"She doesn't even go here!"

Not that I've ever been a nominee for any sort of superlative, but if I were to be, I can fairly accurately predict that my superlative would be "most likely to randomly snap and kill us all."

Let me explain: I say this because I've had at least half a dozen people suggest this about me, not because I think it's true. If I were to ever snap it would probably just involve a bunch of yelling and dramatic hand gestures--perhaps I'd finally live my dream of tossing a martini into someone's face--but I think climbing up the water tower with an AK47 is a bit of hyperbole on my peers' part. This perception of me has never really bothered me, if only because it's not necessarily inaccurate. In general I'm a pretty chill chick, and yet deep down, like, WAY deep down, I care deeply about a lot of things. I just take great pains to appear as if I don't care about much. So I understand where this impression comes from

A hostess at work recently accused me of being "like...REALLY green" after I explained my hanging onto a cell phone I hated because people die in the Congo for the minerals that make them. My gut instinct was to protest, but this lady clearly doth protested too much, because my response went something like this: "What! Nuh uh! Pffft. I mean, yeah, I care about the plight of civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are impacted by the warlords and militias who control the cobalt and tantalum mines. And sure, I recycle...like my apartment doesn't have a recycling dumpster so I have to drive to Naperville's recycling center to make sure my stuff gets recycled. But I mean...you know you're supposed to take the caps off your water bottles before you throw them into a bin, right? Otherwise they can't compress and they take up more space in the landfill or explode under pressure in a recycling bin..."

I trailed off at that point because the look on the hostess' face was a combination of glazed over, smug "I told you so", and looking frantically for the nearest exit.

The thing is... I really do care about minimizing my impact on the earth, and I really do care about spreading the word about our electronics re: the situation in the Congo. It blows my mind that things like our cell phones, laptops, iPods, and tablets are almost considered disposable, especially our cell phones. Jessica, over at her blog (Faith Permeating Life), challenged readers to consider the difference between merely "raising awareness" and "taking action", and cell phone waste is my "pet" cause. While I do care about the pointless waste of water bottles, the increasing restrictions on women's rights in the US, that Haiti is still far from being rebuilt after their earthquake, that the trade embargo on Cuba is patently unfair, that homosexuality and the life and dignity of the humans who express it is even up for debate, I take the time and effort to try to educate people on their technology. Your micro devices are made from coltan. Coltan comes from the Congo. Warlords run the coltan mines in the Congo. Still. After 10 years of this issue being brought to the international stage. Warlords rape women, kill men, force children into labor, and threaten all of the above against the people who live in the villages with the mines if they don't cooperate. Every cell phone uses coltan and no manufacturer can promise their coltan doesn't originate from a warlord.

Is this our fault? Of course not. Should we feel badly about wanting and using cell phones and laptops? Surely not. But I do think we should make informed choices. Does your cell phone still work? Keep using it. I personally find it irresponsible to purchase a new device every time my inclinations change; I don't want to increase demand for products that are actively harming human life.

 And this is what I try to impart to people: use your cell phone for as long as you can. Think twice, or three times about replacing it. And for the love of God--recycle it when you're done. I usually stay very quiet about this topic until something provokes it, and then you get a passionate rendition of my nationally ranked persuasive speech from '07.

/soapbox

I could have also written this post in the vein that deep down inside I care very deeply about my upcoming wedding and marriage, but try very hard to stay quiet about it until provoked.

"It takes a family to raise a child..."

"...it takes a village to help that family raise that child." - Naperville Police detective Shaun Ferguson

In the last 18 months, seven teenagers in Naperville have died from heroin overdose. It's seemed that the "teen heroin epidemic" was all the local media could talk about all of last year, to the point where it started to sound a bit trite and over-hyped, but then in the first six weeks of 2012 eight people died from heroin in DuPage County, including a girl from my high school.

