Tara

Late last year I messaged my friend Tara on Facebook because she asked people for crock pot recipes and discussing food is the last vestige of that platform in my life.

Tara and I met in college. We were both history majors and she was the smartest person I knew so I latched myself onto her in multiple classes and made her study with me. In our last year we worked on a journal together. She was the editor-in-chief and I was something very not editor-in-chief. These were good memories. And then we graduated.

After college we stayed sort-of-in-touch through social media, chatting very occasionally. She went on, as expected, to travel the world and earn advanced degrees at places like freaking Cambridge. I saw her post pictures of the cool things she was up to from time to time and every time she did I nodded at my computer screen in polite pride that someone I knew and liked was doing snobby things without seeming to become snobby.

We hadn't chatted on social media for a few years when I sent her the crock pot recipe, and I couldn't remember seeing much posting from her in recent months and so I didn't know what she was up to these days.

She responded and thanked me for sending it. We Facebook chatted for a little while, catching up. She told me she was still living in England. I told her I was a big fat homo now and how Skylar keeps breaking my stuff but I have to accept it because I already peaked and he's settling for me so this is my best shot at a happy life.

Two Adults Came To My Door

So the other day I posted that thing about how I ain't much for book learnin' and I told you how I'm trying to read now so I don't get executed for failing to know how many characters in Of Mice and Men are mice. And then you guys left eleventy million comments about all of the books I should be ashamed of myself for having not read. And this level of response really surprised me. Because I had previously assumed 97% of you were illiterate.

Anyway, the comments section of Stranger turned into a full-blown cyber attack on the public education system, which was new for me because it's usually an attack on how tight my clothes are or how I'm not supposed to offer to slap your children at the grocery store.

I haven't referenced that in a while. Were any of you around when that happened? I made a joke about how I'm totally willing to help slap people's children in the grocery store if they're acting like brats and then every single mom on the entire internet emailed me and was like "I'M REPORTING YOU TO THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU" and then I had to respond to every single one of them with badly-photoshopped pictures of me petting kittens so the internet moms would know I was actually gentle and nominate me for employee of the week at Shakey's instead.

I got side-tracked.

It's A Classic!

When I was in high school I read nearly zero books and I've been feeling guilty about this for mumble mumble cough years. So guilty that if I knew where my diploma was I would probably send it back with an apology note and some homemade pumpkin bread because Cathie didn't raise me in the wild.

My ability to fake preparedness has been both one of my greatest assets and one of my biggest hindrances. What this meant was that when Mrs. Voorhees was like "what did The Scarlet Letter teach you about humanity" I could be all like "in a way, isn't the fact that the literary letter was scarlet so symbolic of every inadequacy felt by man in a literal sense?" and Mrs. Voorhees would be all like "A! PLUS!" but then when I got into the real world and someone was like "name one character from The Scarlet Letter or you'll die" I just had to die.

So it's not good that I didn't read books.

There were some exceptions to this. I read To Kill A Mockingbird, and have since reread it a number of times because I believe that if I love it enough, Atticus Finch will have to appear in my life and grant me three wishes. The nearly-perfect Atticus Finch. Not the racist one. And if you don't know what I'm talking about DO NOT FREAKING READ GO SET A WATCHMAN.

You have been warned.

2011

2011 was good to me. It was also my strangest year to date, which is how I measure success. I believe that if I'm living my life the way I should, the best year of my life will always be the last one that I lived. "Best year" doesn't mean that all of my hopes and dreams have come true. And a year where all of my hopes and dreams have come true wouldn't necessarily be my best, but perhaps just be my most unexpected one. Best year for me doesn't mean that everything was peachy. And in fact, for a best year to happen, things probably can't be all peachy. That's because a best year is one full of personal growth and change, variety, accomplishment on both a macro and micro-level, and an endless string of bizarre experiences to relay to you. And by that standard, 2011 has easily been my best year to date.

2010

Another year has come and gone. I can't believe it's time for the annual sum-up post already.

2010 was a good year. It wore me out like any good year should.

