Westboro Baptist Church to picket American University for 45 minutes

My favorite part about this: “The group expects to accomplish this feat in under an hour.”  The feat?  To

“give your children an opportunity to see what truth looks like, the face of what they were entitled to have from every adult that ever touched their lives! Instead, you hateful parents & brutish teachers broke their moral compasses! Now they beg for some truth from the humble servants of WBC. They will know what their God requires of them & will not be able to plead ignorance any longer.”

All I can say is that Westboro Baptist has absolutely no idea what they’re in for or what they’re up against.  A good percentage of the student population is either gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and an even larger percentage of students are allies.  In my almost three years at AU, I have never once heard of an instance of anti-gay hate crimes or even slurs.  Correct me if I’m wrong here – but even if I am, it must not have been too major which in itself says a lot.  I’m looking forward to seeing the anti-protest that will form, and I guarantee all of you that it will be at least ten times as large as the Westboro Baptist gathering.

On smelling like Bubble Tape.

For the past few nights, I have sat in my room watching Doctor Who or crocheting or doing whatever I fancy doing at one in the morning.  I have also strongly smelt the scent of Bubble Tape.

Anyone who chewed this once newfangled bubblegum of the 1990’s knows that it was covered by a powdery residue (I don’t think anyone really knows why) and had a distinct scent.  I can’t describe what it was exactly; all I can suggest is that you visit your local corner drugstore and purchase a roll.

I think I have figured out why my bedroom seems to be filled with the aroma of Bubble Tape.  My perfume, after my skin has absorbed it during the day, mixes with the oils of my skin (I guess…?) and exudes the scent.  I’m completely serious – my arm smells like a roll of Bubble Tape.  It’s mind-blowing, but rather pleasant and nostalgic.

Wilfred: 900 years? We must look like insects to you.
The Doctor: I think you look like giants.

There have been many noteworthy Doctor Who quotes, some funny and some inspirational, but the quote above is my favorite of the series thus far.  It seems to sum up everything about the show.  The Doctor has so much power, even if it’s only a mental one.  No matter what he does, there is always a consequence, always someone or something that will lose the battle or perish, yet he always chooses the human race as the survivors.  He may be faced with a decision to finally exterminate a particular race of beings that have threatened or insulted his very existence, but he always chooses to save the human race if it comes to that.  It’s as if the doctor knows that the human race is worth something and that they can hold so much more power than his one time lord existence.  Human beings are giants in their capacity to care and love and want to change the world, but also in their ability to change his own life.

Hark how the bells…

For as long as I can remember, from the first time I heard it until this very day, the Christmas carol “Carol of the Bells” has somewhat frightened me.  It’s gotten better over the years as I’ve become used to it, but think about it.  Or, rather, listen to it.  It’s an incredibly eerie tune, with an unnecessary tension for the message it is trying to convey.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the song.  One of my favorite parts about singing in the chorus in high school was when we got the opportunity to sing this and “The Hallelujah Chorus” at Christmastime.  But why did the writer of the song think that making a song sound legitimately scary during Christmastime was a good idea?

I went on a wonderful expedition yesterday.  At about 2:00, I headed over to the used book store, the Book Trader, and bought three books.

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson – I’ve been wanting to read this for a while.  I’ve heard good things about it and see it everywhere, so I thought, why not? It was $6.95 for a copy that looks like it was never even read.
2. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides – I have heard so many good things about this novel, so when I saw it on the shelf, I had to grab it.
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon – I first saw this book earlier this year at my school bookstore.  The library was hosting a Jewish literature book club and this was one of the books they were reading.  I was tempted so many times to buy it, but I never did.  My friend Rachel also read it and said it was wonderful, so when I saw it at the store, I grabbed at my chance to finally own it.

Then I headed over to Barnes and Noble.  I received a $50 Barnes and Noble gift card from the family I babysit for, which thrilled me.  I went in with the express intention of buying two Joyce Carol Oates novels, but they didn’t have one of the ones I had wanted.  There I bought:

1. Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
2. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, which I’ve actually read a majority of, but never finished.  And since I prefer owning books to renting them from the library, I decided to buy it.

Overall, a pretty wonderful day.  I adore used book stores so much, and I wish there were more around me.  I love holding a used book in my hands – you don’t know how many people have read it before you, and I often wonder who it was that owned this before me.  There is so much history in the pages.

I took a class this past semester on Colonial American history.  A large portion of the course was spent on Colonist-Native American relations.  In the many sources we read about this topic, the authors used the words “Indian” and “Native American” interchangeably.  Some of them noted this in their introductions, stating that they would use the former term to simplify things, but many did it without any explanation.  And for some reason this bothered me.

I was raised and educated with the term “Indian.”  From the time I learned about the first Thanksgiving and up until my AP U.S. History class, it was mostly “Indians” did this and “Indians” said that.  I had never really thought about it until this semester when I was bombarded with literature about this particular race of people.

