Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Summer Showdown, Part Two

June 25, 2013 by Suzanne

Welcome to Round Two of the Larry^ vs. Christmas* Summer Showdown.  I am going to start over – clean slate – with the scoring, because otherwise, it’s possible that it just might get ridiculous.  And that’s how tournaments work – each game starts at zero.  And this is a new day.  And I’m too lazy to scroll back and look at where the score stands.

In the interest of fairness, I admit that most of the items in Summer Showdown Two follow a theme of argh-so-many-people, so it’s possible that this will be viewed as skewed by some readers.

I do not care.  Crowds are really not my favorite.

This round starts with…

 

The Cafeteria

You know how, before, I said things like, “Being in a building with a cafeteria, I get to see EVERYBODY!” like it was a good thing? Well, now that I’ve slept, woken up, and remembered what my actual personality is, my reaction is more along the lines of, “OMG so many people and so much loud!”  Don’t get me wrong, I like people.  People are nice.  I can rock a one-on-one conversation or a small group gathering.  In fact, I’m rocking one right now (well, not RIGHT now.  But just a few minutes ago, before I started typing). But when there are so many people that there’s no way I could possibly hope to interact with everyone, I get overwhelmed, and I just want to crawl under the desk and cry.

There’s no way to avoid it at Larry.  There are going to be thousands of people swarming around.  And part of it is that it’s summer, and the campers are intimidated by the students, and the students hate that the campers are here, making the lines that they feel are rightfully theirs longer than usual, and no one knows where the bathroom is, and so I have the same conversation 900 times an hour.  So that’s not really a reflection on Larry as a whole, because all of that is temporary.

There aren’t usually drummers in the building, drumming on everything.  And I’d be dealing with them at Christmas, too, because it’s near where they practice.

There aren’t usually teenage cheerleaders practicing their cheers in the lobby during their lunch break.

There aren’t usually coaches using their whistles in the building to get their campers’ attention…like this is a damn gym.

I am willing to believe that the building is usually full of people who actually belong here (sorry, campers, but…yeah) and thus who are a little more invested in making sure it is not a zoo, or at least who are less prone to travel in gargantuan packs (because you don’t take your friends to class with you).

But I imagine that the cafeteria still makes it inevitably crowded and louder, especially during typical meal times, than I like for it to be, even during the year.  The reason that I suspect that this is true is that the other people who do work here during the year (various university personnel, most of whom I don’t know and who don’t know me) are so used to it that they think they’re doing me a favor when they hang out and talk about the weather or how busy I must be, so that I won’t get bored.

News flash, folks.  I don’t often get bored.  There’s always something to do or prepare.  And if I’ve exhausted all things to do or prepare for work, there’s a cornucopia of things to read.  I don’t need to be entertained.  You’re thinking of boring people.

What I do need is for you not to yell at me so that I can hear your half of our mind-numbing conversation over the lunch rush.  Ignore me.  Please.  I promise you won’t hurt my feelings.

The only upside to this is that I appreciate quiet even more than I already did.  I went to Christmas to prepare for a camp there the other day, and it was so blissfully peaceful.  It’s not always that way, but it’s that way more often than not.

Larry 0, Christmas 1.

Temperature control

Christmas has it.  Larry doesn’t.  As I am typing this, someone walking by just said, as if on cue, “Why is there no air conditioning here?”  There is.  You just can’t actually feel it, on account-a the so, so many people.  It’s not Larry’s fault.  It’s just the way air works.  When you have 10,000 people coming in, and it’s summer any time in Texas, it’s going to get hot and gross.  There’s no way around it.  Oh, wait.  There is.  It’s called being at Christmas, where leaving the door open is so rare that the alarm goes off if it’s left open too long, shaming the people holding it open into closing it immediately, preserving our nice 70-degree climate.

Larry 0, Christmas 2.

Desk operations 

When you are one of the most established buildings on campus, you will have collected some things that make desk operations run more smoothly.

Like this:

0625131140

I covet these boxes so much.  Do you know how much easier they have made check-ins and check-outs?  Do you know how much more smoothly move-in day would run if we had some of our very own at Christmas?  Dear Christmas HD of mine, can we get some of these things?!?!?!?!  Because I NEED them!

I like office supplies.  No.  That’s too tame.  I LUUUUUUUUUUURVEEEEEEE office supplies (say it out loud, just like that.  Throw a purring noise in there.  Now you’ve got it).  And if these check-in boxes were a boy, I would marry them.

