Continuing Drama of the Post Office

Have I complained about post offices before? Maybe. I find them seriously confusing, having not grown up around them.

So I need to pick up a package. I go in and see four desk/window opening things and a long line of people holding boxes. I exam the signs. U.S. Shipping. International Shipping. Upgrade Services. Information/Bulk Mailings/Claims & Inquiries. And in case you forget, all desks are labeled "All items must be properly packaged & addressed when presented @ the window."

Well, I am not shipping. I don't care about shipping.

So I wade over to Information. I suppose I should have suspected I wasn't supposed to do that because of several displays in my pathway. But I don't necessarily attribute poor interior design to a purposeful plan to keep people out. So I stand behind a woman heaping praises on the post office service... I wonder how often one has to go to the post office to get such a high opinion of them. Maybe she sells things on Etsy? Maybe she doesn't have an email account? Maybe she's lived in Ames for 46 years? Actually, that one is true.

Anyway, after the woman leaves, the employee looks at me like I'm a dirty hobo tracking mud in and asks, "were you next in line?"

"No, I just want to know where to pick up a package. All the signs are for shipping."

"Well, the best way is just to stay in line." Trespasser, her voice seemed to say.

Well, I wasn't ever in line, but whatever. I go to the end. The lady who had been in front of me tells me that I should stand in line, in a very friendly way, and sometimes someone will come up from the back and ask if anybody is just picking anything up.

"Are you from Ames?" she asks cheerfully. Ugh, not that question. Probably brought on by my clear cluelessness when it comes to post offices.

"My parents are from Iowa," I hedge, ending up revealing my family origins before she bids me good luck and goes on her way.

A man drags a display of holiday packaging material in front of a door. Another interior design error, this one probably meaning they're closed.

How am I supposed to know how this place functions? Are normal American school kids given a class in package shipping? A lesson on how to navigate an archaic place with misleading signage? I suppose it could be that part of the class where they write letters to someone and if they're lucky, that someone is a video game manufacturer who is charmed by the letter and sends the kid free limited edition stuff...

In the end, my little slip that proclaimed my package was "(check mark) At the Post Office" was lying and my package is still in a truck somewhere. The guy was nice, but still told me that like I should have known it. And to be honest, I did wonder about that detail, but I don't know how late those guys stay out.

How was I supposed to know? And when will they invent teleportation so I can ship things straight from the internet?

Tech Arts

Here is a little bit of backstage insight. I have a minor history of running camera. I took an internship at the Iowa Cubs and worked for minimum wage all baseball season home games running camera, switcher, directing, playbacks, etc. It was a pretty good summer gig, even though it was more for broadcasting emphasis than print. But I got to watch baseball all summer and get paid for it. There are worse fates.

Anyway, I learned camera and I learned that camera is actually pretty simple. The point and shoot part. The only finesse you can get at entry level is learning what shots your director wants, what shots look good, and how to zoom and focus smoothly.

So with my expertise and experience, I volunteered for running camera at church. It's fun and it gets me backstage. I like being backstage. In the theater of life, I never want to be center stage. I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of it. One of the stagehands all dressed in black. My biggest acting aspiration is that of an extra. No lines. Dreadlocks.

So, I am somewhat mystified as to the "talent." They are a different breed. We talk about them like objects as we have to capture this angle or that. And I avoid them.

Until recently, when the worship team made the pre-service meetings mandatory for all members. Previously, the cameras crew would lurk in the video room and the worship team in the green room and the lighting and audio crew... well, I don't know where they lurked.

We also got a new name. Instead of video team, I am now a part of "Tech Arts." New name tag too.

But those meetings I find baffling. We all tromp out of the video room through the amp room to the green room. The worship team is already there, draped over the chairs, so I usually take up a wallflower position. In the room I thought was the bathroom, it sounds like some of them are practicing a three part harmony. Russell is talking transitions, "...and after that, it goes into a boom boom budum budum psh..." with the appropriate drum motions. They talk like old friends until about time. Derek had to get them to let us camera people out early so we could be in position on time. And occasionally, they go over things that we might actually need to know, like a prayer in between songs, who's leading, etc. Things that could be covered by a good itinerary.

I don't think these meetings help us as much as they think they help us.

But camaraderie and inclusiveness! Maybe I'm an elitist, maybe I'm just a recluse, but I could do without. Oh well, I can spend my time studying that strange species, The Musician.

I'm a Jedi, like my father before me.

Achievement

Earlier this year, maybe March, I finally looked into the mirror and I'm like, "I hate myself." Particularly the highly misnamed "love handles." I've never considered myself slim or skinny or anything like that and for a while I was decently happy at what I considered a heavier weight. I had a big butt, but I had figure!

The love handles effectively destroyed the figure and I hated how much my stomach poked out, how big my thighs were.

I was still ok with my butt.

And I've never had problems with my boobs being too big...

Anyway, I said, "No more." I started on the Sonoma diet which morphed somewhat into an avoidance of most carbs and a focus on fresh veggies and low-fat foods. I raged. The pounds seemed to creep off so slowly it could have been fluctuations in water weight, the normal pound more or less you see on scales. I started biking in the summer. I did RAGBRAI and didn't lose a pound, probably because I was eating every two hours while biking. Lost a bit more the week after.

And the funny thing is, even though it took me months and months, it crept off.

I haven't lost anything real significant. I was at around 167 at my heaviest and I'm down to 142, so about 25 pounds. Biggest Loser wouldn't be interested and if any magazine is like, "They lost 25 pounds!" I'm like, no big deal. But that 25 pounds was a big deal to me. I lost my love handles. My stomach is a lot flatter, to the point it doesn't poke out of shirts. My size 12 jeans bag around my butt. My face is even slimmer, which I wasn't expecting, but I'm pretty happy about. And my bras still fit. Win.

Another thing I wasn't expecting was to have other people notice. I figured what was obvious to me in the mirror while dressing was safely hidden under fitted shirts and large sweatshirts. Apparently, I was wrong. Steve from Bike World noticed and asked my mom. This is a guy I don't even see once a month, and not at all during the winter.

So about two years ago now, I purchased a shirt I liked from Threadless.com. It was one of those that had fallen out of print and come back in and I requested it and when it was back in print, they sent it to me. I had picked size medium, but when I tried it on, it was just depressing. It was so awful I couldn't wear it. So I stuck it back in the bag thinking I'd send it back, but I never got around to it.

A few weeks ago, I pulled it out of a box while looking for something else and tried it on again. And it fit.

I call it my achievement shirt.

My original goal was 135, just so I had a number to work toward, but in reality I think that's about as low as I want to be. My other goals included getting below the BMI overweight threshold (yes, I was above it), and getting low enough that when I stepped on scales fully clothed with food in my stomach, I'd be below 149, cause that's the lowest threshold for plasma donation, as in I keep more of my plasma. If only I could donate it.

I'm not really trying right now. I've been around 142 for a while and I'm just trying to make sure I don't go back up.

And man, I feel sexy.

WildStar

I'm sure half of my viewing audience hates it when I talk about computer games. I'm looking at you, Mom.

But, there is a new one coming out and I am exCIted. (pronounced by going into falsetto on the caps)

My favorite genre is RPG, that being you have a character that you create and you level them up and get them gear and make them better while they progress through the storyline.

I love storylines. Closest I can get to a book that lets me live in it. And not those choose-your-own-adventure things where I find all the ways to die and have to reverse engineer it to find the good endings.

