The "Best" of the 2000s

It's probably not news to you that I LOVE

Because I love NPR, I am once again plagiarizing their ideas (as if little ol' me could even cause a ripple where NPR has just plowed through with a tsunami). Earlier this morning they aired a special on the most memorable sounds of 2010--news clips ranging from a radio broadcast of September 11th to the election of President Obama to the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. I have decided to make my own list of noteworthy occurrences in the past decade. To assist me I have consulted my gigantic MaxBrite paper box full of old journals. 

But before I begin, a note on diaries: I don't know how Anne Frank and Sylvia Plath did it. Their words were raw and eloquent, their entries suspenseful and heartbreaking and deeply, deeply revealing. They spoke of identity and acceptance and fear. They challenged themselves to change their own ways of thinking. Their thoughts were (and remain) works of immense literary merit. And then there's me: the girl whose most scandalous, heartfelt written admittance before the age of ten was that she sometimes didn't like her cat.

That being said, read ahead at your own risk. Here is my list of most memorable moments (in their original contexts) since 2000:

UPDATE: As it turns out, ten years' worth of journals is about 15 of them. Even at my most self-involved, I'm not prepared to read 15 journals of nothing but me being repetitive and feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I will just share snippets of some of my favorite entries.

February 5, 1997
"Today I want to tell you that last week my teacher wasn't at school."  

September 15, 2001
"Today my friend M and I were prank calling people and reciting a cheesy commercial about a girl's club." Evidently we hadn't yet heard of Prince Albert in a can.

September 17, 2001 
"Today was by far the most uneventful day of my life, including when I was a baby and all I did was sleep and cry." Well then by all means, let's write about it.

October 5, 2001
"If God had made every day a Friday, my life would be so much easier."

October 28, 2001
"I guess good things do come to people who try. I didn't ruin my yearbook picture after all." Wow. Just...wow.

March 22, 2003
"Shut up, Joe! Hungry pants. Frisbee golf. M&M ice cream. No pulp, water, or milk. Chickenfoot dominoes. Tombstone factory. Winky. Unidentified pool." I could explain this, but it's funnier if I don't.

April 8, 2004
"Here are two words that sum up everything: I got my license!" Here are four more: MATH CLASS.

October 11, 2004
"If I could only remember if I brought my PE clothes home, I could sleep easily."

November 11, 2004
"I have to remind myself to accomplish something amazing in exactly seven years."

February 25, 2005
"I had the most amazing dream last night where I met the entire cast of CSI."

May 5, 2005
"I was listening to Radio Lab on NPR this morning, and they were saying that scientists have this technology that can pick up reverberations from the Big Bang. I turned off the program and listened very hard and became convinced that I could hear the echoes. Then again, I'm also convinced I can see air molecules." Reason #6,730 why I will die alone.

November 25, 2005
"And to think last year E was a little baby. And the year before that she wasn't even born."

February 28, 2006 
This journal really doesn't have that many pages." Astute observation, Margoshes.  

April 14, 2006
"What doesn't make me happy, though, is a little thing I like to call Hell." No context required.

January 1, 2007
"New Year's Resolution: Try not to eat past 9:00pm." That lasted about 45 minutes. 

December 26, 2007
"Whatever happened to Milky Pens? Those were awesome." Watch out, Anne Frank. I'm a-comin'.

February 2, 2008
"11:20pm: I have developed a twitch in my right eye. 11:30pm: Twitch has been replaced by a pounding headache and an inability to comprehend the word 'about.'"

March 18, 2008
"Why can't my life be a romantic comedy?" The age-old question.

August 6, 2008
"I took 37 pictures of the sunset tonight. I am such a problem."

February 5, 2009
"Cruise control has recently become my latest obsession."

