I'd like to get the blog up to date...
We went to Gulf Shores, Alabama in late March. It was LOVELY to get out of the bitter Chicago winter and walk barefoot on the beach. Matt and I decided it was a perfect spot to go every spring break. The drive is long (15 hours) and the car smells like french fries and rotting spilled juice by the end of it, but you can actually transport 5 people to a beach destination for under $500. We did the drive mostly at night when the kids were asleep, and as a result had some lovely, long, uninterrupted conversations.
It is so good for the head to get out of the routine. It gave me perspective about the routine. I have some new ideas about career, self, and house. Here goes:
Career: While floating in the hot-tub, I got a message from God about my future routine (half-kidding). "Teach high school religion" was the message. Great hours that match with kids' school hours, in the field I want, can perhaps get kids' tuition for free, will only take 2 years to get certified, plenty of high schools around Chicago exist, and it's a great stepping stone to a PhD at a later date if I feel like it. So yay! Direction!
Self: Volunteer with Church's social committee & kids' public school cultural arts committee, continue Catholic spirituality group and Buddhist classes, start Bob Green diet and exercise program for life, go on a spring break every year and a week long vacation every summer. Go away for a weekend w/ Matt every year.
House: Fix some stuff up now to make house presentable, 8-12 years knock down kitchen wall and make one big open kitchen/family room. This will allow bigger parties!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Schadenfreude
Long absence. By now all of my two dedicated readers I'm sure have found other blogs and thus other people's strange worlds to peer into and thus feel better about themselves and their own lives. But I'm back, so now the schadenfreude* can continue here.
My neighbor (one of the two dedicated readers) says that living in Logan Square in Chicago was nice because the strange people who lived there made her feel less strange about herself. This is the reason I would never make it in Naperville. Matt and I are simply too weird for Naperville. We would implode when we didn't cut our lawn when it was 1 1/2 inches high, people would stop talking to me when they realized that sticking my foot in my mouth happens on a weekly basis, and I'm certain I would burn in hell if I admitted my fondness for the Buddhist way of life. I seem to be very mean towards Naperville. I'm sorry, dear town of my childhood, you gave me many great memories. Swim team, wide sidewalks for bike rides, and a beautiful church where my love of God was born. Naperville is perfect...so perfect that you can't possibly be friends with it anymore, much less stay in a committed relationship with it. It is as perfect as a friend who only shops at whole foods, exercises daily, has no pimples or wrinkles, is impossibly cheerful, and whose kids are perfectly behaved and clean at all times. A better person would admire and emulate such a person and feel blessed to call them a friend. Alas, I am not always a better person.
Maybe Naperville was right for me, as evidenced by my love for Pottery Barn and Zoloft and my hatred of insects and mice. Yet I know in my heart that it's not good for me to live in a bubble. We only learn and grow when we are challenged. Oak Park challenges me often. But I must admit that it also helps me to not feel so bad about myself when I can see other people who stick their feet in their mouths more frequently, act spacier than I do, or have kids and lawns messier than mine. I am only human, a Catholic/Buddhist/Humanist/Neurotic woman in progress.
*Schadenfreude:pleasure derived from another person's misfortune
My neighbor (one of the two dedicated readers) says that living in Logan Square in Chicago was nice because the strange people who lived there made her feel less strange about herself. This is the reason I would never make it in Naperville. Matt and I are simply too weird for Naperville. We would implode when we didn't cut our lawn when it was 1 1/2 inches high, people would stop talking to me when they realized that sticking my foot in my mouth happens on a weekly basis, and I'm certain I would burn in hell if I admitted my fondness for the Buddhist way of life. I seem to be very mean towards Naperville. I'm sorry, dear town of my childhood, you gave me many great memories. Swim team, wide sidewalks for bike rides, and a beautiful church where my love of God was born. Naperville is perfect...so perfect that you can't possibly be friends with it anymore, much less stay in a committed relationship with it. It is as perfect as a friend who only shops at whole foods, exercises daily, has no pimples or wrinkles, is impossibly cheerful, and whose kids are perfectly behaved and clean at all times. A better person would admire and emulate such a person and feel blessed to call them a friend. Alas, I am not always a better person.
Maybe Naperville was right for me, as evidenced by my love for Pottery Barn and Zoloft and my hatred of insects and mice. Yet I know in my heart that it's not good for me to live in a bubble. We only learn and grow when we are challenged. Oak Park challenges me often. But I must admit that it also helps me to not feel so bad about myself when I can see other people who stick their feet in their mouths more frequently, act spacier than I do, or have kids and lawns messier than mine. I am only human, a Catholic/Buddhist/Humanist/Neurotic woman in progress.
*Schadenfreude:pleasure derived from another person's misfortune
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