I died so many times in those books... I distinctly remember getting shrunk and then running on the scientist's arm and I was so small he didn't even see me when he went to scratch that itch and his fingernail cut me in half. That was pretty vivid to my nine-year-old self. In the other book I got eaten by a yeti.

But WildStar. New game coming out. It's sci-fi. There are spaceships and big weapons and weird gravity.

Here's a video telling you what WildStar is. And the part I love the most about it is that it regards itself in a very humorous light. I think there is some language in the video. Or implied language.

But it's like a cartoon! It's funny! And it looks like a lot of fun.

Ok, so I'm a geek or gamer or nerd or whatever is the least complimentary of those terms.

I'm going to go figure out if I want my character to be a settler or a scientist.

Freedom of Jeans

I think there is unjust discrimination against jeans. Where I work now calls for business casual, that being, not jeans. So, I have a pair of black pants and a pair of khaki pants and I hate them. They're straight-legged and formal-looking and... well, I dislike khaki. It's like daring me to spill something.

And work had this really smart idea to market a United Way campaign called "Dollars For Denim." Basically, you buy their $35 pin or their $45 shirt, you get to wear them with suitable "denim" on Fridays in October, November, December. So we're forking over money for the privilege of casual Friday. And that shirt is so worth it for the happiness I get from wearing jeans every Friday. Unfortunately, it's already halfway through November.

David's job has an office party, which declares "Business casual (no jeans)." I'm miffed. I normally wouldn't bother to change clothes after work, but I hate wearing non-jean pants so much that I do change, especially if I have another reason to leave the house.

I think jeans can be sharp. I think jeans can be classy. And they fit me better than stupid khakis. Well, they did. Now my jeans are a little baggy. But while I love jeans, I hate jean shopping. Or pants shopping, really.

But anyway.

Why this arbitrary jean hatred? Why are they considered so informal when they are the pant choice for a majority of Americans in a majority of situations?

In fact, I think most of current fashion guidelines are arbitrary. Why do we think suits are the only option for males in politics? Why do we think skirt suits look good? People say a guy in a tux is hot... I think a guy in jeans is hot.

Maybe I should have been country. 'Cept I don't like the bling.

And I think the people running for president should wear jeans. I hate suits.

Do you not know the honored history of jeans and Levi Strauss?

From Wikipedia:

A young man named Levi Strauss emigrated in 1851 from Germany to New York to be with his older brothers, who ran a dry goods store. In 1853 he moved to San Francisco to establish his own dry goods business.

In 1872, Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale house, wrote to Levi asking to partner with him to patent and sell clothing reinforced with rivets. Davis' idea was to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of stress, such as on the pocket corners and at the bottom of the button fly. After Levi accepted Davis's offer, the two men received U.S. Patent 139,121, for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings," on May 20, 1873. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans]

American history, right there. And jeans just look better on everyone.


What about hats? Used to be you couldn't go outside without a hat. Now you can't wear them for business casual. And fedoras even look classy.

If I ever became a dictator, my first act would be to declare jeans as valid for business casual. Viva la revolution!

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow

Normally I keep my opinions on books to Goodreads. However, I've had a bit of a problem recently: Goodreads is linked to my Facebook and for some reason, I cannot get things that connect through Facebook to, well, connect.

So Ender's Game came out recently. I decided to reread the book as a precursor to actually continuing the series and before watching the movie. Ender's Game, if you missed it, is a sci-fi book by Orson Scott Card, who is an excellent author. Ender's Game is the story of a young boy (six, when the book starts) who get accepted into battle school to prepare the smartest kids of the next generation to defend the world against a threat that has attacked twice in the past: the Formics, better known as "buggers." Ender is their best hope for the next commander of their forces, but to be able to get him to the point of leadership, they feel the need to manipulate his training and force him to understand he stands alone.

So we watched Ender's Game, the movie. And the idea behind the climax, the game, was the same. But I just read the book, and so I noticed everything different.

Some changes I don't mind, some I understand. Ender was six when he first went to battle school, but the actor who was playing him already had his voice starting to change. I think it loses some of it's impact. It's not just a pre-teen or teenager we're talking about, it's a six-year-old. However, the book spans years. It's a bit harder to do that in a movie. Anderson, one of the teachers who discusses Ender frequently with Graff, was changed to being female. And black, but I guess I never really knew Anderson wasn't. What bugs me more is that Dap, who calls himself the kids' "mom" in the is rude and mean. And Bonzo, who is supposed to be almost beautiful for a boy, a boy Ender looks at and thinks, "I can follow that face..." Bonzo is SHORT. Like half Ender's height. That also bugs me.

The movie was too rushed, I think. You don't get the sense of development, manipulation, psychological growth, and so on. David pointed out it would be better as a mini-series.

And then I read Ender's Shadow, which is about Bean. In Ender's Game, Bean is another smart kid who is small, just like Ender, but some time later, and he has more of an attitude. In Ender's Shadow, it's almost like a fan-fiction rewriting, even though it was Orson Scott Card who did it. What I mean by that is that it's taking the story from the first book, and trying to fit a different story in, one that didn't exist prior. I think Bean was just a normal, albeit smart, kid in the first book. And this book turned him into something else. Some of his dialogue was already written, and the second book added slants. Something like "Nobody goes to Command school until they're sixteen!" he said, grabbing hold of Colonel Graff's hand. Graff shook him off. In Ender's Shadow, it adds something along the lines of how he wasn't sure if Graff caught his sarcasm. I'm still trying to figure out how that motion and phrase can be sarcastic. It undermines Ender. It says they try to transfer command to Bean in the end, thinking Ender had frozen.

And on the other hand, it builds Ender up. Bean still follows him, even though he might be smarter. Bean respects him.

But it's still one of those things I think about at night when I'm trying to sleep and I think, "That's not how it was originally!"

Scheduling: My Bane

Maybe it's the winter. I don't usually realize how much I get SAD until the summer hits and I wake up one morning thinking, "Life is good!" when the sun is shining and it's warm and green and the whole world seems open. I woke up this morning at seven and it was dark and cold. The sun was just rising around seven-thirty. And it's going to get worse and colder and darker. I tried to think of what one of those annoying optimists would say: "Well, now everyone gets to enjoy the sunrise because it's later in the day!"

Makes me want to throw a shoe at the nearest optimist.

But the winter depresses me. I start seeing a cold, gray world of continuing inevitability. The rat-race, people walking walking walking with umbrellas, the same roads they've walked every day and will continue to walk, seeing the same tired faces they've seen every day, eating the same lunch at the dingy diner or in stained Tupperware in a florescent-lit office break room.

Last winter I had a freak-out moment with the house. Like it was a ball on the end of the chain that held me here, down to earth. This winter, I have a job and in thinking of my schedule, see it repeating Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, over and over and over, living for the weekend just to have it end and start over again. Some people like schedules and reliability and predictability. I think I kind of hate it.

Back to that Myers Briggs personality test. I'm an ISTP. The P at the end means perceiver. One place asks, "would you rather things in your life to be decided and set, or do you like to stay open to whatever options might come along?" Truity defines it as "responsive, spontaneous, flexible, and active."

Oddly Developed Types says "Now that school is permanently out and the 8 to 5 workday is abolished for good, the Artisans will be free to roam the radioactive wastelands hunting mutants, fighting zombies, and generally having the time of their lives."

My fall wanderlust is kicking it and I want to throw off everything that's holding me down and go live the life I imagine!