My senior year of high school they installed a plaque on the wall of the cafeteria that was instantly and crudely dubbed "the Tree of Death". It was intended to be a memorial for students who died while attending our school. I believe it was prompted by the tragic deaths of two Juniors, Anthony and Diana, when their car hit a tree and burst into flames. When I left NVHS their names, and the name of a girl who had been a few classes ahead of me who died of complications from a disability, were the only ones memorialized on small, bronze leafs. When a friend and I nostalgically stalked through the halls of our school this past Christmas we visited the Tree. Thankfully, the unnervingly large and lush tree remained by and large blank, but there were several more names up there than when I had graduated. I recognized one boy who lost his fight to cancer the year after I left, and another boy who died from complications of his disability. There were three or four other names, however, of students who had died in the last year who I'm almost certain were victims of this "heroin epidemic". One wasn't supposed to graduate until 2014.

The community has been more or less in a constant state of shock and denial about this over the last year. At first it was older kids, young adults who'd graduated and attempted to leave the nest, and then it was just one or two teenagers from the same friend group. But then the hospitalizations, arrests, and deaths started spreading beyond one peer circle, one neighborhood, one school, and people started getting scared.

I don't know how much of the gradual rising of panic is due to media hype and general mass hysteria and how much of it is legitimate fear that our town's teenagers are spiraling out of control without knowing the risks they're taking. What I do know is this: when I was in high school a mere 6-10 years ago (has it really been so long??) this wasn't happening. There may have been a few students who were addicts, but no one was dying. There may have been whispers and rumors, but there wasn't a pervasive sense that you could easily score from a friend-of-a-friend if you wanted to. Something is different, something has changed, and that icy feeling of hopelessness has settled into the pit of my stomach.

On March 12, 1998 the Chicago Tribune printed an article warning of increasing herion use among Naperville teens. The article itself seemed to be more about the ~interesting and ~scary phenomenon of rich, white kids willingly going to Chicago's west side to mingle with the poor, black gangs to score heroin than the actual problem of drug addiction itself, as no student had died from an overdose yet, but it did quote community leaders being concerned about an escalation in future years. Sadly, I think we're there, and it seems that the awareness and prevention actions taken weren't effective. 

The Boy and I have ramped up our discussions about things like starting a family and raising kids (you know, to make sure we're on the same page, and if not, that we can at least openly discuss this sort of thing before we're legally and spiritually bound to one another), and my general fear of not knowing how to raise a child, let alone guide a teenager, has increased a hundred fold. I was and have always been a Good Kid, and my friends have always been of the Good Kid variety, with small variations. We cared enough about school to know it was important to graduate, if not with the highest honors possible. Most of us had after school jobs because we were taught to value money and weren't necessarily given the frivolous things we wanted to spend money on. We loved the theatre department, we loved working hard at tech, and we loved each other. We drank lots of Mountain Dew but never (as far as I know) drank alcohol. We joked about drugs but never tried them, not even cigarettes (most of us). We would tease each other about sex but almost none of us were having it. We assumed some of the kids at our school were doing any or all of these, but it was no one we knew and not really something people talked about.

I have no idea why any of us were like that. We all had fairly different family backgrounds and socioeconomic situations, and were raised by wildly different parents. I don't have the faintest idea why we were good kids and other kids were not. I don't know what it was about my high school experience that, more or less, got all 740 of us out mostly unscathed, and what's killing the kids at my high school now. The terror of not knowing why this is happening is paralyzing me when I pause to think about trying to raise a child in an environment where drugs and death are so pervasive, and I don't even have an actual child to be scared for right now.

I don't know what to do, other than hugging every teenager I see really tight and whispering "don't do drugs!" into their ears. I don't think the police, or teachers, or parents here know either, and that's what's keeping us up at night the most.

We are made from the sharpest things you say

We are young and we don't care; your dreams, and your hopeless hair--we never wanted it to be this way for all our lives.

Back in June I spent a weekend at a youth leadership conference with Alex's parish acting as the token female chaperone, where it was made abundantly clear to me that I have forgotten what it is like to be a teenager. I'm not quite so far removed from the experience that I think dying my hair funny colors and wearing silly hats will help me relate, but I have forgotten what it feels like to be my own sun.