When I was in elementary school, I went on a field trip to a living Native American museum somewhere in New Jersey.  I remember having ham salad on a hamburger bun for lunch while sitting next to my mother.  I also remember that, during one of the presentations, one of the kids at the museum that day asked, “Are you a real Indian?” and that the man standing before us flatly said, “No.”

I was confused by this, as were many of the children around me, because he appeared to be one.  Then he continued his sentence.

“I am a Native American.”

He was clearly offended by the term “Indian.”  “Indians are from India,” he said, and that is true.  However, when I was older, I started to assume that an Indian was just someone who was native to an area of land before it was discovered and civilized.  Needless to say, I was wrong.

I suppose this kind of distinction is comparable to calling someone either black or an African American.  For some reason, using the word “black” always seems to be insulting coming out of a white person’s mouth, even if African Americans call themselves black.  Also included would be the term “negro,” one used rarely, if at all, nowadays because of its extremely negative connotation and association with slavery.

I guess it all comes down to wanting to be represented properly. This child knew that the man standing before him was a Native American, but called him an Indian thinking they meant the same thing.  But to someone who wants to identify him- or herself with the nation they have called their home for hundreds of years, the distinction is of the utmost importance.

Do any of you have any thoughts on this?

Some guy just called me on the phone, and started out with, “Hey, how’s it going?”

Me: Who is this?
Him: You gave me your number the other day.
Me: No, I didn’t.
Him: Yeah, we met at the Home Depot.
Me: I haven’t been to Home Depot in I don’t know how long.
Him: Are you sure?
Me: Yes.
Him: Is this (says my number)?
Me: Yeah, but I don’t know who this is.
Him: She also had a 914 number.
Me: Yeah, no, that’s not me.
Him: Oh.  Well, I’m sorry.  I’ll never call you again.
Me: It’s OK.  Thanks.

It was interesting.  Oh, and picking up girls at Home Depot?  Classy.

Hello, stranger.

Yesterday I finished reading the first novel I’ve read in months.  That length of time is far too long, I know, but being at school has sucked almost all leisure reading time right out of my schedule.

The book is Dear Strangers by Meg Mullins.  It’s the story of the Finley family, who are due to adopt a baby boy when the father suddenly dies and they decide to give the baby to another family.  Oliver Finley, the son, then spends his life trying to find the boy who would have been his brother – he wants to tell him what his life could have been and also wants to create a version of his own life that never existed.  (I’m not ruining anything here – all of this is on the inside cover flap.)  It was wonderful.  It took me over a month to read because of my lack of time, but when I actually had time to sit down and read while the girls I babysit were napping, I got through 150 pages and didn’t want to put it down.  I highly, highly suggest it to any book lovers, or even to people who think they don’t like to read.

When reading books, I mark down every line inside that I find beautiful or moving.  Here is one of my favorites from Dear Strangers:

“When, though, is anticipating its loss ever reason to deny contentment?”

I found this quote to be true, and particularly applicable to my life in its present state.  There are so many people and things in my life that I love and enjoy, but I fear the day when it all ends.  I am terrified of when the day comes that I have to say good-bye to one of my favorite people for longer than a night; when I have to leave a place I love, even if it is to go on to bigger and better things; or when I have to let go of something I’ve grown attached to and love.  But what Meg Mullins writes here holds a tremendous amount of truth.  Even if we know that something is going to eventually end, even if we don’t know when that will happen, why should we deny ourselves the contentment and happiness it brings?  While the sadness that comes when it’s gone seems to overpower the happiness, why should we allow ourselves to live a period of time feeling nothing at all rather than feeling something, anything.  Emotion is what makes us human, and we’re bound to feel every one in our lifetime.  Why not here, why not now?

Neither life nor death.

It’s been six months, half a year, since my Grandmother passed away on April 29, and my heart still breaks every time I think that she is no longer on this Earth.  Not a day goes by in which I don’t think about her, cry over her, and wonder if she is proud of me.  Everything I do, every place I go, I wonder if she’s up in Heaven looking down on me, watching over me, or if she’s off having fun in Heaven waiting for the day when one of us will join her.  I get consolation only from the thought, if Heaven truly, truly exists, that she and Grandpa are finally together again after nineteen long years.

My Grandmother was the first person that I have loved and lost.  I was too young to fully understand when my Grandfather died when I was a year old.  Still, I went through a period of time in which I would cry every night for my Grandfather, even though I had never known him.  I’ve lived through deaths – of multiple great-aunts and great-uncles, a cousin, family friends – but nothing has ever hit this close to home.

But I wasn’t home, and that’s what still bothers me the most about it.  I was, according to Google Maps, 213 miles from my grandmother when she left this Earth.  I wasn’t there to see her last days, I wasn’t there to smile and try to give her comfort.  I wasn’t there to say good-bye.

I didn’t say good-bye.  I couldn’t say good-bye, because nobody told me that she was anything close to dying.

