At Every Occasion, I’ll Be Ready…

It occurred to me today that the only way for me to attain egolessness is through death. Think about it.  When you are gone, does it really matter if the people who come to your funeral actually knew you? I think in a certain way, viewings and funerals are best attended by people who love and support the deceased’s loved ones.

All of the spiritual reading that I have done has suggested that ego is something that must be managed, reined in, controlled. But it can never be escaped. That is why in meditation, you are told to observe the feelings and thoughts as they come up without judgment. No matter how hard you try or how spiritual you become, those pesky and nagging desires, doubts, feelings and fears will arise. It is the human condition. Deeply spiritual people, like monks, can know their way around this condition and through simplification and isolation, they can manage some type of enlightenment beyond constant tantrums of their child-like ego.

If I do get to live a long life, I hope that someday I will attain the wisdom that comes from neutralizing the ego through lifestyle and spiritual pursuits. But for now, I am still at the mercy of my ego. I can’t picture a life in which the driving reason for me to get out of bed every morning is not ego driven. My spirit is a hornet’s nest of in-progress goals, insecurity, striving, and yearning for it all to come together in the way that I want. I know I’m supposed to say that it sounds like a terrible way to live, but is it? If it is impossible to escape, then at least, it makes me feel alive, as though there is a generative force, like I am moving forward.

The one thing that I have learned these past couple years is that even if I cannot stop my ego from creeping up with doubts, desires, and dreams, I can stop it from wreaking havoc through the decisions that I make and through empathy for others and myself. I believe that empathy is the single best combatant of ego. To live a life that is mindful of not hurting others as much as possible is wonderful. Even better for a sense of inner peace is to be empathetic with yourself. When the ego screams for gratification, the best remedy is to have empathy for your future self and to think through the consequences and risks involved in letting the ego take the wheel. Immediate gratification may be virtually irresistible, but the ego usually escapes with little more than a bruise and ever increasingly persistent cries, while you are the one who has to live with the misery wrought.

In the end, there is no escaping the ego. Maybe it is at the root of all of the mistakes that we make, but at least it reminds that us that we are alive. Death, on the other hand, is flawless.

Whatcha gonna do with all that arm?

One of the nice things about having more free time this summer is that I have been able to go to the university gym to work out. It’s been nice to take a break from running for a bit and use the elliptical machine and lift weights instead. I’m also taking a spinning class which I’m still not sure if I like or not.

It’s been awhile since I have worked out in a gym environment, and I can’t help my people-watching impulse. What else are you supposed to do on the elliptical when you are surrounded by mirrors? I can see people from all angles in the most discreet ways.

The people who have been sticking out to me this past week are the young men with enormous muscles, but not for the reason that you may be thinking. To be honest, I find overly muscular people unattractive. It looks unnatural and strange. Bulging biceps remind me of those floaties that you put on little kids so that they don’t drown in the pool. I see all of these young guys with huge arm muscles and I can’t help but think, “Why?” I understand being fit and having muscles, but why do they need to be that big? I am a firm believer that muscles should be flexed, not fixed in a permanent state of buffness.

I get these maternal feelings toward the boys who have skinny bodies, shaggy hair, pimply faces, and ridiculously ginormous arms. I just want to give them a hug and tell them that they’re ok and they probably would have gotten a girl after high school even if they didn’t get the popeye arms.

Without fail, Big Muscle Guy always has a super scrawny sidekick with him who I assume is Muscle Guy’s pet project.

“Hey man, wanna go lift? I can show you how to get massive. Just do what I say and eat, like, 5000 grams of protein a day and you’ll be huge like me.”

“Yeah, man. I bought a 50 pound barrel of protein powder. I’m ready to go. I can’t wait for my arms to explode out of my Abercrombie shirt.”

Poor kids.

Snood

While I have been having a very productive and work-centered summer, I have also picked up a nasty addiction.

I can’t stop playing the computer game Snood. It has long been my crutch during end of the semester paper writing.  When I feel brain dead, I just mindlessly click away at Snood until my head clears and I can get back to writing. The same thing happened at the end of this past semester, but instead of completely forgetting about it as soon as my papers were turned in, I’ve become obsessed with it. I am such a perfectionist and I always want to beat my score. It doesn’t even seem to bother me that this game requires no talent, strategy, or skill.  I am in this crazy, cutthroat Snood tournament with myself.

The first sign that I had a problem was when I closed my eyes to go to sleep at night, I would see the little Snood characters.

And now, my wrist hurts. I think I have injured myself by doing so much Snooding. I have Snood induced carpal tunnel.

I’ve gotta quit. Cold turkey.

