Chicana on the Edge

Facebook

2009-07-17T20:51:00.002-05:00

On June 20 I posted that Facebook fails to draw me because I'd rather talk to friends in person than online. That was a comparison between blogging/emailing and having live friends in the room with me. But it's damn hard to get live people in the same room with me. Grown-ups don't make much time for each other. I'm often left with email as my main way of keeping in touch.

But recently it's even become hard to connect through email because I have friends and family that don't check their email accounts as often as they log in to Facebook. I'm learning that can get their attention better on Facebook than I can with email or voicemail messages.

When the party moves to the other room, you have to move with it. Here goes my Facebook experiment. And we'll see if I successfully linked this blog to my Facebook page.

So how is married life treating me?

2009-06-20T12:02:00.001-05:00

In the spring of 2004, almost exactly five years ago, I had a do-nothing job that gave me hours in front of an online connection every day. I was just emerging from a period of social isolation. I had few friends, longed for a romantic relationship and had a lot of free time. I craved connection with others and longed to be a part of a community.

I started this blog.

With one of those rare jobs that pays ridiculously well for an infinitesimal workload, I primarily maintained this blog at work. You might be able to look at the times that I posted during those early months and confirm this. By the end of 2004 I had left that job and started my three-year restaurant career. During that time I posted a lot late at night, which is perhaps a more typical blogging hour.

I spent a lot of this blog mucking around in loneliness and pining for a man. It's clear to me now that I was most prolific when I was most miserable. But over the past five years I've worked hard to build new friendships, solidify connection and create a real-life community of people who I regularly invite over to eat my food. And I found a man to marry. As a result, my emotional dependence on this blog has diminished so much that I seem to have stopped posting. In fact, it has been so long since I last used this blog as an outlet for my ruminations and emotions that I've sort of forgotten how to do it. Typing this right now feels odd.

I craved intimacy and this blog provided it. I still crave intimacy, but now I get it from my friends and my husband. Maybe this is why Facebook fails to draw me. It might seem like a natural fit for someone like me, with a history of blogging and online community, but it doesn't fit because I'm no longer interested in "spilling it" onto a keyboard. Now I do that in person.

Married life is mostly good. There are things I miss about living alone (like quietness and my great spinster pad that got so much natural light), but I'm happier with this particular person in my life. Getting married was a good move for me because it attached me to someone who is so buoyant that I can never drag him down, no matter how gloomy and emotional I get. Before our first date (we met online, of course), Bob Martin described himself as happy-go-lucky, funny, super-easy to get along with and the guy everyone wants to be friends with/work with. That has all turned out to be true. He has his bad days and sometimes his job gets to him, but life never looks completely black to him. His attitude towards the world and everyone in it is amazing to me and I need to be around it even if (or especially because) I'll never attain it myself.

But no matter how well it's going, I know that few marriages last for decades. Bob and I have the advantage of having started this marriage late in life (in our 40's), so it's possible that it will last until one of dies. With less ground to cover in front of us, we've minimized the length of time we have to navigate this institution that some call "unnatural," an opinion with which I can't disagree. Why does society expect two changing, evolving people to occupy such an extremely intimate dynamic, happily, for an unlimited amount of time? It's ridiculous and since I'm rarely surprised when a marriage fails, I hope I'm not when/if mine does.

However it plays out - we divorce, he dies -- I have some expectation that I'll be single again one day, that my role as a wife is temporary. Maybe this is realistic, or maybe I'm in denial: afraid of long-lasting intimacy and trying to regain my former spinster freedom. It's probably the second explanation. No matter how happy I am with Bob, I still see spinsterhood as providing freedom, safety, room to move. I'm what you could call happily married, but I remember the advantages of being single: taking vacations wherever I wanted to go; eating boxes of cupcakes with no one to see the empty containers; spending my money on anything I wanted without ever having to discuss it; being unemployed without dragging anyone down but myself; setting up the exact living space I want.

I am happily married, but I still see the advantages of being alone. I don't know if all the other married women have forgotten those advantages or if they ever knew them. Maybe the sisterhood of married women lives by unspoken rules, one of which is to never express true longing for singlehood, at least not until you're ready to file for divorce. That's too bad because there must be ways to preserve some of those wonderful spinster freedoms even within a marriage.

Today Bob and I discussed going on a vacation to my favorite place in the world: Breitenbush Hot Springs. I took two vacations there when I was a swinging spinster and swore I'd continue regular visits for the rest of my life. But it all came to a halt when I started vacationing with Bob two years ago. Every once in a while I think about Breitenbush with sadness and longing. It's still my favorite place. I see it in my mind whenever I need to relax.

