50 days of oatmeal and 10 face wipes

Today the AT&T guy asked for my address, and I was totally stumped. I couldn’t remember the address to my dad’s attic.  AT&T had a Fort Wayne address in the system and a New Orleans address in the system, and there I was in Indianapolis trying to suspend my plan while I go to Belize.  He squinted at me with that you’re-an-identity-thief-look, then asked for my license and the last 4 digits of my social security number. I started to explain the situation, but he was bored by the fifth word, so I just sighed and waited while he dialed customer care.  He told customer care I was going to Guatemala.

Some people do displacement well. I do it kind of complainy and neurotic-like.  I feel like my life is totally out of control when I can’t put together a good outfit, and when doing so includes a trip to the attic, a trip to the trunk and rummaging through 4 suitcases. Is it in the Belize bag? Is it in the Thanksgiving bag? Is it in the New Orleans bag? Is it in the Madison bag? Nope. It must be in the trunk. Nope. It’s gotta be in the attic. Oh. There it is. Right there in the 4th box from the back labeled dishes. My black sweater!

Yesterday I purchased 50 days worth of Instant oatmeal and Fiber One bars- both items of comfort and ease that are simple to make, quick to fill and parasite free- and spent 2 hours rearranging and weighing suitcases to get them to fit. Also $80 worth of bug spray, sunscreen, tee trea oil, wet wipes… and a jump rope. For exercise. I remember doing this last year with Steph at the target- should I get washcloths or face wipes? The kind that’s already wet, or the kind where I have to add water? Which takes up less space? Which one is heavier? What I have found is: little luxuries go a long way.  I can’t bring 90 days of face wipes. But I can bring a washcloth and know that 10 Olay face wipes will feel like gold on ten special days when the water is off and I really just want to wash my face.

And you should have seen Elaine helping with my clothes… There were mountains and mountains. Then piles and piles. Then stacks of three.

• Please can I bring my blue and white striped pants?
• Will you even wear those pants?
• I think so. I don’t know. Maybe.
• But you already have the khaki and white striped ones.
• I know but I like the blue ones.
• You can’t have both. You already have 8 other pants. Pick one.

And on and on and on: please can I bring my 10th green tank top… please can I bring my 8th pink Nike shorts… please can I bring my 4th white sweatshirt… It felt like last year’s Gustav evacuation. It was a careful selection process, and in the end, I always wanted the thing I dind’t bring.  Sigh.  As of tonight, my clothes for 3 monts fit into one moderately sized suitcase. My supplies fit into an second, and my sheets/towels/bathroom/bugstuff/meds/snacks/etc. fit into a third. Whew. I’d like to share a picture sequence of my life in relation to this topic.

My apartment at the beginning of the school year:

My apartment at Finals:

My apartment in the middle of selling furniture and hosting guests:

Apartment during packing phase:

Post Packing:

All the lipgloss I found while packing up the apartment:

What happened to SJP- kickball. Home run if you hit her in the face:

Getting home:

My mover: Note the basket he’s holding. It wouldn’t fit into the car, so we dropped it off under the I-10 overpass where the homeless hang…

My life now:

The end:

In case you wonder about me, you can find me according to the following itinerary:

• August 29th Madison
• September 1st Indianapolis
• September 5th Belize
• November 25th Dallas
• November 29th Madison
• November 30th Indianapolis
• December 1st New Orleans
• December 11th- GRADUATE!

Goodbye. Post you in a couple days.

Our friend, Katie.

Hello, goodbye.
We’ll see you on the other side.

Love Me

From the road…

Pour some sugar on Sprinky, anyone?

The Hattiesburg Applebees singers: click here

Onward!

Over and Out

The cars are loaded.

My things and Sarah Jessica are packed.

I have a nice coupon for McDonalds coffee in the morning.

See you in the central time zone.

reduced

After 5 days of reducing.

Plus 9 months of moving.

Everything I own in the world:

Stop me if you’ve heard this one

I wrote an article for CFI.
It’s mostly everything I’ve already said in one post or another, but I feel compelled to share.
If you get through it, I promise colorful binders in the next post.

