I did it. I couldn't help myself. I drove to Circuit City and bought Buffy Season Three last night. That means I didn't make it one night without watching. I am completely neurotic.

It is finally cold and winter-like in New Mexico. The weather has that crispness that makes me feel like the world is full of possibility. I don't know why I associate cold, red noses and ears with possibility, but I do. When I step outside after a day of work and head to my car, I feel like the road home can lead to anyplace and I can do anything.

Tonight will be a no TV night. I am planning on relaxing and working on holiday gifts and cleaning my many piles that have somehow accumulated on the kitchen counter.

Tomorrow I will probably be going home shortly after lunch as everyone is leaving early for the holiday. I think the four day weekend will be just what I need to rejuvenate. There should be four day weekends every couple of months so that the workforce will always feel refreshed. Note to self: Look into working on national reform for workers in the U.S. from gas station attendants to CEOs. Some reforms will include at least one month of vacation annually, more long weekends, and possibly designated nap times. ha.

In the past three weeks, I managed to watch 34 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That amounts to about 25 hours in front of the television. I am sort of ashamed to admit to this atrocity...and yet, I had so much fun. There is nothing else like Buffy for intelligent entertainment with characters that I care about. I am not sure if it is the kick-ass girl power or the great love stories, or the snappy dialogue, but I just love Buffy. I am now completely finished with seasons one and two and thankfully I don't own season three yet, so I can take a break and do things like write holiday cards and clean the house up and exercise and everything else that I have been neglecting for the past three weeks.

Thanksgiving is coming and I'm excited. It's not so much the food that I love, it's the tradition of the food. It's the one meal each year that I can count on. For the past two or three years, my family hasn't celebrated Thanksgiving together and I have been longing for the tradition. Last year, I attempted making the meal myself, but it was different and not as much fun. I can't wait to go to Santa Fe and sit around the table with my parents and eat the turkey with my mom's amazing stuffing and the sweet potatoes that I don't even like. My brother will eat the majority of the cranberries and I'll be lucky to get a scoop. Hopefully it will be cold outside and we'll all sit around and be warm together and the next morning my dad will make turkey sandwiches with ketchup and I'll look at him with an "eew that's gross" expression and all will be right with the world.

Patty called today to tell me about an incredibly mean flower-store owner in Florida who yelled at her and said a myriad of not-nice things that nobody should ever say to anybody, much less a customer in their flower store. I have no comprehension for people like this. How do you grow up and think it's ok to be mean to people? What must be missing in a person who unleashes on random strangers? How can you own a flower store and still be evil? It's sick. Should verbal assault be criminalized? Just a thought. I am not fond of rageaholics.

Nauseous

I am nauseous but it is not from something I ate and I don't think I have the flu. Somebody I care about and basically think rocks has a really really screwed up belief system and it makes me sad, especially because I thought progress had been made and minds had been opened. But now I am sick to my stomach.

Howard Dean

Onto happier topics, Howard Dean is in town today. I wish I could go be a groupie supporter, but I will be at work.


Lack of Sleep

Last night, Neil and I went to Walgreens and bought Tylenol PM and I took one before bed and I STILL didn't sleep. I need to get to the bottom of this before I turn into a complete disaster.

On Sleeplessness

The main problem of my week so far is that I am not sleeping. I go to sleep and toss and turn and wake up ten to fifteen times nightly, half the time without any blankets covering me and then my alarm goes off and I hit snooze a few times and I'm late to work and I never feel rested. It's not good. In fact, I recently saw a TV ad which told me about how I could take a Tylenol PM before bed and all my aches and pains would go away and I'd also get a restful night sleep and I actually thought, "Hey, that sounds like a great product." This from the girl who recently stopped taking all pills and pill-shaped objects except for multi-vitamins. Sleeping aids are SO against my principles.

On "Legends"

When I was in Phoenix last week at the meeting of credit union leagues from border states, I had lunch with some guys. One from California, one from Texas. They were old, probably older than my dad... or close. I knew they were the CEO's of their leagues and since most people there were CEOs I didn't think much of it. We talked about the California fires and Arnold and how beautiful New Mexico is and how I used to live in El Paso, no biggie.

So when I came back and told my boss who I hung out with he had a look of shock on his face and said something like "both of those guys are legends" At first I was like... "Oh no, I hope I didn't say anything offensive if they're legends... I should have been more nervous and and and...." But then I realized they were just nice guys who might be legends to people who devote lifetimes to credit unions. (Thus far, I am not one of those people.)