I also have benefited from seeing how Larry does things differently and weighing them against how we do them at Christmas.  Most of the things we do, I’m keeping the same (Desk blog, Larry.  Because it’s the 21st century.  And we can check problems from afar during the weekend for training/disaster-avoidance purposes.  And no one can alter someone else’s blog post.  I’m just sayin’.).  But it’s always good to see how things work at other places, because it will make me a stronger leader in my regular position.  So I’m glad for this experience.

Larry 1, Christmas 2.

Junior High flashbacks

At Christmas, I know where things are, and even if I didn’t, its location has a normal name (i.e., 3rd floor north closet or CHR-375, if you want to cut right to the chase and not have to even bother knowing where north is).  Everything at Larry has a quirky, community-building name, which is great…if you’re a part of said community and are going to stick around for awhile, thus inspiring you to actually learn it.  I get it – I do – but I feel like the awkward adolescent who doesn’t really fit in with the cool kids.  Even a map would be helpful, for those of us who are on the outside looking in, to know where (or what) the hell Sherwood is when the police officer from the information booth wants a quiet place to eat her lunch.  But alas, having searched the S: drive over, I have run across no map.  I so enjoy looking incompetent when people ask where something is.  I need to have a shirt made that says, “I don’t usually work here.  Don’t judge me.” or “I’m better at this job in my building” or just “For the love of God, I’m trying.”

Sorry, Larry.  You’re too cool for me.  Figuratively, of course.  Literally speaking, it’s so freaking hot here.

Larry 1, Christmas 3.

The “I gotta be me!” factor (you know, because the rest of this has been super objective)

At Christmas, it is far less likely that, if I (allegedly) did something like roll my eyes and say, “White people!” with an exasperated sigh, there would be a tour of parents coming through to overhear me (it’s not directed at them, for the record.  I would never.  That’s would be terrible customer service.  I toe the line, but I’m not THAT person.).  And if there is a tour of parents coming through, I have a better vantage point at Christmas to see them coming and to adjust my speech accordingly.

Some people might argue that I could just curb such comments the entire time I’m behind the desk, but these people clearly don’t get my clever, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that so endears me to everyone I meet.

So…anyway…

Larry 1, Christmas 4.

Shout-out to Sarah

This summer could have been really terrible.  I not only could have been forced into change (which, in case you missed the neon-sign-level-of-obviousness memo, I really detest), but also forced into a place that was a disaster with people I didn’t get along with (delightful as I am, it happens).  I cannot confirm that that would have been the case anywhere else in the department – I don’t know of anyone who outwardly hates me – but it’s always a fear of mine.  I recognize that I’m an acquired taste, and some people don’t want to make the effort.  I am grateful that this has not been the case.  Sarah (real props call for real names) has been especially welcoming, so much so that Larry gets another point, just for her.  Everyone else is pretty cool, but Sarah goes out of her way, and I appreciate it.

Also, there’s a dog here that, when it’s (he?  she? I don’t even know) not judging me, tolerates me enough to put up with me fishing paper clips out of its mouth.

So final tally for this round – Larry 2, Christmas 4

^ and * – Name of building changed…because I’m a professional.  I mean, I did immediately email this link to the competing hall directors, because they enjoy this sort of thing, so it’s not like this is a secret.  Also, context clues make it really obvious to anyone who has ever spent any time on campus.  But still.  Random people/prospective students could read, and I could color their opinion, which I don’t want to do, because it’s based on my own personal bias, and they might actually love living at ^ more than *.  It could happen.

Posted in Work | Leave a Comment »

Resolutions: A Love Story

June 20, 2013 by Suzanne

I love making lists.  I also love goal-setting.  Making New Year’s resolutions is like a drug to me.  I do it every year.

My resolutions this year were designed to give myself a break from the “stress” (if absolute joy is stressful) of having lists and keeping tabs on my progress.  Whatever need I felt at the time to do that…yeah, I’m over it.

So here is my revamp – mid-year – of my resolutions.  Some of you who have been around for a while will notice similarities to my resolutions from a few years ago – the “100 things” year.  I was re-reading those posts and remembering how much fun I had that year.  So I’m going to do it a little differently, but still…list-y.

(I am also going to include some things I’ve already done for these lists, because I don’t have a year at this point, and I am loathe to shoot myself in the foot from the onset)

I picked five things that make me happy/make me feel grounded and centered/make me feel like I’m actually doing something with my life besides waking, working, drinking coffee, and sleeping (not that there’s anything wrong with those things).