No more snood.

In Memoriam

As some of you know, my grandmother passed away in January. Even though she had battled lung cancer twice before, the cancer spread so rapidly this time that her death was sudden and unexpected. We knew that the diagnosis in December would be her last, but we were unprepared for her to go a couple weeks later.

I gave the eulogy at her funeral and felt a great outpouring of support from people in my community and family. But I had to leave town only a few days later because it was the beginning of the semester and I had lots of obligations to get back to in Bloomington. I have not been home since then which has allowed me the distance to keep up some level of denial. I think about her a lot and have dreams every once in awhile. She was like a mother to me, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to fully comprehend the loss.

Today, my mom told me a very moving story. My aunt got a phone call from someone at Relay for Life asking how many people were in her and my mom’s families and that my mom and my aunt should stop by on Friday evening during the opening ceremonies. When they got there, the woman presented them with the official Relay for Life t-shirts and on the back of the shirts, it said, “In Memory of Lois Backstrom” and another lady. I am so touched that my Nan was honored with such a public tribute. I have participated in many Relay for Life events over the years and it’s hard to believe that all of those people were walking with her name on their shirts. I think that she would be very humbled if she knew. I am certainly grateful and I know that this is going to be something that will comfort me as I continue to go through the grieving process.

4 Sociologists Walk Into A Bar…

Ok, not a real joke and there is no punchline.

But last night, 3 of my sociology friends and I went to a local bar and spent the entire time making sociological observations about the dating and mating behavior that surrounded us. We had all taken a social psych class this past semester and we couldn’t help referencing the studies that we read about women “cooling out” men and the “girl hunt.” It wasn’t all sociology, though. We were mainly making fun of the drunkards.

I don’t know if I’m getting older, or worse, in the throes of maturity, but I just don’t really have fun going out anymore. On the rare occasions that I do go out, I tend not to be excited about it beforehand and when I’m actually out, I tend to be more of an observer than an active participant. It’s pretty bad when the most fun part of the night was playing Catchphrase before going out.

Currently, it is Saturday night and I am happily staying in. I can’t say that there is anything else I’d rather be doing than watching CNN’s Special Investigation about America’s oil addiction. And then I’m going to do some work.

Good-bye, frivolous youth. We had some good times, but it’s funny how I don’t even miss you yet.

Model of Productivity

It may be summer, but it is no break. I have been in a very productive mood lately, and I am going to ride it out as long as possible. I know that once my concentration snaps, I will be completely useless until the structure of the semester gets put back in place. I’m hoping that I will be able to keep it up until at least July 1st, but that might be ambitious.

It’s unbelievable what a little freedom from classes and responsibility has done to me. I’m so much better at doing work. In fact, I’m a new woman! I get up at 6am, run 5-7 miles, work for hours on preparing my class, clean my apartment, eat balanced meals, get plenty of sleep. It’s crazy. I’m almost human again. No, even better, I am superhuman. I’m actually getting stuff done. Amazing.

Today, I went to campus to pick up my mail and look through past syllabi for the course that I am teaching. While I was at it, I looked at past Quals reading lists. Yes, that is how motivated I am. I don’t even have my masters signed off yet and I am already gearing up for the next hurdle.

Then, on my way out of the building, I decided to check out the classroom that I will be teaching in during the fall semester. I will be teaching a class of 70 students which seems like a hell of a lot of people to me. So, in my head, I have been picturing me standing in front of a grand lecture hall. With a stage. And a podium. And stadium seating. For some absurd reason, I’ve been psyching myself up to teach a 600 person lecture course! Therefore, when I saw the actual classroom, I was a little disappointed. There were a lot of seats to be certain, but it was just a normal sized room and I realized for the first time that I will be standing within 3-5 feet of the front row of students. I don’t know why I imagined that I would be really far away from them. It might have something to do with my god complex. I expected to be physically above and beyond them, unreachable. But this is cool, too. Power to the people. I shall mingle with ease among my eager pupils.

All in all, seeing the space put me at ease. Now, I’m not as nervous about some blown out of proportion class size conception, but seeing it also made it more real which is a little nerve-wracking in itself. Mostly, though, I’m excited. I am having such a great time putting together the syllabus and writing lectures. As long as I can get through the first class jitters, I think I’ll be fine and able to really enjoy myself.

When Yes Means No

The Summer of Yes. What did I get myself into?