During our talk it became clear that Bob has no desire at all to go to Breitenbush. A beautiful natural resort where you eat vegan food, take yoga classes, relax in the hot springs and basically do nothing? Not only is there no cell phone reception, they have only one landline for office and emergency use only. Bob wants nothing to do with this place.

But he wants me to go back. He wants me to take some vacation time and either go alone or invite a friend. This is a stunning offer. I can go alone? The spinster can swing again?

So marriage is treating me as well as someone like me can accept and often even better. I'm not complaining. Actually I do complain, quite a bit, all the time, but I at least try to keep the really toxic stuff to myself. You'd have to ask Bob if I succeed.

Our First Wedding Anniversary!

2009-03-25T06:08:00.002-05:00

One year ago today, Bob and I married and my spinsterhood ended. One year down, 49 to go. Good thing we're just in our 40's...

The "R" Word

2009-03-22T22:13:00.006-05:00

The Special Olympics has declared March 31st a "national day of awareness." They are out to get rid of the "R-word" and so am I. Why do people think this word is okay? I know people who say things like "It was retarded" when they mean to express distaste or disgust. I've asked people to please stop using this word because it bothers me, but apparently people who use the R-word really have it entrenched in their vocabularies.

The campaign by the Special Olympics is called "Spread the Word to End the Word" and in a statement about it, it says "Most people don't think of this word as hate speech, but that's exactly what it feels like to millions of people with intellectual disabilities, their families and friends..This word is just as cruel and offensive as any other slur."

They're targeting people ages 18 to 30 with their ad campaign and are asking people to vow not to use the word at www.r-word.org. Across the country 300 schools have committed to hosting rallies on March 31st.

I'm grateful that CNN ran this story on their website and that I saw it. I've emailed it to those friends who I've asked to stop using this word. I'm very glad to have some backup on this one because I've felt very alone in my preference that people not talk this way. I really hope the Special Olympics makes some headway on getting it through people's heads that this language is not acceptable.

Building Community

2009-03-03T20:28:00.002-06:00

At the beginning of the year, I became convinced that a new year's resolution support group was just the thing I needed to help me with some health and relationship goals. I sent an email to all my women friends and asked who wanted to meet. Only a few replied and even fewer showed up to brunch at a local restaurant on January 10, 2009. I figured I'd work with whoever was willing.

To my surprise, this group has now met three times and each time at least one more person joins us. We call it "the '09 group" and we are committed to supporting each others' goals for 2009 (I tried to call it the "Less Whine in '09 Group" but it was just too hokey). I just wanted some support on my goals, but to my delight people are really into this. We started with five women; now there are nine. We've moved from restaurants to meeting at someone's home for a potluck brunch one Saturday a month. This is what we do.

After we've gotten our food and chatted and settled in, we go around the circle and each person has the floor for about 15 minutes. She just checks in with where she is on the goal(s) she has chosen to focus on. Some of us have just one goal we want to work on with the group. Some have many. My goals are to stop consuming corn syrup, reduce all sugar consumption and to reach a feeling of peace regarding my relationships with my parents. I have made surprising progress on these goals and it's just March.

The main challenge of the '09 group is having enough time. Sometimes the person checking in just needs us to listen, sometimes she wants perspective and opinion and sometimes she's stuck on a problem and needs real advice. With nine participants, our last meeting lasted over three hours. But I've checked with everyone and nobody minds the time commitment. It seems that in these times, we need all the help we can get. The best survivors know how to use resources, including support from others. With layoffs and job searches and stress levels increasing, I think everyone is drawing on their survival skills these days. The '09 group women are getting an extra way to practice some of those skills.

We didn't all know each other at the start. I founded the group by calling on my friends, but some of them have invited others that I didn't know. Some people are only familiar with one other person in the group. I love this dynamic because it means we also get to practice friendship. That's an excellent goal for 2009: learning how to be friends with other women. As I said in a recent post, being able to make and stay friends with women is a lifelong challenge for some of us and many women have feelings of loneliness and failure when it comes to women friendship.

So I offer this as a nice, focused, low-pressure way to build community, more important than ever in this economy. It also offers an invaluable chance to practice being a facilitator/hostess. You carefully keep things moving, conscious of the time, keeping people focused, but also doing your best to make sure everyone is getting what she needs. Afterwards people thank me, but I feel grateful to them because of what they're doing for each other. I couldn't possibly know what to say about every person's life challenges, but as a group, we have more wisdom than any of us would have alone. And it works.

Use the upcoming spring as your theme. Invite your friends to turn over a new leaf and set new goals for themselves. Tell them how much greater their chances of success are if they have the support of others. Soon they'll be helping each other with problems they had previously felt overwhelmed by. Everyone can use a support group like that.