Then reality kicks in and I don't know where I'd go. To the Halloween event at Worlds of Fun? Just kick off and go. England. South for the winter. But what sort of lifestyle supports my imagination?

David thinks it is writing, after I described my perfect job as having short-term events that I could do when I wanted and not take any more assignments when I didn't.

I don't know. Both of us are perceivers. We both live in the moment, procrastinate, and like the idea of just picking up and going somewhere spontaneously.

We need to get rich.

Post-Apocalyptic Thoughts

My current fad is post-apocalyptic fiction. Well, not even fiction. Maybe just more the idea of fiction. Unless someone has some good post-apocalyptic fiction they want to recommend?

Currently I'm making due with cyberpunk, defined by the Reddit page as, "High-tech, low-life." I describe it as the seedy criminal side of sci-fi. Reading the second book in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. So far, it doesn't flow as well and isn't as artistic as Neuromancer, the first book.

But anyway.

To get in the mood, here is a cover of Imagine Dragons' radioactive by Lindsey Stirling. In post-apocalyptic theme.

I can't ever decide if I like this better than the original or not. Original has bass drum. Cover has...well...awesome. And no weird puppet arena.

I have had Radioactive play in my head for the last three months. Still cool with it.

To continue on the theme, I got into the Myers-Briggs personality test. I like personality tests. I am an ISTP (introverted, sensing, thinking, perceiving). Which means I'm Harry Potter on the Harry Potter chart. And a cat on one of the animal ones (no, I did not try and manipulate the results to get a cat).

But the best thing I've found so far is called Oddly Developed Types. It starts off with the basics, not a whole lot more information than the Truity. Thing about the Myers Briggs is that they say people are better at understanding themselves than the test is, so you can probably figure out what you are by just reading about it. I match ISTP pretty well. However, Oddly Developed Types decides to have some fun and they come up with all these different scenarios for what happens to your type after the apocalypse.

I am a Vigilante. I spend the first year of nuclear winter in a basement playing video games that hone my reflexes so I can kick mutant and zombie butt once I get out. Then me and the other Artisans (SPs) wander merrily about doing our own thing, like we've always wanted to. The SJs (Guardians) have bunkers, cities, and caves. The NFs (Idealists) mostly become self-actualized and turn into beings of radiant light and go to another plane, where they will fight shadowy beings of darkness. And the NTs (Rationals) will mostly abandon the planet before it happens, but you know they probably caused it too. I read my page. And then the page for the Artisans. And then David's page (ENFP). And then the page for all the Idealists. And then all the main group pages. And then I started at the top and read all of it. It was like reading a story in second person. It was funny and clever and makes me wish I thought of it first.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want from this phase, which is really an extension of the zombie phase (which I partially abandoned after finding the first two episodes of Walking Dead to be more gory than I liked). And maybe it's because so many people talk doom and gloom with all the Syria and government shutdown and so on, it starts to feel a little bit like the end of the world. And I cope with things by making fun of them.

And I'd be a monster hunter. How cool is that?

I am a Jedi, like my father before me...

Jedi's just happen to get their hoods from Aeropostale these days.

Notes

I came home today to discover this on my kitchen counter:

It basically says,
To whom it may concern:
Ames Fire Department responded to this address around 10:30 am for an audible smoke detector going off. We found no smoke or fire and gained entry.

We walked through quickly and found no problems. We attempted to silence the audible detector and change the battery, but the detector continued to go off... so here it sits for you. It is most likely in need of replacement.

We closed the home up as we found it.

If you have any questions, please call fire station #3.

Thank you.
-Firefighters Bleeker and Doyle

I found it interesting. I called David and read it to him. It actually probably corresponded to the alarms I heard earlier in the day. We have a fire station just down the street.

Also, my kitchen was a mess from breakfast, as I hadn't had time to clean before work. So I wanted to make excuses for it. And thank the firefighters for coming in for a false alarm. And maybe leave them a note as well.

So I did. I wrote them a note saying just that. And bought two packets of dark chocolate M&Ms (in lieu of buying drinks). And I bound it up with a rubberband and walked over to the fire station and gave it to a man with a nice smile who said he'd get it to them.

I'm sorry they came out for nothing. But then, I'd rather it be nothing.

Interventionism and Helping

I wrote last time about Syria. The whole issue actually makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and scream and yell, "How do you think a missile strike will be an isolated event? How do you think the rebels are any better than the government? How do you think this incident is the one that deserves your wrath but have let so many other killings and abuses pass unnoticed? Why do you think you have the authority to draw 'red lines' without Congress and that you can order strikes without Congress?"

I have never hated Obama. I never liked him, but I don't hate him. I do not like Obamacare, but this, this thing with Syria, really really bugs me. It's the first time that I've been like, "It's only 2013? We have a ways to go."

That said, I'd like to talk a little bit about interventionism, which is our foreign policy. Oh, not the the discussion between if we should sanction or not, invade or not, police the world or not. I'm solidly on the "or not" bit. We shouldn't be the police. Nobody appointed America is governor of the world and I don't think God said, "This is my country, they are the bestest and get to say what's what." Americans are a little on the self-centered side. We see only Americans as being important when it comes to world matters, like everyone else is somehow less of a human than we are. Doesn't really matter to us if others die unless Americans die, in which case it's a tragedy. I'm not saying it isn't, just that our standards of tragedy don't tend to involve anybody else's death, and then it's only a tragedy if we have to look at it or the government tells us so. Like these chemical weapon deaths.

I read this morning by Ron Paul, "I agree that any chemical attack, particularly one that kills civilians, is horrible and horrendous. All deaths in war and violence are terrible and should be condemned. But why are a few hundred killed by chemical attack any worse or more deserving of US bombs than the 100,000 already killed in the conflict? Why do these few hundred allegedly killed by Assad count any more than the estimated 1,000 Christians in Syria killed by US allies on the other side? Why is it any worse to be killed by poison gas than to have your head chopped off by the US allied radical Islamists, as has happened to a number of Christian priests and bishops in Syria? For that matter, why are the few hundred civilians killed in Syria by a chemical weapon any worse than the 2000-3000 who have been killed by Obama’s drone strikes in Pakistan? Does it really make a difference whether a civilian is killed by poison gas or by drone missile or dull knife?"

It's a good question.

Anyway.

Basically, I came to say that I think we are very single-minded when it comes to intervention. Is there any way we can help people in other countries without initiating an unprovoked attack? Can we help people peacefully? I've read, and I don't have the links for this, that Jordan is taking in refugees from Syria. They are helping, probably more than we ever will in this situation.

And I think America should do that. Not necessarily Syrian refugees, but be that open place we used to be.

My dad has an interesting take on immigration. No guns, no fences, no border police. Let 'em come in. But we're not going to give them anything. No free schooling, no Social Security, no welfare, nothing. And end law of the land. So the people who want to come would just be coming for what they get of freedom, not for any handouts. You want to make it here, you have to earn it. And that's kind of cool. Rather historic-sounding.

For example, we should be open to allowing in people leaving their own countries for lack of freedom. Take the case of Germans who want to homeschool their children. Homeschooling was banned in 1938 by Hitler, "all the better to indoctrinate you, my dear." And, oddly, that rule is still in effect and still being enforced. We've had a case where a German family is asking for asylum to homeschool their children as they want to raise them Christian. Makes sense to me. However, so far, our government has said, "You don't face religious persecution because the law applies to everyone, not just Christians." Which seems to be a somewhat silly way to defend that.

