worlds we can’t live in

I was thinking today about expectations we construct. Expectations of ourselves, of others. I won’t go into too much detail about what prompted me thinking about expectations, but I will say that it was fueled by the revelation that expectations can be poison for some people, especially when those expectations are not fulfilled. Unfulfilled expectations make people get mad and give up.

So when I came across this image on my twitter feed from author and artist Hugh MacLeod, whom I’ve admired for a while, it struck me how our expectations essentially create our world. They construct the basis for success and failure, for satisfaction and disappointment, for good days and bad days. I expect to be able to deadlift 200# no problem, but if for some reason there is a problem and I can’t, I am disappointed — I feel as though I’ve failed. I expect to make it to Harrisburg in about 40 minutes (and so I plan accordingly), and when I run into traffic and end up late, I feel anger. Et cetera. I think I could probably argue that everything, every situation, every interaction and circumstance, if it involves human beings and events, is colored by expectation. But the coolest thing about that is: we get to construct our expectations. We don’t have to knee-jerk our way through life.

Knee-jerking through life means harboring expectations that create worlds we can’t live in:
1) when we have expectations for others’ behaviors that we cannot control, and
2) when we simply expect for crappy shit to happen.

We can’t live in worlds where we want people to act in specific ways. Now, I don’t mean we can’t expect others to follow traffic rules, and I don’t mean that everyone has license to act like total shitheads all the time. I mean, it’s reasonable to expect people to be decent-ish. However, it’s UNreasonable to expect people to conform to what YOU think THEY should be doing. You don’t get to dictate others’ thoughts, choices, and behavior.

Additionally, we can’t live in worlds that we frame with constant pessimism: if you’re looking for people to be rude, for the guy sitting next to you on the bus to cough and sneeze, for the damn sky to fall, they/it totally will. And I don’t mean that in the “you created that negativity with your negative energy.” I simply mean that we generally find what we’re looking for — we see what we are tuned into. And if you’re tuned into being pissed off, you’ll find something to fulfill that for you.

However, we can create worlds that we CAN thrive in: give everyone else the benefit of the doubt. The jerk in front of you on the road — maybe his wife left him this morning and he can’t see the road through his puffy eyes. Or, you can tune out the seemingly-rude comment someone made at the gym this morning and instead focus on the gentle compliment someone else offered. It’s about living generously.

Expect to be grateful. Expect to be surprised. Expect to be thoughtful and considerate — and I mean always thinking and always considering. Create YOUR world so that it’s one you can live in without constant disappointment in others (and in yourself).

guess what we did today!

Shoveled the roof of the garage! Again!

The kids went sledding off the roof!

The exclamation points are indicative of how CRAZY the snow is making me!

*sigh* I really am out of my mind. B is out of his mind even more than I am. As we were on the roof this afternoon, the wind howled. Half the snow we scooped-and-tossed came flying back in our faces. B grumbled and grumped the whole time. “Why would ANYone choose to live here?” and “This is ABsolute nonsense.” I, of course, was feeling his exact sentiments acutely, but I am always afraid that if we are both in completely foul states of mind simultaneously that the universe will implode (seriously, I mean that), so I put on my best face (or as best I could with the snow flying into my eyes) and rambled cheerfully on about the value of hard work and how *warm* the house will feel when we go back in, even though we only have the heat up to 60.

After what seems like hours of freezing, miserable work, B jumps from the roof. I holler after him, “Where ya headed?”

He answers, deadpan: “Virginia.”

In the car this evening on the way home from hockey (yeah, they don’t ever cancel hockey; what’s with that?), B takes his gloves off to rub and huff warm breath onto his fingers. I joke him, because he insists on wearing gloves and I prefer mittens. “Mittens are always warmer than gloves,” I waggle my great wool mittens that mom made me. “Didn’t YOUR mom teach you ANYthing?”

“Yeah. She taught me not to move my skinny cold ass to New York.”

Well. It was funnier at the time. I guess you had to be there.

snow day #4

2007FebBlizzardhouse2.jpg

Originally uploaded by mryonker.