On Wanderlust

I have been having serious travel urges as of late. I feel a constant need to flee to a Latin American country, this is not new, but now the urge is spreading. I heard Jacque Chiraq talking about combating anti-semitism on NPR last night and suddenly became aware of the fact that I absolutely NEEDED to be in France at that moment, needed to be around French people and hear them and hang out in cafes...all this despite the fact that I absolutely HATED French class in high school, have very little understanding of the language and don't usually long to visit the country. Then this morning Tony Blair was talking about Bush's visit to England and instead of the seething hatred that I usually feel when our president is mentioned, I just got lost in the British accent and started imagining myself in London (ok, more than imagining, I got an impatient feeling and started thinking about purchasing airfare.) Then I re-read an e-mail from my friend Christine about how she's in Tokyo as I am typing and... well... I'm sure you can fill in the rest. I'll just say that it involved fantasies of Sushi-eating. I must develop a plan to somehow be paid to travel around the world and immerse myself in different cultures.

On Rejection

I got my long-awaited response from Fourth Genre last night. They will not be publishing my essay on living along the U.S. Mexico border. I was so hoping they would.

They sent a two paragraph rejection letter telling me I should submit again and that some of their readers had comments that might be helpful to me.

Comment one said "This is exactly the kind of personal cultural criticism Fourth Genre should encourage." (O.K. sounds like that person was in favor of publishing.)

Comment two was less memorable but said that the reader enjoyed the essay but wanted to know more about the narrator (that would be me) This is valid and perhaps slightly helpful. I will look at adding more of myself into the prose...

Overall, this was a rejection letter that made me feel mostly warm and fuzzy instead of giving me that sinking feeling I usually get from life's rejections. But it left me feeling perplexed as to why they didn't publish it. I mean, if you're going to include criticism in the rejection letter, shouldn't it be just that...criticism?

Back to square one. If anyone knows of a place that would like to publish a terrific essay on the ambiguity of living along an international border, please contact me.

I am sitting in my office with a space heater blowing in my face and making my eyes dry and I'm eating a mushy apple. I hate mushy apples. Apples need to be cold and crisp, not spongy and disgusting.

Last night we brought our bunny (Boo Boo) into our bedroom (in her cage) and let her spend the night. It is very bizarre how animals, even small less-intelligent animals, can become such a part of a human family. If we didn't have Boo Boo, our lives would be much less full...and yet, it seems weird to me that I am saying that about a rabbit.

At work today, I am printing 100 copies of a paper I wrote to try to keep the state legislature from imposing a tax on credit unions. The paper is 18 pages long and the executive summary is 6 pages which means I am wasting 2,400 sheets of paper on this endeavor. It takes a long time to print 2,400 pages. On Monday, I get to use the little binding machine to put those plastic covers and spines on them all.

Tonight I am going to eat sushi with Neil and hopefully relax and have fun and do other weekend activities. I am really looking forward to it. This has been a draining week.

Phoenix wasn't really a disaster. I was the youngest person at the conference by at least 10, maybe 15 years and most people there were CEO's in their 50's. It was daunting, but I didn't feel totally and completely terrified and I spoke at the meeting several times since I was the only New Mexico person. Even the talking in front of people went well.

The meeting itself, while much of it was boring, was overall very interesting because it was about serving Hispanics, especially recent immigrants from Mexico. There were three guys from a large credit union in Mexico and they spoke only in Spanish. I understood some of what they said and a translator filled in the rest, but by mid-afternoon on the first day, I was spacing out, entranced by their rolling r's and the graceful cadence of the language. There is something magical about the Spanish language that makes me feel at home and like a foreigner all at once.

On day two, a man who was a big-shot in Presidente Fox's campaign spoke. He was incredibly charismatic and convincing. By the end of his talk about why credit unions are on the verge of a revolution and why credit unions need to take Mexican culture into consideration when serving "New Americans" I was ready to follow him around and be his disciple. He was one of those people whose eyes disappear when he smiles and who wins you over after saying exactly five words. Everybody else in the room seemed to feel the same way because they all batted their eyelashes when near him (even the men) and needlessly dropped his name in conversation. Eg: Q: "What are you having for lunch?" A:"I will be having lunch with Juan today" Q:"What time is it?" A:"Oh look it's Juan." and Q: "What do you think about the weather?" A: "When I was talking to Juan earlier..."

Instead of following the man home, I grabbed my bags and checked out of the hotel. Then I hopped into my first rental car and drove to the airport. That's right, I rented my own rental car for the first time. Oh the joy of being 25.

