Mental Shoebox

When you were a kid, did you ever have a shoebox under your bed that you put important things in? Things that probably didn't really matter much to anyone else but for some reason mattered to you, maybe reminded you of something important? Yeah, neither did I. I think that's something that only happens in movies. But, there is a shoebox in my closet in my parent's house that still has a bunch of random mementos from high school - some prom souvenirs, possibly something from marching band, and a whole ton of notes my best friend wrote to me long after it was reasonable for us to be writing notes to each other. By the way, I still love writing notes, and if you ask for one I will write you one, quite possibly in a colored pen and folded into a neat shape.

Anyway, while I don't really have a shoebox full of important things, I do try to keep a mental shoebox - I like to hoard memories of small moments that, often despite (or because of) their unimportance, mean a lot to me. I like to tuck them away in my memory so much later I can take them out and think about how nice that moment was, how I felt, and how it looked. Some recent additions to my mental shoebox:

Christmas morning this year. I absolutely love giving gifts, and I go to great lengths to find the right gift for each person on my list. As it happens I also love receiving gifts, so Christmas is really a great time for me. Now that I don't suffer from Christmas Eve excitement insomnia the morning is far better, when I meander out of bed to sit on the floor by the tree and open presents with my family. This year I think I did a great job at giving gifts, and the moment that especially sticks out to me is me, sitting on the floor holding my new stock pot while my mom tried on her sweater and my dad played with his iPod and my sister unrolled her map. Maybe it's materialistic, that I focused so much on the gifts, but I think the real important thing is that we all know each other so well we knew exactly what we all wanted and needed, and were all there together to share that.

Last Saturday, between the time I woke up next to my boyfriend, who thought I might want to cuddle a little before he left for the airport, and when he dropped me off at my apartment. There, although normally undemonstrative in public, the last thing he did before driving away was remind me through the speaker of his not-actually-a-cop-car that he loves m. Granted, it was 6:30am and we were the only people awake, but it was cute, and overall an unexpectedly good morning for having awakened at 5:30 am.

Walking up the last hill in the cemetery before I turn off into the path behind my apartment building keeps reminding me of every winter I've been in college (and now grad school). In the afternoon when it's sunny the sun dips out of sight for a moment behind the hill, and everything is suddenly silver and shiny and unreal, and also reminds me of my walk home last year. It was also uphill at the end, and ended with an unexpectedly pretty view of the yard before the hall that always made me feel lost in the wrong decade. Something about the two hills in the winter is the same, and makes me oddly nostalgic. Which, I guess, is kind of the point of the mental shoebox.

West Side Market and Christmas Eve

One thing I miss from Ohio is being close to Cleveland. Sure, I live in a "city" now, and I was 45 minutes from Cleveland, and Cleveland is kind of a dying industrial dump of a city, but I love it. One of my favorite things to do in Cleveland is to go to the West Side Market. The Market used to be a real, important market with ethnic foods and incredibly fresh meats and produce. It continues to have all those things, but is becoming a little less vital to the community and more of just an interesting place to be. There are still many of the old vendors, family businesses that have been there for ages. Those are the places where you're most likely to find odd, eastern European sausages or cuts of meat you won't find at a grocer...say a whole half a pig, perhaps. But now there are also new, "chic" vendors, who will make you crepes as you watch or sell you "urban herbs" or pre-made food to nibble on while you shop. It would be sad to see the Market lose it's traditional vendors and purpose, but I'm glad to see the space have continued relevance while the rest of Cleveland kind of flounders.
















Christmas Eve day my dad decided he wanted to go to an organ concert at a church by the Market, so we looked up the hours and determined we had to go shopping if we were in the area. I have never had a trip to the Market that wasn't amazing. We were short on time before the concert, so we started with snacks - I had a new take on a traditional Scottish meat pie - it was a breakfast pie, with egg, sausage, cheese, and potatoes instead of the normal meat and potatoes. After the concert we went back for more deliberate shopping. I bought a whole pound of Manchego, because the price was $6 per pound less than it is at the grocery store, and because the vendor let me taste it and it was superb. I got an apple fritter, which is something I always do there, and picked up some Mediterranean sea salt and some pot stickers at some newer vendors. My parents caved and bought us chicken satee and asiago pretzel rolls to snack on, and a huge bunch of asparagus for later. My dad got goose liver and a rice ring, both of which are disgusting, and my sister found Kinder chocolate at the imports store. Overall, it was pretty awesome, and I recommend it to anyone who happens to be in Cleveland.

