All posts by Rachel

About Rachel

Rachel V. Stankowski considered herself, among other things, a writer. Primarily due to the positive stigmas that accompanied the label, but also because it seemed to excuse some of her more major eccentricities, vanity included.

J is for Jon Kabat-Zinn and… j’Mindfulness?

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Too much of a stretch for the letter J?

Don’t care! Poetic license!

J is for the author and psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the book Full Catastrophe Living and a huge proponent of mindfulness (no, it doesn’t really start with a j, silent or otherwise).

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Although I haven’t actually finished reading the book yet (it’s a monster!), I am becoming more and more interested in the idea of mindfulness. Or more than idea, really– the science of mindfulness. (It’s a science that literally has it’s own journal, peer-reviewed and PubMed-indexed. Dang.) It’s another one of those things that keeps coming up over and over and over again… and the universe only has to put something in my face so many times before I actually take notice.

Would I have admitted to mindfulness being a legitimate science even 6 months ago? Absolutely not. The excellent thing about being an actual scientist (despite my work place’s unwillingness to call me one– only scientists can be trusted with a per diem!) is that I’m totally cool with allowing the evidence to change my mind. With regard to mindfulness, my mind is just about completely changed.

And I’m not the only scientist who feels that way. As I was contemplating mindfulness as a topic for the letter J (because… J… right…), I came across this Humans of New York (HONY) post.

Humans of New York on Facebook
Humans of New York on Facebook

Mindfulness, inner voice, meditation, introspection– it’s all kind of the same thing. The new age mumbo jumbo that has always intrigued me, yet turned me away because… well, because I am a scientist, darn it! And I thought I was supposed to be against all that!

According to this guy though, lots of scientists are into mindfulness and the like. And I am certainly convinced of that after attending the HMO Research Network (HMORN) conference back at the beginning of May. I saw several oral and poster presentations presenting hard evidence* suggesting that mindfulness practices improve physiological measures of health in patients with diabetes, heart disease, and several psychological conditions. It’s certainly not a panacea, as nothing is, but to think about the power our minds have over our bodies is amazing. To see evidence of it? Even more so.

For example, people with diabetes could literally reduce their hemoglobin A1c by 1 – 2% over the course of an 8 week mindfulness practice. If you’re familiar with glycemic control in the context of diabetes, that will undoubtedly impress you. That’s a number that takes considerable time and effort to change, and it’s a really good measure of diabetes management.

 

Because I’m always quoting Mumford and Sons:

In these bodies you will live, in these bodies you will die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

— Awake My Soul, Mumford and Sons

Isn’t that it? Mindfulness? Investing in yourself… love here meaning time and energy; a moment for yourself.

 

I know, I sound like I drank the Kool-Aid and that’s that. Not the case, I assure you.

For months my therapist has been gently suggesting meditation and breathing and such… mindfulness practices. Every time, I nodded my head like a good girl, an agreeable girl, but in my head, I thought he might be Looney Toons… at least a little too “new age” for my liking.

He knew I’d come around though. And I did. Good call, Dr. C!

HMORN piqued my interest for seriously and I started reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book. Then, all at once, we had a grand rounds on mindfulness and I had a therapy appointment where once more Dr. C tried to convince me in his nonchalant way that mindfulness is where it’s at… the confluence of all these events was somewhat striking and it wasn’t until then that I realized I didn’t have to be good at mindfulness right away and that I could ease into it.

Doing something I’m not good at?! Ugh! That’s not how I prefer to operate, but at least it seemed slightly less daunting.

So I started doing 4-7-8 breathing… all the time. In the middle of the day, when I’m feeling stressed, first thing in the morning, and before I go to sleep. It’s so easy, even a skeptical nerd like me can do it. I just close my eyes, breath in for 4 counts, hold it for 7, then exhale for 8… times three in a row… several times a day. I don’t know why it works, but it does. When I open my eyes again, I feel like I’m coming back from somewhere else. Every time. Try it!

Here’s a video from the real deal (i.e. not me) Dr. Andrew Weil. My favorite part is in the beginning when he is describing the yogic way you’re supposed to breath and says, “no idea what that means in terms of Western physiology, but they’re the ones who invented it, so we should do what they say.”

I like that– just because you don’t know why it works, doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

I don’t envision myself sitting on a pillow for hours at a time in a quest for nirvana, but I certainly don’t think it would hurt to take baby steps toward a more mindful style of living. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindful-based stress reduction seems to be a good start!

 

*I say hard evidence here to mean something that is measurable, but relatively un-bias-able. There are, of course, all sorts of validated self-report questionnaires that can be used to measure outcomes of mindfulness practices, but I always wonder about how “real” that is… likely because it’s not my field, not my comfort zone. But in the studies I’m discussing here, people were actually drawing blood and making laboratory-based measurements of different compounds. That’s what I mean by “hard” evidence.

Not in the prison way.

 

 

And since we’re talking about mindfulness, let’s briefly touch on the complete opposite for a moment– mindlessness. Or, as I like to call it, The Bachelorette. A couple of my Marshfield friends got me into it this season and I’m hooked, it’s like checking out completely for two hours and liking it. And it makes Mondays so much better! Plus: girls night, every Monday! Tonight we even had oatmeal cream pies (mmmm… Little Debbie).  Anyway, Marcus and Brian… right?! RIGHT?! I wish I could say Josh on account of being at the letter J, but… I just can’t. Enough now.

I is for innocence.

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Before I get on with the business of the day, I’d like to clarify what I said about academic condescension yesterday. Please be assured that it is 100% knowledge-based snobbery, not title-based. In fact, I have considerably less patience for those with lots of letters behind there name and very few thoughts between their ears and I very much admire those without the letters who have come by incredible and complex thoughts by way of experience (my dad, my friends Marie and Michele– really, really incredible thinkers, no need for letters). True, I have some letters behind my own name, but I am of the opinion that having a “terminal” degree doesn’t mean the end of learning, nor is it the only path to being learn-ed. <End Rant> Hash tag– yes, that’s personal.