The Prodigal Poetry Corner Monday Returns

This week I thought I'd post a poem written by one of my favorite professors at the University of Puget Sound and Tacoma's first poet laureate, Bill Kupinse. He was an incredible teacher and remains an incredible friend. I find all his poems--but this one in particular--witty and humorous and poignant. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

On Giving First-Year Students a Quiz on Ginsberg's Howl

Each could remember a single, indelible phrase--"fucked in the ass"--
which they quoted, unsolicited, verbatim, as a group. One, bless his heart,
fixed upon the mention of Oklahoma Chinamen, but otherwise to a one,
it was as if they'd met before class to conspire. They meant, I think, no malice.

I believe if you were to wake them, years from now,
weary from hospital rounds or shiftwork or binding arbitration
or working the remnants of the rail line, and whisper Ginsberg's name,
they would offer up the phrase again. I suspect some will recall it as the poem's title.

Yesterday, for the first time, I drove my car outside of town, past
franchised churches and Indian land, past the parched
and undulating fields, each blade a withered shoulder leaning 
on the next, a continental shiver born from heat, the way
the land speaks to itself when no one's listening.

I saw how things could move at once and slowly, repetition
the mark of disbelief, each first stalk slapping the last, a set
of tires slapping the road where it turns to dirt. I recalled
when what shocked me scared me, wondered at my blindsight yet.

And I believe for once I understood that time's dilations
can be both blessed and cursed. Oklahoma, flat westlooking
window punctuated by oil rigs, shaken to speech by the rumble of trucks
and the freight's evening whistle, I watch as you slumber, dreaming
your dreams of sodomy and outrage, refusing at all costs madnesss, lost
in your grasping of something to stand against.

I envy you its solidness, your back against the wall.

Tree of Delights

What do a pair of clogs, a package of red candles, a rolling toy zebra, and a tiny green Adirondack chair have in common? They all make excellent Christmas tree weights. 

Duh.

If there was ever any doubt that I was born into the right family, I submit this as photographic proof. I came downstairs one morning to discover the Where's Waldo of household items in our white fir. When my mom was a kid, her family hung clothes from the branches of their tree to coax them into a more lateral position. Evidently this is the 21st-century solution to that primeval practice.

It's like studying  an MC Escher drawing: Your eye takes you all over the page and you discover something new every time you look at it. Except instead of an optical illusion of a room full of stairs, it's a Christmas tree full of firewood and running shoes and a metal candle holder.

I had commented that the tree was fairly narrow compared to the trees we normally get. My mother's response: "It's not so narrow when you put clogs in the branches."

The Tofu-tastrophe

There are several things in life for which you can consistently count on me: shopping for clothes literally once in a blue moon; starting all my sentences with, "I heard this story on NPR..."; and tacking "-tastrophe" onto every noun known to man. Today's tastrophe might be, with the exception of my Orcas Island [cat]astrophe this past July, my favorite.

I was packing my lunch this morning and decided to take a few pieces of the tofu my mom cooked for dinner a couple nights ago. It had been delicious--heavy and soggy with soy sauce and garlic and ginger--and when she put it away she'd wrapped it loosely in a piece of plastic. Deciding I didn't need any further packaging to transport the marinated soy product to work in my bag, I dumped it in amongst my wallet and water bottle and notepad and Burt's Bees lip balm and walked jauntily out the door.  

Lunchtime came, and I found I wasn't nearly as hungry as I'd expected to be. I ate my yogurt and figured I'd take the tofu home for a mid-afternoon snack. (Because I'm the kind of person who eats tofu as a mid-afternoon snack.)

My "Olivia, you freaking idiot" moment didn't come until the ride home. We'd just passed through Kenmore and the bus had emptied out considerably, as it always does by the Kenmore P&R. About that time, I began to smell a distinct sickly sweet odor wafting under my nose. It took me close to four minutes to realize the stench was coming from me. I got a knot in my stomach and lifted my bag off my thigh to discover a huge brown stain both on the bag's tan canvas and on my pants. My immediate thought, that I could easily pass it off as a coffee spill if anyone asked (because in my paranoid mind I envisioned cars pulling over on the walk home to comment on my unseemly stain) was quickly disregarded due to the fact that while soy sauce may resemble coffee in appearance, it does not, in fact, resemble it in aroma. At this point the mostly empty bus was both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because there were only a few people around to smell me, and they were sitting in the back; a curse because since there were very few people around to smell me, there was no doubt I was the one who smelled.