1.  Reading – 100 books.  I’ve already started on this goal, and Goodreads informs me that, while I have read 31 books so far, I am 15 books behind schedule.  But I will not be daunted.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to update every book that I read here, or if I will just give you what I love the most (or when I hated it and need to vent about it).  But you can follow me on Goodreads if you wish to get book-by-book updates, because that’s where I really keep up with it.

2.  Cooking – 100 new recipes.  My favorite thing about the “100 things” year was all the new recipes I tried.  Trying new things keeps me out of Food Rut, and this is important, because Food Rut is what puts me in the drive-through of Taco Bell, and nobody wins there (well, maybe the CEO of Taco Bell, but I think he’ll be okay).  I will update these here, because I will be super excited about them.  Fair warning – I am taking a Sacramental Baking Course.  Look for a post on my first sourdough when I get around to writing it.

3.  Writing – 100 hours.  Whether I’m blogging or working on one of the multiple fiction projects I have going on, I have to write to be sane.  I will be starting from scratch here, because I haven’t been logging my writing hours so far, but even starting now, I have twenty-eight weeks left of the year.  And November is National Novel Writing Month.  Even if it wasn’t, that’s only a little over three and a half hours a week.  The writing of this post puts me at 0.4 hours.  99.6 to go!

4.  Thanking – 100 admissions of gratitude.  Gratitude keeps me from being so cynical that I get sleepless and achy.  I may reminisce about a few of these, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if I had 100 MORE stories this year about how beautiful life can be?  Here are my first two, just from today:

4a.  I just got to encourage someone who assumed that a college degree was too lofty a dream for them to achieve that they could do it. That’s my favorite thing that’s happened this week.

4b.  This – oh, my soul – THIS.  Thank you, Jesus.  And more, please.

5.  Watching – 100 pictures.  Sometimes, I just go through my photos, and my day is better.  There will probably be way more than 100 pictures, and all of them might not make it to the blog.  But all of them will make it to the Facebook (here’s Spring and here’s Summer), where I basically live, so peruse and enjoy!

Posted in Resolutions, Seasons | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Summer Showdown, Part 1

June 4, 2013 by Suzanne

This is the first summer (or…the first time ever, rather) that I have worked here but not at my building.  We have two weeks of camps at my building and no cafeteria, so we have nothing for me to do there, basically.  That means that I am forced to get to work at another hall most of the summer.

My competitive streak makes me want to stack them against each other.

First, the history:

Larry^ holds many fond memories for me.  I spent a lot of time here when I was a resident, four thousand years ago, hanging out with friends in the lobby, Social Dance Liberation Front in the meeting room, eating at what was then one of the only places on campus where you could guarantee that you could get vegetarian food.  Good times.

Christmas* is that building that they had to destroy the Texas Pickup Cafe to build.  Rude.

Larry 1, Christmas 0.

Recent history:

Christmas has been my place of employ for the last eight years.  We have history.  I love Christmas.  Because we’re the best.

Larry is cool.  Larry has character.  Larry is…cool.  But it’s not home.

Larry 1, Christmas 1.

Hospitality:

Christmas is hospitable.  We like to make people feel welcome.  This year alone, my hall director has brought peanut butter cookies, breakfast burritos, cake, Ravelin, and multiple other treats.  Hospitality is important to me

Larry is at an admitted disadvantage.  I have years of memories of Christmas’s hospitality, and I have two days at Larry.  Already in those two days, though, I have been greeted by a welcome sign and a cupcake.  Observe and be jealous:

Image

Few things say, “Welcome!” to me like mocha buttercream.

But like I said, it’s a little early to really get a real comparison.

The score remains:  Larry 1, Christmas 1.

Related to welcome, appreciation:

Again, Larry is at a disadvantage, but this one is going to be hard to outdo.  Christmas LOVES me.  One year, the Hall Association seriously considered (i.e., it was one of the three finalist designs) making an acrostic of my name, which just so happens to match up with our hall’s abbreviation, as part of the year’s t-shirt.  This year, for staff appreciation week, the RAs wrote and sang us a song.  When I mention that I’m at another building on Facebook, at least one of the RAs will comment with thinly veiled panic, demanding to know why I’m not at Christmas and needing reassurance that I will be back there – where they claim I clearly belong – in the fall.

Larry seems to like me just fine.  The hall directors are awesome.  The staff seems great.  I’m sure that they will grow to like me as well as can be expected.  I’m not sure that two months is long enough to really LOVE me, though, so Christmas comes out ahead on this one.