It's not that the kids at the conference were selfish and egocentric--this was a group of Good Kids at a church retreat learning how to be more effective leaders, after all--but all of their thoughts, emotions, worries, and joys were always of the most pressing concern. Each and every single one of the teens I got to know over that weekend were on their own, private adventure in which they were the main protagonist. Their hushed conversations during Mass were more like stage-whispers than actual stealth, they listened to their peers tell stories as they eagerly awaited the right moment to interject with their own anecdote or opinion, and the vim and vigor for life were undeniable in their eyes as they swept their gazes around the room.

They updated Facebook constantly on their verboten cell phones.

I'd forgotten how intense life could be, where I was fully cognizant that each and every single breath I drew was inextricably linked to my own destiny, and I'd forgotten how important my life could be. College and post-college life (I refuse to consider this The Real World, the bills aren't soul-crushing enough and my job is too fun to be reality) imposed both a sense of philosophical relativism and a practical awareness of the importance of others. It is with a combination of this more mature panoramic view and (thanks to reacquainting myself with music I used to love) a visceral reminder of teenage passion that I have read about the rioting in England, and found my reaction to be, above all, one of profound horror.

The media accounts of the four days of riots all seem to agree that the rioting was, by and large, perpetrated by youths, many as young as fourteen, and as far as anyone can tell, after the very first protest march to demand justice for the man who was shot by police, the violence, the looting, the fires, and the deaths were nothing more than sport.

Five people are dead. Three of whom were young men trying to defend their neighborhood against the gangs of youth who were attempting to destroy their homes. A family whose apartment was burned down were almost killed when teenagers began throwing burning bottles at the car they were seeking refuge in. Hundreds of people are homeless, dozens of business owners have lost everything they have, and hundreds of people were hospitalized--mostly non-rioters.

I remember what it is like to want to be a part of something bigger, and I remember what it is like to get caught up in a moment. What terrifies me the most about what transpired in England is that I find it completely believable. My friends and I were good kids when we were teenagers. We generally did well in school, we were fiercely dedicated to a club, we didn't drink or smoke, most of us weren't having sex, and if we broke the law it was laughable misdemeanors, yet it doesn't take too much stretching of my imagination to imagine us getting sucked into something as epic as rioting. I don't believe that the majority of the young people out rioting in England are bad, sociopathic people. Some of them? Sure. But not all of them, and the idea that it can be so easy for so many normal people to cause so much damage, to be so callous and unthinking makes the breath catch in my lungs.

I don't know what there is to be done, I don't know if anything can be done to prevent something like this from happening again. I just know that I'm going to be very kind to the teenagers in my life.

Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements

According to Blogger's wonderful ability to save drafts of entries the following are topics which have been on my mind but left abandoned due to lack of time or follow-through (in chronological order):

-Gunshots, more specifically how I heard them one night and did nothing about it, despite fancying myself to be the type of person who would call for help if she saw or heard something amiss.

-How much I truly resent having poor eyesight, illustrated by my blind, shuffling walk home from the hipster eye doctor one bright, sunny afternoon after my eyes were dilated.

-The appalling sexism evident in the re-opening of public examination of Chris Brown's assault of Rihanna after "S&M" was released, re: "Did you hear that song? She obviously liked being beaten up, Chris did nothing wrong, poor maligned thing!" (read as: raaaaaaaaaaaaage)

-Work ethic and a sense of responsibility, and how I have it, despite evidence that neither are requirements or even expectations at Erie St TGIF.

-My increasing itch to do better for myself when it comes to my employment because despite being happy in the moment, I'm quite frankly disappointed with how I think my job reflects upon me as a person.

-The great internal conflict I had to face when confronted with Alex's application for a job back in Kentucky, whether or not I was willing to uproot myself if he got the job and what it would say about me whichever way I chose.

-The sadness, ambivalence, and guilt that came along when my friend from high school, Kristen, passed away.

-City life, what I've learned, how I've changed, if I'm ready to leave.

This all, more or less, encompasses my last few months. My last day at Erie St. was Sunday which was almost disappointingly anticlimactic after eleven days of constant, busy shifts. I took a week off so I can slowly pack, and just enjoy my remaining time here on the Northside. Thus far I've been to the beach three times, slept in until I just felt like getting up, painted my nails, spent good time at good bars with some good friends I'm sad to be leaving behind, and less frivolously packed my dvds and books and swept up the living room. After the absolute nightmare that was my move into this apartment, I'm hoping to make the move out of it as pain free as possible.