To my delight, when I departed the bus I discovered that my peacoat covered a good 1/8 of the stain, the diameter of which was probably around four inches. (Note: I just measured. Five inches.) Feeling proud of myself that I'd thought to wear a long jacket on the day I would demonstrate exactly how incompetent I really am in public, and cocky that I'd managed to trick the rest of the world into believing that my stain was 1/8 smaller than it really was, I began the trek homeward. 

There are very few things in this world I do better than making an awkward situation more awkward, so as I strutted across the overpass and freeway entrance and down my residential street, I insisted on simultaneously listening to a hilarious episode of Wait Wait and texting my cousin who had recently informed me that she thought our grandma had confused our baby pictures. I have included two photos of me and my cousin in our younger years. You will notice that it would be very difficult--nay, impossible--to confuse us, as small children or as adults. The result of this text, and of the podcast, was frequent and extremely audible laughter as I walked down the street. Because whenever the opportunity arises for me to present myself as even more of a freak than I am, of course I seize it. So there I was, a soy sauce-reeking, stained-denim-wearing, podcast-listening, texting, cackling fool marching my way up the driveway. 

I changed my pants, but my leg still smells like Asian food. Time for a shower.

Olivia's Not-So-Merry Gift Guide

Christmas is in eight days and, as it goes every year despite my best efforts to get my shopping done by September, I have hardly even begun to think about presents. This is partly due to the fact that for the first year I can remember, I don't have a winter break from school. I'm not coming home for the holidays. It isn't a respite from anything; it's not a reward after a hard week of essays and finals; it's not the chance to sleep in my own bed. It simply is. If you looked out my window right now, you'd think it was summer, or at least spring. I have therefore decided, since I'm not really feeling the whole Christmas thing yet, to make a list of ten presents I know I don't want to give anyone...or will give to only those people I don't care to ever see again. This is inspired by the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me Gift Guide, so thanks to everyone over at the incredibly hilarious NPR news quiz.

Olivia's 2010-2011 Not-So-Merry Gift Guide:

1. Microphone Tongs To be perfectly honest, I think these are awesome. I'm always looking for new and inventive ways to make a fool of myself in the kitchen, and I thought I'd exhausted them all until I discovered the ultimate dream for that very special culinary pop-star-wannabe on your list: a pair of tongs with silicone microphone tips. Because nothing says "Rock on!" quite like a souped-up kitchen utensil.

2. Inflatable Fruitcake We've all been there. Christmas dinner is over and friends and family are sitting around the table waiting expectantly for the grand finale. And then it comes...in the form of Aunt Mabel's infamous holiday fruitcake. A collective internal groan sweeps across the room. Why endure this when you could put the fun back into your dessert? The inflatable fruitcake is a whimsical alternative to any fourth course. It can be stored and reused, put on display for weeks at a time without growing legs and walking off, and best of all, it's probably more edible than the real thing. (Let it be known that I do not have an Aunt Mabel, nor have I ever tasted a fruitcake. Also let it be known that the video featured at the above link is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me.)

3. Smoking Mittens And no, I do not mean mittens that are on fire...unfortunately. I think this headline sums it up perfectly: "Smoking Mittens challenge Smittens in fight for 'World's Dumbest Mittens' title." Now, since all of you are extremely product savvy, I'm sure you're all aware of the phenomenon of Smittens--the mittens made for hand-holding--which I'll admit are kind of adorable, in that dorky way that most things I think are adorable are. But Smoking Mittens? Not so much. I'd ask what the inventors of these preposterous things were smoking, but the humor of that question is lost in realizing that it's kind of a valid query. But hey, they're one-size-fits-all, unisex, and reversible. Which is basically everything you could ever want in a Christmas present. However, if you feel these are a necessary purchase this season, at least follow my father's advice (which I don't usually promote, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception): "You could make your own by taking a pair of mittens and burning a hole through them with your own cigarette." That's totally more cost-effective, and probably more fun.