Larry 1, Christmas 2.

Foot Traffic:

Christmas is pretty much out of the way over at the edge of campus.  No one comes to Christmas unless they have specific business at Christmas.  Larry is right in the middle of everything. And Larry has a cafeteria.  At Larry, you get to see everybody.  I like this so far, but I can see it being less appealing once we get camps and I have more work to do at the desk, the completion of which will take hours longer than it should when paired with the endless conversation that inevitably comes with a busy building.

Again, it’s an even trade.

Larry 1, Christmas 2.

Other traffic:

Traffic around Christmas  this time of the year is terrible.  We’re right by the coliseum where various schools (read:  every school in the entire universe…or metroplex) hold their graduation ceremonies.  Parking is a nightmare for a few weeks.  I am happy to be avoiding that.

Larry is under construction.  So I listen to construction noise all day here, then I go home and listen to three or four more hours of construction there.  How is this my life?  Why is it following me?  *cries; rocks in corner* The construction at Larry has done away with the two public restrooms in the lobby, so every time someone needs to use the restroom, I 1) tell them where to find it and 2) give them the access code, because the restrooms they’re using this summer are the ones on the resident wings that only the residents usually have access to use.  Either people will learn and adjust (i.e., learn the codes, follow the signs), or I will have this conversation a lot.

I’m sorry, Larry, but four weeks of graduation traffic as opposed to a forever of construction and related noise/inconvenience?  Christmas has this one.

Larry 1, Christmas 3.

So there you have it.  My first showdown between Larry and Christmas.  Christmas comes out ahead, but I have just been here two days, so I can admit that it’s a little unfair.  Also, I can admit that I don’t like change, so it’s possible that that is an underlying factor.

Ultimately, a day in another building is still a day with a job that is pretty fun and easy overall.

* and ^ – Name of building changed…because I’m a professional.  I mean, I did immediately email this link to the competing hall directors, because they enjoy this sort of thing, so it’s not like this is a secret.  Also, context clues make it really obvious to anyone who has ever spent any time on campus.  But still.  Random people/prospective students could read, and I could color their opinion, which I don’t want to do, because it’s based on my own personal bias, and they might actually love living at ^ more than *.  It could happen.

Posted in Work | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Spring turns into summer

May 15, 2013 by Suzanne

It’s summertime for me.  I know, it seems a little early.  Summer camps haven’t started.  The summer reading program at the library hasn’t begun.  The kids aren’t even out of school yet.

My seasons tend to start early, though.  I work with college students, so the seasons tend to go with the semesters and their breaks.  Also, I live in Texas, so it starts to feel like summer here earlier than most places.  In fact, it’s not so much fall, winter, spring, summer for me as it’s fall, holiday, spring, summer, because February might not always feel like winter here, but it always grades like spring. I turned in grades on Monday for Spring 2013 and have started working for summer conferences, so in my mind, I’ve transitioned.

It’s a new season.  A new photo album on Facebook.  A new goodbye, making way for a new hello.

I will miss my residents.  Well, most of them.  I will not miss teaching, but I’ll be ready to go back to it in August.

Summertime means conferences, the part of my job where I feel most like a fish out of water.  Day desk has been rougher than I expected it to be, but conferences are even rougher.  Training is my strength; customer service is not.  And customer service is all that summer conferences entail.  On the upside, it’s easier to leave behind when I leave work for the day.  I gratefully flee.  No chance of it following me home.

Summertime means reading.  I read a lot anyway, but there’s more time for it in the summer.  I am not reading many deep things this summer.  I actually have romance novels on my list.  I might flip out and throw some Proust in there or tackle Infinite Jest, but I make no promises.

Summertime usually means more writing, too.  I am going to work on my Fishbowl story this summer.  I am also submitting a few posts in a few places as a guest blogger.  And I have the urge for the first time ever to try my hand at poetry, so perhaps I will do some of that, too.  I am in love with poetry these days, from E. E. Cummings’s “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach a ten thousand stars how not to dance,”  to Pablo Neruda’s  “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

But most important of all – summertime means snow cones and popsicles and yoga.  Cooling off and calming down.  It’s my sanest season.