How to Be Friends

2009-02-01T17:56:00.003-06:00

I think grown ups, for the most part, suck at friendship and we often have no good role models for it. When I was growing up, no one modeled successful adult friendship for me and I'm only just now (age 42 1/2) learning how to become and stay friends with women. It's the "staying friends" part that's the challenge. Even after I learned how to make friends with women, I used to give up on them at the slightest disagreement and for most of my life I've had no friendships that were older than a few years. I didn't like it, but I didn't know what to do about it. By hammering away at this friendship problem and not giving up, I have finally started to learn the following:

1. Not every friend has to be fascinating, intelligent, hilarious, attractive and have amazing connections. I've learned not to cut people off because they don't have my same sense of humor and my same interests, etc. because often those people have other gifts I haven't noticed yet. Maybe they give amazing legal advice or have in-laws just like mine and can relate or have insight into my job situation. You also never know who's going to turn out to be the friend who stands by you in your worst times. It's often not who you expect.

2. Even if someone pisses me off and is clearly the most selfish person I know, those aren't reasons to decide she's not my friend anymore. It shocked me the first time it happened, but I have actually worked it out with a friend I was in total disagreement with and today we're still friends. Believe it or not, people are often approachable and open to talking it out. If someone really values me as a friend, they'll want a chance to adjust behavior that bothers me or at least listen to my viewpoint. It takes bravery, but after a lifetime of fear, I've finally started giving people a chance to work on a friendship instead of deciding that a bump in the road means it's never going to work.

3. If I stop being friends with everyone who displays poor judgement or co-dependent behavior or bigotry or general assholery, I will have no friends. This doesn't mean putting up with a bunch of jerks who mistreat me, but it does mean allowing people to be human and maybe talking with them about it. Definitely I want to give friends as many chances as I'd want them to give me (OH, yeah..).

4. It's important to have many friends because some WILL fall in love or move away or become serious jerks you have to cut loose or whatever and then you'll need your other friends to fill in the space they left. This is another reason I don't put too many expectations on every single one of my friends: if I can't get love and support from my closest, most bestest friends, I'll take love and support from my not-so-close friends. Love and support are that important.

5. Every woman I've ever talked to about this stuff has had a LOT to say. We women tend to be so afraid to raise the topic of friendship, but we all have the same fears and feelings of failure about it. And many of us have a similar level of loneliness.

I don't mean to sound like I know everything. I've learned all of this the hard way and I still get judgmental and impatient with people and I still fight loneliness all the time. But I think if you can stay in contact with people and not have this reaction when they make a mistake, "Oh, she's THAT kind of person. I can't be her friend anymore," then you can really build a social circle. When you do, stick with it because you never know who you'll meet through these kinds of social circles. Some of us actually are fascinating.

Inauguration Cake

2009-01-20T18:49:00.002-06:00

My life in cake. I took this to work today.

it's over

2009-01-20T17:19:00.002-06:00

The Bush administration is over and the Obama administration has finally begun. Finally. It's the biggest day in American history that I have lived through and, probably, that I will ever live through. And I had to work.

Of course, many had it much worse. There are those who were being laid off as President Barack Obama gave his first presidential speech. There were people dying as it happened. Et cetera.

But no matter what else was happening, most of the world was, at least, aware that today the United States swore in this man who stirred hope in many people just when we were about to need it most. Without his campaign of bootstrap enthusiasm and almost irrational optimism, I think we would have met the stock market crash of September 2008 with even more fear and panic than we did. Without his unshakeable smile and bizarre confidence in our ability to rebound, I think the past three months would have been even harder than they have been.

On a different point, one thing that particularly impressed me about his speech was that he said "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers." He included me! I'm an atheist. Has any president ever included atheists and agnostics in their inaugural address? Or any address? He included us as part of the strength of the "patchwork" of our society. Atheists are becoming increasingly organized and even have a lobby in Washington. I take President Obama's inclusion of us as further evidence that our culture is beginning (beginning) to recognize that there are people who don't believe in a god and we're not cursed souls. Beginning to.

President Obama. We can finally stop with all that "president-elect" stuff. President Obama!

And George Walker Bush is gone. He's finally, finally gone. And I still don't forgive those who voted him in for a second term.

Heavy Quietness

2009-01-10T19:53:00.003-06:00

Today Chicago got several inches of snow. When I woke up this morning at 7 a.m. there were a good few inches of snow on all the cars outside and it was still snowing. It was still snowing two and a half hours later as I fought my way through unplowed streets to go meet friends for brunch. I was almost knee-deep in it wherever I walked.

