Tag Archives: pants

Velcro.

Long-Winded Metaphors, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My sweet little sister got all excited when she saw that “Velcro.” was the title of an upcoming post so I thought I’d flesh that one out first. I think it’s a little weird that velcro would excite her so much, but who am I to question someone else’s passions? I’m nervous that I’ll disappoint, so as a preemptive measure, I’m posting for your visual enjoyment a false-colored scanning electron micrograph of velcro because it’s been one of my favorite SEMs since I first saw it a long long time ago:

{From the Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observity... science, man}
{From the Columbia University Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory… science, man}

Today (as in the day I started writing this post, which was actually several days ago) I decided that I will never purchase another pair of velcro shoes. Terrible choice.

Little odd for a thirty-year-old woman to have to say something like that. I know. But I got these super cute shoes last fall from Zappos.

{Zappos VIP = heaven for a giant-footed monster girl like me}
{Zappos VIP = heaven for a giant-footed monster girl like me}

I always expect the shoes I order to a be at least a little bit different when they arrive on account of no store in their right mind would ever picture the size 11– things become considerably less cute the larger they get, it’s a fact. So when they arrived and they were still super cute, I was thrilled… except that I discovered that they had a velcro closure, not some sort of buckle or clasp. Sometimes surprises can be good (like when your friend rents herself an accordion player as entertainment on her own birthday), and I really didn’t think the velcro would be such a big deal.

My friend Suma invited us for dinner and a "surprise" on her birthday-- the surprise was literally that she had hired an accordion player. Too cute!
My friend Suma invited us for dinner and a “surprise” on her birthday– the surprise was literally that she had hired an accordion player. Too cute!

(Side note: I used to literally feel embarrassed at mentioned my shoe size, as though I had anything to do with it. Now I’m embarrassed that I felt embarrassed about it. My feet are my feet. Short of binding them, ancient Chinese-style, there’s really nothing to be done. Just like my square jaw. Sometimes we just have to accept the body we are in and be glad to have it!)

Unfortunately, for the last year I’ve been walking around in these cute shoes getting more and more frustrated at the dang velcro.

(And yes, spellcheck Satan, I understand that velcro should technically be Velcro, but I’m not going to capitalize now or ever– on principle. Because you told me I should.)

Turns out, velcro is a terrible way to secure the strap on a shoe like this. Especially in this size. Just terrible. The closure kept getting worse and worse every time I wore them and today, I couldn’t even make it from my office to my car without stopping twice to reconnect. Lame. No more wearing those shoes.

I wonder about the cobbler (is that what shoe designers are called? or just shoe fixers? shoe makers? let’s just say cobbler for the sake of making my upcoming metaphor sound good…) who would use velcro as the sole closure for an adult-sized mary jane style shoe. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

…and here comes that metaphor — ginormous leap…

So what about the soul cobbler who seems to have attached my mood, disposition, whatever, to the sun with what basically amounts to velcro?

You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you miss a step and feel like you’re going to fall?

It’s like that for me, teetering at the edge of depression, now that the sun is disappearing earlier and earlier each day. Here in Wisconsin, it’s completely dark by 7:30… then 7:20… (and that was few days ago… we’re looking at about 7:00 pm now…) we’re scheduled to lose 1.5 more hours of daylight by the end of the month. Factor in the end of daylight savings time and that puts us at dark by 5:00.

As much as I love everything about fall– the colors, the crispness, the smells, the holidays– the sun going away makes everything else slowly dull.

As the sun progresses, so does my mood.

Good lord, I could never survive in Alaska… not without being diagnosed as seasonally bipolar, anyway. Manic 6 months of the year, depressed the other. I guess at least I would know it’s coming…

but no!

I’ll never go north of the UP! (Hopefully someday I’ll convince Seth to come back to you, beautiful UP!)

Don’t worry, I’m using my special light (the one I cleverly cropped out of the phone picture I posted in my most recent post– it’s right behind that and I turn it on every morning in the morning, and sometimes for a little boost in the afternoon) and I’m aware of these feelings and I really think the stupid shoes were not helping. So with my light, and my trusty [read: ugly and oh so comfortable (I’m sorry for making fun of you, mom)] Danskos, stomping through the leaves to and from work has been kind of ok (also, I love leaf stomping). And taking my pup on weekend walks in my blue paisley waders is even better. Again, no velcro.

Stupid velcro.