Anyway…

I is an interesting letter in this little adventure you and I are on.

Originally I was going to wax poetic about icing. You see, frosting was the first binge food I ever got caught with. (Got caught with… not first binge. Big difference.) Kind of a big deal when it was discovered in my filing cabinet. (Because what second grader doesn’t ask for a file cabinet for Christmas??? And what third grader doesn’t keep a carton of chocolate frosting and a spoon inside?) Except, while working my way to the letter I, I was also reading two books– Innocence by Dean Koontz (to get technical about it, that was actual my Audible book that I listened to while running, walking, or mowing the lawn– talk about motivation! dang!) and My Own Country by Abraham Verghese (a gift from my dear friend Suma because she thought I’d like it… and did I ever!) and the parallels and really interesting points about innocence were too poignant to ignore.

Therefore, the letter I is for the idea of innocence. Super interesting– just hear me out!!!

The Dean Koontz book is kind of a given here. I’ve been a little bit disappointed with some of his most recent work (77 Shadow Street? It was the pits! Took me for-ev-er to slog through it and even at the end, I was unable to find any redeeming qualities), but this book captured me pretty much immediately. The basic premise is this: a guy who cannot be seen, a girl who cannot be touched, both social exiles, but things change when they find each other. There’s that supernatural Dean Koontz-y element that I love so much and the story was so so good. In the end (not really a spoiler, don’t worry) you find out that the reason for the main characters’ differences was literally their absolute and complete innocence– an innocence so magnificent that anyone who looked at them or touched them was doomed to instantaneous reflection on all the reason that they themselves were not innocent. And that’s not pretty for anyone.

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The Abraham Verghese book? Totally different! Dr. Verghese is the MD who wrote Cutting for Stone, which is truly one of the best books I’ve ever read. Cutting for Stone is fictional, it’s beautiful, it’s amazing… read it! My Own Country is an autobiographical account of Dr. Verghese’s “coming of age” as an infectious disease specialist during the first years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

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Where’s the parallel, right?’

I’m getting there.

Verghese is an amazing writer because he is so beautifully honest, even when the things he’s being honest about aren’t so beautiful. He does not write himself as a hero, he writes himself as a man– warts and all. (He never actually mentions warts, just flaws. I say warts because I used to have SO many warts on my left knee, you guys. It was awful. I was in derm every other week because this was before the time of the canned freezy do-it-at-home spray stuff. It was an awful time! Now I wrote about my warts and you will think of me as a beautifully and genuinely honest author, right?)

Anyway, in My Own Country Verghese talks a lot about how his patients were contracting HIV in the small town of eastern Tennessee in which he lived and worked. As you are likely aware, the AIDS epidemic really came to light in the United States amongst gay men. Yes, there were also many cases that resulted from intravenous drug use, blood transfusions, and in hemophiliacs receiving clotting factor concentrates, but it was risky sexual behaviors that were the hot topic. Especially because, at the time, homosexuality was rarely talked about and certainly not well-accepted by any means. As such, Vergheese found himself immersed in a sub-culture that he was completely unfamiliar with and he had so many questions. Not necessarily about the lifestyle, the culture, or anything, although those things were certainly of interest– more so about himself, his prejudices, his biases, his thoughts on innocence and guilt and what having HIV and AIDS really meant.

At one point, Verghese describes meeting a heterosexual couple who were both HIV infected. The husband had undergone heart surgery, during which he had received several units of blood… HIV-infected blood. He then transmitted the virus to his wife. A very sad story, of course, and Vergheese found himself emotionally invested from the get go…  this poor, innocent couple.

Until he questioned his notion of what it actually meant to be innocent. If this couple was “innocent,” did that imply that the gay men he routinely saw were somehow not innocent?

I love so much that he questioned himself, his own beliefs, his own prejudices. How many of us can say that we generally do? That we can examine our own thoughts about guilt and innocence and to admit that maybe we weren’t being completely objective… completely fair.

It was interesting to read these two books simultaneously… the first describing how much we can despise the innocent for emphasizing our own shortcomings, the second pointing out our quick leap to a judgement and dislike of those we consider “guilty.” Such an interesting dichotomy.

Innocent, guilty… ultimately– “who am I to judge?” I think Pope Francis got it right. Who are any of us to judge?

I know that I am not innocent– far from it (remember the chocolate frosting??? also, I’ve been a big fat liar since day one, etc, etc, etc). As such, you shouldn’t find me casting any stones.

Shouldn’t being the operative word.

Because sometimes, I think I do. Ok, I know I do.

I appreciate Abraham Verghese bringing this to my attention, for making me really think about innocence and what my own prejudices might be. And Dean Koontz for underscoring the point when it was brought to mind.

Reading and thinking… do it! Even fiction can make a difference!

H is for Hermione. Obviously.

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H was almost for Harry Potter. Almost. I mean, I love Harry Potter. LOVE IT.

But my favorite part of Harry Potter:

HERMIONE!

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Obviously.

The hair! The brain! The condescension!

She’s perfection 🙂

I knew it from the moment she introduced herself and one-upped the boys with her oculus repairo spell.

Also, I love that my brother called her HER-ME-OH-KNEE until we saw the movie. It makes me smile so big. Until I remember that he got pissed off about something after like the fifth book and never finished them. Can you even imagine the insane level of dissatisfaction? Maybe someday he’ll finish the series up. (Please, Stubby?)

I’m sure it’s pretty obvious to you why I like Hermione so much– I totally relate to her. On so many levels.

First: the hair. We’ve talked about that before, mine gets pretty insane. Once, my friend Aimie‘s kids were in my office and we were talking about Harry Potter and I told them my hair was just like Hermione’s. Noah didn’t believe me, so I pulled it out of the ponytail it was in to demonstrate. Both of their jaws dropped– it was too cute! Yep, my hair is a big, frizzy mess. But if it’s good enough for Hermione, it’s good enough for me! (And it’s also why I do better in the north!)