Also, in Germany, a family's house was stormed by police and social workers wielding a battering ram, who then took their children away by force.

I think we should let these people come into America. And if people in other countries need help, let our private, non-government aid groups could go and help them. Not our shooting missiles into their country with the chance that it will spread the targeted chemical weapons. That doesn't seem like much help.

Of course, America isn't as much the bastion of freedom that people used to immigrate to. Maybe we'll be looking for somewhere to claim asylum.

Syria

This week, that's been the main thing I've been thinking about. And from what I read, the consequences range from "We're not even sure we're going in yet," to the destruction of the world in the form of a nuclear World War III. I read some writers who may be overly dramatic. Or, maybe not.

And the thing with Syria has been going on a while now. I remember something mentioning it on the Daily Show back during the presidential election. I remember John McCain calling for intervention in Syria. I was just discovering my more libertarian views and I remember asking Dad, "what do we do when a country is committing crimes against its own people? Should we still remain non-interventionist?"

Dad wrote back, "I'm not 100% sure what the trigger is. The US is certainly inconsistent. This is a very dangerous road to go down because it isn't always clear who the good guys are and who the rebels are. Often these kinds of things come back and bite us and also our going in to kill people who are killing people doesn't sound like it is necessarily the most moral thing to do."

That is far more clear to me today than it was then. In fact, the more we learn how muddy the whole situation is, the more clear it is that going in is a bad idea. And that none of the "news" we've been delivered is necessarily accurate.

The way America puts it is that we are on the side of rebels against a regime who is willing to slaughter their own citizens and use chemical weapons on them. And because of the chemical weapon use, we will send warships with cruise missiles to take out their stockpiles of chemical weapons (If war was declared... or whatever we do to start it these days), along with considering sanctions, no-fly zones, and a lot of other war-like things without necessarily putting troops on the ground. Britain, France, Turkey, and numerous other countries back intervention.

In reality, we don't even have proof that the regime was the one using chemical weapons. UN inspectors only just decided that chemical weapons were actually used. It seems stupid to think that the regime, which was winning against the rebels, would use chemical weapons when UN inspectors were in the area, just in time to call down a mass of countries to interfere on the rebels' behalf. The rebels say the regime did it, the regime says the rebels did it, and both sides point fingers at each other. Also, the rebels have strong Islamist and terrorist links, and we are talking about aiding them and giving them weapons? Even the conflict in general isn't so clear. The rebels also kill people. It's not just a civil war made up of a distressed country against their government, but of two factions, neither having been reported as giving a care for civilian life.

And do we think that bombing chemical weapon stockpiles we not affect civilians at all? Somehow nobody will be hurt?

Unlike a few of our past wars, I think we are getting more and more disillusioned. We know this wouldn't be a fight for our freedom, and even the claims that we are going in because they were behaving badly, because we need to spread freedom and democracy by force, are not just being taken for granted.

Twitter has a trending hashtag called #NameObamasNewWar. A popular one is "Operation Nobel Peace Prize." Others pun on the name of Syria with "Operation Joker: Why So Syrias?" and "Operation Syriasly?" The Twitter account claiming to be the press account of hacktivist group Anonymous is calling people out for just tweeting, saying, "Operation American's are going to tweet and not much more." Other tweets they posted talk about how it would be better to aid the refugees and actually take action... instead of just exploding social networks, like we are.

Goodreads and Mistaken Identity

I must apologize. I did not know.

Apparently, that link on the side of my blog I had labeled "Goodreads" did not go to my Goodreads page; it went to the page of someone else named Linsey.

Apparently, my brother clicked over from my blog and was astounded by the content of my Goodreads page. "Linsey read the 50 Shades of Grey series?" he asked Mom. Mom did not think so, but confronted by evidence like a Goodreads page in my name was not sure.

Andrew told me I had read 50 Shades of Grey, as evidenced by my Goodreads page. I denied it and asked, "Are we even friends on Goodreads?" He laughs, says no, and I think it's a joke. My cousin Tyler says, "Really, I thought that was the sort of thing you'd be in to?" Apparently, my cousin and I are not close.

Later, Mom asks me if I've read 50 Shades of Grey. I deny it again. "It's on your Goodreads," she says. "Andrew found it. It says you gave them five stars." I get out my phone app and go through all 122 books I've bothered adding to Goodreads. No 50 Shades of Grey. "They aren't here," I tell her.

She pulls up my blog, clicks the link, and it goes to a page under the name of Linsey. There is no photo. And even though the spelling is the same, I have not read a single book under the "Read" list. "This isn't me," I tell her, also noting the lists have a different number of books on them than my lists.

But it links from my blog. Odd, that.

I have not read 50 Shades of Grey. I actually first heard of the book on Goodreads where a friend (read: someone I might have never actually met) had ranked it five stars. I was interested in good books, so I clicked on the link to read reviews. People had it recommended for people who enjoy "erotica." Wait a minute, I thought. I don't enjoy erotica. If the book has sex, I'd rather it fade to black in an insinuating manner. If it starts listing the name of parts, I'm done. I read the first Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) book. I finished it and resolved to not read another. I only read reviews on 50 Shades of Grey... mostly to be able to make fun of it better. Not only is it "erotica," but it is supposedly poorly written. And I cannot forgive that either. You defend it on claims that somehow erotica is a good thing? I attack on the Grammar Police front! Defend against that!

But no, I have not read it. I have no desire to read it. Unless to make fun of it in better detail. But from what I've heard of it, it's not even worth that.

I think I fixed my link now. You can tell it's me if I have a picture of me. The other Linsey didn't have a picture at all. Also, I have a decent amount of Steampunk books on my list. My favorite books include Neromancer, Calvin and Hobbes, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Chronicles of Narnia, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've read Star Wars books. And Steampunk books. And Fantasy books. Not erotica books.

It's also a shame because I stopped book reviews on my blog because Goodreads was a better platform for them. I haven't done a whole lot recently, but the book "In, but Not Of," was one of my most recent.

Really weird thing is that I test all my links. So if I was being consistent Linsey, I would have tested it back when I added it. And the idea that it links to another Linsey that I do not know seems suspect. Sad that someone sharing my name could have such a poor taste in books.

Link should work now. Please, let me know if it doesn't!

Parallel Lives... In My Head

I had an interview for a job today, part-time receptionist position at McFarland Clinic. In all, the interview went well. She said my dreads were not an issue and would pass my application up the chain. I guess that either they'll pick from her picks, or I might have another interview with the specific branch.

But it's not just an interview, ever. Every time I interview for a job, I live a lifetime in that job in my head. Sometimes it's fanciful. Sometimes it's grounded in reality. But it's always me trying to see if I can cope with working at that place. Because if I work somewhere over a month, it might as well be forever. I live in the moment (except when I have something to worry about). If something is over a week away, it might as well not be happening

And so, I was a receptionist in my head. I had a little desk, computer set up. Was polite. Had inter-office conflicts. Learned what the other receptionists did in their free time. Wondered if I had free time. Learned. Walked to work in the snow. Decorated the office for Christmas. And in all, it looked ok.

I have to know that because I'm scared I'll get stuck in a job I don't like without moving as an excuse. They said it's a high stress job. I've been in high stress situations and as long as there is structure, I can cope.

With Wheatsfield, I saw myself going to classes and getting connected with the hippies and when I had my first child, carrying them in a sling while checking people out (a woman there totally does that and it's adorable). It was the idea of community and fun coworkers.

