a reflection on depression

I'm just going to say it: I am not good at regular blogging. Even at my new online home, it's been a full year since I posted. Maybe I'll write something there in honor of it being a full year since I cared about anything other than my job or going to school or my dog. (He's perfect.) Anyway. I'm not really sure why I'm here except that writing usually helps me process. It's safe to say I've had a lot to process in the last year, and I just haven't done that at all. So here goes.

Depression has been in the news again lately. (Actually, I should note that it has been a full 3 weeks since I started writing this post - because I'm bad at blogging and because how in the world do I say all of this - and just as quickly, depression seems to have quickly moved away from being a topic of general discussion.) It always takes a tragedy or a celebrity death to shed light on the very real mental health issues that so many people face every single day. The ones that are the most common somehow seem like the ones that most people are afraid to talk about. Even though I grew up in Georgia, I am from the Midwest with a pretty typical Midwestern family, and there, you just don't say what's wrong with you unless it's something that can be fixed by a "real" doctor. And even then, I'm sure there's a category of illnesses (like women-problems, things that have to do with private parts, and probably some gross gastro-intestinal stuff) that you really don't think people ought to know about you. But certainly, you never ever talk about mental illness. You should just get over whatever is making you sad, or stop being afraid, or just carry on with your life and be a good person.

I haven't personally suffered from depression or anxiety... I usually tend to internalize any negativity in my life so that I become physically ill, but even that will go away if I just stay positive and take care of myself. I am fortunate not to have gone through the debilitating, incredibly stigmatized situation of just being uncontrollably, dementor-level sad and dark all the time. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house where my mom talked to me about stuff, but I don't really remember talking about mental illness in a way that normalized it until I went to graduate school. In my counseling program, we studied all forms of mental illness along with "regular" issues like career guidance. We learned to talk about depression and anxiety as things that regular people face. We learned to talk about personality disorders and psychotic disorders as things that may not be as common, but there are still real people attached to them. And they need love and support probably much more than the rest of us. If you've been mistreated by someone with a mental health disorder, it can be hard not to dwell on what they did to you. It can be hard to live with them or around them. It's especially hard to spend your time wondering if they're okay and hoping that someone is taking care of them when you don't feel like you can do it anymore. But no matter how hard it is on you, just think about how hard it is on them. We learned to talk about those things and to try to help people find peace.

But if I'm being honest, and that's sort of the point, the mental illness side of counseling was just too messy for me. And in real life, I still have a hard time really processing negativity. Even when it is someone else's situation, I hold onto it too much and become consumed by it so that I can't focus on anything else. My own "self-care" is really to place my energies on the things I can control... maybe I attended too many 12-step meetings as a student observer, but man, that part makes a lot of sense to me. I can focus on myself and my work and doing my best in grad school and being a good puppy-mom. I can focus on Notre Dame football, even though I can't control it, though don't I wish I could. What I have a really hard time with is getting involved in a world where people are spiraling downward. I'm not good at it. I would much rather tell a joke or make you feel better with some cookies or a bottle of wine. I can hug you and let you cry and tell you that it's in God's hands, but I honestly don't know that I can ever really help. I am a fixer, and the problem with mental illness is that a person isn't necessarily broken. They just need help. And they need really good professional help. Medication alone isn't enough. Therapy may not be enough. Prayer isn't always enough. (Lest I sound sacrilegious, my point is that God gives us resources here to help, so we need to seek those out in addition to praying.) Perhaps most people are like me - caring and well-meaning, but not necessarily talented at dealing with the hard stuff - and that's why it remains so pervasive in our society with very few real answers.

My grandfather committed suicide this summer. Only a handful of people know this. I didn't even tell the beautiful people with whom I spent my summer - people who I know would have hugged me and cared for me and done everything in their power to be supportive while I was struggling with my own grief. But saying it out loud made it so real that I couldn't think of anything but how awful he must have felt in order to take his own life. And that just fucking broke my heart. My grandfather was the most "Midwestern" person I've ever known. He almost never got angry. I don't remember ever hearing him raise his voice unless he was trying to talk over the roar of grandchildren at Christmas. And I certainly don't remember ever hearing him talk about (ugh) his feelings. Through surgeries, broken bones, and even cancer, I never remember hearing him actually say that he was worried or afraid or sad or hurting. When my grandmother died last year, he was clearly physically worn down from the strain of losing her. But he never said it. At least not to me. So I was simultaneously shocked and probably also not-so-surprised when he took his own life this summer. As I now know, she was his whole world. And here's the thing: he did it in a way that made so much sense... practical even. He left his business affairs in order at home. He did it away from his home so he would be found by someone other than my family. He did it in an empty but public place on a Sunday - where no one would be immediately troubled by it and no one he knew would be burdened with any kind of clean-up. He even did it in such a way that he would (at the risk of saying too much here) look perfectly normal after the funeral home preparation. Now, I can't say that this was all on purpose, but I just have to assume it was. This is not a man who was crazy or mentally broken. This is a man who was simply miserable, and he never said it out loud. He just took care of it, because that's the kind of person he was.