In 2010 I started eating salmon regularly. I read exactly four more pages of Crime and Punishment (well, three and a half). I ran a marathon. I got severely sunburned in a third world country. I attended a reggae concert on a beach and subsequently got stuck in a hurricane-like storm. I won a competition. I competed in Boston and DC. I attended a temple dedication in Ukraine. I got my first ever speeding ticket. I got in my first ever car accident. I started a new job and continued an old one. I staged a half-effective sit-in. I experienced a total computer crash two weeks before finals. I moved twice. I finished year two of law school. I crashed into Uncle Will’s garage with my car. I visited Mexico a couple of times. I went cave tubing in Belize. I stayed in a "hotel" that cost $4 a night for two people. I lost my bathing suit in the ocean. I met a famous Russian actor in the Moscow airport during my 20 hour layover. I made lots of borsch. I impromptu taught Sunday school half a dozen times. I ran the mud run and cleaned mud out of my ears for the next week. I started riding the bus. I landed a clerkship. I finally broke down and got a gym membership. I almost learned how to swim. I blogged and wondered how many people were actually reading. I successfully went on a four month shopping fast. I had Thanksgiving in Brawley. I recovered from the hand surgery. I purchased two old icons from a woman sitting on a stool in L'viv. I rode on two sleeper trains in eastern Europe. I visited New York City for the first time. A cat jumped on my lap on a red-eye flight. I helped work on a 400 page brief. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and thought it was sad. I ate at “Shigella’s” in San Felipe. I passed the MPRE. I took third in a pretty un-competitive Halloween 5k wearing very little clothing despite the freezing temperatures. I fought several battles at school and lost many of them. I taught contracts to 75 1Ls for a few days. I started sleeping without taking sleeping pills. I unexpectedly reconnected with long lost friends who I thought had disappeared forever. I gained a new niece. I found heaven on Earth on San Pedro Island ("Paris . . . dice".). I found Hell on Earth in Belize City. I went to midnight mass. Of course, I visited Salvation Mountain, again. I was the man of honor at Kimbally’s wedding. I went ice-blocking and then wondered why. I went body surfing and then wondered why. I went through several more terrible Blackberry Pearls. I danced for four straight hours at a Halloween party. I helped advocate for points I didn't fully believe just to make sure all sides were considered. I fell even more in love with my friends and family. I drove for two days looking for the Grand Canyon before finding it. I enjoyed life.


It’s amazing to me that I’m already reflecting on 2010. 2010 was my best year. It was different than any year I've had, full of strange events that have shaped me into a person that I appreciate more in my never-ending quest for infinite strange experiences to fill my repertoire of stories. I talk about a lot of strange moments on this blog, always in the most positive light possible, because, really, the strange experiences are what we live for. They represent the moments in our lives where we dared to feel something unique, learn something new, and pick up a new story along the way. So while we appreciate the common day-to-day experiences that keep us grounded, we savor the strange ones that keep us interesting.

Farewell 2010. Here's to a great 2011; may it just get stranger for us all~

2009

It's that time of year again when I really start thinking about what's happened in the last 12 months. How have I changed? What has made this year different? Was this year my best yet, as it always should be?

2009 was a hard year for me. Probably my hardest actually. Probably my most exciting too. Definitely my most life-changing. I can't believe how much I've been able to experience in such a short time. Some of it was really good. Some of it, not so good. But all of it is responsible for making me a different person than I was last December; all of it is responsible for making me a person that I like much more than I liked the person in my shoes last December.


In 2009 I left my bank job that I loved so much. I fell in love with school. I tried ten new flavors of vafly. I got a parasite. I made new life-long friends. I lost some friends that I thought were going to be life-long. I felt how hard it was to see people leave. I felt how great it was to see them unexpectedly come back. I went to a Russian banya. I learned about religious freedom. I competed in several gruelling legal competitions. I saw our nation's capital. I got swine flu. I broke my hand. Had some surgery too. I lost 18 pounds in six weeks. I finished a year and a half of law school. I applied to a thousand firms. I accepted zero jobs. I lost a great grandma. I learned how to party. I grew my hair. I started wearing ties more often. I learned how to parallel park. I visited 10,000 Russian Orthodox Church services. I bought an icon. I fainted twice. I saw my Ukrainian friends that I've missed for five years. I cried my eyes out at the train station when I had to say goodbye. I helped teach a contracts class. I started taking sleeping pills. I sort of started sleeping. I finally learned about the federal income tax system. I fell in love with Moscow. I got a tan and retained it for four whole weeks. I moved twice. I learned more about how strong my family is. I only ran two road races, but did better than expected in both. I was gifted a build-a-bear by a crazy person. I went through four phones. I learned a few new songs on the guitar. I forgot most of them. I bought a Wally Lamb book at an airport and didn't get past the third chapter. I got to know the US embassy in Moscow. I ate about forty gallons of borshch. I saw the Hermitage. I saw Lenin. I bought art from a guy underground in the middle of the night. I learned how to make cookie-fruit-salad. I lived at the law building. I got Adeno virus. I fell in love with Promethazine. I fell out of love with Lortab. I stopped caring about things that don't matter. I started the walk-America campaign and held to it for two straight months. I switched from only hating one political party to hating two political parties. I got only slightly closer to finishing Crime and Punishment. I visited an orphanage. I decorated for Halloween. I fought a couple of battles. I won them at a cost. I didn't regret it. I had dinner overlooking an ocean. I lost a flip-flop in the snow. I accidentally ran 13 miles with a friend. I emailed strangers thousands of miles away to beg them to let me come live with them. I slept on a communal train with my bag tied around my body. I drank out of a river. I got rescued by a Tajikistanian in a beat up Lada. I learned how to schedule three meetings at once, several times a day, without missing anything. I ate broccoli soup in the middle of the night in a new cafe. I gave a couch away. I had a sleepover with my six year old niece. We ate broccoli and ice cream. Vintage. I played spoons in a pool. I played what time is it Mr. Fox with some cute kids in their backyard. I ran in the mountains. I started eating chocolate a little bit. I took a wagon ride on Halloween. I was grossed out by a water park. I accidentally carried pepper spray onto a tiny plane. I became obsessed with a tv show about high school football. I almost ate a stuffed green pepper that looked like puke. I bought four dollar sunglasses and lost them in the ocean 24 hours later. I bought replacement sunglasses for five dollars that don't seem quite as good. I lost my voice because of pollution. I watched the movie "Taken" on the floor of an abandoned corner in a German airport. I learned how to Salsa dance. I edited a treatise. I took naps on the grass. I enjoyed life.