*sigh*

OK, I’ve had enough already. Last count, 88 inches.

pass the guacamole…I’m in

Known to others as the “supabah” and the “Stupid Bowl,” today is the Super Bowl. The years that I am lucky enough to have my birthday fall on Super Bowl Sunday, we normallly seek out a party and crash it, doubling the festivities so that not only do we not have to worry about cleaning the house and buying pizza (presumably the party-haver has done all that), but we don’t have to worry about feeling completely useless as Americans because we ignored the arguably largest TV-viewing, snack-food-eating, rabble rousing holiday of the year. That is, in crashing the party so people can wish me a happy birthday, we also secondarily fulfill our duty as Americans in observing this most revered day.

B is a bit more of a football fan that I am, though that is not saying much. Since we’ve moved to NY, he’s developed a soft side (see, I cannot even write about football?? who uses the phrase “soft side” to describe anything about football?) for the Buffalo Bills. Where we’re from (VA), the closest thing we had to a home team was that one team from DC…their name alludes me now…ah, the Redskins (had to look it up! I’m football illiterate!). So if the Bills are playing on Monday nights, we’ll put the game on and little J will watch intently, waiting to witness the tackles and pile-ups (the more people involved, the better). He’ll point and stand up and shout, “Did you SEE DAT??!!”

At any rate, this year my birthday was too early to do legitimate party-crashing. But I am strangely eager to behold the spectacle. I think it’s partially because I want to see if Prince is going to flash some of his nearly-50-year-old nipple during halftime.

Just kidding. Really, it’s because of the Bears (Da Bears!). I was 10 years old the year the Super Bowl Shuffle came out–my best friend’s family never missed a game. When I was at her house, the Bears were on, and it seemed like they always won. She had a life-sized poster of “the Fridge” (Perry) on the back of her bedroom door, and people talked about the Sweetness, I was savvy.

Of course, the reason my best friend’s family loved the Bears is that when I was 10 I lived in Waukegan, IL, and *everyone* was a Bears fan–even my own family, who normally preferred baseball to football (I still dream of Harry Caray’s voice every-so-often).

Hm. Where’m I going with this? I guess this post serves as an apology. An apology to my subversive friends who would rather I exhibit some anti-consumerist solidarity and ignore the media frenzy this evening. An apology to genuine sports fans who might think my foray back into Bears fandom is unearned and nostalgic…I could be accused of that whole “fair weather friend” thing.

So, I’m hoping my quick history and my self-effacing apology will allow me to say just one more thing:

GO BEARS!

thought I couldn’t be madder

I’ve been sitting here for nearly a half hour, looking for some acknowledgment on the web of what Jim Amoss, edtior at the Times-Picayune, said this morning on GMA. I want a quote. I want more than what my meager brain is remembering. I actually want someone to show me that HE DIDN’T say what I think he said.

What I think he said was, in fewer, more well-chosen (or not-so-well-chosen) words: if there had been middle class white people locked in the Superdome and in the convention center, these rumors of rapings and beatings and murders would never have come up.

Basically, he said that white people would have handled the trauma in a more civilized, non-incendiary fashion. (??!!!!!)

He said it. He said, “Had it been middle class white people…” Because I looked at B, who looked back at me, mirroring my dumbfoundedness, and asked, “Did he just SAY THAT?”

B nodded. “He sure did.”

Somebody help me with this! They have the clip on the front of GMA page that was the lead-in to the interview with the Times-Picayune editor. But I might have the guy’s name wrong. (?)

Now I’m mad.

do you smell french fries cookin?

Over at Crooked Timber, Maria posts and entry titled Myths about America. As I talked to my mom on the phone this morning about outrageous gas prices, I mentioned that I had read this post, which points out that European gas prices have always been nearly twice what Americans pay.

Because gas has always been affordable to me, it has never occurred to me that I should live near (ie within walking, biking or even public bus distance) where I work and shop. In fact, as B and I have “grown up,” we’ve slowly moved away from urban areas, giving primacy to things like yards big enough for decent gardens, space for the kids to play, little traffic, etc.

We are fortunate that our current home is in a small village that sports a little market, library, post office, hardware, and elementary school all within walking distance. But one of the schools I’m teaching for this semester is over 40 miles away. There is no bus I can take, there is no car pool, no metro, and sadly, I cannot walk, or even run to get there. And I must work. And I must pay 3.50 a gallon to do so.