I know I probably sound flip about this. Maybe even too sterile. But my goodness, it's a hard thing to understand and rationalize and truly feel. It's a really, really hard thing to grieve. You know your grandparents are going to die when they get older. I was fortunate enough to have all of my grandparents (8 of them in fact, because of divorces and re-marriages) around for most of my life. You expect death from old age or illnesses, maybe sudden-but-not-totally-out-of-the-blue. You anticipate getting a phone call and understanding that this is part of life's processes. It doesn't make it easy, but it feels mostly natural. You understand mourning while still celebrating a life that was long and well-lived. It is really hard to make sense of an 87-year-old man taking his own life, especially when he still had a family that loved and cared for him immensely (but maybe isn't good at saying it, because, well, we just don't do a whole lot of that).

I have to wonder if society was different, if our family dynamic was different, even if just a few circumstances were different, whether or not the outcome might have been different. And I just wonder how many other people are wondering the same thing. I know I am surely not alone - not alone in the concern for other people who battle mental conditions and not alone in the uncertainty of how to deal with all of it. I hope we can all see opportunities to help others, and I hope beyond hope that we can figure out a way to actually make a difference for people in those situations. Whether through changing our language, changing our behavior, or simply being tuned into worlds outside of our own little bubbles, maybe we can lessen the stigma of seeking help and make our common existence a bit safer for everyone.

temporary relocation

I'm not sure anyone is still visiting here on a regular basis as it has been such a ridiculously long time since my last post... But if you are, and you don't already know this, my life has taken an interesting twist over the past several months. This summer, I'll be heading to the University of Notre Dame to start work on my second masters degree. I very much want to record that experience in print, but it seemed like such a departure from the random musings here at "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" that I decided to start a new blog specifically for that purpose. If you're still checking in with me here, I'd love for you to join me at my new temporary home - fromheretoirish.blogspot.com.

nautical with a pop

I made an amazing discovery this morning: polyvore.com. I have only scratched the surface there, but basically, it's a site that lets you put together your own style boards - you can choose backgrounds, frames, text, photos, and most importantly: ALL KINDS OF CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES. This is sort of like that scene from Clueless where Alicia Silverstone's character has her computer choose her outfit for the day. Now granted, this isn't necessarily stuff you already have in your own closet, but if you love it enough, YOU CAN BUY IT! Or, in my case, less expensive versions of it. (See $1500 Jimmy Choo nude handbag below. Uh-damn.) You can also integrate your boards so that you can post them directly to your blog, as I've done here. Yay. You can search other people's boards, and of course, you can Pin to your heart's desire. Oh, and P.S. this is free. *cue choirs of angels*

Anyway... I have no doubt that my standard productivity will decrease as my "find things that I like and put them together somewhere on the internet" productivity increases. And I'm totally okay with that. Sometimes you need inspiration to make your life look the way it's supposed to look... it's the adult version of playing dress-up with endless possibilities.

 So, here's my first board: nautical with a pop. I love the idea of taking basics like the tee and navy blazer, pairing them either with jeans or a skirt, and adding a balance of neutral and colorful accessories. For this one, I was feeling the red-orange coral or turquoise against the blue and tans. I'm currently trying to live out my life's fantasy of moving to the New England coast by getting into the idea of nautical inspiration. I like that you can have the nautical-just-hanging-at-Cape Cod feel without going to the tacky extreme of wearing actual seashells or a lobster around your neck.

nautical with a pop by kstout 

a lenten reflection

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Growing up, we attended church in a variety of denominational settings: Baptist, Church of God, "full gospel", non-denominational (which is somehow its own denomination?). These were all places where, aside from Easter and Christmas, observation of the liturgical calendar simply did not exist. To me, Lent (albeit spelled differently) was something that collected in the dryer or that you got in your bellybutton if you didn't wash it. It wasn't until I discovered "high church" during my days as a college music major with a church music job that I really began to hear about and appreciate the Lenten season. Of course, I didn't fully understand it even then, as it was always painted as a time of suffering, sacrifice, and mourning. This was when you gave up chocolate or alcohol or some other wonderful thing (like french fries) and spent 40 days feeling sorry for yourself, until the glory of Easter finally arrived and you got to have french fries deep fried in lard, soaked in vodka, and drizzled in gooey melted Nutella. (And no, I don't think that really exists. Surely.) So like everyone, I always picked something that made me happy and removed it from my life for 40 miserable days. I wasn't sure what the point was except that maybe we owed that to Jesus for the suffering he did on our behalf. Jesus doesn't want me to be happy right now. Check.