Posted in Books, Seasons, Work, Writing | Leave a Comment »

Wherein I am so, so lazy

May 3, 2013 by Suzanne

In lieu of actually writing something myself, I wanted to share with you two things I read today that are awesome:

One of the best essays I’ve ever read on body image

How to have the best summer ever

Posted in Beauty, Seasons | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

Weekend in Review: Camp NaNoWriMo

April 16, 2013 by Suzanne

Image

This was pretty much my main view this weekend.  Other than eating and sleeping and laundry, I worked on my Camp NaNoWriMo piece.  I had great aspirations of reaching the halfway point by Sunday night, but I am still not there.  I got sucked into a little editing, and I just couldn’t seem to stop.

The semester is winding down.  My students are working on their third and final group presentation this week, which means easy and boring week in class for me.  But I look forward to the presentations next week.

 

Posted in Work, Writing | Leave a Comment »

Weekend in Review: Happy Birthday, Denton!

April 9, 2013 by Suzanne

Image As seen outside Serendipity

This past Saturday and Sunday marked Denton County’s 167th birthday, and all the square was abuzz with celebratory deals.  I got new shoes at Shoe Fly and a remarkable Chianti at Wine Squared.  I also got to hang out with my sister and her husband, so bonus for me!

It was also the opening day of Denton Community Market’s 2013 season.  This is my favorite thing that Denton does.  Local farmers and artisans and food vendors set up every Saturday to sell their goods.  I always leave with fresh veggies for the week (well, hello, glorious kale – how you doin’?) and at least one other item.  The other item this week was a seedling of purple basil.  It’s officially the founding member of my indoor herb garden.  I’ve named it Cecil.

I’m weighing my options for CSA this summer.  Quite a few of the folk who organize our local ones pop up at the market.  I’ll need them when the season is over.

Happy birthday, Denton.  I love you!

Posted in Denton | Leave a Comment »

Easter weekend

April 1, 2013 by Suzanne

 

 

 

Image

First, meet Quincy, my cute, new chair.  He came home this Saturday and is fitting in quite nicely in the reading nook.

I pried myself away from him long enough on Sunday to go to church.

I was a holiday churchgoer this weekend.  I was one of Those People.

Growing up, Those People were looked on with thinly veiled disdain.  They were the ones who clearly only loved God when it was convenient or popular.

Yesterday, I was one of them.  And I can attest firsthand that my faith and love for God is neither convenient nor popular.  I can attest that people do things for their own reasons, which might be very different from the reason that we imagine we might have if we were to do that exact same thing.

A friend wanted to go to one of the mega-churches in the Metroplex and invited me to go with her.  I said yes.  Insert a few days of fear and trembling here.

Then it was Easter morning.

Snippets of the morning:

– Eating a very bland breakfast so that the combination of my fair-weather-friend stomach and nervous energy didn’t end in disaster.

– Fun one-on-one time driving there and back with a good friend.

– Uniformed parking police directing traffic at the church.  Benches in the middle of the parking lot, presumably for people to wait for the golf carts that come around and give those who need it a ride to the door.  I can’t…even…

– Thankful to be with someone who also finds that equal parts strange and practical.

– They have a choir.  I miss choir.  They were my favorite part of the service.  The choir director was a woman, and she was fantastic.  I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

– Standard Easter sermon.  Well-organized, thought-provoking, adequate passion/enthusiasm.  Hard to turn off the speech teacher ears.  I might have lost my patience with sermons.  I might not think that’s a bad thing.

– We sang hymns.  I miss hymns.  I mean, I sing them at home (you’re welcome, neighbors).  But I miss singing them with others.

– There was a commercial break.  It was a series of videos about upcoming events at the church and different services they offer, and I suppose the snazzy video is the fun thing that old people assume the kids are into these days.  But it was a commercial break.  In a worship service.  Again, I understand the practicality of it.  But it was jarring.

– The preacher started the sermon with the Paschal greeting “Christ is risen!” to which we replied “He is risen indeed!”  He coached the crowd ahead of time.  I wonder how many would have known how to respond if he hadn’t.  It would have been interesting to see.  Hard to turn the social scientist head off as well.

– I bought a friend-of-a-friend’s book in the bookstore after the service.  I only thought about money-changers in the temple and table-tossing and how I don’t think I’m rich enough to really go there a little bit while I was in the store.  I really love books.

Overall, I had a good morning, and nothing terrible happened.  I expected Easter to make me miss going to church.  I am not sure that it did.