I feel somehow buoyed by this. Now, hopefully, we Americans will start doing what we should have been doing all along: conserving our resources AND start thinking hard about alternative energy.

When I travel into town to the big grocery store to shop, I call my neighbor to see if she’d like to ride in with me or if I can grab her something while I’m out. When any trip is planned, we work extra hard to consolidate purposes. I am less likely to “run into town” to pick up one or two things for dinner and more likely to be creative with what I’ve got in the cupboard. I’m more apt to plan ahead; when we were out yesterday, I got supplies for our first Girl Scout meeting next week (normally I’d wait until the day before). Etc.

Most exciting, though, is B’s ramped up research on vegie diesel. Our boiler that heats our house and our water right now runs on “fuel oil,” which is the same as diesel fuel (without the road taxes built into the price). When we ran out last winter because they had delivered fuel to our old address, B ran down to the gas station and bought a few gallons of diesel to hold us until they could send us a truck out. (I had no idea it was the same stuff.)

He’s found plans online for building a vegie boiler. It’s either that or put one of the several wood stoves from the garage into the house. Personally, I’m pulling for the vegie boiler, because I’ve heated with wood before. While it’s warm and dry (line drying clothes in a room heated with a woodstove is sometimes faster than using a conventionall dryer), it’s also dusty, labor intensive, ashy, you have to get up in the middle of the night to feed it, dusty, dirty, and hard work. Did I mention it’s messy? And hard work?

I’ve seen this man take an engine from a Subaru Legacy and put it into a Vanagon. I’ve seen him plan and build a strawbale cabin. I’ve seen him bake amazing bread. I’ve seen him build computers for gifts. I’ve seen him pry open a computer he’s never been inside before, spot the tiny part that needs replaced, and replace it. I’ve seen him fix plumbing, install dishwashers, wire electrical outlets, build puppet show stages.

He delivered Jackson, our second child, who came before the midwife arrived.

In short, I’m convinced that anything he puts his mind to, he can pretty much do. And while my house might smell a little like french fries cooking this winter, I’m excited.

And I don’t think I’ll be complaining too much about gas prices. Too much.

sickening

Yahoo news has taken the photo down where “white people find food.”

They have left up the photo of the young black man who “loots.” I won’t link to it, b/c I’m sickened. Finally I heard Matt Lauer, FINALLY after how many days of coverage, ask Tim Russert about the fact that nearly all the people who are stranded and DYING in NO are black and poor. Tim’s response? “It’s sad.” (!!??)

I want to strangle someone. Harry Connick is down there (in Baton Rouge), talking about how he could load up with water, hop in his car RIGHT now and get to the convention center in an hour. But they won’t let him.

how to make my stomach turn

be Carl Quintanilla on NBC and say that the 1500 (?) policemen and women in New Orleans have been asked, as night falls, to abandon search and rescue missions and instead to focus on curbing looting.

These people have lost everything. Damn. Let ‘em get some stuff from Wal*Mart for free. God knows MalWart can afford it.

a note about Schiavo

I’ve watched the Schiavo case with guarded interest. When the debates started however many years ago, I was quite indignant: her parents should just let her go.

Now, (15?) years later, a parent myself, I had trouble watching the file video of Terri’s mom leaning in, kissing her on the forehead. Would I let a child of mine go without a fight?

On Google news tonight, trying to see if the Pope finally died (morbid, morbid interest!!), I noticed that the autopsy on Schiavo had been completed, and I linked over to see if there was any information (though I knew well enough there wouldn’t be) (again: morbid!! I know!).

So, the link I followed turned out to be an abc wire story. And while the story itself lent nothing new or interesting (to me), the caption of the accompanying photo did: it suggested that Terri’s cardiac failure, the cause of her brain damage, had occurred possibly as the result of an eating disorder.

Hoowee. If Karen Carpenter wasn’t enough for us. We need to get on this eating disorder thing, people. Moms: do not talk about being fat in front of your daughters. Subvert the sick-skinny (and I mean *sick* not *stick*) paradigm. Provide your girls with empowered, strong, models; be one yourself.

And for those of you who know me: yes, I know what a huge hypocrite I am. But I’m TRYING. We all should be. For our girls.