But then, I heard a sermon that changed my entire view of the whole thing. This was probably the sermon I should have been hearing all along but somehow never did. (Thanks St. Peters Episcopal Church for setting me straight on this.) Lent IS a time of sacrifice, with maybe a dash of mourning, but it isn't meant to be a time of suffering and misery. The point is not to be unhappy until Easter, but rather it is to spend that time reflecting and analyzing things that have somehow taken your focus away from God. It is an opportunity to "right the ship" so to speak and remember the joy of living your life and trusting your life to the One who gave his life for you. It's so easy as we go through the year to become sidetracked. The imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday reminds us that we have mortal bodies that came from the earth and one day will return to that state. It is a time for us to recognize and appreciate the sacrifice made so that our souls will continue on in eternity. Many people choose to give something up as part of this. When you do, it shouldn't be something easy, just for the sake of giving it up, but it should be something that somehow gets in the way - for me, it is usually something that I turned to in times of stress or something that had become a crutch to deal with life, something that somehow took the place of prayer and focus. Of course, you don't necessarily have to give something up - perhaps you actually add something to your life to help bring you back into that place of equilibrium. In either case, the Lenten season should be a time of quiet joy and reflection, leading up to the ultimate celebration.

That's what I'm choosing to remember today and for the next 40 days. For me this year, it isn't about giving any particular thing up, but rather getting myself back on track so that I am taking the best possible care of myself and using that self ultimately to do good - to do God's will - in the world. In some ways, trying to be healthy can bring about its own sense of sacrifice - it's expensive to buy fresh non-crap food, it can feel like a chore to exercise, and sometimes all you want to do is lay around instead of being productive in some way. I'll get back to that in a minute.

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that stems from insulin resistance. I'm not diabetic, though many with PCOS eventually develop diabetes if they don't treat the problem. Insulin is a hormone, and when your body doesn't react to it, your blood sugar gets completely out of whack. When your blood sugar is off, your body tries to produce more and more insulin to correct it, and your other hormones get out of whack. In the case of PCOS, most of your hormonal issues affect your reproductive system, and things get really unpleasant really fast. It all made sense. I fit most of the symptoms pretty closely. (There's one about having thick coarse hair all over your body - mercifully, I've not had to deal with that one.) My doctor put me on a medication to help regulate my body's response to insulin production. This was going to be okay. But a number of things continued - abdominal pain and cramping pretty much all the time, to the point where it was pretty unbearable. I also felt like crap ALL the time. Fatigued, tense, restless, irritable. A real joy.

Shortly after receiving the PCOS diagnosis, I also learned that I have endometriosis, another reproductive condition affected by high levels of estrogen that makes your body create endometrium (the same stuff that lines the uterus) outside of the uterus. It latches on to stuff like your other organs, soft tissue, and even your intestines. It can cause major scar tissue, internal rupturing (yikes), and is the leading cause of infertility. There's also no way to cure it completely - even women who have all their reproductive organs removed can still have new endometrial cells form. That diagnosis was the one I almost couldn't handle. I've never been overly romantic about the notion of having babies. I'm an only child, and I turned out awesome and not rotten or entitled. I don't see any reason to have 12 million children. I also think birth is kind of gross. I've lived with "lady pain" since I was 17 years old, and I just don't think the idea of something worse than what I've already experienced is so very appealing. But that was always my choice. Now that choice felt like it was being taken away from me. And that was the hardest part for me. There's just this sense that you're damaged and maybe even a little unworthy or something. Even in today's modern society where women are allowed and even encouraged to have a life outside the home, it still seems like your worth as a woman is measured by whether or not someone wants to marry you and re-populate the earth with you. I place a lot of value on my education, my God-given talents and skills, and the support system of my family and friends - I feel incredibly blessed every single day by the opportunities those things afford me. But damn, it's hard not to feel like you suck when your ovaries are funky and covered in scar tissue. But it is what it is. The only thing you can do is try to treat it and recognize that everything is part of a greater plan. So, I had surgery to remove the endometrial cells that had already formed (they gave me awesome pain killers after), and I'll probably always be on some kind of hormonal therapy to keep myself regulated.