I'm not really sure what's going to happen in 2010. We never really know; and that unsurity for some reason seems to be much more obvious during this time of year, forging a tighter bond yet highlighting the difference between our future hopes and growing nostalgia for the past. I always find myself trying to balance my thoughts between that nostalgia and a focus on the future. It won't do much good to continue to obsess over things that came and went. But it would seem like a total waste to just ignore all the laughs and drama simply because their fifteen minutes are up. I guess as long as we figure out how to take the lessons from the past and use those as a part of the process of molding our future hopes, the nostalgia is justified and should even be encouraged. In any event, blogging world, I hope the lessons of 2009 help 2010 just get stranger for you all~

Journey Into The Whirlwind

For a couple of years now I have frequently recommended a book to anyone who would listen to me. To this day I'm quite sure that nobody I've recommended this book to has actually read it (I cry myself to sleep because of this) so on my blog today I will make one more attempt.

Journey into the Whirlwind is far and away one of the most captivating books I've ever read; it really has changed the way I view a lot of things and gives a really good sense of what Communism and dictatorships can do to society.

Eugenia Ginzburg (or Yevgenia) was born in Russia in 1906 and was a first hand witness to the Bolshevik revolution and birth of the Soviet Union. As an adult she became a writer and journalist and a staunch supporter of the Soviet Communist Party and avid defender of its leaders (Lenin, Stalin, etc.). During the course of the Soviet Union, but most severely in the 1930s, the country began to experience something very similar, yet much more harsh in nature, to what the US saw in the 1950s with the Red Scare when hundreds of people were blacklisted and interrogated for accusations of communist leanings. But in Soviet Russia the accusations were concerning betrayal of the communist party or, for simplicity, capitalist leanings. Yevgenia, although a consistent communist, was accused in 1937 and was promptly torn from her husband and children to spend many many years in brutal prisons under solitary confinement throughout Russia and labor camps in the coldest areas of Siberia. She also had to make the 2+ week trek across Russia to Vladivostok crammed in a horrible train car with dozens of other sick and depressed prisoners. When Yevgenia was released after Stalin's death in the mid-1950s, she secretly wrote this book which was then smuggled abroad so it could be published. The book is a fascinating detailed account of her experiences from the time she was torn from her family, never to see or hear from them again, through all of the pain she endured because of false accusations. She explains how she survived and how she and the other prisoners worked together to save one another's lives. One of the most interesting aspects of her account is being able to see how she was able to support and help uplift the other prisoners she had contact with.

I could not put this book down after I got about 30 pages into it. It is a really shocking thing to read. It is a sad book but I generally wouldn't call it depressing because Yevgenia is really a positive person and it's fascinating to see how she coped with everything and still maintained an optimistic outlook despite living through hell.

On a side note, there is another great book I read a couple of years ago that also explores the horrors of a corrupt communist government. It's called Red China Blues and it is about a Canadian woman who went to China in the 1970s to participate in and support the communists' Cultural Revolution. When she got there she was completely crushed and surprised to find a very oppressed and violent situation. The author wrote her experiences in this book later on. This book is a bit more depressing than Journey into the Whirlwind but has a lot of similarities in terms of exploring how communism ruins lives.

By the way, you can sometimes find Journey into the Whirlwind split into two parts so if you do, make sure to start with part I.

So please give it a try. And I would love to hear any feedback!