4. Fetus Cookie Cutter This might be the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. The only use I could possibly imagine for this is as a prop for a staunch Pro-Lifer in a big abortion debate. Or maybe as a snack during the safe sex/abstinence unit in health class. (Ellen: What, don't you celebrate Fetus Day?")

5. Fundies I don't know what I find more mortifying: that there's actually a pair of underwear built for two people, or that they're sold out. This coming from the girl whose idea of "fun" undergarments is anything that's not a solid color. I could understand, though, if there was a high demand for these among conjoined twins who had been recently surgically separated and were going through body-attachment withdrawals. Even then, still creepy.

6. Enema Bag Jewelry I was having a discussion about a month ago with a good photographer friend of mine. We were saying that the biggest indication that the world is, excuse my language, going to shit, is not the wars or famine or the global financial crisis, but the existence of a professional photoshopping group. After the discovery of this so-called "gift," I stand corrected.

7. Decapitated Teddy Bear Lamp I love that the slogan for this website, perpetualkid.com, is "Entertain Your Inner Child." Entertain? More like "Scar for Life" or "Scare the Crap Out Of." How could this possibly be a good idea? If you hate your kid enough to buy them this, why buy them anything at all? Why not just kick them out onto the street on Christmas morning after telling them that Santa Claus doesn't exist? I would much prefer being homeless and informed than being in possession of this horrifying product.

8. Toilet Mug This is a surefire way to rid anyone of that pesky caffeine addiction. I would say they should invent a urinal beer stein for alcoholics, but I bet someone already has.

9. Squirrel Feet Earrings When I think about exactly what would ruin my Christmas--and really, my life in general--these are at the top of the list. Squirrels are cute, I'll give you that. But you know what's not cute? Their severed feet dangling from your ears on elaborate gold studs.

10 . The Gift of Nothing Even better than the fact that this is the perfect gift for that annoying person you don't really like but feel obligated to buy a present for is Amazon's comment that "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."

My "I Wish I Could Say This Was Abnormal" Sunday

The end of my weekend was characterized by a whole flotilla of dorky things. Allow me to elaborate. Or don't. Either way, I'm going to.

Low point: Losing a sock in the washing machine. (I swear I put it in. It just never came out.)

High point arising from low point: This discovery came a week after the Olivia Alert went out on another missing sock from another pair. This abduction had a happy ending, though, as when I was pulling the sheets off my bed to wash them the missing sock tumbled over the edge of the mattress.

High point: My mom finding my flannel polar bear sheets, which I misplaced years ago and thought my brother had used to cover the huge macrobins of grapes fermenting in the basement. Words can't express how much fun I had sleeping on a family of bears with scarves and hats who were merrily skiing, ice skating, and ice fishing on a white flannel mountain.

I think we can all agree this is definitely worth a two-hour wait.

Low point arising from high point: When I stripped the sheets off my bed and threw them into the washing machine, I was under the impression that there was a set of clean sheets I could put right on the mattress. I was wrong. Though my mom found my faves, and though they had been clean when she stowed them away in her linens tub in the basement four years ago, four years is a long time and they were no longer tantalizingly sanitary. So they had to be washed. Unfortunately, it was 10pm and there was another load in the washer. Me being the absolutely ridiculous person I am, I insisted on sleeping on my polar bear sheets even if it meant waiting until after midnight for them to dry. And that is exactly what it meant. And that is exactly what I did. And while I did indeed have a lovely and peaceful slumber, I'm pretty sure it was thanks to the fact that I'd stayed up three hours past my bedtime and was consequently exhausted, and not because I was frolicking with snowshoeing polar bears in my dreams. If I started a weekly segment here on my blog called, "No Wonder I'm Alone," this would be the Polar Bear Edition.