Lots of Future Things are looming in my sights and tying my tummy up in knots, but I have faith things will settle down soon enough.

The Break Over

Baby, you're beautiful, and there's nothing wrong with you

If there's one thing I know to be true about myself, it's that if I don't start to write when the bug bites me, it won't happen. So here I am, having intended to be asleep hours ago, yet luckily for you, Interested Party, I'm going with the flow and letting the words come as they may, rather than shoving them aside and hoping I remember them later. A warning, however, for those who enjoy my often witty, watered-down so as to be generally applicable entries: I'm tired of hiding the sadder, more negative thoughts in my OtherBlog,so what follows is neither cheerful, nor especially full of wit or charm. Mostly just moping.

I think, all things considered, I've been handling the breakup rather well. I still haven't cried in public, though there have been some close calls. I've managed to change addresses, start a "new" job, see friends, catch up on my reading, and get up out of bed every day and fall asleep every night. All in all, I think I've achieved an equilibrium of "okay".

The last words I heard come out of Alex's mouth however many weeks ago were "You're going to be okay. You have to be okay. I'll be so angry with you if you're not okay." I've spent a lot of time wondering what his definition of "okay" is. Am I happy? No, not really. Not with our parting, not with my new job, not even with my new life, really. Am I a complete wreck? Of course not. I don't think I have the emotional fortitude to lock myself away and be miserable 100% of the time. I have things to do. Do I cry? Every day, still. Sometimes just a small welling up of the eyes, sometimes the sort of heartbroken sobbing that surprises myself. Am I moving on? Well, therein lies my problem, I think.

I've not been moving on. Why? Because I don't want to. I didn't--and still don't--understand why I'm suddenly single, and therefore have been refusing to make both the physical and emotional moves to get on with my life. I keep assuming that because I think breaking up with stupid as hell, that he'll come to his senses any minute now and realize it too. But then in a burst of the rare combination of narcissism and masochism I began reading my old entries here, beginning with the one I wrote the day after we kissed for the first time.

In April of '06, about a month and a half after we began dating, I wrote an entry about what I termed "the astronaut dilemma". In January of '09 I recanted my thoughts. Now, when I wrote the April '06 entry, I was going through some emotional turmoil and was, for once, letting my heart take precedence over my head. January of '09 was a cooler, more rational period of time for me, so of course I looked back upon my heart's blatherings with disdain and even a hint of embarrassment. However now, again in the throes of emotional turmoil I'm remembering the reasons behind the initial entry. Even though it's breaking my heart all over again to admit this to myself, I can acknowledge this fact: I was Alex's astronaut.

Between this revelation and an unanswered desperate, unadvisable e-mail I think I finally have the resources to let it go. I've spent the last few weeks trying to "get over it", when I really need to be "moving on". I have no idea how one goes about doing that, but I think I can actually start grieving for a relationship lost, rather than clinging to the tattered remains like there was something to salvage.

I hear Time is the healer of all things, but I still think, for now, I'm not quite "okay". I'm working on it, though. I promise.

Move Along,
CB

Check my vital signs

Know I'm still alive, and I walk alone.

I make a lot of noise in this here weblog noting how a) I'm a notorious robot, b) sometimes that's not true, and c) marvel at how well/poorly I'm handling human emotions. I've gotten sick of it, so I'm sure that you have too, Interested Party.

So let's get this straight: Clearly, I'm not really a robot. If anything, I'm a robot impostor. I look at my even-keel and calm waters and ascribe it to Roboticism because that sounds a lot cooler being being boring and/or apathetic. As I'm maturing and experiencing a wider variety of things I'm consequently encountering emotions further out on the spectrum than usual. This really shouldn't be so baffling or fascinating to me. I think I just like to make a big deal out of the "Cathi's having an emotion!" event because, due to a lack of practice in dealing with them, I think it makes a good preemptive excuse in the likely event that I don't handle myself well.