It was still snowing (even harder) at noon when I gratefully accepted a ride to the el train station so I could go downtown. The prediction was that it would continue to snow into the afternoon. When it snows that hard, salt trucks and snowblowers can't keep up and the roads and sidewalks become stark white barriers to mobility. The streets that have gotten some salt develop huge puddles at the corners where people have to cross. My boots were barely keeping my socks dry and my right ankle was hurting like an old person with every step.

But I loved it. I was born and raised in California, but I love this weather. At the age of 22 I moved from California to upstate New York, which was where I realized that I loved seasons and never wanted to live in California again. On my 27th birthday I moved to Chicago, partly for the cold, snowy, long winters. I've been here 15 and a half years and I still enjoy the winters. I never expect to move again.

What I love about a day like today is that the snowfall gives everyone the perfect excuse not to do stuff. The news broadcast even advised that if you didn't absolutely have to go somewhere you should stay home. Great! What better reason to blow off running errands and just curl up with a good magazine or your TiVo list. When you're tired of that, there's going online, trying out a new recipe, calling someone just to chat or simply lying still and falling asleep. These are my favorite things to do.

I love snowy winter days like this because things slow down and get so much quieter. You can just give up on the outside world, turn inward and enjoy the silence. I just made one trip before I gave up and spent the day at home. As I sat on the train, which trundled slowly along, I gazed at the beauty of the city under snow siege. The rooftops looked like frosted cakes to me, and there's nothing I like better than frosted cake. In fact, the whole world looks like a dessert to me when the snow is coming down like that. I know it eventually goes gray and slushy, but at first it's beautiful. The few people in the train car sat in silence, as if in reverence to the January display.

When I got home, I lay down on the couch and savored the sound of emptiness. A heavy snowfall like this can even silence Saturday afternoon in the city. Now it's 8:30 p.m. and it's still quiet. One of the things I dislike about warm weather is how it brings everyone outside where we all have to hear each other's business. This is so much better.

Cupcakes

2009-01-06T20:38:00.004-06:00

One thing I want to do more of in the new year is tell more stories. That is, write more stories, either on my blog or just on my own. They'll be mostly stories about my life, but maybe fiction, too. Anything that has a beginning, middle and end will count.

Since I'm new at telling stories, they'll undoubtedly be boring. Here's the first one.

I like making cupcakes. At my office dayjob, I've become known as the person who bakes. I bring cupcakes whenever someone on my team has a birthday and I bake cookies, brownies and coffee cakes just for fun. My husband doesn't eat sweets, so I'm excited to finally have eaters for my baked goods.

This past weekend I decided to make the birthday cupcakes with my friend, Ceece, who likes baking from scratch. I usually use a mix and a tub of frosting. Ceece and I opened her Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from the 1930's and found a recipe for "light, golden yellow cake." We paired it with Ceece's tried and true buttercream frosting, which she uses on her Christmas cookies every year.

We actually produced the lightest yellow cake I've ever managed to make. It was fluffy and delicious with that great home oven taste. Unfortunately, the Christmas cookie frosting was too heavy and sweet. There was no flavor contrast and the frosting overwhelmed the cake. In my opinion, and I am a cake-with-frosting connoisseur, it was sort of like a big blob of vanilla-sugar-too-much.

But they were still edible and the birthday girl was happy with them. However, I think many of my co-workers were suffering from post-holiday fatness since they didn't eat as many of them as usual. I ended up taking the final six pastries to my dry cleaners. I did this because one day a few months ago, I found myself in the similar position of having two cupcakes left over at the end of a workday. I had some dry cleaning to pick up and the elderly gentleman who works there was happy to take those cupcakes off my hands. This time his wife was also there, so they each got two. I ate the last two myself that night (frosting scraped off).

Ceece and I are now on a mission to try to create the perfect cupcake. I'll let you know how it goes.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-05T18:33:00.003-06:00

I've been one of those people who looks at new year's resolutions with disdain. Why bother with a pointless cliche that never works? Well, it turns out that new year's resolutions actually do work. According to research I recently heard about on National Public Radio:

1. The success rate of new year's resolvers is 10 times higher than the success rate of adults who desire to change, but don't make a new year's resolution.

2. Of those who make new year's resolutions, 40%-46% will be successful at six months (so yeah, most people fail, but a big percentage succeed).

3. People who make new year's resolutions tend to move from the contemplation stage to the action stage much more than people who don't make resolutions.

4. Having the support of a few friends helps get you to the action stage even faster.

SO!

Do you have a new year's resolution you are serious about? Would you like the support of a few friends? Invite some friends out to brunch. Actually, invite as many people as you can think of because only a percentage of them will actually want to do this. I'm doing it! I sent an email to 21 women and about five or six of us will be meeting.

