That's What I Think

We are so much more beneath the skin

Just last week a friend of mine was telling me how she's organizing a national contest that involves pianists from a range of different places as well as walks of life. She told me waitresses, laborers, all types of people who are gifted with that type of musical ability will compete during this event next week. I didn't get any more details than that, or the official name of the contest. I believe she is going to be sending me more information, in case I want to volunteer to help prepare for it with her this weekend.

However, that snippet of conversation between us, during a quick snack break in the office cafeteria, really made me do a double take. I guess, like everyone, I have my own ideas of how things are and aren't, and often think people can be neatly categorized into neatly labeled packages. I have to remind myself now and then that just because a person waitresses at a restaurant or shines shoes for a living -- that doesn't mean that what we see is the total sum of who they are.

I don't believe I'm the only one who makes snap judgments in this way. I'm kind of ashamed that I do. I just assume that a person working in the auto parts store never went to college or even dreamed of it. I really can't talk, at 35 years old, with no degree to speak of. It just never happened for me. The timing was never right when I was young and wanted it so badly I could taste it. By the time the opportunities were more available to me I was making a good living and needed the full-time salary to survive; so I couldn't just quit to attend school. I tried more than once to attend evening classes, and it interfered with so many other things I wanted to do in life -- which was, well...to have a life. I wasn't able to make that commitment that many other working adults do for years in order to have the honor of a degree bestowed upon them. I don't know if I ever will. I have no energy, willpower, much less mental acuity left at the end of the working day. I jumped in with the best intentions at a few different schools, many times. I've had to put that dream on the backburner. You can't live in this society without working full-time, and going to classes late into the night and trying to rise early is not an option for me.

Anyway...maybe these hardworking people I see in restaurants, or working on construction projects by the side of a busy highway, are more dedicated than I am. Maybe they do what they do just to bide their time as they struggle through long hours of college courses that will, in the long run, send them into careers more to their liking. We can't know everything by the skin on the outside of one another. So I know that I need to work on not assuming I know everything about other people from what I see on the outside.

My friend's mention of this competition really brought this home for me. Maybe some people have menial jobs or quiet, simple lives. But deep inside of some of them, as in everyone, something surprising lives and breathes that might astonish us if we better took the time to know them.

Let's make this improved perception of those around us something that we take to heart, and not be so quick to throw away the chance to meet amazing people.

What Defines Us: A List

Recently I read someone's blog. I don't recall whose it was. But the writer made a list of things that defined her - likes and dislikes, etc.

Because I love scrawling lists and random thoughts on receipts and the backs of index cards, etc. (linear thinking is for the birds), I decided to apply that obsession to a blog entry and slap down the beginnings of my own list. I plan to try to hit 100 items, but so far I've only made it to #29.

1 - I love a challenge, puzzles, crosswords, etc.

2 - My favorite way to drive is across open country, the windows down, hair blowing in the wind and some road trip tunes on the radio.

3 - My favorite date is not a fancy restaurant, but a picnic on a nice day on some soft grass, with nowhere to rush off to.

4 - My favorite item of clothing is a broken-in pair of blue jeans. If I could, I'd stay in worn jeans, sandals and floral blouses all of the time.

5 - When people say, "Shed-U-Ele," I want to shake them in the way you should never, never, shake a baby.

6 - Humor, to me -- that unabashed ability to laugh that shakes a person and those around him or her to the bone -- is one of the most important qualities in a friend or love interest.

7 - I love the electric feeling in the air moments before a late-afternoon or evening thunderstorm, and then the resulting heavy rain that pelts the windows.

8 - I love the smell of freshly cut grass.

9 - I love books so enjoyable that I lose myself in them.

10 - I most want to travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia; and Australia and Prague, and maybe return to Alaska and Switzerland one day.

11 - I want to return for a few days to my humble Alabama hometown of a few hundred residents, just to look around and see what I remember, to come full-circle.

12 - Nothing's as good as a slice of pound cake or warm homemade chocolate chip cookies with a tall, cold glass of milk.

13 - When I first joined the Army, I was the fastest runner out of 60-something people in my platoon and once ran a 6:15 mile.

14 - I collect shot glasses from the places I go.

15 - I'm a Virgo, born on September 15.

16 - On the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, I'm an ENFP.

17 - I occasionally lucid-dream.

18 - My favorite books to read are nonfictional: Travelogues, sociological topics, books about small-town life, like those by Garrison Keillor - but fictional books do grab me now and then, when I need an escape.