After all that fun, we went home for the annual "trying a completely new and possibly complicated appetizer recipe for the Christmas Ever party" extravaganza. This year I made cheese puffs with Italian salami, and my sister and dad made some strange sausage rolls. Although we really tried to choose the easiest recipes in the book, our efforts took us forever. For some reason my cheese puffs came out tasting like a breakfast food - too much egg involved to make them "puff." They seemed to go over well with the family though.

I think we've decided to add the Market to our Christmas traditions. This year we had a great Christmas Eve.

Fail

In the last two weeks I have probably accumulated a heck of a lot possible blog post topics, some more personal than others, but really, I've just been tired and didn't feel like writing. I'm going to get my act together soon and I'll be back!

Cookies!!!!!

An explosion of Christmas cookies!!

I love Christmas cookies. I love making them, and then I love eating them, continuously, which is probably a habit I should lay off of for the sake of my waistline. But man, Christmas cookies are the best. My family has several types of cookies that are, for some reason, only "Christmas" cookies, but everyone knows the most Christmas-y of them all: cut-out sugar cookies, frosted and in my house, painted (with food coloring and egg yolks - they look a little like stained glass). I don't even like to eat them that much, but I love to make them.

So last week, I made them. And made them and made them. I made them on Wednesday when my (awesome) friend couldn't come help; I made them on Thursday with my boyfriend so he could use too many sprinkles; I made them on Friday when I decided I wanted to give them to people and didn't have enough.

And on Saturday I got the stomach flu. And I have a ton of cookies. And there is absolutely no connection - I clearly didn't get the flu from the cookies, and if they're infected so is everything else in my house, but. Oh but. I can't stand the sight of the things. My stomach still isn't happy with the idea of food, but the idea of sugary cookies, frosted with homemade frosting let me say, makes me cringe. My body oddly connects the cookies from Friday night with the misery from Saturday morning, and will not let me eat them. I also seem to have fewer people to give them to than I had thought. And so a plate of cookies is going to work with me, another bag is going to the boyfriend, and two bags are going in the freezer for my catsitter to take advantage of when she's here...her and hopefully everyone she knows, because I don't want them to be there when I get back.

Christmas cookies, anyone?

Big freaking post on growing up a fundie

I have to say that growing up religiously conservative can really screw a person up. I'm speaking from a certain amount of personal experience. Now, before I continue, a clarification. I am not saying that being religiously conservative is inherently bad, or that everyone who was/is religiously conservative is screwed up. I'm speaking based mostly on my personal experience and discussions I have had with friends with similar backgrounds and experiences as mine. For background, I spent most of my childhood and teen years in a moderately conservative, medium-large nondenominational evangelical box church. It definitely wasn't one of those "crazy" churches you see in things like Jesus Camp, and I was never pals with Jerry Falwell. Then again, I spent a kind of long time not believing in evolution, so it was crazy enough. When I went to college I left that church, had a minor crisis of faith, looked around a little, and ended up in the United Church of Christ, which has problems like any Church, but which I think is overall a very good place to be. My personal beliefs teeter on the edge of Unitarian Universalist, but I'm happy in the UCC.

So, the problem? For all my current "liberal" theology, my conservative past sometimes messes with my head. One thing I know other former evangelicals/conservatives/fundamentalists also deal with is Born Again Guilt. I was born again twice, once when I was six, and "renewed" that at least twice. I kept doing it because I never really felt like it took - I was supposed to experience some sweeping, emotional moment of grace, forgiveness, and personal transformation, and I never did. Hence, I spent a lot of my time a little worried that I wasn't really saved, and was thus going to hell. That's a lot of pressure for a kid, which I was. One problem with being born again - it can supposedly happen at any age. I now firmly believe that 1. children should never be forced into having a "spiritual" experience because the adults present are emotional about religion, and 2. salvation is different for everyone, and takes time. It was only recently that I discovered that I can take time working out grace with God, and that it won't necessarily be a mind-blowing experience. And, I have felt closer to God since I realized that. It's an ongoing thing, not a one-time thing.