But in the way that I do - and getting back to the point here - I started doing my research. I read all about blood sugar regulation and hormonal regulation and how those two things are so intimately connected. Turns out that everything in your body affects something else in your body. It's like it was designed that way or something. Who knew. And if you fix one thing, you at least have a good chance at feeling more normal and getting the other stuff a little bit more balanced. So thus began my quest for an eating-living plan that would help me keep my sugar, and therefore my hormones, more regulated. (I will never call it a diet - a diet is something you "go on" which implies that you can also "go off" it. These conditions don't go away, so you have to plan to live this way forever.) I found a great one - the glycemic index is no joke. I know the foods I should and shouldn't eat, how I should pair them, and how often I should have them in order to maintain a constant balance throughout the day. Throw in some exercise and you've got yourself a plan. This is vastly oversimplifying it of course, but it has made such a difference in my life already. That's not to say that eating salad every day will cure endometriosis, but it can certainly help a person not feel the spiraling effects of all the connected symptoms of lots of sugar -> blood sugar -> insulin spike -> hormone freak out -> body unhappy -> feel like crap and get depressed -> get stressed and gain weight -> eat more sugar... Not cute. So I started this plan back in June. I feel better, I'm in much better shape, and I feel better. It was worth saying it twice. The pain and fatigue have been replaced by actually feeling stronger and more energized - and when I'm tired it's because I've earned it, not because I just feel that way no matter what. Of course, the holidays made it difficult to stay completely on track, and the past 6 weeks or so at work have kind of kicked my butt and forced me back into some of my old choices. So as I said before, I'm taking this time to focus on getting back into that routine, and knowing that by taking better care of myself, I'll feel more like doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And in the end, I know that this isn't a sacrifice - it's me letting go of the stress and coping techniques that take my focus away and instead turning my focus around and truly appreciating and finding joy in what God has provided for me. I hope you're able to do the same. May the peace of the Lord be always with you.

on sand and snow

I was looking through photos on my computer from the past couple years, in a feeble attempt to begin thinking about getting them a little better organized (small, manageable goals). Whether I make it all the way to having them organized is really left to be determined, but at least I started thinking about it. Happy news for my internal to-do list. Start thinking, check.

Anywho... I came across a number of photos from several trips I've taken over the past few years. I think now more than ever, I really appreciate the opportunity to go somewhere else for a few days. We always took fun vacations as I was growing up, but really, how hard is your life when you're 10 years old and you're really only worrying about whether or not your best friend is going to be in your class next year. Okay, that really was stressful... but how little did I know then... It's not like dealing with a crazy job or being the person who has to pay the bills and put food on the table... and I'm only responsible for myself. Thank goodness. In any case, it's so nice to be able to escape into a new world for a few days, learn about the history, eat the food, and experience the beauty that God has placed all around us. Looking at my pictures, even though the places I've traveled have been pretty different from one another, I've seen a recurring theme in the moments that have felt the most still and calm...

Yep. Those are two very different places... a sandy beach in Florida and a snowy field in Indiana, and yet for me somehow they evoke the same sense of silent freedom from the rest of the world. I'll start with sand.

I didn't always love the ocean. Some people grow up loving the beach and the only thing they would ever want to do in the world is find some sand and sit on it until they turn into lobsters. I am not one of those people. See, I am one of the pale freckle-faced kids who was always forced into a t-shirt mid-day to avoid death by sunburn. No one wants to do ANYTHING in a huge soggy t-shirt. You're trying to play in the sand and have some fun, but instead you're just dragging a sopping mess around everywhere you go. You know how sand collects in every single thing you take on the beach? Well, dampen all that stuff, then cover it in sand, and drape it all over your body, and that's what the t-shirt feels like. I was at the beach with my best friend a couple years ago, and a family with young kids was playing next to us. At one point, the mom said, "Okay, it's time to put on your t-shirt." And the one kid yelled emphatically, and in slow motion, "NOOOOOOTTTT... THE... TEEEEEE... SHIIIIIIIIIIIRT!" I so knew what he was feeling. Poor guy. And of course, no matter how much time you spend in the gross drippy sand-infested t-shirt, you still get sunburned. It's so not worth it.