Posted in Church | Leave a Comment »

What to do…

March 26, 2013 by Suzanne

I am experiencing an ethical dilemma regarding the Starbucks shareholder drama. In a nutshell, several of my more conservative, evangelical friends are outraged at CEO Howard Schultz’s announcement to the shareholders that he does not support the traditional family and that people who are against gay marriage can sell their shares and take their business elsewhere, and they have decided to boycott Starbucks as a result.

My ethical dilemma is this:

I am all for people not supporting Starbucks.  But Schultz didn’t say that. Not actually. Not quite.

He never said that he doesn’t support what they define as the “traditional family.” He has never said that he does not support heterosexuals’ right to marry. He merely disputed the shareholder’s claim that their commitment to marriage equality was the reason that they lost business in the quarter after they made that announcement by pointing out that shareholders got a 38% return on their investment last year. He then said that if the shareholder in question was unhappy with the 38% return (again, not their stance on marriage, although he did make a point to reiterate their commitment to diversity), he was welcome to sell his shares of Starbucks and invest in another company.

Yes, Starbucks is a supporter of equal marriage rights. This is not news. It’s part of their commitment to “embracing diversity,” as you can hear Schultz himself say in this video. If they want to boycott based on that – fine. I will accept this course of action, and I will not point out their hypocrisy – that when others boycotted Chick-Fil-A for their CEO’s statement about marriage, these same people who are up in arms about Starbucks were the ones commenting on how silly it was that someone would boycott a company because they disagreed with their political views.

Oh, wait. I guess I did just point it out. Well, I won’t point it out to them.

Because on the one hand, people should get their facts straight before speaking out against someone or something.

But on the other hand, this just means more people NOT drinking Starbucks, and that makes me happy. There are plenty of good reasons not to support Starbucks. The most important one to me is that all of their coffee is not fairly traded, which means that a good portion of their product is produced by what basically amounts to slave labor. And yes, there are many products for which there is not a readily available, fair-labor option, but coffee is not one of those products. Anyone, anywhere, can buy fairly traded coffee with fairly little effort. And coffee drinkers with a conscience should be doing so.

So while the reason they’re boycotting is, well…stupid, I can’t quite bring myself to correct them and thus encourage them to continue supporting Starbucks.  After all, isn’t one of my New Year’s Resolutions not to get involved in Facebook drama?  I think I’m going to go ahead and hide behind that.

[Aside – I have noticed that most of my Catholic and Orthodox friends tend not to get involved in these things. I like that about them.]

Perhaps the real ethical dilemma is that I’m having way too much fun with this and being just a little bit catty about it. And on Holy Week. Shame on me.

🙂

Posted in Resolutions | Leave a Comment »

FemFest Day Three: What I Learned

February 28, 2013 by Suzanne

  • {Day 3} What You Learned: On Thursday, February 28, link up at Preston Yancey’s blog and write about these questions: What surprised you this week? What did you take away from the discussion? What blog posts did you find particularly helpful? What questions do you still have?

This week was full of surprises, and all of them were good.

There are so many rich, wonderful voices in the places where feminism and Jesus collide – so many more than I knew.  So many more than I can choose.   Between working and reading, I haven’t slept a lot this week, but my sleep-deprived haze is a dreamy one – the euphoria of living in the magic of a book I can’t put down. FemFest has been that book this week.

This discussion has not stayed quietly on paper (er…screen?).  Several people saw my links on Facebook and Twitter and have stopped by to have conversations or emailed me to continue the conversation.  Many of them have experienced the same Happy Book Stupor that I’ve experienced this week in reading the posts, and they are thirsty for more.  I encouraged them to post their own pieces, and they responded that they didn’t think that they could say it as well as it had already been said.

Let me encourage you again to do the thing that this week has driven home to me the most – this time in writing.  Your voice is important.  What you have to say is important, and no one can speak your mind better than you can.  Speak.  Write.  Dance.  Sing.  Paint.  Play.  Fight.  But join the conversation.

To that end, I want to start a group.  I’m not sure if I want it to be a writer’s group or a reader’s group or both.  I think I would prefer for it to be a face-to-face group, if for no other reason than I make a mean frittata and would love to have another excuse to feed people.  I also think that there are specific things to be done and said where I am that don’t really translate to anywhere else.  But I have met me, so I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to resist expanding discussion via the intrawebs, at least in part.  The group is just a baby idea right now.  Who knows what it will grow up to be?

Step one – gauging interest with my face-to-face crowd.  More to come on this.

Thanks for inspiring me this week, FemFest.  This was fun.

Edited to add – !!!  Congress passes VAWA.

Posted in Feminism, Hope | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »