Couples

Today is the Third Wedding Anniversary for one of my most favorite couples: Krista and Jordan Hoffmann.

This means that three years ago today, they made me fly to Hawaii to celebrate their wedding.  To call it a third anniversary, though, seems a little bizarre, because they started dating when we were all seniors in high school.  So they've actually been together for around ten years now.

In those ten years, I have happily spent countless hours as their third wheel.  Krista and I have been friends since we were 10, when her mom made her invite me to her birthday party even though my haircut made me look like a boy.  And though it took Jordan a few months to win me over at the start, those days seem like ancient history after all the time we've spent together laughing at Krista's expense.

Good Friday always reminds me of these two, too.  While we were in college, Jordan and I somehow got roped into attending a Good Friday service at Krista's parents' church.  I could try to explain to you why it was so hilarious that there was a woman crouching behind a table in the pitch black church, periodically snuffing out candles, but there's no way to do it justice.  All I can say is that Jordan and I were laughing so hard that we were shaking the pew.  And Krista was ready to kill. us. dead.  But we couldn't stop.  It was all very Mary-Tyler-Moore-at-the-funeral.

I remember this because it was funny, but also because I had come home that weekend while recovering from the single devastating heartbreak of my life.  And, as usual, Jordan didn't mind me tagging along during his precious little time with Krista away from West Point.  I also remember it because being with these two has always reminded me what love can be like, and how stable relationships with the right person can make us better versions of ourselves.

I've heard that some women feel jealous or slighted when their best friends get married.  Not me.  Three years ago, I got to attend the wedding of one of my best friends to a man who has been so good to her, and a couple that together has been so good to me, that it was honestly one of the happiest moments of my life.  And I'm not sure I've ever told them that, so I wanted to say so today.

Krista and Jordan, I love you both.  I believe Clara and baby-to-be-named-later are two of the most fortunate children on this earth simply for having you two as parents.  I can't wait to see how high you teach them to climb.

(Couples is a novel by John Updike which features couples who are nothing at all like Krista and Jordan.  Which, if you've read the novel, you'll realize is a compliment to them.)

Scholar Style Guide

Hi all!  I'm excited to announce the blog that Katie, Anne-Marie, and I have been working on.  We decided to bring our conversations about style and what and how our clothes mean to the blogosphere because we're hoping others will get involved in the conversation, too.

We've decided to call it Scholar Style Guide because we see dressing as an act similar to composing a written text.  We'd like to see our blog become a reference we and others can consult just as writers consult composition style guides.

You can find us at:

www.scholarstyleguide.com

You can also become a fan on facebook and follow us on twitter.

(Thanks to Billy, we are all set with technological features!)

The Big Lebowski

My dad had his latest round of diagnostic tests this week.  He found out that the tumors in his liver are essentially the same size they were in November, before he underwent an invasive radiation treatment to try to kill them.  The fact that the tumors are not larger than they were then indicates the treatment may have helped.  The fact that they're not gone or even significantly smaller indicates that the treatment didn't "fix" the problem.  My dad has decided to work through April and then go on extended medical leave so he can focus on feeling healthy instead of work.  He works for a company that gives him great benefits and he feels very fortunate about the medical leave options that are available to him.

Since he is going to be away from work for a while, he is starting to plan out his next year of vacations, so he called the next day to tell me that he is planning to take me and Billy to the Australian Open in Melbourne in January 2011.  He and my mom went to Australia when Nate and I were young, we had an Australian exchange student living with us for a year when I was born, and I think he has always wanted to go back.  I cannot help from talking every year about how watching the AO is almost painful because I'm so excited that tennis is back, the people there look so happy, and their summer weather is so beautiful that it makes our winter doldrums seem almost unbearable.  Earlier this year I called it a "two week mental oasis" from my regular life.

With six years of post-secondary study of literature and language under my belt, the best I can think to say in response to two these two events of the past week is (to quote the Dude from The Big Lebowski, and more recently, Jeff Bridges himself)

"Strikes and gutters, man."

Post Script: It occurred to me when I went running after posting this that "Strikes and Gutters" is also the name Nate gave to his blog, which he hasn't updated in a year, but is worth a return visit nonetheless.

A Lost Lady

Where have I gone?  I'm trapped inside this paper.  A Lost Lady is the novel Cather published between One of Ours and The Professor's House.  I haven't read it yet, but I can't help feeling like it is an eerily prescient title given that I am currently lost in between those two books, too.