Right now I'm experiencing a depth of emotion that, at this point in time, I don't recall ever feeling before. Even looking back on my teenage angst I'm not convinced I was ever quite this sad. It's an overwhelming sort of thing where I can still feel its tingling undercurrent below whatever activity I've immersed myself in. The BFF informed me that it's going to be an uphill battle that will oftentimes be taking it breath by shuddering breath, rather than day by day. I'm lucky in that I have some major life changes coming up that will help distract me and provide activities to occupy my mind, but I know that this is still going to be very, very difficult.

I miss him already. I'm heartbroken. I don't know how well I'm going to handle this pervasive sadness. I do know, however, that I've got it in me to be okay. So far, I've avoided crying in public which in my book is a small victory. Seester and the BFF have been beyond kind to me in the last day or so, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Letting go of hopes,
Cathi

Hard lessons, and love

Questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart

My very first memory, something pieced together with bits of actual recollections and photographs, is of Linda being born. They put me in hospital regulation animal pajamas and were very forceful about me washing my hands before going in to meet my new baby sister. I was extremely indignant, my sense of pride very strong for a not-yet 2 year-old, that the nurse assumed I was a dirty child. I remember snuggling next to my mom in the hospital bed, looking at the tiny, red-faced bundle in her arms, and being told that I was a Big Sister now; I had Responsibilities.

Most people don't have solid memories of their lives that young, and most of my other memories of early childhood are simply hazy remembrances of an emotion, a snatch of a sentence, or mash of very similar events that have blended into one. Kudos to Wee Martin for making such a big impression.

One thing I have precious few memories of is that of my parents being together. My mom and dad divorced when I was very young, and I feel that it's safe to say that all I've known, really, is a two-family life.

In my line of work I will get asked about my personal life from completely impersonal people. I always answer truthfully (albeit with brevity) and so on the odd occasion where it's merited mention, I will tell people my parents got divorced when I was but a wee little sprog. The universal response is "I'm sorry, that must have been hard", to which I surprise people with the counter-response of "not really, actually." I like to think that I've grown into a mature, sensible, well-rounded person who is doing her parents proud, and I neither attribute this to, nor feel it is in spite of the early separation. It is simply How It Is.

I've encountered very few issues being a child of divorce. The only major hiccup I can recall is my bff across the street not being allowed to come out and play anymore because her parents didn't want her associating with divorced riff-raff, and the only real emotional scar I can put my finger on is the tendency to question the viability of long-term relationships.

The benefit of having my faith in the almighty Love and Marriage shaken so young is that I've had a very long time to work through it. I've seen both the ugliness and the happiness that can result from a separation, and I have the wisdom to know that it will, in time, get better. I learned very early on that one relationship is not a barometer for others; just because my parent's couldn't work it out doesn't mean my friend's parents can't either, and just because my friend's parents were happy and in love doesn't mean that my parents were somehow less happy or loving. Every person, every experience, and every relationship is different and it took a lot of observation and questioning in my formative years to realize that there is no Golden Rule for relationships. It will work, or it won't. That is all.

Most importantly, especially as I've gotten older and my parents have had both time and distance to heal their old, deep wounds, I have learned that an unhappy ending doesn't invalidate the happy years that preceded it. My mom will come across a recipe card and wistfully remember how my paternal grandmother was so darn good at it, and wonder aloud if my father would like to have it back (you know, 20 years after the divorce). My dad will laughingly recall how once my mother was mortified when he got angry at a Sears salesperson over car repairs. Even though it ended badly and took a long, long while to smooth over, my parents had, at one time, a good relationship. That has been my hardest lesson to learn. Though there were fights and court dates, kid-shuffling and FAFSA disagreements, the 17 years of marriage they had before all this mess was still worthwhile. Once, they were happy, and that long-irrelevant emotion and memory doesn't just vanish into the ether when the bond does.