Second: the brain! My brain is definitely my biggest, and strongest, asset. (But seriously, I have a very big head, I imagine that I must have quite a bit of brains in there to fill all the space.) I thrive on knowledge, on learning. I looooove to read. Anything and everything. In fact, I used to take the dictionary into the bathroom with me as a little kid (ask my parents, it’s 100% true) and I’d sit on the toilet and soak in all the new words. I also read my encyclopedia set from cover to cover and bookmarked all of the interesting pages (i.e. I bookmarked pretty much all of the pages). If only I weren’t a muggle… think of all the magic there would be to learn.* (I’m not kidding, you guys, my head is literally real big.)

And third: let’s be honest, it’s totally the academic condescension. I’m the worst. I try really hard to be cool about people not knowing things, and yet… I’m kind of not. I’m a snob. Sue me.

That whole “it’s not wingardium leviOsa it’s wingardium leviosA” thing is totally me. To a T. Or an H, even 🙂

And I know other people have noticed. As recently as grad school, my advisor said to me that she thought I might have a hard time teaching because I’d have to be patient with people who weren’t as smart as me.

Oooo. Burn on me!

But I can recognize that truth about myself. We all have our flaws… even me and Hermione.

 

*Seriously, though. I am half magical, on my mom’s side. Not 100% muggle. I’m not even kidding. My Grandma Rita’s parents, Alex and Rachel (my namesake) Liberacki were professional magicians.

Those are my great-grandparents! Impressed? Me too!
Those are my great-grandparents! Impressed? Me too!

No, I do not know how they do that. Little bit of whiffle dust, I suppose. I did learn lots of tricks though when I was younger– magic in the talent show was totally my thing. Except for the year when I sang Matchmaker, Matchmaker with two other girls and three mops. Or the year I read Shel Silverstein poems…

Oh man, I am such a Hermione!

 

… Read on if you’re a die hard HP fan like me …

I wore this sweet necklace to work today and I was suddenly aware of it’s heaviness against my chest in the middle of the day, which is when I realized:

This Petoskey stone is the horcrux in which I keep the Michigan girl part of my soul.

It's a Petoskey stone... and when it flips? Michigan, both peninsulas, on the back! YES!
It’s a Petoskey stone… and when it flips? Michigan, both peninsulas, on the back! YES!

That way, even if I die, that bit of me never will.

Voldermort may have been on to something.

Congress, take note– that is how you act bipartisan!

 

Later, muggles!!

G is for Ghostbusters.

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Hey guys! Did you miss me??? Good!!

I missed you too!

Quick throwback to the letter F…

I am watching Frozen right now. I can’t believe I waited so long to see this movie! No one told me it was all about sisters! I freaking love sisters! (See the letter F.)

Sisters! Like Rachel and Abby... soon to be Emma and Claire!
Sisters! Like Rachel and Abby… soon to be Emma and Claire! (Curly likes it too…)

Anyway. G.

My friend Christina is a real life Harvard professor. (That is a brag.) The most important thing I’ve ever learned from her is this: Harvard professors are real people, just like you and me, except they’re also brilliant.

Despite their brilliance and what I have to imagine amounts to pretty crazy demands on their time (business professional slacks don’t press themselves, you know!), they still make time to do normal people things like take pictures of their adorable children (they make really, really cute babies too, n = 1) and send awesome articles to nerds like ME on Facebook! Yesss!!!

Christina came across this article recently and thought it was likely to be more than a mere coincidence that it is the 30th anniversary of the movie Ghostbusters and I just made it to the letter G. Given her academic credentials, I’m going to go ahead and agree. Wholeheartedly. I do love the Ghostbusters! … as well as the paranormal in general.

When I first saw the article Christina sent, I was pretty shocked. I mean, I’m 30. And so is Ghostbusters. So it came out shortly after I was born and obviously I didn’t watch it right away. (Or maybe I did? But methinks I was unlikely to have comprehended even if that is the case.)

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But then I thought about it and realized that Ghostbusters was a really big deal, even years after the movie. I was obsessed with the cartoon and basically wished for Slimer to be my pet. I drank ecto-coolers (despite hating the orange flavor) and played Ghostbusters with my friends. (Who, incidentally, were clearly sexist pigs and always made me play Jeanine, never a Ghostbuster, because I was the only girl. A-holes. I’m over it.)

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And still: I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

Truly, though. I find ghosts to be absolutely fascinating and I cannot tell you how much I wish for something like PubMed, but for the paranormal– a site for peer-reviewed research into the paranormal. PubDead? I read Spook by Mary Roach and it was kind of there, but I’ve got to admit, it was no where near as good as Stiff and I was so put off by it that I didn’t even bother with Bonk, Packing for Mars, or Gulp even though they sound fascinating. Maybe someday.

I’m not a ghost hunter myself, or anything, but I love ghost hunting shows and books and such. My favorite of all time is definitely Ghost Hunters. Why? Because more often than not, they don’t find any concrete proof of the paranormal. Makes it so much more believable to me when they actually do. Ghost Hunters International and Paranormal State? I’ll watch them… but there’s way too much of the “omg! something just touched me! definitely a haunting!” for me.

 

The article that Christina sent me focused on 9 timeless life lessons we learned from the Ghostbusters that are still applicable today. They’re 9 excellent points, to be sure, but I’m sure there’s many more.

So, I though to myself:

What Ghostbusters lesson is most applicable to my own life– today?

Well, if you’ll remember, the evil EPA (no offense, Rob… oh wait, you’re on a bike in the middle of nowhere— no offense to be had! huzzah!) came in and completely SHUT DOWN the ecto-containment unit (very dangerous!) and the G-men were essentially out of business for a second.

Likewise, I am in a very precarious position at work. Cuts need to be “deep” and I am quite uncertain about whether my job will even survive. Someone may come in first thing tomorrow morning and shut down my ecto-containment unit, for all I now, and then what?!

THEN WHAT?!

Then what is: there will always be a Marshmallow Man to battle, a pretty lady with demons in her refrigerator to save, a nerdy guy/nerdy girl love story that needs to be completed. I will persevere. Right?