I binged approximately 12,000 words last week.  I'm currently down to 10,100ish without a conclusion.  I'm supposed to end up around 10,000 total.

I feel really good about the ideas I'm working with.  Sunday night, after a long week of working on it, I felt really good about the progress I had made.  (I also felt good that Andy made it to the finals at Indian Wells, though I did not feel so good that Ljubicic's unbelievable run through the tournament ran straight through my feel-good story of the week.)

But I am starting to panic.  My official deadline is one week from today and I can't help feeling like I still have so much to do.  So much that I should not be writing this blog entry, in fact.  So back to work I go.

The Year(s)

Today they held the National Half Marathon in Washington, D.C.  This means it has been one year since I ran the race to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation!  (Read about that here).  It's nice to think about what the LAF might have been able to accomplish in that year with the money you donated in support of my race.  Thanks again for your generosity!

On my 7 mile run today, I was thinking about how I could have quit running again a year ago, and trying to figure out why I didn't.  I think the thing I like about distance running is that no matter how miserable the last few miles are, the finish line is pre-determined.  If you can make yourself more miserable by trying to run faster, you'll be rewarded by reaching the finish line sooner.  Then comes the feeling of gratification and the relief of gulping down water-- every single time.  Life's not like that.  Not even in books.

Today it occurred to me on my run that determination is like anything else-- it can get horribly out of shape if you don't exercise it.  Running distances has helped me keep my determination in shape this past year.  Forcing myself through the burning lungs and sore feet to reach the finish line has helped me to endure the difficult moments when I didn't know quite where the finish line was going to be, and it taught me that chasing down mile markers is a good way to make a distant finish line seem closer.

The little victories help, too.  Today I shaved 4 minutes off the time it took me to run 7 miles last weekend.  Part of that was because I ran in the pouring down rain last weekend, and the water was ankle deep on some sections of the trail  (today it was sunny and almost 70).  But mostly it was because I was trying to run faster-- because I knew when I got back I had to tackle this writing project again, for the sixth straight day in a row, and I knew the feeling of gratification from posting a good time would help carry me through.

(The Years is the last book Virginia Woolf published in her lifetime.  Though it spans around 50 years and 3 generations, she focuses on individual events that happen in the characters' lives.  For me, she might have zeroed in on a random 7 mile run on the most beautiful day of the year yet.)

Bird by Bird

Hi again!  What am I doing back so soon?  Procrastinating, of course.

All my friends in my program and I, we're all doing the same thing this week, during our "Spring Break": trying to make decent headway on our Master's Writing Project essays.

Every time I begin a new draft, I feel like I am purging myself of all my ideas and trying to force them into a Word document.  Once it is all there, I can take a deep breath and begin the part of writing I enjoy-- the making it sound right part.  I love that part.  I do not like the purging.  Sometimes I start trying to make it sound right while purging and I get unbelievably frustrated.

Nearly every time I begin a new draft, I think I must be the only one who suffers this difficulty.  Then I remember Anne Lamott's discussion of "Shitty First Drafts" from her book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  A good excerpt is available online here.  If you're in the midst of a shitty first draft, or you're trying to force yourself to begin one, or you want to feel good about the fact that you've moved onto the second draft, please read it.

And if your Writing Project director actually told you that you could just "revise" the paper you already wrote, and you therefore do not have to write a shitty first draft this time around, keep that to yourself.  I don't want to hear it.

Time to refill the coffee mug and get back to purging.

This is the scene on my dining room table.  I promise that it is not staged.  This is really what it "Liz is writing" looks like.

Finnegan's Wake

Happy St. Patrick's Day, from our house to yours!

Thanks for the care package, Mom!

We don't usually get into kitschy holidays around here, but I am thankful that St. Patrick's Day comes around once a year to remind me of the trip my roommates and I took to Ireland during Spring Break of our senior year at Valpo.  It is one of my favorite memories from college: Ireland is a beautiful place, the people there were unbelievably friendly, and I had a great time with my friends.  If I'd planned ahead, I would have unearthed some beautiful photos from that vacation.  Instead, I'll offer you Oscar eating his breakfast.


(What's is James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake about?  Your guess is as good as mine.  "Puns" would be my answer.  It appeals to me today not only because Joyce was Irish, but also because he worked on writing it until he went blind.  And then he kept working by dictating it.  Since I am about to begin writing the third draft of a paper I have been thinking through for a year, I am beginning to think I understand how he felt.)