(On re-entry from Belize)

Doc: Hello Ms. Wilson, It’s time for your two-month check-in. How do you feel? Are you reintegrating? Adjusting well? Back to normal?
Me: Hang on. The zookeeper is trying to drag me out of the rainforest dome.

Two months ago my life was full of coconuts and lime, pick-up trucks, 90-degree days, meandering walks and dirt roads.

Today my life is filled with things it was missing in Santa Familia, like 8-lane highways and Starbucks and Fruit Loops and Grey’s Anatomy and 49 different kinds of Paul Mitchell styling products. Oh, and deliciously delicious Oreos- all of which disguise themselves as happiness.

But right in the middle is a gaping hole called “community” and another called “family” and one called “Antonia’s Kitchen” and a few more little ones called “good weather” and “sweet limes” and “dollar ice-cream cones”.

I have resigned to the fact that when I take a group of kids to the zoo, like I did on Saturday, and we walk into the Tropical Rainforest Dome, I’ll want to cry—and not just because the kids aren’t interested about the time I lived in a rainforest, but because I know in the deepest part of my heart that no matter how much money I make, or how many friends I have, or how many degrees I earn, I will never have the quality of life I had in the village for those short few months.

When I see birds or monkeys behind a cage in the zoo, I automatically think of Ronnel pointing out a toucan on the way to the sinkhole and feeding jackfruit to this little spider monkey our neighbors had in the village.

One of my favorite memories will always be that half-an-hour between dusk and total darkness when Inez and I would walk to the shop for a dollar ice cream cone or a Snickers or in search of hard-to-find flour.

Daily, those little triggers open this giant door inside called “My Other Life” and I wonder what they’re all doing there in Belize—what the weather is like, what the village gossip is. I can almost feel the sun and the breeze, the warmth, the sweet smell of coconut and campfire, and I can picture myself sitting with Ms. Mig on the back stoop peeling sweet limes.

Tonight, I’d give anything to hear Antonia’s deep laughter in the kitchen. I’d love to walk to the store with Inez. I’d love to flop down on David’s couch and catch up with Nelly.

Sometimes the best I can do is go to the zoo.

Week Twelve: SOS

I’m drowning in Fruit Loops and America’s Next Top Model.

It’s killing me, literally. I may have turned diabetic this week for lack of self-control and the abundance of Oreos and Milano cookies. I turned down lunch at the Indian buffet today, because yesterday I ate my weight in cheesy potatoes and didn’t think I could be trusted at a buffet.

Also, I spent 5 hours in the eye-shadow section at Ulta and tried to buy shampoo a few times with a 20% off coupon and finally settled on the Paul Mitchell Color Care line with a buy 2 get 1 free option, but gave up after not being able to pick the third product.

I guess you could say I am overwhelmed with the overabundance of food and hair product options.

After a complete meltdown on Sunday, it took a full 24 hours to figure out what was really going on.

Here it is: There are holes in my life that can’t be filled with Paul Mitchell Color Care Detangling Conditioner or cheesy potatoes, even though I am thankful for those things and love them with all my heart on a normal day.

I have come to the sad realization that we have everything backwards.

I was upset on Sunday because my family jumped through hoops to get to the right church (out of hundreds in the city) at the right time (out of 8 services) to meet my brother and sister-in-law, who didn’t even show up or call to tell us they weren’t coming.

In Santa Familia there is one church with one service, and your brother lives 5 houses down. Not everyone has cars. Most people just walk. And if Antonia doesn’t show up, Father Foley goes to her house for lunch—just to make sure everything is okay. Most people go to church if only to make sure Father Foley doesn’t show up for lunch.

As I settled in on Sunday afternoon with my bag of Oreos and the Disney Channel (don’t judge), I understood that no matter how many cereals I can choose from, or how many Salon Style conditioners I get to use, no matter how great it feels to drive around 8-lane highways in my shiny SUV, passing two malls and 15 Starbucks, I will never have the quality of life I had in the village for those short few months.

My entire family will never live on one street; I’ll never be within walking distance from everyone I’ve ever known; my best friends are not my cousins or my nieces or my back-door neighbors.