Nostalgia,
CB

Be Prepared

Giving you no time, instead of it all

When all of one's friends (or so it seems, at times) are leading wildly successful and busy lives pursuing academia to great and glorious heights, it's easy to feel as if one's own life is lousy and dead-end in comparison. I've recently fallen into the trap of comparing my life's apples with my friend's oranges and quite frankly, it's been unnecessarily psyching me out. Despite living a live of suburban American ease and first-world luxury, a lot of things have been piling up that are putting my head in a goofy place. Including, but not limited to:

-Envy of my friends' continuation of education
-June weather just now breaking 70*
-Massive and inconsistent changes in the bar
-Realizing my local circle of friends is quite limited
-Mom hinting at exasperation with my presence in her home
-Boyfriend running away to the Middle of Nowhere for ten months

Collectively, it's all becoming a bit much and I'm feeling the tremblings of a slow freak-out creeping upon me. It's all very well and good to go with the flow as I tend to do, until I realized I've got half a dozen different rivers flowing in completely different directions, some of which have currents that run much more strong and deep than others.

I'm not good with emotions. I prefer them to be bound and gagged and locked tightly in a rubber-padded room where no one can hear them scream. Unfortunately, in a very short amount of time, I'm going to have to deal with Very Big Emotions as my heart is packed haphazardly into a leather duffel bag and transported 450 miles away. Because of my intense discomfort with acknowledging feelings, I don't often take time to analyze them properly, and it's come as a great surprise exactly how entwined my life has become with Alex "let's go save the world" Durbin's.

The more I attempt to compartmentalize, rationalize, and prepare myself for our imminent separation, the less prepared and rational I become. I'm realizing that I may not be as strong or solitary or independent as I fancy myself to be, and the prospect of freaking out is, well, freaking me out.

I'm probably going to need a lot of hand-holding and head-slapping in the near future as matters of the heart jump out of dark alleyways to mug my logic and reason. If you, Interested Party, have any busy-work projects or Valium to share, don't hesitate to hit me up, as the kids say.

This turned out way differently than planned,
Catherine

Someone is a Sad Panda

And sometimes, I feel very small

But love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken "hallelujah"

I've only ever given one ultimatum in my life, and for reasons far beyond my comprehension I was tested on it today.

Ultimatums are tricky things, which is why I've only ever levied one. Not only do you really have to mean what you say in the moment, and not only do you have to be prepared to actually act upon it, but you're going to have to deal with the sense of betrayal that accompanies whatever it was that violates your terms.

If it wasn't for "Fate", I might not have been able to stand firm, which troubles me. At the time when I issued my ultimatum I was trusting more in the recipient's ability to be a good kid and not cause me to make good on my treat than I was in my ability to follow through. And so, when push came to shove, I found my shoving-arms to be malfunctioning until other circumstances helped me save face.

But now, Interested Party, I'm at a bit of a loss with how to proceed from here. I don't think my army of acrobats with their safety nets can weave me a plan big enough to deal with this. Do I issue another ultimatum, even though I just learned that I very likely don't really mean it? Should I forgive and forget? Or perhaps I should take this as a sign, put my acrobats into suitcases and bail out now.

It's not exactly earth-shattering, but my world has been sufficiently rocked. I suppose my first step should be to find my footing, then loose some arrows and well-honed barbs, enough to teach my former-"good kid" not to do it again. Maybe I'll just cry.

Smoke and mirrors,
CB

Congratulations, Class of 2008

I've got a plan: we walk out the door

Despite being rather insistant than I'd rather be shot in the face than have to sit through graduation, I realized tonight that missing it is robbing me of something I've overlooked: the goodbyes.

While sitting in the June sun, watching 500 people I don't know walk up and shake a drunk collge president's hand while wearing the most absurd clothing known to modern man is clearly not a situation I'd gladly sign myself up for, I'd forgotten that the formal ceremony would be not only my last chance to see some people who were a big part of the latest chapter of my life, but also an excuse to let myself cry a little.

I'm not the sentimental type, not really, but it struck me rather hard tonight that I will probably never see some of my college acquaintences and friends ever again. I went to the bar, as per usual on a Thursday night, with the usual crowd, but when I left, I knew it was for the last time, for real.

