schooling

It's working. I'm doing it. I'm learning. I think.
If nothing else, I'm really enjoying not going to an office every day. I'm still working, but i'm now my own boss. Which means i have ordered myself to ride my bike, drink coffee and people watch in the short north. What a slave driver!

I'm taking four classes. All of which are labor/research intensive. I guess i'm ok with that. I must admit, i'm learning a lot more from staring at the internet than i am from any of the lectures of i have attended. The major problem with all of my professors is that they color all of their teaching with the theme of the last 500 page academic journal they wrote. So i'm learning plenty about the interests of these women but almost nothing about the topic of the course.

I'd like to think that i'd be a little more objective.

The students are the same way. They can answer absolutely no question from an autonomous or objective perspective. EVERYTHING begins with something like this, "i mean... i don't know exactly what you're talking about, but i know this one time when my neighbors dog...."
ARGH.

And, as expected, i feel old as dirt. I am the only student sans topknot, deep tan, tights, uggs, and north face jacket. I have no stories about how wild the brewery district was last night and i have no desire to chill on "oval beach" with you.

Despite 5 quizzes, one test, a presentation and a 5 page paper within the first two weeks of school, i am basking in the glory of nuzzling up to ye old lap top, chugging a gallon of coffee and not wearing a monkey suit.

love.

COLLEGE!

This spring i will be returning to The Ohio State University to pursue a degree in Social Work. Actually, to be honest the title of my degree will be a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Science. I realize this sounds made up. But the fact of the matter is, a little shift in field of major is the difference between 5 years until becoming a counselor and 2 1/2 years. So, the choice was obvious. Made up major it is.

I am, at once, totally thrilled and totally terrified. I am excited at the prospect of escaping the daily grind of this grown up position that I have half-assedly filled for the last three years. But I also know me. And i know that the giddiness i feel at the thought of being a college student again could send me right back into the kind of behavior i participated in when i was a student previously. (You know, back in 1989.) this kind of behavior being taking any drugs handed to me, wandering to buckeye donuts late at night, drinking so much that i'm not sure what karaoke song i'm singing and crashing my bicycle into things.

If i don't manage to treat this like a full time job, i may just fuck up big time. Now is the time to muster up any maturity i might have and sally forth back into the world of academia. I wonder if i've got it in me.

Life, the Rager

Well, the holidays are over and i, for one, am glad.
now i can go on enjoying my unhighlighted calendar days. as i have said before, christmas is an illusion; no different from any other day. just like friday, it is a construct. monday can be just as good as friday. and i think if people start viewing it as such they could stop throwing away so many perfectly good mondays.
if you view tuesday as punishing torture, then it will so be. if you spend every sunday through thursday anticipating the weekend, life will surely be wasted.
this is the problem my mother seems to have in a much greater sense.
'Fuck all the rest of these days, if i can just make it to vacation, i will be ok.'
I simply cannot live this way.

Ram Dass encourages us to "be here now". And i can't think of a more beautiful thing to say. Right now you may not be at the most miraculously righteous rager of your life, but guess what?
You have arms and legs and eyes to see and ears to hear, lungs to breathe, skin to touch and people to love.
Take stock of all the good things that are happening to you at this very moment. And forget that you are not at Skully's, chugging dollar shots will all of your favorite friends.
Today is a day, just like the rest. I, for one, will be living out the rest of this tuesday like the most righteous party of my life.

Ella Amitay-Sadovsky, Flower arrangement

Family Tradition

Thanks to not answering my phone for the last two weeks, this holiday season has proved itself to be the least stressful in recent history. My mother, as everyone knows, is unparalleled in her ability to make a even Buddhist monk develop an ulcer.

I have felt successful in that i have skirted many typical holiday duties this December. I was not forced to watch a "Muppet Christmas Carol" while decorating the tree. I was not guilted into driving 3 hours away for "Ethnic Christmas". I didn't have to clean or put up lights at my Grandma Butler's house. And I am nearly positive no one is going to make me read aloud Nephew Fred's "God bless it" speech at the dinner table.

I find myself being frustrated with my mother, thinking that she is a bit of a fuddy-duddy, insisting upon reprising the dance we've done for 28 years. Not because the traditions themselves are fun and rich with the memory of years past, but because being catholic is something that causes her to flog us with a myriad of senseless traditions akin to her beloved (and punishing) 2 hour mass.

Growing up, i had often boasted of the fact that my family had fun and off-the-wall Christmas rituals. "Ethnic Christmas" being one of them. It began two years before i was born. Out of boredom, creative zest or simply because their pockets were empty, the Kraft family decided that spaghetti would be served in lieu of a christmas bird. The next year the tradition was dubbed "Italian christmas" and the following year it was decided upon that we would celebrate the food and traditions of a new country. And thus ethnic Christmas was born. (Later to devolve entirely into a wacky costumes, politically incorrect interpretations of culture and family drunkenness.)

Looking back, i miss this kind of thing. And i have to wonder that if a quiet afternoon spent in my apartment, watching netflix and drinking coffee, is really better than the time spent butchering the holiday traditions of other countries with my family. I have to say, I'm not sure.

One final tradition of the holiday season is the reading of "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote. The reading is done in the family mini-van on the way to my Grandma Kraft's house just before or after Christmas Day. Typically there is a good bit of snow dusting the pine and Christmas music plays in the background as we drive. My brother sleeps, his huge body taking up the length of the van. My sister grimaces while my mother reads to show her displeasure with an act so maudlin. (She still cries every time.) My father drives and from time to time, wipes a tear from his eye. (He has gotten soft now that his children have grown.) And my mother and I unabashedly weep like children. Who can maintain a stiff upper lip when there is 'a leafless, birdless coming of winter" or when "a lost pair of kites hurry towards heaven"?

This year we will not be driving to my Grandmother's house, as she has sold it and moved to a more manageable condo.

There is a good chance "Christmas Memory" will not be read this year. A staple of our family culture. Part of the old dance we've always done. A senseless act used to punish us all and bring us some false sense of togetherness.

I will surely miss it. What a fuddy-duddy I have become.

adventure anxiety

my sports blog

often accused as a johnny-come-lately, i have been the victim of much ridicule for becoming a soccer fan this summer. it's true, i hate sports. i have always hated sports. i find football to be tedious and slow. run a couple yards, fall down, talk about it for 13 minutes, repeat. it's not my thing.
baseball is even worse. kate, chris and i went to a clippers game this week in search of epic piles of cheap ass hot dogs to discover that mid-game people stop to PLAY CATCH in the outfield. we're like, "hurry this the fuck up". (granted, people dressed in hot dog costumes flying through the air and punching one another in their big plastic eyeballs is exceptionally entertaining)
but when i found out there was a sport in which people run at full tilt for 45 minutes, let you pound beer for 15 minutes, then return for another uninterrupted 45 minutes of running at full tilt, i got on board. i have the attention span of a 4 year old, so this seemed like a good fit for me.
additionally, soccer fans are nerds. there is no disputing this. they like ren-faire, dungeons and dragons, have tattoos and silly hair and they love to paint ridiculous and creative banners. needless to say, i relate to this bunch more than i relate to say...


these people.
chris and i will be traveling quite a bit this fall to see the crew for away games. i'd say it's as good a reason as any to see chicago, dc and toronto in the fall.

you know me, i'd be a part of any club that would have me as a member.