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You know how after the ghosts are all let out they zoom all over town and it’s super creepy and everyone is in a total panic? Imagine those ghosts were instead rumors and speculation– that’s my work place. Morale is very low, everyone is on edge just waiting for the ax to fall. Not a pleasant place to be!

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{Source} Whew… look at those rumors FLY.

What would Bill Murray do?

Be cool! Stay relevant forever. That’s what Bill Murray would do.

 

Let the storm rage on… the cold never bothered me anyway!

F is for my Fisky sister!

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Because I can’t let my dear friend Dawn down, ever, let’s return to the letter E for just a quick moment.

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There they are– all the earrings in my right ear. Every day the same 🙂

Now on to the letter F!

April 9th, 1987 was the last “normal” day of my life. I was three and already an old lady in my mind.

The next day, I was sitting in the living room of a family I barely knew when a tall, glasses-wearing, balding man in work clothes came walking up to the door. I yelled out, “Daddy!” and was absolutely mortified when it wasn’t him. I was so embarrassed that the lady I was staying with thought it would be nice to give me some jello. Green jello.

Green?! Salt in the freaking wound! Of all the jello colors… green?! Ugh.

(Note: I have no opposition to the use of green jello as one of many layers in a delicious multi-layered jello salad, which incidentally counts as a side dish rather than as a dessert in the great state of Wisconsin. But green jello on its own? No thank you.)

Before that, I remember being in the hospital with my mom and dad and leaving without my mom. What the whaaaaaat?! As far as I was concerned, it was my mom’s job, passion, life to take care of me and now I was to be abandoned. Abandoned to the not-dad and lady with green jello.

Why?

Because Abby.

On April 10th, 1987, Abby was born and I was no longer an only child. I had a sister.

I’m a jealous and self-centered person by nature. I realize that sounds super self-deprecating, but it’s the truth and certainly not unexpected of a three year old. (Not so hot at 30; I try to be better.) My sudden realization that I was no longer alone, no longer the sole focus of my parents’ combined adoring attention was basically devastating.

In the months that followed, I came down with a severe case of what the doctor called “Abby-itis”… constant nagging, yet invisible, ailments that required frequent trips to the doctor. Ahhh… attention. Very astute diagnosis, Dr. Stone.

Sometime around high school or so I stopped calling my sister Abalucus (and singing the accompanying song that ended with “Abalucas, you smell like rotten po-taaaa-to peels!!!”) and switched to calling her Shabsky. I don’t know why. It just came to me.

Then she got a middle name– I started calling her Shabsky Balu. Short for Shabsky Baluga. Last name? Fisk. Why? No idea.

(Imagine my shock when I went to google an image of a “baluga” whale only to find out that it’s actually spelled “beluga”… too late to change the nickname birth certificate now!)

Most of the time I call Abby Shabs, short for Shabsky. When I use it after “I love you,” it’s Shabsky Balu (on account of it rhymes and rhyming is awesome). When I’m feeling a little more formal, it’s Shabsky Baluga Fisk. When I talk about her as my sister, I call her my fisky sister. And now you know.

This was probably near-ish the time Shabsky became Shabsky.
This was probably near-ish the time Shabsky became Shabsky.

Turns out, Fisk isn’t a terribly uncommon word. Johnson and Johnson’s CEO’s first name is Fisk. Fisk Johnson. And there’s a historically black college called Fisk University in Nashville. I doubt very much that I had ever heard of either of those things back when I started calling my sister that, but it’s good to know that I may actually be able to purchase a Fisk sweatshirt someday when I finally make it to Nashville. (Shhh… don’t tell Shabs!)

My fisky little sister is freaking amazing.

You don’t even know.

(Unless you do know, and then I have no doubt you agree.)

She’s gorgeous, like so gorgeous you want to hate her, but then she opens her mouth and you think “oh, poor thing, such a ditz” and you love her… except then she suddenly puts on some steel-toed boots and a hard hat and tours you around her million story chemical plant, knowing all the ins and outs and pipes and valves (she’s a chemical engineer) and you realize that, actually, she’s freaking brilliant, and you want to hate her all over again. Except you can’t, because she’s ridiculously and crazy and genuinely nice. She’s just so… fisky! It’s the only way to explain it!

Oh man, you should have seen us getting our grooves on later this night-- we love dancing together! Love it!
Oh man, you should have seen us getting our grooves on later this night– we love dancing together! Love it!

After I skipped third grade, Abby and I were far enough apart in school to guarantee that we were never in the same building. I never really knew how exceptionally sad that was going to be though until I went away to college and moving away from my sister was like leaving a little piece of my heart behind.

Imagine the surprise this warranted for the three-year-old self trapped in my 17-year-old body!

I’ve always loved her, but it took distance for me to really appreciate her. She told me when I moved away, “Don’t get drunk. Don’t get pregnant. I love you.” and then made me a bunch of killer soundtracks for life to take with me. I came home that year to watch her run in a cross country meet and to do her hair for her Homecoming dance (I colored the ends of her exceptionally bright blonde hair red with a washable marker– it was genius, she looked so great). We got closer that year, after I moved to the very opposite end of the state, than we had ever been before.

No amount of cold can keep us sisters apart!!
No amount of cold can keep us sisters apart!!

Since then, I’ve felt like my fisky little sister and I are basically intertwined. I love every single second of time I get to spend with her and I miss her always when I can’t. But, to be perfectly honest with you, I got really nervous about our relationship in December 2011 as her first due date rapidly approached.

I knew I already loved my niece more than anything, but I was jealous all over again. I like thinking of my Shabs as Rachel’s sister… I didn’t think I would like very much when Abby stopped being Rachel’s sister and started being Emma’s mom.

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Shabsky makes such an amazing mom!!

Good news, though! They’re one in the same! And as much as I think babies are cool and whatevs, no one is as cool as this crazy little Emma girl that my sister (and her husband, the illustrious Stu man) managed to produce– she’s amazing! A little mini-Abby! And I adore her!

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I just love, love, love them both! My sweet Abby and Emma!!