Also, I wanted to be a pilot. I imaged flying and long trips and wheeling identical little suitcases through airports.

With Valvoline Instant Oil Change, I thought I'd become an awesome mechanic person. Then, you know, reality. Dream killer, that.

Oh, I'm scared to work! I'm scared to set a schedule and then have to meet it and request time off and so on. It's not that I am doing anything. It's that I have the infinite possibility to do things!

But I like money, too.

Oh, if I get a job at McFarland Clinic, I'd be required to get a flu shot every year. That or wear a face mask for all of flu season. I mentioned it to Mom, and she said, "small price to pay for a job." My convictions and principles are a small price to pay?

Eh. I'd get the shot. Ain't no way I'm wearing a mask for five months.

Follow-up to last post

I just HAD to share these with you, I found them after the last post.

Yoda Star Wars Onesie

Wookie Star Wars Onesie

That last one! Isn't it hilarious? Isn't it adorable? Squeeee!

Planning for kids (not the useful kind)

It is somewhat inevitable that I consider children at this point, even though I can't say assuredly I have decided I'm going to have them yet. Probably. But to all those people who keep asking, I'm still scared and David says another one to two years, when he's had a chance to finish the bathroom and save up a little money.

Don't tell me it doesn't always go according to plan. I know that. But that's not a good reason to not make plans, it's just a good reason to not have a death grip on a plan. But I digress.

Actually, I digress frequently. Have you ever had a conversation with me? I try and keep things efficient, but then I get off on these tangents...

Right then. The reasons I keep thinking about kids, despite my current desire to remain unencumbered (at least until after snowboard this winter vacation), are as follows. 1) The puppy. It gave me a brief glimpse into what it was like to care for another being entirely helpless. Though you know the puppy didn't work out (and that might say something about my maternal instincts), I was struck by the facts that while a puppy was always going to be a dog and pet, having a baby would be a far more worthwhile endeavor. And involve less biting, I hope. 2) My pregnancy scare. No, read that right. It was a scare, I AM NOT PREGNANT. Basically, after I got back from Boston, a combination of sickness and a weird reaction to my vitamins produced a morning-sickness-like effect. Enough that I actually bought a test. 3) As David and I are both the oldest and most married of both of our families (step not included), we are getting a lot of pressure to start producing the grandbabies, nieces, whatever, ranging from people being like "It's your calling in life!" to "I want a baby and I want it now!" 4) I volunteer at Informed Choices and with the number of pregnant women, baby paraphernalia and general subject matter, it's really quite impossible to not think about it.

So what are my plans? Well, unofficially, I know I will do a ton of research as that is my tendency. You have no idea how many things I learned about dogs. But as I will have around nine months to think about it, I'm putting it off for now. No need to go crazy. Also, I'll have nine months to come up with good arguments about what we should name our baby (not David Matthew Gravlin III), circumcision, and vaccination (preferably to not do either of those things).

David, if you are reading this, know my not talking about it isn't an admission of defeat. Just you wait.

But down to the real part of my planning. I am a geek. Not a serious solid I-know-every-Jedi-on-the-council geek, but I happen to love Star Wars and computer games.

And as Star Wars happened to be a staple of my childhood (I think I had more lightsaber and force games than standard war and guns), I am planning on it being a staple of my kids' childhood. And why not? It's hanging on pretty well for being such an old concept.

But what you should consider is the vast amount of awesome Star Wars themed kids stuff.

I present a bookshelf.

That, if you don't know, is an AT-AT, featured at the beginning of Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back. I recall a specific instance when a hill with a curving branch in front of it became an AT-AT cockpit for me and my siblings and friends. This could double as a doll house!

How about kids books?

Tell me those aren't cute.

How about an alphabet?

I think it's based on the animated web series, which I haven't watched since it was clearly made for children. But if Q stands for Quinlan Vos, who is not really present in any of the live action movies, that's my guess.

Seriously though, if my kids aren't geeks, I'm doing something wrong. It's too bad I quit World of Warcraft, cause from what I hear, you can get them to farm resources from a young age.

The lures of free sangria

That's it. I'm thinking about putting my foot down. No more biking to Prairie Moon.

Now, Prairie Moon is a local winery that has live music most Sundays during the summer. You can bring snacks, you can't bring drinks, and they sell their own wine, sangria, some beer, and pizza. The cover for Sunday is $3 and you get a complimentary glass of sangria... which they normally sell for $4, so really it's like they force you to buy a discounted glass of sangria. The horror.

Anyway, once a month they have "Cycle Sunday," meaning if you bike to Prairie Moon, cover is free. Including that glass of sangria. Considering I'm already a snobby biker, I don't need a whole lot more motivation to look down my nose at car-driving folk.

Except for one thing: there is no good way to get to Prairie Moon on a bike.

The first time I went, I convinced David to come with me since Mom and Dad were off doing something else assuredly less fun. And he would get in free and I would drink his sangria. Everyone is happy. So, using our phone navigation system's bike option, we maneuvered around north Ames a bit and then hit a bike path parallel to George Washington Carver Ave. And then it pulled an Ames on us and dead-ended with no warning and we had the options to either backtrack a ways to the last intersection or go through the ditch to get to the road. It had been raining and the bottom of the ditch was squishy, not that we could see it cause it was one of those unkempt or "natural" ditches and over our heads with grass.

So we made it to George Washington Carver Ave and were forced to ride as far to the edge of the road as we could, which wasn't far as the only shoulder it had was gravel, and in turn force people to go around us.

So next time I decided to bike, I used Navigator to find a different path. It too looped me through a bit of north Ames before directing me to some part of Ada Hayden that didn't have a paved path. I biked on something between crushed rock and gravel for a bit before it turned me on a path that had been gravel in a past life and was working hard on covering that fact up with foliage. Which led me to a gate I had to walk around out on to a gravel road called Grant Ave which was really loose in some spots and really bumpy in others. And a hill. I couldn't bike on the edge of the road because my bike would slide. Which in turn dumped me onto 190th street. At least that has a decent shoulder.

This time, I'm like, "It wasn't that bad." Though I did wear a helmet this time. Well, on Bloomington Road, they tore up the bike path from the four way stop all the way to Stone Brook and I had to ride on the road there. I stopped for a car on Grant Ave and with the gravel could barely get moving back up the hill. I started thinking about making my peace with God.

So, until somebody bothers to make a bike path from Ames to Prairie Moon, it doesn't seem like a very good idea. Not for free sangria, anyway.

Things You May Not Know!

Here is the first installment of Things You May Not Know! It is a section where I tell you something I have discovered that you may not be aware of.

Will this become a reoccurring segment?

That is a Thing I do not know!

Anyway.

Did you know that UPS truck drivers have special socks? They are brown and have the UPS logo on the side. I was somewhat astounded that such a thing existed the first time I saw it.

Recently, I met a UPS guy and asked him about the socks. Apparently, the only way they'll let you wear shorts in the summer is if you wear UPS special socks with them. And they cost $5 per pair and the logo falls off and it's just a bad deal all around.

Which in turn gave me enough information to identify another UPS guy not obeying the rules, wearing just regular black socks with his shoes. And I, of course, pointed it out to him.

"I guess I'm just a rebel," he told me.

And now you know.

Adventures in Ames!

Today, I biked around Ames. I would like to impress you with the number of places I went to.

Here it goes!

