensive Spanish from the government. I haven't paid them off yet. But I would also love to have that summer schedule again. Learning a new language is a game I love to play, and summer is a time for openness, exploration, and freedom.<br />
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When I sought out a window this afternoon, I found blue skies and sun. I'm excited to walk home.Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-70787884228191036452014-02-18T14:26:00.000-05:002014-02-18T14:26:03.537-05:00February: Scapegoat, or Menace?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3pDzh7OWTqo/UwOzQOyOWdI/AAAAAAAANMY/_qm-LTBlPyA/s1600/IMG_1934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3pDzh7OWTqo/UwOzQOyOWdI/AAAAAAAANMY/_qm-LTBlPyA/s1600/IMG_1934.JPG" height="640" width="638" /></a></div>
I may have, as we were nearing the end of this January (the coldest January of my life), blithely remarked once or twice that <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2010/02/theres-something-about-february.html">February</a> <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2010/02/here-we-go-again.html">is routinely</a> <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2013/02/remember-february.html">the worst month</a> of the year. It has been an important facet of my personal belief system for quite a while. Still, I was feeling optimistic. <i>It can't get worse than this</i> is a sentiment I'm sure many of us have shared as we trudged through or avoided the -30 degree windchills of the polar vortex (parts one and two), oblivious to the fact that though the snow couldn't get much worse, it also wouldn't leave us for another month; instead, the mounds would steadily grow, and the slush and ice would persist, threatening our safety on the roads and sidewalks.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I escaped to Florida at the end of February's first week. When I booked those tickets at the end of October, I had no idea how well-timed the trip would be, how bitterly and persistently cold a winter Michigan would have this year. I just knew I wanted to visit my friend Rachel, and that winter was a good time to be in Florida.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It still hadn't let up when I returned from the long weekend. Now, a week later, it has snowed some more and will snow again tonight -- 100% chance.</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And it did snow. I guess it snowed several inches last night. On my walk to work, everything was basically the same, just cleaner and fresher again, the various snow control vehicles repopulating the university campus to clear the paths I reluctantly take.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Today, like yesterday, like Friday and Thursday and Wednesday before it, I cannot bear the thought of my afternoon job. I ate breakfast, I eat lunch, I'm still hungry. My eyes, exhausted, my head, achey, I cannot bear these computer screens I have to stare at. <i>This has to stop</i>. <i>Make it end</i>. <i>Let me go home</i>. I know the particulars of the job are part of the problem. But I think it's really the February-ness of life right now that is to blame. I was feeling pretty good about things until I got entrenched in February, and February told me there was nothing I could do but whine.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
At the end of January, we decided to fly to California for "spring" break. The tickets were at first so cheap that I thought (what hubris) that I could simply eat the cost, take it from my monthly budget and not pull the money out of savings, from my jealously guarded travel fund that is really only meant for a long-awaited return to Europe. The plane tickets went up, and then there were hidden fees, and still we bought them. If I continued to buy no new clothes, and didn't eat out, and put my paltry tax refund toward it, surely I could still maintain all my other money.<br />
<br />
Nope. I'm slashing savings goals left and right. There is still a week and a half of February to go -- that's almost half this deceptively short month -- and the usually comforting knowledge that my afternoon position pays 50% more than the others can't make up for how pathetic it makes me feel. Because all that money is already spent.<br />
<br />
February, when I say goodbye to you, I will be 30,000 feet in the air and heading west. This means I have to bear a few extra hours of February -- we get into Oakland International Airport at just about midnight, Pacific time -- but whatever. Once we've crossed the continental divide, who cares.</div>
</div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-86010687890729524652014-01-27T20:23:00.002-05:002014-01-27T20:23:43.457-05:00Successes of 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqI5osZuAsPu7iWGQ6MKE3vuJAMUEltrzg6Ecrysd2gI1wPBix-STHHKh5I7qAf96c1y-vSX9FLzNmXxwSUNULFIsSgdq79V8FWX4rC7WvhxjkdTiOXvW4GQ12KcSw2Jrn6AxcxGCtiJQR/s1600/2013_1-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqI5osZuAsPu7iWGQ6MKE3vuJAMUEltrzg6Ecrysd2gI1wPBix-STHHKh5I7qAf96c1y-vSX9FLzNmXxwSUNULFIsSgdq79V8FWX4rC7WvhxjkdTiOXvW4GQ12KcSw2Jrn6AxcxGCtiJQR/s1600/2013_1-1.jpg" height="320" width="640" /></a></div>
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New camera!</div>
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I learned to make <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2013/01/end-of-week-attention-grabber.html">delicious chicken pocket pies</a>. I finally replaced my rain boots. </div>
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I took <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2013/04/wolverine-texas-eagle.html">the train</a> to St. Louis; best decision of the year. I had gooey butter cake for breakfast; favorite moment of the year?</div>
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Louis the cat is always a success. </div>
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Lots of friend-time (not enough), lots of burgers, lots of sangria.</div>
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Tourist icons of Chicago and Milwaukee; friends from Freiburg!</div>
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German-themed fun, Cuban-themed silliness (and more burgers). Birthdays!</div>
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A successful dinner chez les parents; an unsuccessful drive to dinner in Detroit.</div>
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The exact bookcases we wanted, found on Craigslist; a new bathing suit!</div>
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Lake Michigan from both sides.</div>
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Cactus without cats; cactus with cats.</div>
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We stayed in; we went out.<br />
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Our apartment was warm and cheery and boiling hot, and my hair got long.</div>
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It was a good year, and a good start to life in a new home.</div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-49948720321634878152013-12-10T15:49:00.002-05:002013-12-11T09:32:15.830-05:00I Changed My MindThe verdict is in, and <a href="http://mapooka.blogspot.com/2013/11/you-can-drag-horse-to-water-but-you.html">my previous thoughts</a> are overturned: cover letters are the worst.<br />
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I say this because I wrote, not one, not two, but THREE cover letters before Thanksgiving, for three jobs I was totally qualified for but that weren't all totally generic and essentially beneath me, and I heard ZILCH.</div>
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And now I am trying to write another one, but I feel like I need to do something different because, again, no one liked the last letters! But what can I do different. How do I make you hire me for this lackluster job no one could possibly really <i>desire</i>. But I do want it, I do, I really do! (Really, please, make my next twelve months less of a giant, gaping, mysterious hole!)</div>
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I have to go to work number three in two hours, and before then, I also need to call someone, who then will tell me to call someone else, about how my identity has still not been verified for the healthcare exchange application, and isn't this life FUN?</div>
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Today's an all caps, all cramps kind of day, I guess.</div>
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In other news, my computer is by a window today, and although the window is extraordinarily drafty and chills the keyboard, the heater goes all along the floor under my desk, and it is warm and great. Thank goodness for fingerless gloves and SUNLIGHT.</div>
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(Also I now have over 30,000 Delta SkyMiles, thanks to my newest credit card, so, watch out, world, I'm halfway to Europe FOR FREE.)</div>
Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8408062859410323062.post-28379963092556349292013-11-30T23:03:00.000-05:002013-12-01T22:06:26.008-05:00Cue Christmastime<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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I'm almost ready for Christmas! Happy November 30th!<br />
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<i>Edit: Apparently my phone always fails the first time I try to post? So much for blogging from the bar and actually getting it on the internet.</i></div>
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Marisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07744439275163908881noreply@blogger.com0