I am still determined to find a way to incorporate my love of the border and border culture and Mexico and New Mexico into what I do...updates when I come up with something.

Now I am back home and I got a bucket of work dumped on me today and my shoulder hurts from stress. It's also freezing and rainy out. Ugh.

My little brother is 20 today. 20. My little brother is 20. How did that happen?

Happy Birthday Dustin.

The weekend.
On Saturday, I slept too late. I also slept too late today. Sleeping too late is really really cool. I wish I could do it more often and not feel guilty about it.

Last night there was a complete lunar eclipse. The earth cast its shadow on the moon for a couple of hours and it was really amazing. The moon was blotted out by shadow, but still visible. But what was even cooler than the moon being shadowed was the fact that the earth was casting a shadow. I looked really close and imagined that I could see my own tiny shadow on the edge of the earth's shadow. (that didn't quite happen) But seeing the earth's round shadow was really proof that I am sitting on a big round planet. This seemed much more profound while I was thinking it last night.

Today, I took my little sister from Big Brothers Big Sisters to eat at a diner for lunch. She likes hamburgers a lot. I am constantly trying to connect with her and to be cool enough for a 13-year-old girl to hang out with. I hope I am succeeding.

Now I have to pack for the Phoenix disaster of 2003.

It is really creepy to be the last person at the office on a Friday afternoon when the sun is mostly gone. I need to go home.

On not getting enough sleep...

I am tired and I find it annoying. No matter what I do, I never seem to get enough sleep. It is partly because Neil comes home so late and is always totally full of energy and I, of course, usually want to talk to him so I stay up later than I plan to. But then another part of it is the light in the morning that comes streaming into our bedroom through a little arch-shaped window that I thought was going to be a favorite feature of the house when we moved here a year ago. Ha. Two nights ago, Neil got paged by his work at 4:15 in the morning -- not helpful. But I think my biggest problem is that I am always so worried about getting enough sleep that I don't sleep well. I am sabotaging myself unintentionally.

On iTunes and other technology in general...

I love iTunes. Christine gave me a $20 iTunes gift certificate for my birthday and I spent it all yesterday and now have 19 songs of my very own. The fast connection at work was awesome and it took only a minute or two to download each song. I could see myself doing that every day... (except my gift certificate is gone and I am not in favor of running up a credit card bill) But now I need an iPod. I really really really want one. Not just any iPod, though. I want the one that can hold 10,000 songs because now that a little machine like that exists, I am absolutely convinced that I should be carrying 10,000 songs with me everywhere I go. It is necessary, essential really. And while I am at it, I want a new computer and a picture phone instead of my plain old cell phone that only works for phone calls. Sheesh.

Sad Birthdays

I have had more than my share of sad birthdays. This year was another sad one, but somehow it was still ok, almost good. My mom called me around 11 yesterday and said "happy birthday" in a very sad tone and then told me that my great aunt Bessie died an hour earlier. I knew something was wrong already because it was the first birthday that my mom hadn't called me early in the morning and sang happy birthday to me. Her abandoning this tradition was proof that all was not well.

My aunt Bessie was the wisest woman I have ever known. When I was little and we would visit her at her home in Michigan, I used to feel like I was on a pilgrimage to my profit or oracle. I was on a long journey to visit the little old woman who would impart wisdom and help me to see. We would sit on her fragile-seeming furniture in the front room of her small house, or was it a duplex? She would offer us food or drink and then we'd talk. Bessie had a deep calm about her, the calm of someone who is completely self-assured and knows exactly what is and is not important. The rest of us were struggling through life and she already had it figured out. She was a little treasure. I wore the old perals she gave me for my Bat Mitzvah around my wrist on my wedding day to honor Bessie because she couldn't be there and my grandmatold me that Bessie was touched by the gesture. Bessie died on my 25th birthday and she was 93 years old.

It is easy to be sad when losing someone special, but hard to be too sad at the death of someone in their mid-90's. But, Bessie was the last member of my grandma's immediate family. She has lost two parents, a brother, two husbands and now a sister. Is the curse of living longest lonlieness? I just want her not to be sad. Simplistic, maybe, but that's what I want.

We spent the afternoon with my grandma yesterday, helping her pack for her flight to Michigan. (Neil had my birthday off from work and I left work after talking to my mom.) After looking at old pictures and laughing and crying with my grandma, we said goodbye and went to eat thai food (yumm) and rent a movie (whale rider). So this birthday was a mix of saddness and normalcy. I have had at least two friends suggest that I start celebrating my half birthday instead of my birthday... but I am going to give Nov. 3 a couple more tries before getting that drastic.