19 - I have no qualms about going to any restaurant and sitting at a table for one.

20 - My two passions in life are photography and writing. I think it's because I have always felt that even mundane everyday things are worth recording. There lies the depth of our lives in those small, short moments.

21- I'm not a neat freak, although I play one in my current residence. I don't need to make the bed each morning to be happy.

22 - I placed in spelling bees and French contests in middle and high school.

23 - I used to be painfully shy. It was almost incapacitating until I joined the Army.

24 - I pride myself on seeking to know more and explore more in life.

25 - I wish I got out more and did some walking and sightseeing in the District on weekends or evenings.

26 - I love doing things spontaneously. I'm not very consistent, but I am spontaneous.

27 - I make a mean guacamole. That's about as close as I come to cooking, besides bacon and eggs.

28 - I'd much rather walk a little farther than be the lazy American and go to my car just to drive down a few thousand feet to park somewhere else and get out.

29 - In the past 10 years of my life, I've had sleep paralysis a handful of times. It's weeeiiirrrddd, but totally harmless.

Find Your Spot: Where Would You Like to Live?

I think one day when I've had my fill of the Washington DC Metro area I might like to move back down South or to the Midwest.

Find Your Spot is a fun website I found years ago. It suggests U.S. locales where you might feel at home. Just for shits and grins, I took the quiz again to see where I might want to end up, that is according to the answers I provided to the various questions in the quiz.

So, my results are posted here.

Video: Fuerzas Comando 2008

I'm a proud member of the U.S. Army National Guard's 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment out of Baltimore, MD. In that unit, I'm a photo/print journalist.

During my two weeks of annual training recently, I took part in covering Fuerzas Comando 2008, a rigorous competition featuring special operations forces teams (including our own U.S. participants) from 17 countries, from Central, South and North America, as well as the Caribbean. This was the first time it was hosted in the United States. It was a blast to cover, despite the not-so-desirable living arrangements and a touch-and-go work environment. I had a wonderful opportunity to really hone my craft.

I wanted to share with you a video produced during a very short time span at the end of this competition, by unit member, broadcast journalist, Brad Staggs. Still shots used in this video were taken by myself and other Soldiers in our unit. It truly was a team effort.

Seeing Sarah Brightman in Concert in November!

I am so totally jazzed that I'm finally going to see Sarah Brightman in concert! I've been a huge fan of hers for years. Tickets set me back a bit, but I have been waiting for years to live near one of the venues where she would perform.

For those of you who don't know her, think of the scene in the movie The Fifth Element. It was her voice coming out of that weird blue alien female being on the stage. Most people who do not know of her get that reference.

She's Andrew Lloyd Webber's ex-wife as well.

I'm kind of a weird bird, I think, as women go (but maybe not). I'd much rather spend money to do something -- travel or see a concert, have an experience -- than buy $100 shoes. True, I did just spend a wad on a dress at Lord & Taylor to attend a wedding; but that is a rare expenditure for me.

Anyway. It's finally happened. This is so cool I would have put it on my Bucket List, if I weren't already set to do it. I'll be happily seated in the club seating section to see the show, November 19, at Verizon Center, barring any sudden military deployments or cataclysmic happenings.

To refresh your memory, here is a YouTube clip of "The Diva Dance," from The Fifth Element, featuring Sarah Brightman's voice. For some reason, you have to go 43 seconds into this video to get to the beginning of it. The Fifth Element is also one of my favorite movies, me being a SciFi fan and all.

Enjoy!

Check Out My Blog: Southerner at Large

By the way...Y'all come on over and check out my blog of childhood memories from growing up in Alabama.

It's called Southerner at Large.

I started keeping it when I realized I had forgotten so many details about where I grew up.

I always believe that life is a patchwork of personal stories. Each of us has one, no matter how trivial we may think it is. I think mine's pretty plain, but getting down things I remember along the way means a lot to me.

For a long time, I just wanted to leave it all behind, change my accent and just move onward. Maybe it's the point I've reached in this 35th year of my life that makes me turn and look back to accept every moment in my life. Whatever is spurring this need to delve into my background...it means a lot to me. I believe that no matter how far we will all go in life, we always need to return home, at some point -- whether literally or figuratively.

No matter how rural and boring it may be to me now, I still yearn to travel back to the small town of Lexington, Ala., where I grew up, just to let my mind remember, and to see how things have changed.