Out of the 4 dates last weekend, half asked me out again, one moved out of town, and the other has been MIA. I declined to go on second dates with the two who asked because there just isn’t enough compatibility and spark. I don’t want to waste their time. I had a strange follow up with one of them, though. The fourth date who was really bland sent me an email later that day apologizing for being so rude to me on the date. He called himself a “jackass” for “not offering to pay for your meal, asking you to get us a table, being quiet, and not walking you to your car.” Honestly, I did not even really notice any of those things and certainly did not come away from the date thinking he was rude. In fact, I would have been more annoyed if he had walked me to my car. I did think he was quiet but I never hold that against anyone, especially on first dates because I tend to talk A LOT so it doesn’t really matter. I thought it was completely unnecessary for him to beat himself up over those little things and I wrote back telling him not to worry about it. I definitely have had dates where I have kicked myself for certain things afterwards. It happens and I don’t judge for those little things when there is always a bit of nervousness in play. However, the follow up email was another indication of the impression that I got of him – he seemed a little immature and not really established in himself or life. I am not against younger guys, but I think I want someone who has things figured out as much as I do, if not more so.

Mr. Awkward asked me out again, but that isn’t going to happen, and I haven’t heard anything from Over Thirty Guy which I’m not surprised about. He has a history of sporadic contact and/or maybe he wasn’t feeling it with me. Who knows? I am not wasting time thinking about it.

Moving forward, I met a guy at the Cinco de Mayo party who asked for my phone number. Let me just say that I was not in a good mood at that party. It seemed like everyone wanted to give me a hard time about things (e.g. man-hating) and sometimes, I like to joke around but sometimes, it is too much. This particular guy was being kind of a jerk. For example, he said that I was not funny in reference to a comment I made that I had not even intended as a joke. I got mad and we got into a fake argument that culminated in him asking for my number. I can’t tell you how many times guys ask me out after we get into a heated discussion. I guess some guys like feisty women. Anyway, I was steamed enough at this point to say, “Why should I go out with you? You have been such a jerk all night!” He gave a few reasons, one of which was, “I have great hair.” This made me laugh so I broke down and told him about the Summer of Yes. I said, “Well, I guess I have to go out with you because I am doing this experiment. I have to go out with everyone who asks.” I probably shouldn’t tell the guys who ask me out that the only reason I’m going out with them is because I’ll go out with anyone, but I really didn’t care about hurting this one’s feelings. I gave him my number and figured that I wouldn’t hear from him after telling him that under the Summer of Yes, yes would normally mean no.

Well, I heard from him via text message, so it looks like there is a possibility that I might have an authentic S.o.Y date coming up. We’ll see what happens.

Happy Mother’s Day

The other day, I sent my mom a card for Mother’s Day. It included your basic, “Thanks for birthing me and being a great mother” type message and I added a handwritten note saying that I’m sorry I can’t be there to spend the day with her but I’ll take her out to lunch when I visit home in June.

As I put the card in the mailbox, I experienced a strange rush of feeling good about myself. Honestly, up to that point, I was just sending it out of obligation and was slightly proud of myself for both remembering that Mother’s Day was this weekend and planning far enough in advance to send the card in time. But after I sent it off, I felt very satisfied with myself, like I had done an act of kindness. Maybe that is why Mother’s Day is pretty much the biggest card giving holiday ever. It’s not so much honoring dear old mom as it is proving to ourselves that we are thoughtful, kind-hearted sons and daughters.

Mailing the card also brought back the memory of the first thing that I ever mailed to my mom. I was 4 years old and the pre-school I attended took us to the post office for a field trip. We each made a drawing and the teachers helped us to address the letter to our homes. That letter is in some scrapbook from my childhood and I remember looking at it over the years and thinking that it was a really shitty drawing, certainly not the best work that I had done in my fourth year of life, and yet that piece of paper was somehow so special because it became the first piece of mail that I ever sent. It’s funny to remember our first encounters with things like the post office and how at some point, we really did have to be taught how to do the simplest social activities that have now become unconscious parts of our daily lives. And our parents, especially our mothers, were often intimately involved with transferring that knowledge.

So, on this Mother’s Day, I want to thank my mom not only for being a loving, caring mother who has always been there for me and gave me life, but also for all of the little things that she taught me that have made me into a mostly functioning adult (she could have done a bit better with introducing me to carwashes – I hate those things!). Love ya, mom!

Hangin’ Around this Town

On Wednesday evening, I was all tuckered out after a long meeting about teaching and my first spinning class, so I just relaxed on the couch with my laptop. I clicked around facebook for awhile and looked at the profiles of people I haven’t seen for years. I followed links to their travel blogs and wedding blogs and baby blogs. It seems like everyone is having these monumental life changing experiences. And me?

I’m just kind of hanging out.

