Anti-Valentine's Day 2010

What is Valentine's Day anyways? Upon investigation, I couldn't really find any reason for why we celebrate it the way we do. There were several saints named Valentine who were martyred, but none of them did anything particularly romantic before they were killed...there was no exchanging of chocolates, just chopping off heads. One source said that Chaucer is responsible for turning it into a day for lovers, which, as a Chaucer scholar, I find terribly ironic given the crude nature of "love" that is depicted in Chaucer's writing. Almost all of Chaucer's stories about love were very tongue in cheek; I wonder which one in particular someone couldn't read between the lines of- the result of which is Valentine's Day as we know it.

Anyways, despite the cynical opening of this blog post, I actually like Valentine's Day. Not because my doorstep is always littered with flowers from love-lorn boys, mind you, but rather just the opposite. The only person to send me a Valentine's Day card for as long as I can remember has been my mom. The only Valentine's day I have ever celebrated as part of a couple was four years ago, when a boyfriend cooked me dinner (the one and ONLY time he ever cooked during our entire relationship), and I hope to God he does not read this, but it was a meal that only made me sure that our relationship was doomed. If he knew me at all (we had been dating for almost a year at this point), he would have realized that, health conscious as I am, anything wrapped in bacon and covered in cream sauce would not be my dream meal...to make matters worse he got a bottle of white wine to go with it and at that point in my life I only drank red. We were also in an awkward breaking up / getting back together phase, so, needles to say, the whole thing was just awkward. I look back on it and cringe.

The following year, however, I started a holiday with some single friends which we not-creatively dubbed "Anti-Valentine's Day." This day simply included going out to eat and drinking copiously, but more importantly, it included enjoying being single. Sitting in the restaurant, looking around at all the couples struggling to make conversation over dinner (to be fair not all couples looked that bored), while we laughed, said inappropriate but true things, and had a wonderful time.

Now, several years later, I'm still celebrating Anti-Valentines Day with the same friends. We're all still single, except for my brother and his girlfriend who prefer to not celebrate the holiday traditionally so they spend it with us instead.

Apparently though, I'm supposed to be sad over the fact that I didn't have a date(again) for the big day. My mom told me on Valentine's Day morning that "it's time to find a companion." Yikes; "companion?" Sounds more like a death sentence. The idea of finding someone who you want to be with all the time, who fulfills your every desire, who completes you, in a way, sounds great. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-relationship, I just don't see why we NEED to be in one. Why is that the be-all-end-all for human life? Isn't it enough to be happy and surrounded by people who love you and who you love back? There is a time and a place for soul-mating, but in my opinion that should happen much later in life. At this point in time I think that we (we meaning people in my age group) should be meeting and getting to know ourselves- wholly and completely- before we even try and do the same with another person. If you don't really know yourself, know what you want out of life, and have a sense of where you are going then you're just asking for disaster by bringing someone else into your open ended life. Ultimately you'll start making choices based on them, and keeping them in your life, instead of what is best for you. Maybe this makes me sound selfish, and maybe I'm just jaded and lonely, but this is always what has made more sense to me. Especially when I see all these so-called relationships between my peers that are just shrouded in fighting and crying and somewhat pointless drama. It's the result of immaturity and indecision.

I'll get down from my single soapbox now, especially as this was meant to be a short post dedicated to a different thought. What I really meant to say was that I actually like Valentine's Day, because for the past few years I have felt surrounded by love, just not the romantic kind. I'll take cards from my mother and dinner with good friends over awkward meals with boyfriends any day.

Too much to laugh about

Some days I really hate my job. Some days I come so close to exploding because of something a thirteen year old does or says that it's a wonder I'm still in one peice. Some days I want to scream and cry and walk out the door of my classroom and never, ever come back.

But then there also days when I can't stop smiling; when one of my students does something so precious that I am overwhelmed with love for him or her. Overwhelmed to the point where I could almost cry- overwhelmed by how beautiful and wonderful they can be. And sometimes they are just sooo funny. Here's an example of one of those wonderful things:

(Background: I had four Wash U med students come into my classroom and bring real human hearts to show my students when we were studying the circulatory system. Their homework that night was to write a paragraph about the experience in general / what they learned. The following is what I received from one of my students.)

"I learned that the heart has like a door that open and close for something. Also I learned that the left lung is bigger because the side that the heart is on (Right side), the left side moves the blood better into the side. Your heart beats like 90 times a minutes. It makes the sound Luv-Dub. It was kinda nasty to see that heart. It smell nasty."

Beautiful.

Music & Lyrics

No, not the 2007 Drew Barrymore/ Hugh Grant film, thank god.

Just in general- my last post was about wordless music, but this one is to give credit to what I feel must be a very difficult task- writing songs that not only have meaningful lyrics, but also lyrics that perfectly match the tune/ tone/ rhythm of the song they accompany; lyrics that make a listener think "how does that singer know exactly how I'm feeling right now, and how were they able to put it into words?" because often times our own words fail us miserably.

Anyways, this topic of this post was prompted by a song I was listening to the other day, "New Romantic," by Laura Marling. It's a beautiful song, with lyrics that are just the sort that I'm talking about (note that this is my opinion- others might not agree, whatever).