We'll share our new year's resolutions, see what we have in common, make plans, tawk. Maybe we can set up a support system that will help keep us on track throughout the year. Or if we don't stay on track, we'll have friends to tell us that it's okay and we shouldn't give up. Research also shows that people who are ultimately successful in their resolutions have just as many early slip-ups as those who ultimately fail. We just have to keep each other going.

One friend sent me a link to a great set of tools for goal-setting and accomplishing. Download them here by clicking on the "2009" icon at the bottom of the page. It's at website called Till Creative and I haven't explored it yet, but these downloadable materials look very effective. I'm excited about this.

It's a new year and a new chance to focus on making realistic, measurable changes. Who's ready?

Fat Again, Naturally

2008-12-28T08:28:00.004-06:00

I don't remember where, but I once read that most women will spread out around the middle at some point during their 40's or 50's even if they don't actually gain any weight. I felt very dismayed to imagine that I could successfully maintain a nice low weight but still end up looking fat.

Well, it's happening. I spent Christmas Day enjoying the incredible buffet and dessert table at the Lockwood Restaurant in the Palmer House Hotel (downtown Chicago), but it will be my final indulgence for a while because it's time to get serious. Again.

Seven years ago I was working as a secretary (administrative assistant, yeah, yeah) at Arthur Andersen, doing the deskjob SPREAD. Regular goodies around the office had me on a path to obesity and I was doing as the Romans do. When that job eventually went down the drain (thank you, Enron. Thank you, David Duncan), I took stock of the situation and realized I needed to lose about 15 pounds to get back to a healthy Body Mass Index (BMI). At that point I was 36.

Over the next two years I increased my weekly exercise time, stepped up the workouts, cut down on the sweets, increased the fruits and vegetables and other healthy stuff, and committed to only eating when actually hungry. I worked with a personal trainer and also my doctor because adjustment of my anti-depressants was also necessary.

After two years, I achieved my goal: I got rid of those 15 pounds and I've kept them off. I think this confirms for me that the most lasting change is often the most gradual. I didn't lose those 15 pounds in three months or even 12 months. It took a full two years. I guess that's my weightloss speed.

Now I'm 42 and proud of having maintained my workout schedule, my fewer sweets, the increased healthy foods and my healthy BMI.

But the spread is upon me. The weight is the same, but my body is redistributing it. I carry less on top and more on the bottom. Way more on the bottom. My jeans are so tight, they're barely comfortable. When I sit down, about three rolls of fat fold up along my middle. Saddlebags of extra flesh sit on my hips. My torso is enfolded in a butter-soft layer of pale, rippled, cellulite-skin. From my waist to my rear, my body is a wider pear-shape than it's ever been without a gaining a pound. It's kind of horrifying. With my clothes on, I look the same size as always, but I know what's going on underneath: I'm carrying five or ten pounds around my torso and hips that have got to go.

So, it's time to undertake another two-year fitness project, although at this age I'm sure it will be harder. Maybe it'll take four years to lose the next chunk of extra fat; it doesn't matter. I have to start. I'll shake up my workout routine, maybe hire another personal trainer, keep counting calories and stick even more closely to a healthy diet.

Actually, one important eating tip that I've only recently considered is what a big difference corn syrup and processed sugar make on the size of my appetite. I thought that as long as I appeased my sweet tooth with a peppermint hard candy (27 calories), I was ahead of the game. It turns out that if I have that hard candy, I'm starving within the hour and need to eat again. But if I appease the sweet tooth with raisins and nuts, the starving feeling doesn't happen. It's such a clear correlation, I'm surprised it took me this long to notice. So cutting out the corn syrup and processed sugar as absolutely much as possible is one more change I'm making to how I eat. I can't fool myself that I'll ever be able to eliminate it, but it's time to learn that real food is always better than anything processed with sugar.

It never ends, I guess. I just have to keep adjusting, especially since I plan to live a long time. I just hope there are enough healthy eating tips to keep me ahead of my body's willing weight-gain.

A Blackhawks Christmas

2008-12-25T12:27:00.002-06:00

It's holiday season 2008, in cupcakes. Next to the pastries with the colorful wreaths and candy canes, I found this (for Bob). He says they're having a good season.

Christmas with too much free time

2008-12-04T22:46:00.004-06:00

It’s the Christmas season when everyone’s calendar fills up with family gatherings and visiting friends and various holiday activities, plus all the Christmas shopping and/or baking and/or cooking, all on top of our usual routine of work, errands and family. What’s supposed to be a wonderful, fun time of year becomes overwhelming and stressful as everyone tries to do everything. That is, everyone except me.