I went to:
Fareway
Hobby Lobby
Library
Joann's Fabric
Downtown Deli
Swanks
North Grand Wal-Mart
Duff Wal-Mart
Target
BAM
Wheatsfield
Grandma's Attic
Kohl's

And I stood outside the doors of Pita Pit and the Sunshine Thrift Shop or whatever it's called above Downtown Deli.

A moment of silence for Pita Pit, which is apparently closing.

No, really, it's a tragedy. I listed that place as my favorite cheap restaurant in Ames. My small group leader, Nikki, took me there way back in the day and I've loved it ever since.

*silence*

Anyway, today I had a mission. I had a few things to pick up and I wanted scout out things for my Steampunk outfit. Which didn't go very well, actually. Living in Ames has made me realize how limited my options for non-trendy things are.

But, in no particular order, I went to Fareway for Soy Sauce, Hobby Lobby to look at watch pendants, any other steampunk pendants, and leather pouches, Library to return a book and ended up picking up two other books, Joann's Fabric to inspect frabrics for my steampunk skirt (which I didn't end up doing. Apparently I need expert advice on this), Downtown Deli for lunch, Swanks to see if they could fix my cheap costume jewelry watch necklace (they couldn't), North Grand Wal-Mart as the first stop to see if they could fix said watch, Duff Wal-Mart to make up for Target not having anything, Target because I was looking for striped tights or stockings and a wide belt (didn't find any), BAM because I wanted a book on learning Turkish (not popular enough), Wheatsfield because I wanted anti-cold advice, Grandma's attic to see if they had any cool antique-y maybe steampunkish stuff, and Kohl's to check on a shirt I'm stalking.

I normally don't approve of "selfies" with a cell phone camera clearly shown, but this isn't Facebook. And I can't decide if I want that shirt in maroon (pictured), army green, or white. For Steampunk. And I can't buy the shirt until it gets at least close to $20. It started off at $45 and is currently 40% discounted.

And I bought/obtained:
1984 by George Orwell
Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card
Empire of Ruins by Arthur Slade
Kikoman Soy Sauce
A tiny bottle of Salty Watermelon UV vodka
Traditional Medicinals Echinacea Plus tea
A 7-inch wheat canadian bacon and swiss deli sandwich

And what did I learn? Ames is bad for Steampunk tendencies and I really wish I was still college age. I biked across campus three times today.

I think I liked it because it was one of those rare times where I belonged and was defined. I was a journalism student, a gamer, a dorm resident, and I shared those things with many other people, along with the buildings and campus and schedules and life.

But I don't miss homework. That can still die in a fire.

Live and Let Live

This past weekend, I attended the Family Leadership Summit here in Ames. It's a political Christian worldview sort of conference, which bemoans the direction we're heading in, expands on some of the current issues, and exhorts us to get involved. I found it entertaining and I didn't even stay long enough to watch Donald Trump.

One annoying thing was that I was pretty sure I was being profiled. I walk in the door, show them my ticket and get it scanned, and the guy directs me to the table to sign in. Not six feet further another guy is like, "You need to check in," blocking my way toward the rest of the building and point at the table that I'm walking toward. It's not like something that I thought about later and I'm like, "That might have been kind of weird." I was confused right then and just mutter, "Thanks." As in, do you not see me walking toward the table you're pointing at?

We were given lanyards with a tag on the end. It didn't have our name or anything, just a little Family Leadership Summit logo, title, time, website, and smart phone code for that same website. Later we went outside to eat our box lunches and as we were coming in, we were all wearing ours because we were told we wouldn't be allowed back in. Well, my tag had flipped around to the back, so it just looked white, but it was clear I was wearing the same navy blue lanyard with "The Family Leader" printed on it in white, right? "Would you flip that around?" a staff/volunteer asked me as I walked through the door. I smiled wryly and flipped it around. Seriously though, if I'd gone to the trouble of obtaining a lanyard and tag and thought maybe I could sneak in if only I cut out a piece of paper the exact same shape and size as the one everyone else was wearing... don't you think I'd have bothered stealing an actual one?

I don't know. It might be the dreadlocks. And the fact that I was fairly young compared to the rest of the crowd. I could be one of the picketing atheists, a troublemaker, or worse, a Ron Paul libertarian. Got me there, I guess.

I really enjoyed the conference, and I might touch on more of the things I learned and heard there in the days to come, but one thing really stands out to me.

I have a pretty lax "live and let live" social viewpoint. When it comes to gay marriage, I don't really know what to think. I don't care what they do as long as it doesn't infringe anybody else's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Religiously, I don't approve. Politically, I'm a libertarian. Less laws. I could be wrong in this and I realize it is a major Christian and Republican opinion that we need to save marriage. I've also heard that the government doesn't have any business in marriage anyway. I don't know.

However, what really really gets me is when other people aren't so much "live and let live," but they want it their way and they want you to want it their way and give your blessing, regardless of how you feel about it.

Gay marriage. I don't really care. Gays suing cake makers and photographers and people that own a church building because they don't want to patronize gay couples? I care. You and I and homosexuals all know that for every person who doesn't like them, there is another who is willing to tumble head over heels to show their support for the gay lifestyle. And from what I've heard, all the businesses that have turned down homosexuals have done so politely and offered references to other businesses who would not mind doing their service. If it were me, I'd be like, "Oh, ok, that's a bummer. I'll go where I'm wanted." Cause who would want to force a cake maker to make a cake for you when they don't want to?

And I believe that businesses all have the right to refuse service. If you own a business, you should be able to choose what to do with that business. If people don't like what you do, they can find a different business. Simple. If you are mad a business turns you out, you can decry them, post an editorial, raise public opinion or awareness, whatever. It's all about PR. But some people are out to start a fight. They find people who decline based on religious matters and go after them legally. It doesn't matter that you own your own photography business and should be able to choose your clients, we're going to sue you so you no longer have the choice. There might be 50 other cake-makers out there that wouldn't mind doing this for us, but we want it to be all of them. We aren't content for you to have your own opinion. We want your opinion and your business to be and do what we want them to. We aren't content with greater acceptance. We want total acceptance and we're willing to shove the legal process down your throat until you can't ever say another word against us.

Which makes me add air quotes every time someone says we live in a "free" country. Those are private businesses. They aren't infringing on any of your rights. You don't have the right to make a private business do what you want it to do.

Another thing that makes it clear to me is a story I heard about a homosexual couple suing an adoption agency for not letting them adopt. There are other adoption agencies out there that let homosexuals adopt. But they had to go after this one and it ended with the adoption agency closing its doors. What happens to those kids? The couple in their blind quest to make everyone accept them destroyed something that was just supposed to help children.

I wouldn't want to let them adopt either, as they clearly don't care about the children, just making their point.

Musings on Biking

I've been meaning to write a more general post on things I thought while on RAGBRAI.

Like about tandem bikes. You know, bikes that seat two or more people. Generally, that's usually two and not over four, although I did see this thing in one town that seated 24 people and was as wide as a car. It also had a driver and a motor for hills. But, in general, tandem bikes are two people entering into a deal that is not unlike marriage, in my opinion. The one in the back says, "I trust you enough to let you drive." I can see good things about tandem bikes. You never lose your biking partner on RAGBRAI. You can share music. The person in back can just chill and doesn't have to steer at all.