Another charming fact: I'm also the person who attracts jellyfish everywhere, literally, every. where. I go. I've been stung six different times now, in six different beaches across the western hemisphere. Some weren't as bad as others... some were sort of innocent brushes of momentary sting and redness. One was the worst possible hell you can imagine. I am prone to exaggerate from time to time, but I'm not kidding about this. When I was 14, my parents took me on a trip to Cancun for spring break. This sounds super awesome right? Let me remind you, I was 14. And with my parents. It was lovely, but I assure it looked nothing like your vision of spring break in Cancun. As people do in Cancun, we took a day trip snorkeling. It was one of those throw-all-the-white-people-on-a-bus-and-drive-them-away-from-the-resorts-and-past-all-the-poverty, let-them-swim-and-get-sunburned-and-then-feed-them-food-that-may-or-may-not-be-safe kind of deals. The first part of our trip, a stop at the ancient ruins of Tulum, was really cool. I was kind of always a history nerd, so I really did enjoy that. After lunch (which didn't kill me), we boarded the bus again and drove to a beach where the water was crystal clear blue and everything seemed perfect and idyllic. We threw on our snorkel gear and headed out. We'd been seeing floating drifts of what looked like seaweed along the way... no big deal. We kept swimming. It drew near time to head back to the bus, so we started swimming toward the shore. Oh, look, more of that seaweed. Oh, wait... no... something is burning... Oww, no, it's really burning... These must be jellyfish... Shit! Let's get out of them... Oh, God, now they're everywhere... The only choice we have is to keep swimming to the shore... Now I can feel them in my bathing suit... Am I dying?!! I think I'm dying... Did I go to hell? Because this feels like hell... Oh, praise Jesus! My foot is on the sand... I'm running... I'm still dying... I'm pulling of my damn bathing suit and ripping these little motherf*ckers (which wasn't even in my 14-year-old vocabulary) off of me... Showers! There are showers... Oh, thank God. Rinse... And yes, let's pull that bathing suit back up... Seriously. Miserable. Imagine the worst pain you've ever been in. Now imagine that you are experiencing said pain on a hot humid beach in Mexico, where your 14-year-old body is mostly naked in front of 15-20 foreign and domestic strangers. Suh-weet. I had red and purple whelps from those bastards (the jellyfish, not the strangers) under my arms and across my chest for about 8 weeks. The most awesome part is that this happened at the beginning of the trip, so I got to spend the rest of my time afraid to even walk next to the ocean and also in pain. Double sweet. Since then, I've been stung a couple more times, once by jellyfish larvae that you CAN'T EVEN SEE IN THE WATER. So unfair. I feel like invisible things shouldn't be able to wreak havoc. Amiright?

So yes, suffice it to say, I was not always a fan of the beach. I'm a Pisces, which is a water sign, so I've always had a love for water - being in it, near it, whatever - it's just been rough going with the other things hanging out in there, too. I guess you could call me a "pool person." But as I've gotten older, the beach/ocean and I have come to more of an understanding. It promises to try not to screw me over with creatures, and I promise not to curse and mock it publicly. After spending time on the coast in Rhode Island and Boston's North Shore and experiencing the simultaneous peace and power of the ocean, my cold heart started to melt a little. I felt safe and secure and completely happy there. Spending a week in the slow-paced quiet town of Amelia Island - and magically not getting touched by any animal! - I started to feel a true calm, looking out into the expanse. This past summer in Key West, I almost felt like I was at the edge of the world, and all I could see ahead was perfect emerald water and sky, blended into one. There's something to be said for perfect capped white peaks and the world beyond the sand.

As we move into the winter months, with the holidays upon us, I can't help but think about snow. Unlike my rocky relationship with sandy beaches, my relationship with snow has been pretty consistent. It's like a great old friend who lives somewhere else. I don't see it that often, but when I do, it's pretty much perfect. It reminds me of Christmases spent at my Grandma's in Indiana, sneaking an extra chocolate chip cookie, and racing my cousins down the stairs (on pillows, not feet) in the old farm house. It makes me think of the time that a random blizzard hit the southeastern United States, and we spent the week living like pioneers with no power, lighting fires, huddling in one room to sleep at night, and watching the dog, unseen, burrow a trail in the 5-foot snow drifts. After day number five of melting snow to flush the toilet, that whole thing got a little old... but in the early stages, it was pretty fantastic.