I will miss college and I will miss the people who I now realize I took for granted. My buddy Nicky D, who somehow always managed to earn the title of "friend" despite the fact that we only really hung out a handful of times during the last four years. The wily Bug, whose molestations weren't necessarily welcome, but always made me feel included. Monk, who was always around, always friendly, and always hilarious. Even Paige, who I never particularly liked due to one of my first encounters with her, but was a part of my life nevertheless. These are people who made up the landscape of my college experience, who I will not necessarily attempt to stay in contact with, and will assumedly never see again except for the odd reunion-esque get together.

There were no false promises of staying in touch. I told Nick it was a pleasue mostly being friends, gave some hugs, and waved rather casually, and that was that. We're all going on to a wide variety of things, all of which can be deemed "the real world". We will get jobs, have families or new groups of friends who seem like a family, get old, break hips, and eventually die. For most of the people I knew at NCC, all of this will happen without my notice and right now, not being afforded a formal, official goodbye, is weighing rather heavily on my heart.

The end of an era is scariest, I think, when you see it coming.

And so, my friends at NCC, I will miss you. Thank you for being a part of the last 3 years of my life. Thank you for making me feel like I belonged. Thank you for laughing with me, gossiping with me, and learning alongside me. I wish you the best, really.

Class of 2008,
Catherine

Remembering the past, living the present, avoiding the future

When we were made we were set apart

On Motive
----I've been spending a lot of time avoiding the local news, trying not to think of DeKalb, or Northern, or anyone I know connected to that community, because my delicate senses are still freshly wounded from the shock. The one exception is that I'll take time to pause whenever some splashy headline involves Steven Kazmierczak (who, by the way, I'm really glad has an unpronounceable name. No more household-name killers like Charles Manson or Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris). While I might need some time to process the complex emotions involved, knowing the why always seems to help. In this case, there doesn't seem to be a reason, and that, strangely, makes me feel better.

I think in any tragic situation, being able to blame God, Fate, or simply Dumb Luck is much easier on the soul than having a tangible person or incident to blame. This could not have been stopped. There was nothing NIU officials, students, security, or admissions counselors could have done differently. In some cases, being completely helpless feels just a bit better than feeling like you, or someone else, failed at some responsibility. There were no warning signs, there wasn't even a reason for him to be in DeKalb at all. It's. Not. Anyone's. Fault. And that gives me some comfort.

On Time
----I've semi-unofficially been dating the same person (officially known as "The Boy") for two years now. The funny part is, I'm still feeling caught up in that "honeymoon phase", which I've been told is supposed to fade after a bit. No one's scientifically measured how long that "bit" is supposed to be, but you'd think that after two years we would at least hate each other at least just a little.

On the flip side, these last two years in every other aspect of my life have seemed like they've taken forever. I can barely remember being an intern, being "on my own" is a distant tickle in the back of my hippocampus. The weird part is that, while I have a whole two years of Relationship Memories, they often get jumbled around in my Other Life mental timeline. I've been just as enamored, just as fascinated, and just as happy with The Boy since day one that it's difficult to pin-point where any one happy memory occurred. Which means that even as we've gotten to know each other and learned about each other and spent so much time together, I'm still finding things to love, things to enjoy, and things I still want to know.

On (pre)Occupations
----I've not yet embarked upon The Great Rest Of My Life Hunt, largely because The Great End Of An Era has been heaping work upon my doorstep which I, of course, have been ignoring violently. Unfortunately, there are some things that one must do in order to, like, graduate and stuff. For now, I'm content letting life come at me as it will, because I'm clearly not motivated to grab any bulls by their horns. Besides, I can always just bartend for the rest of my life.

On Farewells
----Catherbadger

Contemplating Cole Hall

There's a lot of things in life that don't make sense to me, like why "domestic partnerships" are more threatening to the Religious Right than "gay marriage", or the way guy's brains work. As I sit here on the morning of Friday, Februray 15, 2008, I'm attempting to make sense of the series of emotions that have been tumbling around whatever area of my body where emotions reside. I'm thinking the stomach.

For at least half of my high school career I was semi-obsessed with school shootings, in the sense that they horrified me, and I saw the stirrings of how it could happen at my own school and took active measures with my more creative friends to raise awareness. There's something exteremely, intensely personal about a school shooting. Schools are places where people go to be safe, to make their lives better, and bringing in fear and hate and anger and sadness in such an extreme, violent way makes me feel so...violated.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I'm hoping that what happened at NIU won't earn some horrifically cheesy title, like "The Valentine's Day Massacre", partly because that's already taken. I also hope that the school's name doesn't become synonymous with this tragedy, like Virgina Tech.