Elegy for Oz

A year ago today I had my cheek pressed against the airplane window. The man next to me--a sixty-something retired pastor from Colorado--was telling me stories about his eldest daughter who had just joined Americorps. 

 Outside it was dark. I'd been in the air not even ten hours and already I'd left behind a continent, a hemisphere, and a constellation only visible from below the equator. 

"You'll be back," my seatmate assured me. My cheeks were glistening and I felt like all the light had drained out of me. I wanted to ask him how he could be so sure. He was, after all, a stranger. He didn't know that I'm an introvert who watches romantic comedies like nobody's business; that it took me until senior year of high school to like my hair; that I still didn't really know what it meant to be completely comfortable with myself. He didn't know anything about me. How could he know that this plane ride was just a long pause--a temporary deferment of my life?

My parrot tree

I remember my last days so vividly: the late-night swelter that holed itself in my room even with my balcony door tied open to the railing with a plastic garbage bag; crossing the largest roundabout in Australia on my way home for lunch between classes; listening to Joe Purdy's "Miss Me" on my photography walks around my adopted neighborhood.

Those ten months were the most beautiful and substantive of my life. I still ease myself into sleep each night with the vague but sincere belief that when I open my eyes I will be right back in my tiny shoebox apartment on Flemington Road, listening to the ding of the trams out my window and the car alarm that went off every hour like the faithful chimes of a grandfather clock. I would give anything for some force of hemispherical attraction to take me back where I could wake up with sunlight streaming in through my balcony door, fix my usual bowl of yogurt and muesli for breakfast, collect my book and journal and camera and sunscreen, and catch the train to Brighton Beach.

When I went to sleep on February 9, 2010, the day before my departure, I wasn't nervous. I wasn't scared or anxious or restless. Morning came and I was still none of those things. I piled my suitcases into the wayback of my mom's van and buckled my seatbelt. From the passenger seat my dad made a goofy face at me through his flip-down mirror. I rolled my eyes. An hour later I was sitting at my gate in what I know now could only have been an ethereal calm. I wrote in my journal, but not about my insecurities and doubts about the coming year in a country that couldn't be farther from my family and friends. No, I wrote about the fact that I would make my grand entrance into the southern hemisphere on a plane plastered with giant images of Disney figures.

It wasn't until I'd heaved my bags onto my bed moments after seeing my apartment for the first time that I felt a hollowness in the pit of my stomach. I unzipped a suitcase and lying on top of my clothes was a small yellow envelope with "Livvy Lovey" written in my mom's curled script. It was a birthday card--I was turning 21 in six days--and before I could pick it up the tears started. It was as if I'd never cried before in my life, the novelty of it strangely confusing. I sat down on the mattress, my feet dangling above the hideous red carpet, and sobbed. I sobbed until I was fairly certain I had created the eighth sea, and then I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. I thought to myself, "I'm on my own now. I want to make this year perfect, but I can't do that if I'm crying. Is this the kind of person I want to be?" I shook my head, as if responding to someone else's question, but I kept on crying. I cried so much that for the next ten months I had nothing left to cry. I also didn't have the need.

My life in Melbourne was perfect. Perfect. There really is no other way to describe it. I could pull a Will Ferrell (as James Lipton on SNL) and invent an adjective, but I think the perfection of those ten months transcends the power of language--any language--at all.

Every time I pick up my guitar--a tan and mahogany Monterey--I remember sitting on the floor of the attic room of the Music Swop Shop on Elgin Street with my friend Ray, strumming a few strings on one guitar before handing it to Ray and grabbing another instrument from the wall. That was down the street from Brunetti's, the amazing pastry shop, and around the corner from Cinema Nova where I saw The Boys are Back with Sara and Julia a few days before they went home.