I realize that there are people who live places where snow is consistently a pain in the butt. Where it gloms on city sidewalks, covered in dirt from street sweepers... Especially after the blizzard experience, I can appreciate that some of the magic might get lost when daily life and all practical functions are interrupted. But for now, snow is perfect Christmas music and hot chocolate and fuzzy blankets and twinkle lights (the kind that are beautiful and well organized - not the ones that are randomly hung and blinking spastically). Snow is my first Notre Dame football game. It's a long deep breath with a slow exhale. It is clean and crisp and white, and when it covers everything as far as the eye can see, disguising any imperfections underneath, it's like somehow everything is suddenly right in the world. And it just makes me happy.

All photos are by me, taken with all sorts of cameras/phones in all sorts of places.

an entire month of thanks

If you read my blog or follow me on twitter, you know that I made an effort to post the things I was thankful for each day in November, as a reminder of how many large and small wonderful blessings I have on any given day. It's been a nice change of pace from all the grumbling I seem to hear around me - and even the grumbling that has been coming directly from me. It's refreshing to let that stuff go sometimes and just be happy you have something simple like a cup of hot chocolate with toasted marshmallows. (Yes, that's a new trick I discovered - toasting them with a creme brulee torch = liquid s'mores. Win.)

So anyway... I thought I'd wrap it all up with a final summary of all the thanksgiving posts from the last month. I probably won't continue with the daily public posting, but I am going to make an effort to continue keeping track of those things privately. Now, to the list!

November 2

Today I'm thankful that I don't work at that college on the other side of town.

Today I am also thankful for fuzzy blankets and bubble baths. And fun fingernail polish.

November 3 

Today I'm thankful that it isn't 58 degrees in my office like it was yesterday. I'm also incredibly thankful I get to work with good people.

November 4

Today I am thankful for my incredibly comfortable bed, and I'm looking forward to crawling back into it tonight.

November 5

Today I am thankful that this morning's trip to Honeymoon Bakery was at least partially negated by the fact that I walked there.

November 6

Today I am thankful for the beautiful fall weather and changing leaves, football games, and hot beverages.

November 7

Today I am thankful that I have a car, even if it means I also have to make a car payment.

November 8

Today I am thankful for music: the gift to perform, study, teach, & listen; the opportunities & wonderful people it has brought to my life.

November 9

Today I'm thankful for the friends I've known the longest. Amazing to grow up and change while still maintaining the same bond. #BFFsAreReal

November 10

Today I'm thankful for soup. For real.

November 11

Today I'm thankful for my hairdresser Tina. She is not only super talented but also has a huge heart. Plus she's hilarious.

November 14

Took a technology break this weekend. Good times. Today, I'm thankful for great weekends that make all the crap in between worth it.

I'm also thankful for my mom, who is awesome and totally my BFF, as well as the opportunity to meet some new friends this weekend.

November 15

Today I am thankful for the rain and hopeful that it will help me sleep. Too much going on this week.

November 17

Today I'm thankful for my dad's surgical team, who completed his surgery with great success & is taking great care of him in the hospital.

And since I missed yesterday, today I'm also thankful for peach tea, which I believe might be the nectar of the gods. Second to wine. Yum.

November 18

Today I'm thankful that I have some holiday time coming up. Looking forward to a break. Light at the end of the tunnel, I see you.

November 19

Today I'm thankful for my awesome boss and co-workers who keep things going for me at a HUGE event so I can leave to take care of my dad.

November 20

Today I'm thankful for soft cotton PJs and high thread count bamboo sheets, and for parents who love and appreciate me.

November 21

Today I'm thankful for coffee & the Ok Go station on Pandora that my lovely friend Aajay shared with me. Good start to Monday.

November 22

Today I'm thankful for opportunities, and I pray for the wisdom to follow the right ones.

November 23

Today I'm thankful for today's 2.5 mile jog that will allow me to feel less guilty tomorrow. :) Oh, and Friends re-runs.

November 24

Today I'm thankful for family traditions: cinnamon rolls, Macy's parade, and coffee, all in our pajamas. Now time to finish food prep.

November 26

Yesterday I was thankful for shopping deals, finding Steelers stuff for my dad in Chattanooga of all places, and Love Actually.

Today I'm thankful that I got to sleep in and drink awesome coffee. Now helping my mom with Christmas decorations. Yay holidays.

November 27

Today I'm thankful for Dave Grohl. I don't think I need to explain any further. I just love him.

November 28

Today I'm thankful that payday is almost here. Gurl needs to do some Christmas shopping. And you know, buy food and pay bills.

November 29

Today I'm thankful that I didn't get stuck in what I assume to be Rome Christmas Parade traffic. Cold people all up in the way around here.