Here’s the hard part, the thing I hate myself a little bit for finally admitting:

FALL IS NOT MY FAVORITE.

In theory, it is, of course, but in practice… man… it kills me. I want to love the leaves and the pumpkins and the corn stalks and the chill in the air and such. But my velcro lets go as the sun slips down earlier and earlier and I simply cannot love it as much as I really want to.

But, for serious, I did great with the fall decor this year, did I not?!
But, for serious, I did great with the fall decor this year, did I not?!

As such, it’s now finally time to admit the following:

SUMMER IS ACTUALLY MY FAVORITE.

In theory, again, it shouldn’t be… I don’t like hot and sticky, when my head gets hot my hair gets crazy frizzy, and mosquitoes and black flies and other insecty creatures make me crazy. But, all that sun? Late night runs when the sun is just slipping below the trees? Windows open, breeze in the house… I kind of do love all of that.

Maybe that’s the real reason I want to move to the UP so badly… because even summer there isn’t so hot. It’s gorgeous every single day. And the greatest of all the great lakes– the Superior one, is the most amazing place in all the land!

(Actually, my grandparents lived there when I was little and trips to the UP were when I got to see them and all of my cousins on my dad’s side so it was really my dream to live there just because I loved how it felt to be in the UP when we were all there. But that was then. Summer is it now. Part of it, anyway.)

 

I have always tanned easily– it’s my sturdy Polish peasant stock. (I don’t remember if my mom or grandma said that to me, but I love it so much. I like coming from sturdy stock! It makes me feel like in a past life I wrapped my head like a babushka and harvested wheat from a sun-filled field… yes, I can romanticize even back breaking labor.) And even when I do burn, it generally fades into a lovely brown relatively quickly. I love Cabo San Lucas more than any vacation destination I have ever had the pleasure of going to (even Hawaii! even Europe! I’m so serious– love love love that dry, sunshine-filled heat). And SoCal is always calling my name (now that I’ve been there and when I forget momentarily that earthquakes scare the pants off me; even if they’re bitty… bitty earthquakes, not bitty pants).

Great news! There's both sunshine AND iguanas in heaven!!
Great news! There’s both sunshine AND iguanas in heaven!!

I guess I’m just a full sun kind of plant. Goodness knows I am always thirsty. (Do you know me in person? How often have you seen me without my Nalgene? Did you ask me if it was in my car or in purse if you didn’t see it?) I whither without extreme amounts of water (ironic for someone who likes Cabo so much… but did you see the other part about the great lakes???) and I think I’m in need of full sun too.

The changing of the seasons, in every season, is something I actually look forward to. I like the variation, life and death and new life, year after year after year. I am learning, however, that those months characterized by less sun here in the northern climes are probably always going to be a little harder for me. Turns out, my soul is more important to me than shoes, though. And even the shoes, despite their unwearability on account of the stupid velcro are still pretty cute and I’ll probably go out looking for another pair just like them… with something a little more secure as the closure. I’m stuck dealing with the soul velcro, so to speak, but even more than the dang shoes, it’s worth it. Worth it to fight. Worth it to stop walking every now and again to secure it.

P is for permission.

Instructions for Life, Recurring Themes, , , , , , ,

So I’m at the letter P and you’d think that by now it would be obvious to me when I’ve chosen the wrong word for a letter. I mean, how many times have I started a post with “X was for Y, but actually it’s for Z” or whatever? A lot.

Actually, maybe just once. But I’ve thought it a lot.

Along those same lines: P was for pants. And it was going to be pretty dang funny. I hate pants, almost as much as they hate me, and I had tons of hilariously self-deprecating pants-related anecdotes to share with you… except, if we are of the same generation, then we both no doubt owned our fair share of stirrup pants, wind suits with matching tops, sweat suits with contrast color turtle neck, green jeans, whatevs. Right?

And if we’re not, I’m sure you had your generation’s equivalent– huge bell bottoms, stripes, plaids, butt-crack-displaying-low-rise, or something like that. Who hasn’t owned bad pants?

(I can tell you who– those girls. But I’ve already told that story. And even they probably had those pants, just not in my memory.)

But this is not a post about pants. It is a post about permission. And I was telling you about how I know when I’ve chosen the wrong word. Except I can’t really put that into words, except to say that I spend inordinate amounts of time jotting things down, writing and re-writing sentences, telling people about the “awesome post” I’ve got “cooking up” (yes, I used those exact words today… for shame), and then suddenly the real word pops into my head and I sit down to write it and it just floooows.