Abby’s got another due date rapidly approaching at the end of June… she’s going to have another little girl, I’m going to have another niece, and Emma, that lucky ducky, is going to have a sister. I know how it’s going to feel for her at first; her world is going to be turned completely upside down. Little does she know, it’ll be the best thing that ever happens to her… because there is nothing better in this world than having a sister. Especially if she’s a real fisky one 🙂

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Emma, darling, what does your shirt say?! Big sister?! You’re going to love it– trust me!

Abby and I have always said that if we ever have a girl, we can’t stop having babies until we have another girl because every girl should have a sister. I know my mom and Aunt Susan would agree. So would my Grandma Rita and Great Aunt Judy. So far, my Shabsky Balu is batting a thousand– good work, Fisky!

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Fun! Always, always fun!

What about you? Do you have a sister? Is she fisky? I hope so!

 

PS: My brother, aka my Stubby little Stubnitz, is pretty dang ah-ah-ah-mazing too. And he’s lucky enough to have TWO awesome sisters. If you ever wondered how wonderful life would be with a sister, he’d be the one to ask. Eh, Tombo?

Believe or not, Tom's the tallest of us all these days!!
Believe or not, Tom’s the tallest of us all these days!!

Also, he’s going to write a book. He’s really good at writing dialogue. Like reeeeal good. Sometimes he sends me snippets of said book via text message in the middle of the night and I always, always, always want to read more. I’ve given him permission to use a couple of my more spectacular blog sentences (mostly because it flatters me when he says he likes them) and I fully plan to be acknowledged right at the beginning. Look for it someday!

 

Even Seth is a pretty big fan of my fisky sister-- he sang Soft Kitty to her the night before her wedding. Nothing calms the nerves quite like Soft Kitty!
Even Seth is a pretty big fan of my fisky sister– he sang Soft Kitty to her the night before her wedding. Nothing calms the nerves quite like Soft Kitty!

 

 

 

 

E is for earrings. Earrings from Esther.

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Getting my ears pierced was a huge deal to me. HUGE!

My mom took me to Meijer’s (and yes, I know it’s Meijer not Meijer’s, but I’m from Michigan and therefore allowed to make the names of stores arbitrarily possessive) on Carpenter Road to get it done. The woman we paid was Indian and she had a piercing in her nose— I remember being super impressed by that, but also very, very happy with my ears.

My mom and I timed the piercing so that I could take out the studs and put in my first pair of new, real deal earrings on the first day of kindergarten. We even ordered special gem stone earrings from Avon for the occasion– one pair deep green-turquoise and the other a deep yellowy-orange.  I think I wore the green ones on the first day of school, and man was I ever proud of them.

You know who else was proud of them? My Great Grandma V,  Esther Van der Voort.(although as far as I was concerned “Grandma” was her first name). She lived a few miles from us in Sumpter Township and we used to go there a lot to eat a bucket of KFC in the breakfast nook, look at old pictures, and snack on Windmill cookies. (Mmmm… I still get cravings for Windmill cookies.)

To my Grandma V (yes, she was my mom’s grandma, my great grandma, but we always just said “grandma” and I’m not going to belabor the “great” part at this point in my life) having my ears pierced was an awesome right of passage and something to be celebrated. Every time we came to her house after that, she would give me a little baggie full of earrings from her own collection– how I treasured those!

Truthfully, part of it may have been her participation in the taunting of my sister that I treasured so much… “You know, Abby, you could have earrings too if you would get your ears pierced.” I’m a real sucker for teasing my sister (so sorry, sweet darling, Shabsky Balu– you know I love you, ardently (look it up)).

I must have been in first or second grade when I started bugging my parents for a second piercing. It was obviously out of the question at the time, but they told me I could get one when I started 6th grade.

Ladies and gentlemen, an elephant never forgets.

The second 5th grade was over, I was back to begging. (Please note that this was around the time of the hair, so you can imagine it was relatively easy for them to give in to something that might make me just a bit more satisfied with my appearance.)

Ultimately, my mom and dad relented (good call, parental units), and by the time I was in 8th grade, I had three piercings in each ear and was jonesing for a cartilage piercing… which I got two of when I was in high school.*

Even now, at 30 years old, I still love, love, love my earrings. I feel completely naked without them. So naked that I pretty much just leave them in always and rarely ever change them. Three sterling silver hoops in each ear, one more in the cartilage on the right. It’s my look… my thing… what makes me feel comfortable.

On special occasions, I slip into the big, creamy pearl studs that Seth got me with two smaller pairs of chocolate pearls or two other pairs of diamond studs. Those always make me feel special, too.

Some people dye their hair, wear crazy make up, get their nails done regularly, get tattoos– most people, women especially, have a signature thing. My thing (besides this crazy curly mess on my head– raise the roots!, and this square-jawed robot head… my thing that I can control, anyway…) is most certainly my earrings. And likely always will be. Earrings never go out of style after all. And even if they did… like I would care!

Much thanks to my Grandma V. No matter how old and cranky, arthritic and drug-dependent (sadly), she became, there was no ruining my memory of her– her big cheeks, hearty laugh, multi-colored bingo markers, beautiful tea cup sets, and the earrings that slowly became mine.

 

*Later, my new-ish boyfriend Seth would literally rip both cartilage piercings out of my ear. It hurt. A lot. But I missed them. So I got one of them re-done with a gift certificate his parents got me for Christmas. Earrings 🙂

 

D is for my diggity dog!

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Did you know that I have a dog?

NO?!

This must be the first time we’ve met. Because I do have one. And I love her… so much that I talk about her constantly. Even more than Harry Potter, the Civil War, and dinosaurs combined.

(That’s a lot.)

My dog is a double doodle– her mom was a golden doodle (golden retriever plus poodle), her dad was a labradoodle (labrador retriever plus poodle). So, ultimately, our designer mutt is half poodle, one quarter lab, and one quarter golden. 100% perfection 🙂

Curly 4

We kind of stumbled across the double doodle breed accidentally. My sister has a golden doodle named Grizzly that Seth and I are absolutely in love with, but Seth has always really wanted a lab. A quick Google search after jokingly mentioning a triple mix (and my mom’s serious question– how would they even do that???) revealed that it wasn’t actually a joke at all and we got real serious about finding one of these sweet pups to bring into our home.