I look back at pictures of myself from Australia and I see a smile that I haven't seen since. I was so happy there. That's not to say I'm not happy here. I love being able to pick up the phone, hear a familiar voice on the other end, and then see the face attached to that familiar voice in a matter of minutes. But up until Melbourne I thought myself weak in every way, and on the plane home, sitting next to my new retired pastor friend, I didn't feel weak anymore. I was going home a year older, having snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef. I swam with a whaleshark and danced on the steps of the Sydney Opera House and pet a wallaby and learned how to surf. I wish I had the clarity of mind when I was leaving that I have now--the clarity that would have let me turn to the man next to me, clear my throat, and say, "Yes. I will be back." Because I will. And in so many ways I never even left.

So That Happened

In keeping with the tradition I started...whatever week I started it, each item on this week's list will be accompanied by a random picture that has nothing to do with anything.

I call him Pilgrim 'Bama.  He lives on our microwave.

This weekend is my mom's annual holiday pottery sale. Today my friend Ellen graciously donated her time to keeping me entertained. El helped wrap pots for a while, and then joined me for an afternoon dedicated to baking cookies and listening to CDs we used to listen to in high school, back when we would unwittingly change the lyrics to all the songs. (I can say definitively that it is freedom, not Jesus, that U2 describes as having "a scent like the top of a newborn baby's head.") At the end of the day we went into the studio so Ellen could say goodbye to my mom. I slid the door open, saw someone inside who looked vaguely familiar and who seemed to know exactly who I was (story of my life) and I promptly ran into the wall. Because my embarrassing moments always come in pairs, I followed my collision with: "Well that's a wall." Really? Really? I am most definitely going to die alone.

You may recall that last week I reached the pinnacle of excitement in my life with the arrival of my NPR sticker in the mail, followed shortly by the discovery of the diffuser attachment on my mom's hairdryer. I proceeded to devise a spectrum of my excitement levels--you know, for posterity. Here was my list as of a few nights ago, from most to least exciting (note some missing items):

Amazing dog at Myrtle Edwards Park.

Moving back to Australia--->the Amos Lee concert next month--->NPR sticker--->thinking about how cool it would be to own the rhino from the zoo that can paint with its mouth--->diffuser------------------->having to throw away my favorite pair of socks because they have holes in them. 
So that was my list before my brother came over one night for dinner. We were chatting while eating and he said, "I'm really excited for tomorrow because I get to finish my avocado!" I was so thrilled that my brother is, after all, as freakish as me that I decided to create a whole new level of excitement. Sandwiched between the painting rhino and my mom's diffuser is now "Michael and his avocado."

My baby hates me so much.

I'm currently eavesdropping on a Comedy Central joke my dad is attempting to relay to my mom downstairs. In it, the comedians were making fun of Sarah Palin tweeting. Evidently they said that she was not the first political figure to make use of Twitter. This is a direct quote from my dad: "So they brought up a screen with tweets from Abraham Lincoln. 'Four score and seven....' Oh man. I can't remember the rest, but it was really funny." Impeccable delivery, Pops.

I made spinach gnocchi for Thanksgiving.

I'm very pleased to announce that I have decoded my cat's behavior. More specifically, I have identified the impulse in her little feline brain that causes her to swat at her benevolent human overlords every time we pass her. It's not malicious--she just doesn't want us to leave. I stumbled upon this yesterday evening when she was sitting in a kitchen chair and I was kneeling on the floor next to her, kissing her head (as I can't help doing) and scratching her ears. When I stood up and started to walk away, I immediately felt her paw whack my leg. Her tail was not twitching as it does when she's brainstorming the most sanitary ways to dispose of our bodies, nor were her ears angled back like she was trying to make herself more aerodynamic for lunging or pouncing purposes. She was calm, eyes half-closed (or half-open if you're an optimist, which I'm not), purring. She just wanted a little more love. And really, who doesn't?