Kids there have 15 moms and 15 dads—aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends. It was so cute to watch David’s eight-year-old son curl up in Imanuel or Ricardo’s lap, and to watch Juliet be passed around the church from aunt to aunt to cousin to cousin (though it was sort of embarrassing when she woke up while I was holding her, took one look at me, and wailed like she had been abandoned at the local homeless shelter).

I’ll probably never speak 3 languages or enjoy a fresh orange or a chocolate-chip ice cream cone as meaningfully and effortlessly as I did with Inez and Frances— though my cherished single-dip cones on the curb of Ben & Jerry’s and Baskin Robbins with Bec and Sprinky rival.

But that’s my point. Happy, simple meaningful moments are rare and hard to come by here, which is why they are etched into my memory and logged as happy places for me. It was never about the ice cream (except that one year when they had Chocolate Oddessy 2001). It was 20 uninterrupted minutes on the curb with my good friends.

In the village, moments like that happened all the time. Nobody had anywhere to rush off to. My time there was a thousand simple, meaningful moments strung together into days and weeks. One of my favorite memories will always be that half-an-hour between dusk and total darkness when Inez and I would walk to the shop for an ice cream or a snickers or in search of hard-to-find flour. It was just nice to be with her, and to not have anything else to do but walk around together.

Now I have no choice but to settle for The GAP and America’s Next Top Model in lieu of everything my heart really wants—community, an entire Sunday afternoon with all my friends and family in one place (can you even imagine it—all your best friends and family together in one location, for LIFE?)

My friends and I used to joke about living in a commune.

In the village, they have that. They have community. Not as a concept or a small-group idea. But as their actual life.

We have water, Tyra Banks, paved roads, Fruit Loops and Paul Mitchell.

(And we think we’re the lucky ones.)

I agree: in some ways, we’re privileged. I feel blessed to live where I live with the opportunities that have been given to me. Even after village life, I don’t feel guilty for loving Target. Or TV. Or the mall. But more than privileged, I would argue that, mostly, we’re distracted. And I sort of feel sorry for us. I think we are distracted in order to not be depressed.

For example. On Sunday, when family plans fell through, I got my tall-nonfat-sugar-free-caramel-macchiato, sat down with a handful of Oreos and the Disney Channel (don’t judge), periodically checked my Macbook for emails, and when there were no emails, I downloaded new songs on iTunes.

So I enjoyed a day of first world conveniences. But only as a filler for what I really wanted, which was to hang out with my brother, or chat with friends, or, in the deepest part of my heart, be celebrating Easter with everyone in Santa Familia.

Moments:

“Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good.”

For Good
Steven Schwartz

Fireworks in a Fire Zone- bad news

Watching fireworks atop a roof in the fire zone: BAD idea!

Last night I joined my friends at Midtown crossing on a rooftop patio owned by the condo association. About 100 people gathered for fireworks and beer and guacamole, and for some show-offs, an 8 course meal and wine. The patio sits on top of a parking garage right next to the Summit Building. (And by right next to, I mean we could look up and see the people on top of the building setting off the fireworks.)

All day we said, “Are they going to hit us?” and all day our friend said, “No, last year they just looked like they were going to hit us, but the wind carried all the debris to the other side. We’ll be fine.”

No good ever comes from the phrase, “We’ll be fine.”

We should have known it was a bad idea when firemen began to appear like snipers all around us, looming in the windows and hallways and stairwells of the condo in full uniform. If not then, we should have known when the fire trucks began to park in the alleys surrounding the rooftop and condos and the firemen looked at us and waved with all these fake smiles, like, “Hey guys, get a load of these idiots…”

We just waved back and laughed at the warning signs posted all around releasing the city from liability. Ha! Risk, schmisk! If it was really that risky, they wouldn’t even let us up here.

In my crazy imaginative mind, I pictured the entire scene as a musical where all of us were wining and dining at dusk, and out of no where, music began and the ladders of the fire trucks lifted to the rooftops with singing, dancing firemen attached. But of course that’s not what happened.

What happened was that fireworks—the biggest, most spectacular CLOSE up, scarily beautiful fireworks—started going off directly above us, and everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed and said to each other, “Hey, they didn’t let them off on our side last year, this is awesome!”