The second we put an offer on a house, we applied for a puppy. We were ready!

Curly was born in southern Illinois on August 13, 2012 and came to live with us in October. I was in love with her from the very first picture the breeder sent. Her happy little face was just too much and I just love her more and more and more every day!

Curly 6

I used to think dogs were cool. That it would be nice to have one and that puppies sure were cute.

Now that I have one of my own, though? Dogs… are… everything!

Everything that is good and happy and sweet and fun and loving, and, and, and…

Curly 5

After the cat I grew up with (Callie) passed away, my parents got a dog. It was a total surprise and likely the result of my mom wandering off in a pet store and leaving my dad to his own devices. Oscar just showed up one day, completely out of the blue, and it was an absolute shock… but we were delighted.

(Side note: Oscar was not the name I would have chosen. So I call him Shobsky, because that’s what his name would have been if it had been my choice. But it wasn’t. So technically it’s Oscar, but he responds just as well to Shobsky if I use the right tone of voice.)

Unfortunately, Oscar didn’t come into our family until I was a junior in high school and I was very self-centered at the time and unable to really appreciate the doginess of our dog. I didn’t really get it.

Then we got Curly. And now I super get it.

Curly 3

My Curly girl is everything to me. I absolutely adore her and her sweet face. Everything she does is just so cute to me. She hangs with me when I’m depressed and gets excited with me when I’m happy. She’s such a trooper.

And Curly made me better at being around all dogs. I truly love them all now, even the grumpy old ones like my Oscar. I used to get nervous, I thought licking was super gross, and I was always a little bit uncomfortable. Not anymore!

Now, I can barely restrain myself from petting ALL the dogs. All of them. Every last one. And I thank puppies for licking me– “oh, so sweet! thank you for the kisses!! thank you!” And I’m much more comfortable with my dog than without. With any dog, though. I truly do love them all!

Believe it or not, Curly even made me love my husband MORE. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved him a whole heck of a lot since like 2002, but the way he interacts with my Curls leaves me absolutely enamored… all I can do is smile at those two. It’s like all of my heart is there before my eyes.

Curly and Seth

Life with my sweet, and somewhat troubled, dog has also shown me that I can handle anything– good times and bad, happiness and stress, the calm of uber-sedation and the cray cray of visitors. All of it. I can handle it. Because it’s totally worth it.

So as long as we’re hear, chatting about my Curly girl, how about a little update?

Curly 2

Seth and I took Curls to Madison for a follow-up last Monday. Granted, we’d had two visits to the emergency vet in the interim because the little punk can’t resist chewing on her cast, but those were relatively minor issues. On Monday, they removed the last bits of the fixator and now she’s just got a hard splint from toe to hip. She’s doing well, we’re feeling nervous. Her bone is essentially swiss cheese now that the pins are removed and we’ve lost our security blanket. Our next, and hopefully last, appointment is on June 11th. They anticipate removing everything at that point and we’re hoping to work out just some sort of temporary bracing situation for when she might need a little extra support (on walks, when people come over, when playing in the yard). So far so good and all signs suggest that things are going just about as well as they could possibly be going given the state of her knee when we started. It’s certainly not normal, but we’re on the right track. The best news is that even if this surgery fails completely, she’ll never be worse than she was before she started– in fact probably a little better considering they removed a bone chip that had come off of her patella and a wire that was just floating around in there doing nothing. So… win-win? A little?

Curly 1

C is for my long lost boyfriend, Joshua Chamberlain.

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Quick: if you could bring back any Civil War hero as your boyfriend, who would it be?!

(You’ve got to answer quickly if you want to answer honestly!)

Me?

My Civil War boyfriend would be Joshua Chamberlain. Obviously.

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I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong. I love him for way more than just his sweet ‘stache. That’s only part of it.

Joshua Chamberlain commanded the Union’s Twentieth Maine Regiment and defended his position at Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. But rewind a little bit and you’ll find that this brilliant, brave, and selfless military man started off as a humble professor from the state of Maine who volunteered for the Union Army and then worked his way up to command his regiment, despite being offered command from the get-go– you see, it was more important to him that he learn the ropes and do things properly than it was to feed his ego and be in command. Swoon, right?

Grad school was full of ups and downs (and valleys and trenches…), but for certain, one of the best parts of the whole 6 years was the weekend I had the opportunity to go to Gettysburg and stay a weekend at a local bed and breakfast with Seth and my parents. It was… heaven.

At the Keystone Inn in Gettsyburg, PA-- the location was perfect and the breakfast oh so good!
At the Keystone Inn in Gettsyburg, PA– the location was perfect and the breakfast oh so good!

Ok… it was heaven for me. I may have overdone it on the history cray cray by forcing mi familia  to listen to the entire guided CD as we drove our way through the historic battle grounds. I also made them stop at ev-er-y-thing. I couldn’t help it!

They humored me for most of the day, and really let me take my time when we finally made it to Little Round Top… and to the monument to the Twentieth Maine.

monument to 20th maine

The names of all of the brave men who defended that hill “at all hazard” were listed on the other side.

Including Joshua Chamberlain ;)
Including Joshua Chamberlain 😉

It was unreal to be there. To see the hill the men charged down with bayonets fixed after running out of ammunition. (They freaking ran out of ammunition and charged at the other guys with knives on a stick!) To imagine the chaos, the bravery, the courage, the fear, the utter insanity of that day.

Then, no joke, just to really hammer the point home, I felt a sharp pain in my foot and when I looked down there was a FREAKING BEE stuck in my toe by its stinger and I literally had to pull it out of my foot.

Ok, that was actually on Big Round Top overlooking Devil’s Den, but my mind was still on Chamberlain and Little Round Top all the while.