That said, I have no intention of ever riding a tandem bike. Let someone else steer a bike I am riding? Are you crazy? And I certainly don't want to be responsible for steering for someone else. I like my choices and my mistakes to be just mine. And I hear a lot of couples can't do them. They buy them and sell them back. And it'd probably take a lot of communication. The pedals move the same for both spots. It was actually creepy watching some people operating in total sync. They'd stand together, drop together, legs going exactly the same.

But you'd probably get more power on hills.

What else did I think about on RAGBRAI?  I should have written write after I got back. I can't remember anything specific longer than a week.

Oh yes, riding personalities. When I bike, it takes me a little bit to get warmed up, especially in the morning. I'll need like ten minutes or so of not going real fast. And then after that, I'm at my highest energy. In the beginning of RAGBRAI, I was often in front of Mom and Dad. And later in the day, I slow down a little. It becomes more traveling than charging. And on longer days, it then turns to survival.

Dad is like me, except he doesn't need to warm up, he can go fast right out of the gate. I often find myself behind him in the beginning. He too slows a bit as the day gets longer.

Mom... I'd say she is more of a sight-see-er in the beginning of RAGBRAI. She'd toodle along at her own pace, often the last of our party until we started getting near the end of the trail for the day. Dad and I would be slowing down at this point, but Mom gets what Dad refers to as the "horse to the barn" syndrome. She'll explain it as putting on her music or her "happy place" of biking speed or something like that, but the closer we get to being done, the faster Mom goes. One ride we did before RAGBRAI on the Raccoon River Valley Trail, a 72 mile loop, we were on the final path and Mom said she'd slow down as Dad had had enough of that ride. And then she turned her music on and was matching my 20-mile-per-hour tailwind speed. Dad accused her of speeding up.

Now, this ability is more than just the time of day. On the last day of RAGBRAI, we had a time limit. The course was officially closed at 15:00 and our bus was leaving at 14:30. Mom had an agenda. Dad and I were content to let her be first all day.

Back at home, I know why I can't go RAGBRAI speeds around town. There are too many stops, too many obstacles, and a lot of the roads and sidewalks are just bad. Another interesting thing about biking in Ames is careless people who pull through the crossing part of stop signs. Normally, and I understand this, people like to get as close to the road as possible when turning. But, as a biker, I cannot stand people pulling through stop signs. It is dangerous for one. If I'm on the sidewalk, I am not required to stop, they are. But if they don't see me, they could just hit me. And they'd be responsible in court, I'm sure, but I'd probably be the one injured. Especially since I don't wear a helmet. I know, bad me.

And the second annoying thing is that even when I am in no danger of being hit, I cannot cross at the crosswalk when there is a car sitting on it. Say it's at a light or waiting to turn onto a busy street. They can't go. And depending on the sidewalk setup and how close they are to the traffic, neither can I. Sometimes I can ride in front of them. Glaring. Sometimes I walk my bike behind their car. Glaring more. And sometimes I really can't go at all. Nice people will try and rectify their mistake by backing up. Normally I wave at them because even though it was their bad for pulling through, they went out of their way to let me by.

Although I had one person do this and he almost backed into the guy behind him, who honked at him. I looked sheepish when I was waving. Today I came on a truck who was blocking me and he had a red light. I stopped my bike and gave them a look which I think was half consternation and half annoyed amusement. I can't think of how weird it must have been. But eventually, the passenger got the hint and told the driver, who then backed up for me. I saluted as I passed.

Pens without stripes

I think the dreadlocks make me strange. I was at BAM, our Ames replacement for Borders, and I was buying a small journal. For inspiration. To not waste the money I just spent buying a small journal by not using it. Hey, we all play mind games.

Anyway, I was thinking about pens for my journal. A small pen would probably be not very fun to use. I like Zebra brand pens, but I only had one of them and I wanted something that I could keep with the journal. That I was going to use.

So I started looking around. The selection of pens from a bookstore was very... gimmicky. Most were cheap, several were stupid, and none of them had class. But I couldn't find Zebra pens. So I went up and asked if they had any.

"Oh... no, we don't have any of those."

"You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No."

Another guy was like, "Hey, I think we used to have them!"

"Not pens shaped like an animal. Despite the name, they do not have stripes or fur."

"What, are they some kind of gimmik?"

"No, they're nice pens!"

So I stopped at Wal-Mart and found them. I got a tiny bottle of vodka too in Salty Watermelon, which tastes like a salted watermelon Jolly Rancher. I thought about keeping the cute bottle, but then I realized I didn't have anything better to put in it than vodka.

So, I found a journal, found pens to go with it, and everyone is done, right? Go home and eat supper?

For some reason, I turned and went back to BAM, pulled my bike up to the door, marched in, pulled out my pens, and said, "I am here to educate you!"

"Oh... I've seen those before!" said one of the guys.

"You guys were looking at me like I was crazy," I explained. "Looking for pens with stripes."

And then I left. That was weird.

Conviction from Twitter (Warning: Long and not very funny)

I wasn't much for Twitter in the beginning. I didn't follow or was followed by any interesting people, so I almost never updated or even looked at the thing. I only picked it up again because it seemed like that was the sole source of some information. I follow computer game companies and when a server goes down or news comes out, sometimes they update Twitter before Facebook. Actually, there seem to be far too many different social media things that I have to watch. One time they changed a game of mine and I couldn't find anything about it on Twitter or Facebook and when I contacted them, they said they had put it on their blog... which is getting a bit excessive, in my opinion.

But anyway, I picked up Twitter again partially to follow my favorite people in the Voice. This proved to be a mistake as they normally posted inane things and reTweeted fan Tweets that consisted of no more content than "Retweet me!" Twitter updates too fast to follow it consistently. And I hate seeing vapid retweets.

So I went back to avoiding Twitter. The character limit is also highly annoying to me. Why not just use Facebook? Then one evening David and I were out with Mom and Dad, and Dad asked me if I used it. I certainly can't quote what he said, but it was something along the lines of following what's important to me. So I started following publishers, authors, and writing advice accounts. And ditched almost every single person from the Voice.

Earlier this month, I read something that has stuck with me from one of those writing advice ones. "Anyone who says he wants to be a writer and isn’t writing, doesn’t. ERNEST HEMINGWAY"

Most convicting thing I've read all year.

Those who know me know I've been obsessed with stories since I was a little girl, many of them emanating from inside my own head. When I was really small, I would have Mom put my hair in pigtails and they would be floppy puppy dog ears. I am also remembered for being a horse and a cat frequently. I played out stories with my dolls and Beanie Babies, tried to put myself into my favorite stories. I distinctly remember trying to imagine myself along for the ride in the movie The Silver Chair, pretending my parents' bed was a cart and collecting provisions and bringing along several stuffed Dalmatians for company.

I played with dolls a lot longer than a lot of girls, partially because I wasn't raised around them. And then I stopped, somehow realizing that what I could imagine inside my head was bigger than what I could act out with Barbies.

For a while, I penned a few scenes now and then, but usually didn't have any more background information than what had suddenly occurred to me. Those characters often didn't even have names. I discovered in school that I could usually say what I meant to say and had a decent gift with writing essays.

And thinking back on my life, I can often point out what I was imagining and what stories I was writing in each event. My imaginary world lives side by side with my real one. I've always been somewhat escapist, seeking to liven up any dull situation by simply traveling out of it. I've been telling myself stories to put myself to sleep for a long time. If I'm in between stories, sometimes I have a really hard time sleeping. If I have a good story, I can fall asleep almost anywhere.