I have carefully lived my life in such a way as to avoid ever having too much to do. My career choices have not involved overtime or taking work home or being reached outside of business hours or being challenged too much in any way. I live far from family and the rounds of those social gatherings. I don’t have children, do volunteer work or have any hobbies that take large amounts of time (or that even take me outside of the home). I married a man who works a crazy amount of hours, including weekends, and whose workdays expand during the holidays (restaurant people get NO time off at this time of year). I’ve cultivated a safe, low-demand life.

It leaves me with a lot of free time, even in December. And I think I’m finally tired of it. I have lots of friends, but I guess they don't have the parties and cookie exchanges that might keep me busier (I hope they aren't because otherwise they just aren't inviting me!). I can't demand more invitations, but there must be activities I can find on my own that won’t scare me and make me feel overwhelmed, which I always fear. There must be volunteer opportunities I could try out, opportunities that would fit into my schedule. My Saturday nights tend to be free (Bob works late). For that matter, my Saturday days tend to be free, too. Maybe I could… I don’t know...do something that would have me interacting with others or at least get me out of the apartment. I’d love to spend more time with other adults doing an activity that’s meaningful to us. Maybe it could lead to new friends and fascinating conversations. Maybe my calendar would fill up and I’d become so busy I’d have to start weeding things out.

Maybe.

White meat, dark meat or frosting?

2008-11-26T18:18:00.005-06:00

From Whole Foods market, $2.99 cupcake. I love elaborate decorations made of buttercream!

Our Tree Is Up!

2008-11-18T06:01:00.004-06:00

Yes, Bob and I are big Christmas people. BIG Christmas people.

Gift Cards Are Now an Even Worse Idea

2008-11-18T05:24:00.005-06:00

Yesterday NPR broadcast that, with businesses folding right and left, gift cards are not the the way to go this year. By the time your recipient gets around to using that card, the business might no longer be accepting gift cards (yes, they can do that) or could be gone completely.

Bob and I received a Circuit City gift card quite a while ago, but never got around to using it. Last month I heard that Circuit City was going to be closing 20% of its stores in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy and I knew what I had to do: within days we were at a Circuit City in Skokie. It sat across the street from an empty Bennigan's, giving the street the feel of a horror movie, halfway through. There were more employees in that Circuit City than there were customers and I almost felt bad that we weren't there to spend real money. (Actually, I think we did spend about $50 over the value of the card, which was $200 so I guess we did need a few things.)

This experience reminded me of an important gift card approach: when you get a gift card, use it as soon as possible. I have lost gift cards in the past and I rarely feel more irritated than when I've lost free money. But also, now gift cards often lose value over time. They can lose a flat dollar amount or a percentage of their value every year. For those two reasons alone, why would you hold on to a gift card? Spend it on anything!

But now we have an even more compelling reason to spend gift cards immediately, or better yet, to not deal with them at all: the store could fold up completely and then what do you have? A bookmark that cost someone $25 or $100 or more.

NPR relayed the story of an employee who took her annual bonus in the form of a $1,500 gift card which she planned to use to buy her boyfriend a telescope. But then she put off that purchase. And put it off, and put it off. That gift card was for Sharper Image. Yeah. Now she's got nothing but a handful of plastic and the very strong wish that she'd used that gift card immediately.

I could rant all day about how gift cards must be used immediately (use it on anything, whether you need it or not. You can exchange it later), but I know that human nature is to procrastinate on this kind of thing. Why should I get myself down to The Body Shop for a bunch of overwhelmingly fragranced products I don't even want? Or even if it's a store I like, say Victoria's Secret, what's the rush? Victoria's Secret isn't going anywhere.

This is why my pitch today isn't to those of who get gift cards; it's to those who give them. Don't give them. These days gift cards make even less sense than they did before. Between the cards getting lost, losing value or just becoming useless after the business disappears, it doesn't make much sense to give them. Too many businesses are disappearing, seemingly over night. Think of everyone who was holding gift cards for Mervyn's, Linens n Things, Sharper Image, Bennigan's and Whitehall Jewelers when they all bit it.

But there are a couple of reasons that people will still buy gift cards and I realize they probably outweigh all the reasons not to: gift cards are convenient and get you out of having to come up with a real gift. And maybe that's all right since purchasing a gift card is becoming the same as making a donation to the store. In this retail season, that counts as an act of Christmas charity that isn't all bad.

O, California...

2008-11-13T04:11:00.004-06:00

I was born and raised in California and it has always struck me as a legislatively bizarre place. It can be the first state to pass legislation that, say, bans cigarette smoking in restaurants and bars and it can be the first state to make English its "official language." It's a state that has nurtured San Francisco and Orange County. It produced Jerry Brown and Richard Nixon.