And then someone punched me in the back of the shoulder, HARD. I dropped my drink and turned around to see who had slugged me or thrown their shoe at me or whatever, and simultaneously, like 20 other people were standing and running and yelling and ducking for cover.

That’s when I saw that it was a giant 3-inch cylinder clay firework plug. Then came the flaming pieces of paper and cardboard, and two seconds later we were hit again, this time by a giant metal HOT one on that bounced off Erin’s side, jumped up my pant leg and bounced off my sandal, and then another clay plug on Laura’s head. This happened for 20 minutes while everyone on the roof hid under lawn chairs and blankets and checked each other’s eyes with cell-phone lights and screamed, “It wasn’t like this last year!”

You know those crazy firemen were laughing their heads off in those condo windows.

In the spirit of honesty, I peed my pants a little. Not when the boom of the fireworks scared the living piss out of me, not when I was hit by a clay plug or when Erin got hit by a metal firework or when Laura got hit in the glasses or when Erin thought she was blinded. Nope. Not even when more than a comfortable amount of people pressed against me in the elevator on the basement level or when the elevator got stuck between the second and third floors for more than a comfortable amount of time or when the elevator took us back to the basement and broke for good, or even when we had to walk up 4 flights of stairs in the fire escape. It was when we stepped into the apartment and the bathroom was actually in sight. Then I peed a little. Sometimes I have a delayed reaction.

A picture is worth a thousand words: Erin’s burnt side.

Whatsoever things are praisworthy

I appreciate:

• My good friend who put stamps and return addresses on 100 envelopes for me. She also sat with me at the free clinic for 3 hours on her day off, and I appreciate that.

• A competent and supportive supervisor who laughs at my jokes and believes in what I do and how I do it.

• Wednesday nights out with the girls.

• Steven’s constant, quiet encouragement to keep writing.

• My good friend and hawaiian-hearted co-worker who has shown me with and without words that she supports what I am about to do.

• My grandma, who sold $250 worth of my homemade fund-raising foot jewelry to all her friends on my behalf, even though she thinks I am going to have to shave my head from lice infestation if I don’t get clubbed over the head and killed first. That is a direct quote.

• My dad, who purchased a peice of foot jewelry, 5 ducks, and pledged my walk-a-thon team because he supports everything I do, no matter what.

• An hour-and-a-half with a clinical supervisor who consistently encourages me to keep trying new things no matter what other people are saying.

• 2 Samuel 14:14

• My new friend who bought 5 ducks and drove them to my work today without even having met me.

• A new friend who researched funding options in the community and forwarded my support letter to his contacts just because he wanted to help.

• Sharon because she ran my mom’s garage sale.

• My mom, for donating the money.

• Denise and Lisa because they make me feel like I still have family in Carmel, and because they are the brightest shining lights I know.

• My neighbor, for inviting me over for dinner. And my other neighbors for not telling on me when I grill on my balcony.

• Being melanoma free!

Mostly I appreciate those of you who have encouraged and supported, who have not run away when I pull out ten-thousand beads or walk-a-thon sheets or duck tickets, who look at my websites and applications and program descriptions, who understand where I’ve been and where I am going and continue to believe I am headed somewhere, not just anywhere.

Slips, trips and falls

Yesterday:

So there I was at the park for this amazing throw-together cookout (and by cookout, I mean pounds of chicken and carne asada, stuffed chilis, peppers and onions, tortillas- thanks Erin and Ty, hands down the best grill food I’ve ever eaten) when out of the blue, it began to rain. All day it had been 75 and sunny, so it caught us by surprise. I thought about running out to the car to roll up my windows, but it was just a passing sprinkle, and, let’s be honest, I was just too lazy. Ten seconds later, though, it began to really pour, and loads of Burmese kids were running into the pavilion. Since my car was really just down the street, I decided to roll up the windows. I stuffed a giant piece of chicken in my mouth (as if my body would not have been able to survive the ten second trip to the car and back without food), grabbed my keys and ran through the pavilion toward my car.

Necessary background information: I knew only 3 people at this cookout, out of about 10. The attendees were Erin and her fiance, Tyler, their brothers and sisters, roommates and best friends. I did not shave my little wintery legs before the cookout because it was thrown impulsively, it was the first warm day of the year, I had been out all day in capris, and honestly, didn’t really care to change.