After my Chamberlain experience, my parents and Seth humored me once more through Devil’s Den, the orchard, and the wheat field before they’d really just had enough. We kind of skipped through to the fish hook at the end of the line and then headed back to the Keystone. I got to see Little Round Top– that was enough for me.

Joshua Chamberlain survived the war and went on to achieve great things, including serving as the governor of Maine for several years. And he had a wife named Fanny, but that was all whatevs.

(Kidding, I’m sure she was absolutely lovely.)

While I was reading the Shaara Civil War trilogy that I’ve told you all so much about, I pretty much talked about it non-stop (yes, even more than I’m talking about it here). It was actually my friend Tammy, who knows a lot about everything (literally everything, PhD-educated neuroscientist who has devoted her current life to the care of soldiers returning from war with traumatic brain injury, oh and she also installed the putting green at the White House and developed the science curriculum for her son’s middle school… everything) who actually pointed out that Joshua Chamberlain was totally my Civil War boyfriend. I had to acknowledge the truth in it. A crush on a historical figure? Weird. But I can get on board with that.

Despite all of that, my real live, present day boyfriend… the one who humored me not just through Gettysburg tour, but through all of grad school and beyond… was the real deal and still is to this day.

-- love --
— love —

That’s us together in Gettysburg– do you see him humoring me? So ridiculously much? He doesn’t necessarily get my passions (as usual, read: obsessions) and I don’t necessarily get his (but I’m cool with a 70″ xbox-devoted TV in my basement), but we certainly appreciate those things about each other. What’s life without some passion, after all?

In my life, I’ve had lots of celebrity crushes… no doubt, so have you. And I’m sure we can all agree on Colin Firth, amIright? But Joshua Chamberlain. He’s my weird one. And now you know.

So I bring it back to the original question:

Who’s your Civil War boyfriend???

B was for Beetlejuice, except it’s not. It’s for body image.

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B has been a total B. Nagging at me. Not because I didn’t have a B thing to talk about– I wrote a whole post about the movie Beetlejuice! I had a hilarious story to tell about it and it’s a movie I love… but it just didn’t seem right. Beetlejuice is a great movie and everything, but it’s not exactly life changing like Love Actually or Sleepless in Seattle (me and Mindy, rom coms are where it’s at). My heart wasn’t really in it and I didn’t come up with the answer until this morning. Finally!

I spent the day today doing yard work. (After making Sethy some pancakes, of course– half chocolate chip, half blueberry. I’m such a good wife.) I started by mowing the lawn and I had a bit of an audience. Youths!

The park across the street was infested with teenagers! (Infestation = 6ish, right?) Including two bitty little scantily clad girls sunning themselves on a picnic table. Even at the age of 30, nothing (nothing!) makes me more insecure than teenage girls. And this morning was no different.

As I wound my way back and forth and back and forth across the front yard, sweat dripping down my brow, I could have sworn these girls were looking at and laughing about me. One may have even taken a picture. And I found myself trying to figure out what I’d do if I ended up as the newest Internet meme– move over awkward penguin, here comes sweaty muffin-topped lawn mower! NOOOOOO!

Do me a favor and don’t repin that one, ok? No matter how clever or hilarious the saying… pretty please?

In addition, holy cow am I ever narcissistic. And insecure. And disturbingly focused on my body when there are so many other awesome things I could have been focused on– the gorgeous day, the smell of the fresh cut grass, the tulips and rhododendrons blooming, the invigorating exercise I was getting (I love the sneaky kind of exercise you don’t realize you’re doing), etc.

Over the past year or so, I have gained an awful lot of weight. And I’ve kind of been meaning to tell you about that for a while– another unpublished post that just didn’t seem quite right. But the truth is, body image is a big deal to me. And it’s bigness is two fold.

First, your body image is important to me. I truly want you to be happy in your own skin. I want you to know that you are beautiful. And it is crazy important to me that you know that whether you lose 47 pounds or gain 58, I will love you all the same. Your number, your appearance, your body… it’s just there to hold your soul.

Second, my body image is an absolute obsession. And I am not nice. I’m not nice to myself now, at my highest weight, and I was not nice to myself even at my lowest weight. My internal dialogue is so at odds with how I legitimately feel about others, it’s unreal.

I was mean today, but there was a point, a few months ago, when I made some important realizations about my own body… and now that we’re at the letter B, I think I’m ready to share:

Following the death of another friend’s iPhone and combined with our complete inability (read: laziness) to plug our phones in to a computer to back them up, Seth and I broke down and bought space on the iCloud. Automatic back-ups? Yes, please!

To accommodate the huge initial upload of files to the cloud, Seth asked me to spend some time going through my pictures and deleting ones I didn’t want to keep. Fair enough, we’d done a lot of comparison shopping by photo– makes a lot of sense when you need the information, but becomes quite cluttered once you don’t. So before even getting out of bed on one weekend morning, I spent an hour or so flipping through all of the nearly 2,000 pictures I had accumulated since I first got an iPhone in October of 2011.

I was somewhat floored scanning back through all that time by how many pounds I have lost, gained, fluctuated, upped and downed and back again… my weight. Dang. But here’s the thing: no matter how much or how little I weighed in any given picture, every single one of them represents a moment, a memory, something worth hanging on to. And in every single one, I am happy.

Several pounds over several years... but thousands of happy moments!
Several pounds over several years… but thousands of happy moments!

A couple years ago I read a great blog post from someone else (wish I could find it!) about why your weight should never prevent you from taking a picture… explaining that as your weight has nothing to do with your worth as a person, it also has nothing to do with your worthiness of being remembered as part of a moment in time. I think I recently proved that to myself.

Regardless of how I feel about my body, and no matter my pants size, neither my body nor my pants size defines me in any given moment. What defines me is my presence in the experience– with my puppy, with my niece, with my friends, with a donkey… whoever, whatever. It’s the experience that shines.

Honestly, I don’t care at all about what you or anyone else weighs. But I stress about my weight, my size, my appearance a LOT. My photo tour, however, was an hour long, 60 pound tour of why I should stop. Not a single one of those photos means any more or any less because of my size. Intellectually, logically, I know that. Fat, skinny, or just right, whatever that may be, I’ve got a fat heart… and that makes me perfect exactly as I am.