But I can't write. If you know me, you also know that my biggest fear in life is failure. It's practically a phobia for me, a crippling, encompassing, constant fear. And you can quote all those people about "you miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don't take," and how if you never try, you will never succeed, but I know in my head that if I never try, nobody can see me fall. And maybe that's better than succeeding.

I want to write. But I am so desperately afraid of ever putting words to paper. It's like when I tried drawing characters I made up. I stopped drawing at all because the only things I wanted to draw were people and once I drew them, the vision in my head was replaced by the failure on the paper. So too, I'm afraid that writing it will reduce it to the words and grammar and mistakes. That putting down will reduce it to being criticized, killing it while still young. I'm afraid I don't have what it takes. I don't have the technical skill to show people my vision. I don't have the vision or inspiration worth ever writing about. I know too many other people, good writers, and they will succeed before me. I use adverbs to modify "said."

So do I want to be a writer? Not like a career, full time job or anything like that. I want a part time job, a few volunteer gigs, hobbies, and maybe a family. I've always thought I wanted to be. The stories are my life. I'm addicted to stories, I crave them, I overdose on them. But I don't know if I can.

RAGBRAI: Day 7

And... I am done. Today was downright chilly and we had a strong tailwind by the end of it. But I have dipped my tire in the Mississippi river and completed my first RAGBRAI. I feel accomplished. I am happy I won't have a hard mat and leaky tent. I am sad I won't be able to greet each new day from the seat of my bike with thousands of other riders or be whizzing by beautiful Iowa scenery.

It's over. I don't know if I'll be back next year. Honestly, it was some of the best conditions we could have asked for. And I don't know if I'll feel the need to do it every year. Maybe I should find something I can do with David. Something without Kybos.

We passed several little towns that were like relics of some forgotten age. I can't imagine how anyone could live in a town that small and that unchanged.

Victory!

RAGBRAI: Day 6

Ah, day 6. Wherin I decide I am more-or-less done. Probably partially because last night it rained again and I was forced to sleep under a towel.

It will be weird going back to normal life. Real life. I've been sleeping from about 21:00 to 05:00 every night, mostly because once I wake up, I am too uncomfortable to get back to sleep. And usually other people are stirring at that point as well. Also, I have been stuffing my face. I seriously eat something like every two hours, mostly because I get hungry that often. I'll have to get back into the habit of say, oh, less than 4000 calories. I also have one to two alcoholic beverages a day. But I've been burning about that much as well. It's going to be weird when the town no longer caters to me, I can't bike on roads, when I no longer earn everything I eat and drink.

Mom had an accident today. We were biking into a town with awful roads, part uneven brick and part concrete. I was hungry even though it was only 09:00 and Dad was leading the way to the food area. We both heard Mom calling out hello to the Bike World tent as we passed it.

We stopped for food and realized Mom wasn't with us. After a few moments, we figured she had stopped to talk with the Bike World people or something. Dad elected to watch for her while I went to get pizza. She tried to call me during that time, but the reception was awful and I couldn't hear anything. After I got pizza, Dad grabbed a slice and said he was going back to find her.

I took my pizza and waited by the side of the road, minute after minute, my brain conjuring up horrible ideas of what may have happened, freaking myself out, praying. I knew I shouldn't move because if Dad found her, he'd come back here with her, and if he didn't find her, he'd come back for me and we'd go looking together. I tried to get reception on my phone. I put my sunglasses on when I began to cry.

A guy also with the Bike World charter wandered over to me and asked me if I was OK, as I'd been staring down the road for several minutes. I could barely talk to him because if I talked, I would sob. I felt very juvenile, a 26-year-old girl saying she can't find her mommy. As I was talking to him, I saw their familiar outlines coming down the hill.

When Mom got there, she was telling me about how she'd gone over her handlebars hitting an uneven part of the street, how her bike had been damaged and she'd needed the seat replaced, but I collapsed into her arms, sobbing, "I was so worried!" She has a few bruises, a bandaid on one knee, and an expensive and nice new bike seat. I am so happy she was OK. I've wondered that before. We always have plans to meet up in the next towns, but if something did happen, would the cell phone network be able to help us? What if we got loaded unconscious on the back of an ambulance? How long before the others would figure out we were missing or where to go? Thank God he's kept us safe so far.

Otherwise, today was easy which was good because I was low energy. Tomorrow is over 60 miles and we have to be done by 14:30.

RAGBRAI: Day 5

Shoot, I forgot to blog. I have about two minutes before I want to be asleep.

I'm starting to hear drops hit my tent. Hopefully, it will hold this time. Hopefully it will be considerably less windy. And only sprinkle. If even.

Today was a lovely ride. Full of hills, but I expected them today. We went through Pella, which seems so much like a charming dutch-themed town that I questioned whether anyone actually lived there.

We went over a dam. It was pretty amazing. Also, mom and I have decided that Tom's Turkey (or was it Turkey Toms?) had the best strawberry banana smoothies. Although the banana could be stronger, in my opinion.

I want to wax on my thoughts about riding, tandem biking, riding personalities, and the like, but I also want to go to bed, and typing on my phone isn't quite up to keyboard typing, in my opinion. Maybe tomorrow.

RAGBRAI: Day 4

Day 4 done. And really, seriously, the morning is my favorite time. In the first two hours, I sit there exalting on my bike seat. I feel that I love biking, love RAGBRAI, and love life. I'm reminding myself of that right now. By noon I am ready to be done and sit lounging around at camp the rest of the day.

Today was fairly short, but quite hilly. Tomorrow promises to be equally hilly. It seemed that every hill we finally get to the top of inevitability leads to another hill. This is supposed to be the sixteenth flattest route. I have to wonder what the hilliest one was like.

I'm probably being spoiled this RAGBRAI. The weather is beautiful, the routes are short. Actually, a few days ago I had an unpleasant encounter with an enthusiast who thought the same thing. On Day 2, the longest day and the longest ride I had ever been on, I was exhausted and in line for the showers. A circle of chairs had been set up for the line and every time the person in front was called, everyone would move up one.

"I'm too tired for musical chairs," I grumbled out loud.

"Well, then you shouldn't be doing RAGBRAI, that's the way I see it, sister. This your first time?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you would have never have made it last year."

"...thanks."

Thanks to my rather curt answers, she stopped talking to me and turned to talk to the guy next to her about how much last year sucked in a rather one-upper way.

Yes, last year would have been miserable. I worked at the oil change place then and I would go out the door in the morning and start sweating and would roast all day in the bays and pit and not stop until I went back home ten hours later, showered, and actively avoided anything that might make me perspire for the rest of the evening. It would have been hell to ride RAGBRAI then. But seriously, a brand new rider is tired but victorious after the hardest day and it's all you can do to tell them their accomplishment is nothing? To make them feel bad for not being more miserable? It really ticked me off and both Mom and Dad told me to ignore it and one-uppers are insecure and so on. But really the sting was taken out by Dad turning it into a running joke. I say it seems like after every hill we went up, we'd go down and then up again. He then says, "It's nothing compared to last year." Which he didn't go on. It takes me a second and then I'm like, "You punk!" in a friendly manner. "Last year," he continued, "every time we got to the top of a hill, there'd be another hill and we'd have to go up again."

Right now, chilling out under the big tent Bike World sets up with chairs for people to relax in. Mom's giving me a massage cause my shoulder muscle was acting up and the massage-er was booked. We're waiting for the sun to go down so we can be in our tents without getting hot and go to sleep. Early days here.

Tomorrow, more hills. Of course, nothing like last year.