Permission it is!

We all live our lives by at least some rules– rules imposed on us by the society in which we live, either written or unwritten. I think most of us (read: me) also live by a set of arbitrary rules self-crafted (self-inflicted, perhaps?) slowly over time. My rule book has always been HUGE. And I do mean ALWAYS.

You can’t will away a fever that’s preventing you from attending school (and making you fall behind!! nooooo!) any more than you can control a feeling. Yet, Chapter 2, “Rules about Feelings,” has always been the longest chapter in my book. (Chapter 1– Rules about Hair, in case you were wondering. And that one’s not arbitrary; it’s trial-by-error.)

As a baby, feelings come on strong when you’re tired. You cry it out, someone notices, you go down for a nap, and wake up feeling a thousand times better. It’s a good system, really. Tried and true. But what about in adulthood? It’s not quite so simple then… people will fault you for taking a nap at your desk or sawing logs in a meeting. Myself included.

In the absence of naps (not always, I’m not a huge napper, but on Sundays, all bets are off), I’ve had to create another set of rules… and that’s where the list gets long.

Sad? Immediately look for a silver lining and explain why it’s actually good. (Also, eat.)

Mad? Label it an AFGO and move on. (Also, eat.)

Hurt? Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. (Also, eat.)

Flusterated? Call your mom and explain to her that the combination of flustered and frustrated really is  a word. (Also, eat.)

Happy? Just eat.

And so on and so forth.

See? A solution for every feeling!

Except… feeling it. What if the first rule of the feelings section of the rule book was simply this:

Feel the feeling. Give yourself a minute. You have my permission.

Alternatively:

Feel the dang feeling, nerd! Give yourself a cotton picking minute. Geez.

Either way.

And if you’ve felt the feeling and you still feel like there’s a silver lining, it’s an AFGO, crying would feel kind of nice, your mom should hear about your flusteration, you’re actually kind of hungry… then you can do that too. But feeeeel first. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Of course, with all the “yous” and “yours” I am obviously just talking to myself out loud on the Internet, but you knew that already.

(Speaking of the internet, I actually laughed out loud during a meeting when someone said “The Google” the other day. It just came out of my throat and I couldn’t stop it! Politeness– that’s a rule. Oops.)

I use a purple pen for all of my corrections. As a science writer, I got through about 6 pens or so a year (not even kidding), but purple doesn’t seem so bad to me. It stands out, but doesn’t scream WRONG like red does. It’s kind of my thing. To honor the letter P, tonight, I pull out my metaphorical purple pen for the purpose of correcting my rule book. The first rule of feelings is now:

You have permission to just feel it. Feel the feeling. It’s ok.

 

When I was really little, I used to tell my mom and dad that my feelings were hurt and they’d ask me, “Which feelings?” To which I would respond with the color of the feelings that got hurt. I distinctly remember it being the blue ones most of the time. I don’t know what that means, but I feel like I may have intuitively at the age of 3 been doing the thing that it’s taken until 30 to finally give myself permission to do.

Feelings aren’t for rationalizing, explaining, pushing away… eating (ahem). They are for feeling. Permission granted to do so.

 

This blog was brought to you, in part, by my enthusiastic and snuggly co-author from my in-laws’ super comfy couch:

Curls the Co-author

 

PS: My mom seriously hates it when people say “flusterated” like it’s a real word. It’s ok, mom… I give you permission to feel that hate. Feeeeel it. That’s right….

A nerdy girl’s happy accident.

Book Review, , , , , , , , , ,

Kind of a crazy night last night. Definitely not what I expected. Fortunately for a “nerdy girl” like me, expectations aren’t always meant to be met.

We’ve gotten our fair share of snow here in central Wisconsin over the last couple of weeks and my husband and I had a shoveling date (su-per romantic) planned for after work. In retrospect, I should have eaten a snack before hand. But I didn’t. So an hour and a half and goodness knows how many shovel-fulls of snow later, I was much more hungry than I generally like to be. (Seriously, I do not handle hunger well– it makes me panicky. You’d think I’d have experienced food insecurity or something in my life the way I behave. But nope. Just food neuroses.) I was also sweaty and had cra-a-a-zy hair from sweating while wearing a hat and being constantly bombarded with snow blower snow dust. To complete the look: yoga pants tucked into snow boots. I believe this is what the kids call a “hot mess.”