Another issue that I don't struggle with as much as I once did is the cultural change involved in leaving a conservative church. For a long time, I listened to Christian music nearly exclusively. I was afraid to curse, and to drink. I was pretty damn judging, and quite possibly intolerable to be around. Although I still consider myself a fairly moral person and am far nicer than I used to be, I spent a while feeling a lot of guilt when I did "bad" things. The me of six years ago would have a heart attack on seeing the me of now - I get drunk sometimes! And swear! And do other bad things! On another note, being around large groups of conservative Christians (Campus Crusade events, say) wigs me out. I used to be there, and now am not, and wonder if I have a neon sign that says "heathen!" I still know the language they use though, which helps to communicate ;)

The last big thing to mention in this epic post is Sex Guilt, and oh man, is this a big one. My thoughts on how poorly Christians deal with human sexuality could take up a book, so this is the condensed version. It is really hard to teach that all sexual acts, ever, should only occur within the confines of a marriage without also conveying the idea that sex is somehow taboo. I think it might be possible, but it has got to be difficult. Generally, young people in the church come away thinking that their natural sexual feelings are sinful. There is a distinct difference between selfish lust and natural feelings all humans experience, especially in adolescence. Even for the people who wait till marriage, when sex is officially condoned, must have a hard time turning off that feeling that all things sexual should be avoided. For those of us who have changed their minds slightly about sex and marriage, it can still be hard - these teachings are well-impressed upon young conservative Christians, and the feelings of guilt linger.

I don't know how other (less conservative) Christians feel about it, but I would prefer not to have my relationship with someone I love complicated by guilt and apprehension. I think, overall, the guilt, not just sexual but overall, that the conservative church leaves its followers with can really mess up lives. The textbook response to that could be that God is weighing upon us...but it could just be that we're still working on leaving behind a potentially damaging mindset.

Nesting?

I was putzing around on ffffound.com this morning and saw a lovely, amazing picture (which is not unusual there). I followed the link to this where I decided I share the author's feelings about conversation pits, although I had previously had no idea what a conversation pit was. I can't seem to get the picture to work for me, so you are just going to have to go to the link and look at it. The picture that appealed to me most was the bottom one, with the elevated "pit."

Seriously, if I had one of those things, I would live in it. I would need some wireless internet and a power source, but I would be set. I would spend all day sitting in my super comfy hi-rise pillow room, with convenient storage drawers underneath. Friends would come over for dinner and we would spread out a tablecloth and have indoor picnics in it. The rest of the time my I would pretend to be a cat, curled up in the pillows with my real cat. My boyfriend would come over and I would lean off the edge of my elevated day-bed-thing, and call out "come, have a roll in the cushions with me in my awesome new piece of all-purpose furniture. It would take up my whole apartment. How can I get one of these things?

A minor rant

"If you don't like it here so much, why don't you leave."
"If you have such a problem with this country, go someplace socialist or something."
"If they feel so oppressed, why are they staying here?"

I'm about to blame conservatives here, because they're the ones I keep hearing say stuff like this. Maybe other people do it, but I've only ever gotten it from my conservative friends, and only read it from conservative writers. What I'm ranting about today is this: people who tell me that if I don't like something about my country, I should go live someplace else, as if that's a logical point to make. Mad that gay people can't marry? Move to Europe! Annoyed at racism and sexism? Get out! Think we have screwy economic policies, a scary tendency to try to run the world, bad public education, and a growing healthcare issue? Pack your bags and get your dissenting voice the heck out of the US of A. I get it a lot in incendiary emails from my uncle, suggesting that if those damn socialists don't like it here they should leave.

To start with, this is such a pointless argument. I, and other people who see problems with this country, can't exactly just flee. Can't afford it, can't get the paperwork to live in another country, can't leave our lives behind. Nor is there really any guarantee that anyplace else is better. But really, we don't want to leave. I don't want to leave my home, I want to make it better. I think it's a great country. Not necessarily the best, or the only one worth thinking about, or anything like that, but it's great, and it's mine. And as such, I would like to see it and its citizens thrive.

I know some people disagree with me about how that should happen. Apparently some people think it should happen by not changing anything. It just seems so weird to me, offensive even, to think that because there are some problems I should abandon ship. It's like suggesting that since there are a few, fixable problems in a marriage, I should get a divorce without looking back. Oh wait. People do that. Maybe it's just that the conservatives want people like me to go away!

And yes, I did jokingly threaten to move to Canada after the election if things turned out differently than they did. I didn't mean it though, and what type of American would I be to abandon my country when I thought it was in trouble?