…

See? I can be nice even to myself on occasion! I can find a place of body image that brings me a sense of peace– and I need to keep flexing that muscle for the purpose of strengthening it, to turn this obsession into something considerably more positive.

B… is for body image.

But because B was also almost for Beetlejuice, I better share my little story, eh?

The movie Beetlejuice came out when I was in preschool. My cousins were in town one weekend and we went to the movie theater to see it. (Trusty old Showcase Cinemas Ann Arbor… how I love(d) thee.) Fortunately for my parents, The Fox and The Hound was also in theaters, so my cousin Spruce and I were taken to that while the big kids got to go see Beetlejuice. Fortunately for me, my cousins all talked about Beetlejuice on the ride home and I got a pretty good sense of what it was about.

My mom got a phone call home from preschool about the appropriateness of the movies she and my dad were allowing me to see the next week. My mom was somewhat surprised– The Fox and The Hound had some difficult material, yes, but it was rated G and she didn’t really feel it was inappropriate. Except I had told everyone at school that I saw Beetlejuice and told them all about it. Because I was a liar. And I really wanted to see Beetlejuice.

(Sorry, mom… and sorry, Mrs. King.)

I didn’t see the actual Beetlejuice movie until many, many years later, but I was absolutely in love with the cartoon version. When I finally saw the movie– omg, it was a revelation! Just brilliant! And I’m still in love with it to this day. In fact, Harry Belafonte’s Jump in the Line (aka shake, shake, shake, senora) is my second favorite* song of all time.

 

 

*Second only to Dancing in the Moonlight (everybody!). I don’t know what it is about that song, but I just groove to it every time it comes on because it’s the best. BEST!

A is for Appomattox Court House

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You know the scene in Love Actually when Mark confesses his love to Juliet? The Juliet that is married to his best friend? He silently tells Juliet with hand-written signs that to him, she is perfect, and that he will love her for always. And then he walks away. And he says, “Enough. Enough now.” And my heart breaks– every time. Unrequited love, sigh. But at least it was over. Mark said what he needed to say and it was over. Because it’s a movie and not real, what happens after that truly does not matter, but it is my sincere hope that he found another true love; someone who loved him back in the same exact way.

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But that’s not my point. Resolution is.

Oh my… how is she ever going to get to Appomattox?

I will. Don’t worry.

 

I got really into the Civil War for a while. I mean, I still think it’s completely fascinating, but for a while there I was like really far gone. (I don’t have interests per se, I have obsessions.)

My cousin Spruce recommended the Jeff and Michael Shaara father-son Civil War trilogy to me one time. I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. Then I couldn’t get it out of my head. Then I went to Gettysburg and was just floored. Absolutely in awe of what that time, that place, that horrific war must have been like. I can’t even imagine… but I try. And scenes tumble around in my brain pretty frequently.

One of the most striking things about my obsession was my complete 180 regarding General Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the confederate forces. Let me explain.

Twice upon a time, long before graduate school, I visited Arlington National Cemetery and learned about the yellow-ish house on the hill that had belonged to Robert E. Lee and his family before the Civil War. I knew little about Lee at the time, except that he’d commanded the Confederate Army, and in my black and white world, that was enough.

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Robert E. Lee was a bad man and he deserved to have his land taken away. Better yet, he deserved to have it stand as a symbol of the horrors he wrought– I thought of Arlington National Cemetery as a sort of personal punishment for Lee as a result of his involvement with the Confederacy.

Oy, not so. Not so at all.

Granted, the Shaara trilogy is technically historical fiction, so many of the scenes are imagined, but it’s all based as much as possible in fact, and I learned that Lee was not nearly as one-dimensional, and definitely not as evil, as I had always pictured.

Lee was sick and tired before the war even started. Literally sick (cardiac issues, I believe) and tired of fighting in war after war. He was offered command of the Union Army first, but declined on account of his familial roots in the south and later took up command of the Confederate Army.

The battle details get somewhat fuzzy for me, I’m not good with the names and the dates and the details, but the feelings really stuck with me– the struggle, the futility, the exhaustion. Lee was absolutely sad. He did not like killing and he did not like ordering his men to their death. Yet, he was brilliant at it. And he did it all out of a sense of duty and honor and commitment, the likes of which was unparalleled. I think Lincoln even knew that, and I truly don’t think he held it against Lee personally.

As time wore on and on and the Confederate Army became more and more desperate for resources of every type, including and perhaps most importantly able-bodied men, surrender became inevitable. From what I understand, surrender was inevitable for a while and I can only imagine how painful it must have been for Lee to carry on knowing that every death past that point was for naught. So that brings us to my favorite scene: The surrender of General Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union Army, at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.

Can you even imagine the relief? To know that it’s finally, truly, really over. I have to believe that even though it was surrender and not victory, it was probably past the point of even mattering. All that mattered was that it was over.

Sometimes, just seeing something out, getting to the end, is enough, no matter the outcome.

Both Lee and Grant handled surrender, defeat, and victory incredibly gracefully, in my opinion. I can only imagine the relief they both must have felt at that moment, just to know that the endless fighting could stop.

Have you seen the movie Lincoln? You should– it’s really good. It’s not actually about the Civil War, but rather about Lincoln’s efforts to get the 13th Amendment through Congress. Even though that’s the case, it’s practically impossible to not show the surrender of General Lee at the Appomattox Courthouse before showing the assassination of Lincoln (a mere 5 days later) and that is another respect in which the movie truly does not disappoint– it’s my favorite scene of the whole movie, even though it’s minor. I thought they did such a nice job of capturing the simplicity of the end and the relief felt by everyone.

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Really, I’m not trying to relate anything in my life to that moment at Appomattox. And the parallel between the final moments of the Civil War and that scene in Love Actually is weak. But A is actually for Appomattox, and I got there, like I said.

Ladies and gentlemen: The Letter A.