November 30

Today I'm thankful for the internet. So many ideas for Christmas gifts, decorations, recipes... Now to ignore it all and create my own! :)

Here's to hoping for and believing that there will be so many things to be thankful for this entire holiday season. Happy December!

ode to dave grohl

So, yesterday my "today I'm thankful for..." was Dave Grohl. I said it didn't need further explanation. I just love him. Since posting that, I've been listening to Dave almost non-stop... and with that listening, I have come to the realization that while it doesn't need further explanation, maybe it does deserve it. I'm not going to go through the complete history of Dave Grohl or even address every single thing he does... I mean, you can find that on the internet from much more credible sources than me. What I am going to do though is chronicle why I think he's so fantastic... and that comes with a little history, gushing, and visual effects.

I should probably start with a little context here. If you know me very well, then you know that my love for Dave has been lengthy and is currently without boundary. But people who know me only casually probably wouldn't necessarily automatically place me as a lover of that kind of music. I'd like to think of my personal style as "classic with an edge," though years of work in higher education has dulled my edge a little. While we're frequently liberal in thought, we're still often very conservative - and frankly a bit boring - in practice. It's pretty safe to say that on the outside, I don't really scream "hard rock." But that's one of the reasons I love Dave so much. You don't have to scream hard rock in order to appreciate him. 

Flash back to the early 90s. I was in middle school when Nirvana came on the scene. A brief historical perspective... This was a time when pop was at its peak. Popular music was incredibly mainstream, top 40, easily accessible. Whitney Houston. Michael Jackson. Richard Marx. Folks like Mariah Carey and BoyzIIMen were beginning the pop-hip hop movement, but those were still the soundtracks of every middle school dance and cheesy TV moment. I certainly owned my fair share of those songs, and I still enjoy the heck out of them. "Rock and Roll" had largely forgone the days of Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers and The Who and Pink Floyd and had evolved (or some might say devolved) into the likes of faux leather and spandex and the biggest hair possible. If I'm being perfectly honest, I have no beef with hair bands. In fact, I was and still am kind of in love with Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Journey. But the point is that it was all about the big production. The arena rock show. It was mainstream in its own way because it was a spectacle, and it was making a lot of money. There wasn't an independent presence in popular music that I can recall. I'm sure historians could correct me, but the point is that I don't remember it. Punk existed, but it wasn't in the circles of standard everyday people. I mean, those dudes were loud and scary as hell, and of course our parents weren't going to let them into our homes. But then something crazy happened. Nirvana recorded an album on a Happy Meal budget and people actually started listening to it. It wasn't polished and bedazzled like arena rock. And it sure wasn't "easy listening" by any standard. But it had emotion and a sort of frenetic raw energy. It had balls.

Nirvana performing live on MTV.

Nirvana became a sensation against any practical odds. The grunge movement leapt right on out of Seattle and landed squarely in my middle school. Boys who formerly wore Tommy Hilfiger like their parents owned stock in it were now dropping their polos in favor of their dad's old beat up flannel shirts and jeans. Girls who had lived and died by Guess? and Esprit were now wearing combat boots with dresses. WITH DRESSES! All the kids with lenient parents were coming to school with hair dyed using Kool-Aid paste. (My mom, despite being admittedly really cool, never let me do that. It's probably why I've paid good money to color my hair constantly since I turned 18.) It was crazy, really. Baggy jeans and Converse One-Stars (not Chucks, mind you - these were more like skater shoes) and huge t-shirts. All these mainstream kids were trying to have an edge. Of course, I lived somewhere in the space between these two worlds. Middle school is a horrible time when you search for acceptance more than any other time in your life probably, and I wanted that just as much as anyone. But I didn't really want it from only one group. I wanted it from everyone. Thinking on it now, I'm still that way... but it's not so much that I want them to accept me - it's more that I want a little of what every group has to offer. I love our differences, and I love it when people are passionate about something that is a little foreign to me. Some boys I had known all our lives had become these grunge "alternative" kids, and I guess I was kind of intrigued by them even if I didn't fully understand it. It's easy to forget that there was a time when alternative wasn't the norm. I bought my combat boots and proudly donned them beneath a long floral dress worn over a waffle-weave long-sleeve tee. I had my flannel and baggy jeans and Converse One-Stars. And despite my mother's protests, I listened to Nirvana. I watched MTV and My So-Called Life, and a little part of me fell in love with the honesty and lack of pretentiousness in these folks who were not exactly like everyone else. That's when I met Dave Grohl. 