I remember talking to my Mom on the phone on April 21.  It was a Wednesday, and I had just given a campus tour and was standing outside of McDonald’s in the tunnel, staring at the electronic announcement board outside of the arena.  We spoke about the normal things, and then I asked how Grandma was doing.  She said she wasn’t eating and was losing some weight.  That’s it.  No status report.  I told myself, I should call Grandma tonight, just as I had told myself so many times in the week prior, ever since she had been brought to the hospital.  But I didn’t do it.  Every day I said I would do it the next.  I told myself that I just didn’t have time.

Taking ten minutes out of my day and calling my Grandma instead of using that time to check my Facebook is the one thing I could have done to prevent me from hating myself the instant my Dad told me she was gone.  Because that’s all I can say about my life from the time she left it – I hate myself for not calling her.  By the time of her death, we hadn’t spoken in 19 days, since April 10, her 87^th birthday, when she told me that she was feeling a little sick but that she was sure it would pass.

I was sure it would pass, too.  My grandparents have always been resilient, have survived many sicknesses and diseases and have emerged relatively unscathed.  And even though my Grandma was 87, I still believed that this would be one of those times.  Needless to say, I was wrong.

When I got the call, it was as if a dam broke inside of me – a dam of tears, emotion, and stress all at once.  I was crying for my grandmother, but also for my life, any unhappiness in it, and all that I had been holding inside for far too long.  I was happy, but once prompted, it was as if every little thing that had ever bothered me was finally coming to a head; her death was now just one part of an even bigger mess.

That evening, left alone for the first time since one o’clock and attempting to write a final exam due in just a little over twelve hours, I sat in the hallway outside of my dorm room.  Five hours later, four or five people had come and gone from my company and I still sat in the same place, alone, not having gotten much further in my essay than I was before.

At 3 am, I was sitting in the middle of the hallway crying harder than I ever have in my life, and it was then I realized that sobbing into someone’s chest while their arms are around you is one of the most comforting feelings in the world.  Having a best friend to rub your head, let you put your head on his shoulder, or hold your hand while you cry together and he asks you to tell him stories of your grandmother’s life.  Having someone who isn’t experiencing his own tragedy at the same time and possesses a pair of willing and open ears, someone who isn’t afraid to cry with you.  It was what I needed, and it was what I received.

At her funeral the following Wednesday, I read this passage from Romans 8:

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It sums it up pretty nicely.

_________________________

If there is one thing that my Grandmother’s death taught me, it is that life with your grandparents is precious.  We take for granted the amount of time we have to spend with family members.  Many people lose theirs before they’re even born, or in the first few years of their lives.  I was lucky – I’ve had the privilege of spending 20 years with three of my grandparents.  I’m grateful for those years.  But I also realized that I know hardly anything about Grandma’s life.  All I know is the Grandma I grew up with, whose eccentricities and slightly offensive – but also quite amusing – comments highlighted every visit.  The only story I can ever remember her telling me was about a hobo that passed by her house every day during the Great Depression, and how her mother always gave him food even though she was low on money to feed her own family.  And her sharing this story was only prompted by my mentioning I was taking a class on the 1930’s in America.

I should have asked more, I know that now, but all I can say in response is this, a quote from To Kill A Mockingbird, my favorite book, introduced to me by Grandma:

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read.  One does not love breathing.”

The World Outside

My uncle spoke this afternoon on a panel about eLawyering and the Future of Legal Work at the Washington College of Law.  He e-mailed me about it early Tuesday morning, writing that it was free, and wondered if I wanted to come.  I said definitely since I didn’t have class until 2:10.  And even though I have no knowledge of a majority of legal terms, am not a law student, and really have no plans of ever going to law school, at 11:30, I hopped on the law school shuttle from campus, and five minutes later I was there.  (It took longer for the elevator to come down and bring me to the sixth floor than it did to actually get to the law school’s campus.)

I really, really enjoyed it.  It was fascinating seeing my uncle in his element.  Whenever I see him, it’s as he is sitting on the couch in my grandparents’ breezeway talking about the ride to New Jersey from Massachusetts and about what’s going on back home.  But here he was, being all lawyer-ly, and I loved having the chance to experience that.

I couldn’t help but thinking about how I never get to see my parents in action.  Many other children probably feel the same way.  They leave for work in the morning, come back in the afternoon or evening, and then they’re back to being your parent.  But what about those hours in between?  Sure, my Mom talks about the funny or ridiculous stuff that happens during the workday, and I have the basic gist of what she does at work, but I really have no idea.  She’s never talked the logistics of finance with me, never led me through an audit report step-by-step.  I’ve never seen her interact with her colleagues about investment protocol.  And, to be honest, I don’t really mind that she hasn’t, because I have absolutely no interest in doing her job.  But, when put into perspective, there are many of us who really don’t know what our parents (or even older siblings) do all day.

And, so, it was interesting to get a peek into the life of a man who has been a part of my life, no matter how small, and see what he does when I’m not around.

I still don’t know where he got my e-mail address.