While listening to "New Romantic," there are many lines that make me stop and wonder how Marling crawled into my soul and summed it all up in one simple, folksy little tune. But as I just spent a week at home over Christmas and am currently training for a marathon, the most potent line for me is "maybe I should give up giving, give up trying to be thin, give up and turn into my mother- God knows I love her."
How perfect.

Thanks, Paul Desmond...

...and Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, etc., etc.

I cannot do work in silence, but conversely I am distracted by background noise. Also, when I listen to music with lyrics I cannot block out the words and therefore divert at least 30% of my attention to whatever is being sung. As such, I frequently plug in my headphones, and turn on instrumental music- specifically jazz and classical- to help me focus.

Today I am working on the next few Units for my class. While shuffling through my wordless jazz collection on iTunes, I had a delightful reunion with Mr. Dave Brubeck. It's been a while since I last took five, and I was actually drawn out of my focus by enrapture. As I am still hungover from nostalgia after being home for the holidays, my mind was brought back to my 12th year of life, when I took a break from classical piano studies to try and learn a little jazz. My father is a prodigious musician (who's gift I unfortunately did not inherit), and I remember sharing the piano bench with him at our baby grand Kawaii, as he explained and demonstrated syncopation (coincidentally one of my favorite words), and played "Take Five" (originally written by Paul Desmond)for me, explaining that its tricky 5/4 meter was unusual even for jazz, and difficult to play, to say the least. Nonetheless, I remember thinking as I sat and watched him play, that his hands made it look so easy.

Even then, that song affected me on a level that I didn't really comprehend. Now, years later, after hearing it time and time again, I still cannot shake the feeling it gives me, and I am still unsure how to put it into words. In an attempt to do so however, I think that "Take Five" might be the sexiest song ever written.

Scenes from Home

My family has a membership to the YMCA in Chicago, which I frequent when I'm home. Our YMCA is one of the last left in Chicago that actually fulfills its original purpose as a "Young Men's Christian Association;" originally, YMCAs were built to provide inexpensive living communities for men in big cities. As such, my gym is also home to many (mostly elderly) single men who cannot afford to live elsewhere (or choose to live frugally). Because of this fact, my YMCA is not so popular with the general public; not to incriminate as I have no place to judge, but just sayin, most mothers do not want little Timmy playing Basketball in a gym he shares with men who fit the pedophile stereotype to a T.
Nonetheless, the creep-factor and pervading scent of Musk was not a deal breaker for my parents, who place practicality above all other virtues. This YMCA is close to our house, and much cheaper than any other gym near us. Therefore we've been members for as long as I can remember. Furthermore, I can say with all honesty that I've never felt threatened or more than slightly uncomfortable there- at least not enough to make me think twice about going there almost every day to get my sweat on.
However, this does not mean that my tall, blonde, running-short clad presence goes completely unnoticed when I'm there; sad, lonely eyes tend to linger a little too long, and comments are muttered that fortunately my headphones prevent me from hearing (or allow me to pretend I did not hear).
As with most things in life, I prefer color over black and white. Given a choice, I'd probably choose to work out at this YMCA over the clean, crisp, fashionable new gyms around my house. Human beings grow in the face of things that are outside of their comfort zone (notice, said thing will eventually cease to be uncomfortable, indicating that growth has indeed occurred). Also, along with color tends to come lots of great stories.
For instance, last night I found myself the only female in the weight room, being subject to several skeezy comments and the Y's poor music selection after my ipod died. I had to laugh at the delightful irony when one 70+ year old man asked me if I "come here often," and before I could answer, crackling through the speakers, I hear the seductive electric guitar intro to Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman."

New Year's Resolution(s)

If I could...

1.) Have a job and be successful at it
2.) Get 8 hours of sleep a night
3.) Keep in touch with friends
4.) Stay "current" (pertaining to news, music & other arts, politics, etc.)
5.) Eat healthy
6.) Work-out regularly
7.) Keep my apartment clean
8.) Go to the dentist every three months
9.) Talk to my parents once a week
10.) Show up on-time, to anything
11.) Show up anywhere with dry hair
12.) Actually style my hair
13.) Read all the books I say I want to read
14.) Write more often
15.) Not get so many parking tickets
16.) AND manage to find a significant other

...then I would be as close to perfect as humanly possible (or as close to perfect as I deem acceptable for my current lot in life).

Myth-bustin'

I've recently made my life a lot better by the addition of a coffee grinder to my counter-top appliance roster. Freshly ground coffee really is superior to the pre-ground stuff. I used to deny it, but seriously people, face the music; go out, buy yourself a coffee grinder, and live better.
So while I was grinding my coffee this morning (Seattle's Best "Bright," which is surprisingly tasty), I recalled a conversation I had last night in which I had to contradict a friend who was saying that on mornings when he's really dragging, he brews darker roast coffee for the additional caffeine it holds. I informed him, much to his surprise that dark roast coffees actually have less caffeine than lighter roasts. I learned this from a man who roasts coffee for a living and owns a coffee shop in downtown St. Louis, where I worked for a few months. The roasting process actually releases the caffeine from the bean; thus, the darker the roast, the less the caffeine.
This is a conversation that I've actually had several times before, not surprisingly. The fact is counter-intuitive- darker coffees boast a bolder, richer taste- but don't be fooled friends, there's a reason "Breakfast" blends are always light roasts.