So, I ran through the pavilion towards my car, rounded the last picnic table, and, in slow motion, my ankle- the same ankle I killed all the ligaments in during that terrible basketball game my junior year and had to wear a boot on for 4 months, the same ankle I turned falling down the stairs at the Boys and Girls club just after my car accident, the same ankle I tripped on hours earlier in the parking lot- gave out. I fell to the side instantly, but the running propelled me forward and I did a flying face plant on the marbled concrete, sliding all the way to the edge of the pavilion. I laid on my face for a few seconds, realizing I was in serious trouble, and tried not to cry.

I was sure everyone had seen it and was rushing my way, or maybe at least they were laughing, so after a minute or two of rolling around on the concreet I sat up and peeked up over all the picnic tables ready and willing to laugh at myself, and then get some help to the Redimed. But they were all just sitting around the table talking and eating. No one had even seen me, except the group of Burmese kids who couldn’t speak English, but were definitely laughing and pointing and re-enacting the fall. I tried to stand up, but sat back down, which is when Tyler’s cute friend saw me, and asked why I was sitting on the floor. I stood up and tried to play it cool, limping back to the table, where he made me a bag of ice and placed it on my hairy leg.

I spent the next 40 minutes trying my best to converse normally (while inside screaming) and skipped the group trip to the port-a-potty, even though I had to pee like a mother, because I knew I couldn’t walk there and I was embarrassed. Finally, I was like, “Well guys, I think I’m gonna go… I’m just really tired,” and then I drove with my left foot to the Redimed. They had to do 3 sets of x-rays because it was so swollen and covered in scar tissue, and sent me home in an ankle boot.

The lesson here, kids, is this: 10 pounds of Mexican food, 3 beers, rain, picnic tables and concrete floors are hazardous combinations. Slips, trips and falls can happen to anyone, but be sure to make sure someone sees you and that you always have freshly shaven legs. Roll up your windows in advance anticipation of pop-up rain storms. And, according to my doctors, wear high-tops.

Life according to Alias

I am lying on my couch with a heaping bowl (the second heaping bowl) of Life Cereal glued to the 1am showing of Alias on CBS. I was exhausted at 11:15 and 12am and 12:30, but when I went to bed, every possible issue came from far and wide to cram itself into my brain…

So Im watching Sidney talk to Vaughn thinking about how lucky she is and wishing I could live inside that show, you know?

I’m saying to myself, Sidney’s life is so awesome. She probably didnt have to fill out Grad school applications online today and wonder who she was going to get references from or spend months trying to figure out which program she even wanted to apply for, and she probably isn’t sitting on the edge of her seat waiting for a callback from a job she really wants, and I’m sure she’s not flipping out about the loud noise her car is making even though she was just at Midas on Friday, and she probably isn’t trying to figure out how to best support her mom’s new internet boyfriend and her dad who has decided that now is the time to reconcile, and, surely, the farthest thing from her mind as she stares into Vaughn’s eyes is the growing mole on her arm and the faint recollection that she didn’t wear sunscreen this morning at the pool, or how, thanks to insomnia, she is going to have to explain, again, to 50 people why she skipped church tomorrow morning to sleep in. Nope. Not Sid.

I mean, in this episode all she is doing is saying goodbye to her mother, who just jumped off a skyscraper without revealing where her kidnapped father was, and she just found out her best friend is really a mutated double who just killed her other best friend, and, I mean, she ended up having to kill the mutated best friend, and she actually woke up two years later to find her fiance, Vaughn, married an evil double agent because he thought she was dead, but geez. It’s Sidney were talking about. She’ll handle it and still get Vaughn in the end despite Sloan, Sark, Lauren, Irena, AND the big red ball thingy. I guess, though, she had to give up Jack for it, which is REALLY sad. I guess in the end not even Sidney gets to have it all.

You can look for your own speck of proverb in all of that. I think I am tired now.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you, I graduated to a full-sized cubicle on Thursday. Sidney is silently cheering for me because she is watching my life from the other side of the TV thinking, ‘Brooke has the awesomest life. I bet her mom isnt jumping off a skyscraper…’