Sometimes California makes me proud, for instance when its Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage as a right of all citizens, and sometimes it makes me very, very disgusted. Right now I'm disgusted.

I know that people I'm related to, who shall remain unnamed, voted for Proposition 8 and I don't understand them. Besides wondering how the personal lives of people they don't even know could possibly affect them, I'm stunned at their willingness to alter the California consitution, eliminating a right that had been granted. Changes to constitutions usually broaden people's rights; I don't know if a change to an American constitution has ever limited them.

I'm also disgusted by the media framing this as a black-white issue. While African American voters' support of Proposition 8 was important (about 70% voted yes on it), they weren't nearly as important as Christian voters who are a much larger bloc and two thirds of whom voted to limit constitutional rights. African Americans only made up about 10% of the voting population in the California election, but Christians made up nearly 25%. (By the way, only ten percent of voters with no religious affiliation supported 8, so hooray for atheists!) In fact, the biggest voting bloc responsible for passing this legislation was white Republicans who favored it by a ratio of more than 4 to 1. Republican party members made up nearly a third of votes.

This is not a black-people-versus-white homosexuals dynamic. There weren't enough black voters to control this one and they certainly weren't behind the big bucks. That would be the white Christians. It's true that more African American voters came out to the polls this year, but more significantly, more Christian voters, many of whom happened to be black and Hispanic, but most of whom were white, cast their ballots in favor of Proposition 8.

I guess it was just too soon for California to see the light. I believe they eventually will, but by then they'll have $%^-ed up their constitution. Most of the people in my family are solidly left of center, politically, but on this proposition, certain members voted to the right of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah.

Representing

2008-11-07T01:33:00.005-06:00

Last week I felt the beginnings of a cold. I made it go away because I was heading to Iowa to canvass for the weekend. I felt the symptoms again on Tuesday, but tried to ignore them as I headed downtown. Over two hours of standing and watching CNN election results on a huge screen with thousands of others had me feeling not great. I limped off from the crowd to a less populated place on the grass where others were sitting on blankets.

I pulled my hood over my head against the chill. I looked around and couldn't believe some people were out there in t-shirts without sweaters at all. I saw that it was almost 9:30 p.m. and wondered why I wanted to stay. I was thirsty and in pain. I wanted to go home and watch the rest of it on tv. I knew if I called my husband, he'd encourage me to come home. So I called my friend, Robert, in New York.

Robert didn't argue with me. He just said, "Regina, you have to stay!" I whined, but I knew he was right. I hung up with Robert and lay down on the ground, hoping that a cat nap wouldn't leave me unable to warm up again.

At a few minutes before (after?) 10:00 p.m. CST, Obama was projected the winner. I scrambled to my feet and didn't have any trouble staying on them for the rest of the night. I had my second wind.

There are many things I didn't realize until later (such as, that I should have stocked up on t-shirts and newspapers), but one that's finally sinking in is how many friends and family find it important to know someone who was in Grant Park on election night: me. I had no idea that I was also there for everyone who couldn't be, but who wants to be able to say that their cousin/sister/friend/etc. was.

Oh.

Well, then I'm even more glad I stayed. I probably would have stayed anyway, just from inertia, but thanks for the pep talk, Robert.

YES, WE DID

2008-11-06T07:57:00.003-06:00

I was in Grant Park on Tuesday night, not in the actual event, but standing with thousands of people just outside of the fenced area. When CNN called it for Obama, everyone started yelling and cheering and hugging each other. I stood there stunned for a minute before I began to clap and cheer also. Couples embraced, people cried, including me. The huge jumbotron showed the words "Obama" and "president" and it was an incredible moment.

Maybe you saw the images of Chicago's Grant Park. Everyone was just celebrating. We quieted down to politely watch John McCain's concession speech, applauded him (I thought it was a really good speech) and then waited for Barack.

We had to wait through about five piped-in songs (maybe he was talking to Bush?), before he came out. Barack Obama. Our home town guy. It felt amazing to be watching a presidential acceptance speech in my own city. I was also happy to be surrounded by thousands of people who supported him, many of whom had worked hard to get Obama elected. I hadn't attended any rallies and hadn't yet felt that energy.

Afterwards, we spilled out onto Michigan Avenue where vendors hawked t shirts, buttons, and hats. I bought a couple of buttons, but didn't get my favorite shirt that I saw: "Yes, we did." I greatly regret not buying anything but two buttons because I realize I should have stocked up.

Energy was high and I think people were reluctant to go home, even though we all work in the morning. There were MANY police officers out, very prominently. Even when I got back to my neighborhood, Rogers Park, which is an hour train ride from downtown, there were several police officers standing in the train station, which is the end of the line.

But I haven't heard of any incidents at all. We were just happy.