I dragged my starving butt back to the truck and the husb (because “hubs” really doesn’t make sense to me– that’s not the order the letters go in!) and I decided we’d get Culvers (mmmm… butter burger…) and soon! But two quick errands first!

We went to Fleet Farm first. I was starving, so it was unpleasant. But my ridiculous looking self fit right in. In fact, there’s probably no better place in all of Marshfield to show off the kind of look I was rocking right then, to be honest. It was a quick trip, in and out, and back to the car and one more stop to go!

But that’s where my expectations went awry.

I had never actually been to a book signing, I’d only seen them on tv, really, and I expected the author to be sitting at a table, surrounded by stacks of her books and a personal assistant or security guard or something. I expected to walk in, wait in a line, have my book signed, and go.

What I forgot was that I live in Marshfield, Wisconsin, population 19,000-ish, yoga pants tucked into snow boots pretty much a-o-k November through February. (Fine, March. Whatever.) And the author was too. So this was not a made-for-tv book signing.

It was actually quite a bit better than that!

The Marshfield Public Library was hosting author Lisa Boero, who wrote the book Murderers and Nerdy Girls Work Late. (Oh, and also FIVE more in the series! Woot!) It was the first book we read as a book club and it was awesome. And different. So different.

Nerdy Girls
{Available on Amazon!}

You see, Liz Howe, Nerdy Girl heroine, has prosopagnosia, or face blindness. She cannot recognize faces. Interestingly, Lisa Boero, Nerdy Girl author, also has face blindness. So she’s actually writing her super clever fiction from a place of personal experience– and that made for a really interesting talk last night! (Because that’s what it was, a reading, a talk, a Q&A, PLUS a book signing… there’s my happy accident!) It was fascinating to hear not only what Lisa had to say about her condition and her fictional character with her real condition, but also to hear all of the questions people asked her. Most interesting of all, and very Under-the-Tapestry-relevant was her reason for writing about it.

Lisa knew she had a really hard time recognizing people– she thought she was stupid. Although she acquired prosopagnosia sometime around the age of 12 (coinciding with removal of a brain tumor), Lisa had no idea that her issues were even a legitimate medical concern until she started dating her husband, who happens to be a neurologist, in her 20s. She never even thought to ask. Instead, the number one driver in her life was the desire to be “normal” at any cost.

But now Lisa Boero has a 10-year-old daughter and what she wants for her is to know that when you experience a hardship, you can use it as a springboard for growth. (Her example: another rejection letter about her book? at least it’s not a brain tumor!) And that no matter what, you should never hide who you are. But how could she ask that of her daughter if she couldn’t do that for herself? So she did do it for herself. She came out about her condition to her friends and family (her husband knew, of course, but her kids had no idea) and “nerdy girl” Liz was born.

And Liz is fascinating. Lisa is too.

Sound familiar?

Probably not, because what Lisa Boero went through was pretty extreme. But I just kept thinking that it was such a good lesson. An extreme example of something crazy common. That middle school desire to be normal, no matter what. To fit in in any way that you can and hide your true self away if you can’t. Lisa seems to recognize now that having prosopagnosia is something that makes her extraordinarily unique… and exceptionally interesting to a lot of people, not just neurologists. Myself included.

As I sat in the next to last row with my crazy hair and dripping snow boots, I was absolutely mesmerized. I loved listening to Lisa talk and despite my ridiculously loud stomach screaming “Feed me, Seymour!” every 30 seconds or so, the hour and a half long “book signing” just flew by. Not only that, but I took the opportunity to get signed up for the Marshfield Public Library Adult Winter Reading Program and earned NINE entries into the prize drawings for registering and attending the book signing. Double bonus, much? This is way better than BookIt! (Unless what I end up winning is a pizza gift certificate… then it’s exactly like BookIt…)

A little while ago, my friend Adriane who co-shares (not a real thing) my Kindle account (shhhhh) forced me to read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks… it’s essentially a series of case reports about people with strange neurological disorders. While I technically read it, I didn’t really internalize it, probably because I couldn’t really imagine the people described in the real world. But now I can. And I’m fascinated. I think I’m going to give that man and his wife/hat another shot… there may be more nerdy girls in there and I need to re-visit that possibility!