He was so young and wittle. And sweaty, and partially naked. But hey.

Of course we all know what happened to Nirvana upon the unfortunate death of Kurt Cobain. There's a part of me that will always wonder what might have been had he not died so young and so early in his career. But that occurrence also proved to be perhaps the most seminal moment in the development of the entity of Dave Grohl. See, Dave was a ridiculously talented drummer. But he started out as a guitar player and frontman. He wrote his own music while he was the drummer for Nirvana, but as he said, "You're the f*cking dummer. No one wants you to sing." I have to think a little bit of his creative talent might have been stifled while he was part of the Nirvana machine. That was likely to change over time, but we can't know for sure what might have happened. Dave was reportedly devastated by his friend's death and almost left music entirely, but something grew out of that grief. Dave kept writing and started performing again, recording the first Foo Fighters album - all instruments and vocals - completely on his own.

Big Me was one of the singles from the first album. And the video is still hilarious to me.

In high school and early college, when boy bands were the new black, I was in my "too cool for pop" phase. I dated a rock band. Well, I dated a boy who was in a band. But anyone who has ever dated a boy who was in a band can attest to the fact that if the boy is at all committed to the band, and you are at all committed to the boy, then you are by default committed to the band. That relationship was never going to last forever, but it gave me such an appreciation for the musicianship involved in good quality rock music. Those guys introduced me to music that I might have ignored without understanding how much talent it takes to play it well. And that's when I really fell in love with Dave Grohl. Seeing the Foo Fighters live (with the Red Hot Chili Peppers - awesome) only cemented my love. You can make a lot of money off of three chords, but it takes more than just being loud. You have to have some measure of skill, and in order to keep making money - certainly in order to keep making art - you have to change it up. It's now been almost 20 years since Dave recorded that first Foo Fighters album, and with the evolution into a multi-member band, the Foo Fighters only seem to be growing in popularity, both critically and commercially, as their most recent album has been their most successful. Now for some samples.

Here's a live video of Best of You. Dave wails. And it is awesome. (Oh, and shout-out to Taylor Hawkins on the drums. Beast.) 

Here's the acoustic version of one of the Foo Fighters biggest hits, Everlong. This song will never, ever get old to me. And I love how beautiful and understated it is here. 

This is one of my favorite things ever. Dave and Taylor have been asked to cover Stairway to Heaven on the Craig Kilborn show. By themselves. Insanity and amazingness ensues. 

That, folks, is why I love Dave Grohl. He sings, he plays guitar and drums, he writes, he produces, he SINGS guitar solos, and he surely doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. He continues to grow and develop his sound. He continues to take risks with what has now become a mainstream product. A few years back, the Foos won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Album... and you know what they did next? They released a double-disc album that had one entire disc of acoustic music. ACOUSTIC. We're talking singer-songwriter-y guitars and pianos, and even a duet with freaking Norah Jones. Who does this guy think he is?! His music sounds every bit as good as a mellow guitar track as it does wailing on stage with a full band. He collaborates with everyone... Paul McCartney, Tenacious D, Rob Zombie, Puff Daddy... He has his own projects on the side. He has his own studio where he produces stuff himself. He literally does everything. That most recent best-selling album? In a world where digital is king, they scrapped all the autotune and computerized technology and recorded on real live analog tape. No one, literally, no one else does that now. They're too afraid it won't be perfect. But not Dave. No, no. Dave still embraces that imperfect sound that gave him a way into the world of music, and he continues to expand his own musical world with the influences of the people who inspire him. As someone who loves music as much as I do, that idea makes me feel all tingly and warm inside, like I want to start having musical babies with him or something. (The only reason I didn't say "real babies" is because he seems to be happily married and loving his real life with his own live actual children. Super cute, btw.)

You know how he recorded a duet with Norah Jones? Well, he also performed with her live at the Kennedy Center Honors, when Paul McCartney was honored a couple years ago. It's ridiculous that the same guy who was wailing up there is doing this beautiful thing here. I may or may not have cried.

There aren't a lot of people from that original grunge music still finding success, but somehow Dave's projects continue to reinvent and add to the world of rock music. I guess that's what I love about what's happening out there now. Some music is so hard to classify, and I think that's super cool. You don't have to be just one thing. You don't have to have just one sound. If you have the talent, you can showcase that and use it to reach other people in so many different configurations. It doesn't have to be perfect to be good. It just has to be honest and real, and people will respond. And it also doesn't hurt if you happen to be a hot tattooed beast of a man. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for scruff and aviators. ;)