Hanging around the town of Bloomington for the next couple of months. Hanging on to the last two months of being 23. And generally, just hanging out in this pseudo-adult life.

I’m not readying to make vows to my soulmate or form a human life in my body or even live up the freedom of my youth by backpacking through Europe or Asia by myself with no plan. When I hear vague updates about other people’s lives, I always feel like what they are doing with their lives is so much more important than what I am doing with mine. Like, somehow, they’ve got it figured out and are on track and doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing and I’m here just twiddling my thumbs until it all works out.

Sure, I’ve got big things happening. My masters is almost done (although it might never get done because the thought of looking at it again makes me want to rip out my eyeballs with a butter knife) and I am getting ready to teach a college level course in the Fall which makes me feel like I have something that resembles a job. I am excited and fulfilled by these developments in my graduate career, but it feels like there are still a lot of things missing.

So yeah, I got a little wistful looking at what other people are achieving in their lives, but could I really handle any of those at this point in my life? Let’s just say that I was madly in love with “the man that God created for me” and decided to spend the next 4 months traveling the world with him with nothing but our passports and just going where the wind takes us – and oops, I get pregnant at some point, probably in a train station in Belarus, and am now a “vessel of life.”

Umm, I’d probably shit my pants if all of that happened. I’ll just stick to writing my syllabus, thank you very much!

I do want all of those things to happen someday (except perhaps conceiving in Belarus), but I guess I shouldn’t feel jealous or sad that I don’t have it all right now. It’s good to have things to look forward to in the next 5 or 10 years.

One thing that particularly struck me about some of these people’s blogs about their marriages and childbearing is how religious they seem to be. Sometimes, I wish that I could be one of those religious types. I think it would make finding someone with similar values much easier. If I was all about having a marriage based on Christ or whatever, I would just go to church and marry the holiest man I could find. Unfortunately, I am more of an independent-minded spiritual seeker and while I know that there are many like-minded spiritual men who are good people that just don’t buy into the church thing, they are harder to track down. At least with religious guys, they are contained to a specific building once a week. Spiritual guys are meditating in the middle of nowhere, getting closer to the Universe but no closer to me! Maybe I should go on a spiritual retreat and see what kind of people I meet there. All I know is that I am not having fun meeting people at bars and parties anymore and I’m not sure where else to go. If I still lived in New York, I would go to those Jewish single events at the YMCA.  Too bad there is no equivalent mixer for Lapsed Lutherans Who Want a Non-Jesus Freak, Nice Guy in Bloomington.

Blah, I’m so depressed. I’m never reading another  joyous, miracle-of life celebrating Baby Blog again!

She’s A ManHater

Back in the day when I was an English minor, I harbored a secret desire to write novels. After a few courses, I realized that being a reader is one of the most pleasurable parts of life but being a writer is excruciating because you have a complete lack of control over the way your story is being interpreted. I could never be an English professor or an author because it is frustrating when people don’t “get” the story the way that I do. I have issues with giving up control. I suppose that the same thing will happen when I write books and articles on sociology but at least then I can hide a bit behind methodology and data.

When it comes to this blog, there is no hiding. This is just me sharing my thoughts, opinions, and stories off the top of my head. Most of the feedback that I have gotten about my blog has been positive. I suppose if people don’t like it, they won’t read it or if they have negative things to say, they don’t share them with me directly. Usually.

So imagine my surprise when an acquaintance of mine began reading my blog and told me at a Cinco de Mayo party that I come across as a man-hating egotist!

That was not at all what I was expecting to hear. Apparently, my self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek attempts at humor might be misinterpreted as having a large ego or <gasp> a superiority complex.

When I write for my Imaginary Biscotti Fan out there in BlogWorld, I am trying to strike a tone of witty self-reflection with perhaps a touch of neuroticism. I always thought of my blog persona as a rather likable character. Maybe I do say things indicating that I think highly of myself and that some men are stupid, but I don’t think that either of those things are the whole picture.

Perhaps this critic is just misreading Biscotti. When pressed to provide evidence of misandry on my blog, he referenced a post in which I called men “mongrels.” For the record, I called them mutts and that was only pertaining to men I date which, of course, reflects more on my poor judgment than on the male species as a whole.

The truth is that I neither love nor hate men. I hate when men act like jerks, but I don’t necessarily think that every male acts that way. Besides, I’m not sure if anyone can ever escape acting like a jerk at some time or another. I have certainly had my moments of fallibility when it comes to being entirely fair to a dating partner. What can you do? Dating can be one mean dog show. I may laugh at the mutts, but I am no pit bull when it comes to men.

No matter what my blog says.