Amazing night. I got three hours of sleep and that's why I didn't blog yesterday.

Election Eve

2008-11-03T21:39:00.002-06:00

I'm downloading NPR podcasts about the election and carrying them around on my iPod. I'm also carrying a radio that I plug in when I want more immediate news. When there's no election coverage on the radio, I go back to the iPod, on which I listen only to election discussions. I've also got my BlackBerry and an actual paper copy of Newsweek for when I feel like reading instead of listening.

More news. I want more news.

Tomorrow night I'm considering going down to Grant Park in Chicago even though I missed out on tickets. I live in Chicago. This is where It's Happening.

I already voted. I can't believe there are people who chose not to vote early because they prefer to vote on election day. If the lines were hours and hours long for early voting, why does anyone think they won't be there for hours on election day? I think the polls are going to be a nightmare tomorrow. Any of you who restrained themselves from voting early, let me know how long it takes you to vote tomorrow.

I guess there's also Canada...

2008-10-25T18:36:00.004-05:00

Maybe the same way that my husband sort of disappears during a ballgame, I have sort of disappeared on him during election season. I get completely absorbed by election coverage on the radio or TV. I spend hours every week at the Democratic Party headquarters of Evanston, Illinois, making phone calls to get others to volunteer in Illinois, Florida or Indiana. One weekend I disappeared to Iowa to canvass for Obama. I'll disappear again next weekend. My friend Ceece and I will drive down to Cedar Rapids on Saturday, canvass, stay at a motel, canvass on Sunday and drive back. I will go to work as usual on Monday and on Election Day itself, but I will do so with the peace of mind of having put in a few hard days' work.

I spent several weekends canvassing for John Kerry in 2004. I canvassed from summer to fall. I lived in Wasau, Wisconsin for the last five days of the election, staying at a motel, walking neighborhoods, making sure every Democrat got to the polls, eating pizza and fried chicken out of boxes set up on office tables and working myself to exhaustion. I canvassed like my life depended on it, which it did. The coincidental Halloween holiday made it kind of fun to be out there. On Halloween night, I joined the costumes and the decorations and enjoyed knocking on doors even more. That day, part of our volunteer meals consisted of little candy bars.

It was fun; it was noble; it sucked. On election night I crawled into the large hall room the Democratic Party of Wasau had rented and laid down to watch the returns. As I settled myself, not caring how odd it was to be spread out on the floor when everyone else was sitting at a table or pacing, I already knew we had failed. I didn't need the returns or the concession speech to know that it had all been for nothing.

If we fail again, I don't know what I'll do. I'm married now, so killing myself feels selfish. I guess I'll have to kill us both.

Now you see me, now you don't

2008-10-17T21:36:00.003-05:00

Last weekend I travelled to Iowa and canvassed for Barack Obama's campaign. I ended up being assigned a pretty Democratic neighborhood of elderly people. About half the people I talked to were either supporting Obama or were leaning towards Obama. Only a few said that no, they weren't supporting him.

I gave out handfuls of "Iowan for Obama" buttons and even wore one, so as to seem more familiar. The bus on which I travelled had only a few people of color. Most of the canvassers from the Democratic Party headquarters of Evanston, Illinois were white. I wonder if it matters to people, the color of the person who is asking if they support Barack Obama.

In general, I think some people see me as Latina and some people see me as white. At least one of the elderly white Iowans I talked to assumed I was white. I believe this happens because many Americans boil down the whole multi-cultural America thing to black and white. Some people look at me and figure that since I don't seem black, I must be white. Hispanic doesn't seem to enter into it.

It's very strange to me because at other times, people will say to me, "Where are you from?" When I tell them I'm originally from California, they ask, "Where are your parents from?" When I tell them my parents are from Texas, they realize they need to ask a more direct question, but every time I have one of these exchanges, it confirms to me that I don't look white. At least, not all the time. But since at other times, people do think I'm white, I guess it's a matter of context. It's the kind of white privilege that comes and goes, the kind of ethnicity that is sometimes there and sometimes not.

Some of Bob's photos

2008-10-08T22:00:00.003-05:00

I wore a button that said "Latinos for Obama" every day I was there.

Ugly Election

2008-10-07T18:09:00.003-05:00

How many people are discovering previously unknown bigotry in their friends and family as a result of this election? How many people are finding themselves in discussions with parents, co-workers or friends that are revealing levels of fear of a black president that are leaving you stunned? How many people are horrified to find that your own parents are unable to support a candidate they believe will only look out for other African Americans, leaving them out in the cold?

How many people are looking back at the household in which they grew up with new eyes, like viewing the ground in which your vegetables were grown and realizing how much of it was manure?