There is no greater passion for me than recording my impressions of life through writing. So what better way than to use it to thread the beads of my experience together into something whole?

God, I'm starting to sound hokey. I think it's time to go now.

 

Man Cannot Live on Cheetos Alone; Or Can He?

A healthy daily dose of lean proteins and a variety of veggies be damned. These days it seems I'll live longer by making sure I only eat highly processed, chemical-laden foods. I think I'll start subsisting on nothing but a diet of my favorite junk food, Cheetos. With my fingers orange-tinged with gunk, at least I can be assured of a bit more safety in my food choices. Although Twinkies and Little Debbie snack cakes have no nutritional value to speak of, at least chemically processed foods of this type won't give me a deadly disease.

Well, not immediately. Sure, heart disease probability and such. But at least I might not become a victim of E. Coli or Salmonella.

It's bad enough we live in a world that seems to be steadily growing worse in rising costs just about everywhere we look; a world of eternal war, strife and spreading population. Now we have to wonder every time we eat a hamburger, which could be possibly deadly on two counts, if we top it with a fat, juicy slice of tomato.

As of today, these are the top headlines. This makes me want to pack everything up and move to the middle of nowhere to lay down a garden and breed my own cattle for beef and cows for dairy products. I guess that's why making a Bucket List is now more important than ever. Life is too short to worry about scares like this. There will always be a new one to replace one as it fades into the past. All you can do is live it up and live well; and don't forget to indulge a bit when the opportunity calls.  

E. Coli Illnesses Prompt Beef Recall

U.S. Officials Stymied in Salmonella Search

Creating a Bucket List

I recently returned from a "stimulating" National Guard "vacation" that dragged on for two weeks at dusty, desolate Camp Bullis, Texas. While there, one of my fellow Soldiers had brought along the movie The Bucket List, a film I'd been wanting to see for quite a while. I was able to see at least part of the movie before it was interrupted by a work concern, and it was too late to finish it.

Still, it reminded me that I was going to create my own Bucket List a few months ago and never got around to it. Since there is no time like the present, I tried to come up with a beginning to my own Bucket List that will probably grow and change with time.

What would you put on your list? Although it could seem morose at first, I think this is a great perspective to work from. Making a huge sum of money wouldn't top my list, if I only had a month or so to live -- unless I had a family or maybe to fund my last wants -- i.e. faraway travels, etc. If I weren't looking from the perspective of a short time to stay on this earth, and you asked me what I wanted in life...I'd probably say things like -- get back to a size 7 in jeans; make a million dollars -- or other short-term examples of wants and needs. But were life to hang in the balance, I'd add goals that were much more meaningful or adventurous to me personally:

-- Keep a sense of humor to the end. Humor, in my opinion, is the most essential of life traits. I could never love a man without a sense of humor. I could never work somewhere where no one had a sense of humor. It is like air and water for me.

-- Be able to give as much to others' lives as they give to me; random acts of kindness and such.

-- Reunite with my son, who was stolen from me at a very young age.

-- Own a home.

-- Attain a degree in folklore studies (well, any degree, for that matter -- although I guess that couldn't be done in a month's time).

-- Write and publish a book.

-- Get married again, if it's right, and have it last as long as I live.

-- Travel to Australia and New Zealand.

-- Drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini full-throttle down the Autobahn.

-- Learn to play the piano.

-- Take a glacier cruise in Alaska.

I'm sure there are more items to add to this list. Funny how difficult it is to come up with dreams of such importance. Isn't it funny how when we are kids we seem to know just what we want? At a young age, we are curious and unafraid. We throw ourselves into so many new things, exploring life one moment at a time. As an adult, I yearn for throwing aside all caution and really living in the now, but I find that difficult. There are too many distractions, and not enough time. Life seems all about nothing but surviving by means of our jobs. I find that my mind centers on high gas prices, keeping to my schedule in this hectic commuters' environment, and what to have for dinner and then cram into each evening. Then, when I have a weekend, I want so badly to do something with it, and I find it squandered, before I know it, running errands and preparing for the week ahead. I've never even had a real vacation, despite having traveled extensively; it's all been on the military's dime.

Surely, life can be more than this trivial routine lived like a hamster on a wheel that never moves from its track? I hunger for something I cannot name in life -- more boldness, a different place to live from where I am, with more space to breathe and stretch my legs, a deeper grasp and understanding of life. What do you wish for?