It's strange to me for something of this magnitude to be so near to me, and yet I still remain so far removed. On the one hand, I know people who attend NIU from high school and the speech circuit, I know people who teach there, work there, and I felt justifiably worried about them. But on the other hand, these people that I know are acquaintences. I don't have any of their phone numbers stored in my cell, I had to call second-parties to check up to make sure that my acquaintences were okay. Overall, I'm struggling between being overwhelmed with the absolte terror of it all-- imagining what it must be like to be a student there, and feeling like I should just go on with life as usual.

The latter is probably the best and most reasonable option, and the one I will probably employ. It's what you do after any major tragedy that doesn't personally affect you, right? But this one was so much closer, just personal enough that I can't help but to feel like I'm a part of it, in just a little way. I just can't help but to think back to a couple weekends ago when I was in Cole Hall, celebrating the success of my teammates and speech friends, laughing, joking, being alive; now juxtaposing that image of the lecture hall with terrified, wounded, dead peers. It's something that keeps threatening to overwhelm my usual placid emotional balance.

If you're the praying type, pray for NIU, pray for parents, students, friends, family. Pray for other schools, because this sort of thing seems to be catching.

Huskies,
Cathi

Farewell, Heath Ledger

Every new beginning is some other beginning's end

A number of years ago some older actor died and I remember my mom being shocked and saddened for a bit. I thought she was being a bit silly, as were all the people on TV who had gathered at the actor's home to cry, lay flowers, and mourn. These weren't friends, family, or community members. They had seen the actor on TV and in movies, that was it.

Giving my mom the benefit of the doubt, I tried to imagine how I'd feel if Lance Bass died. I decided I might be sad about it, but crying about it seemed a little much.

Heath Ledger died today, and I have to admit, I'm still in a little bit of shock. He was somewhat near and dear to my heart, seeing as Linda and I once went on a double date with him and Jake Gyllenhaal. I honestly can't describe how I'm feeling about it, because my life isn't really affected by the discontinuation of his. Yet I'm feeling stunned, saddened, even a little teary-eyed.

This vague shadow of grief seems ludicrous in the face of the fact that 4 days ago a friend of the family succumbed to cancer and while I was sad, especially for my mother's best friend whose brother is the deceased, I did not get weepy. I listened, I processed, and I moved on.

I will admit, however, that my first thought (after realizing my customer wasn't pulling her friend's leg) was "I hope they'd finished all the filming for Dark Knight."

In other news of the day, I declared my first jihad against whomever is responsible for plowing NCC's parking lots. After being forced to park on north end at 2am due to my south end parking lot being closed, I had to spend half an hour this morning kicking/hand-shovelling a 3-foot pile of snow out from behind my car. I was rather put out.

10 Things I Hate Love About You,
Catherine

Sit rep

Awake and unafraid

I like to think that I cope well with not only change, but with spontaneity. It would speak well of my character if I enjoyed surprises, but when they come in the form of a 3 page research paper due in 3 hours, my love for the impromptu is tested.

Have you ever sat down and really, truly thought about your fiscal situation? I mean apart from tax time (which is nigh!). I recently had the revelation that I, Cathi Martin, am spoiled. I don't mean in a "rotten" sort of sense, just "spared the true hardships of reality". This hit me harder than a Lincoln hits a utility pole when the day after "my" car was wrecked, I was in possession of not just another vehicle, but essentially a brand-spanking-new one. I may have never lived in a big fancy house, known what caviar tastes like, or worn designer jeans, but I have been beyond well taken care of.

I need to work on eliminating irrational spikes of jealousy from my emotional repertoire.

It would be nice to think that I'm exactly where I want to be, but I think that's a hard sentiment to be sure of. Doing well in school? Check. Successful in speech? Check. Surviving on my own? Check. Content with my job? Check. Deliriously happy with the boyfriend? Check. Acceptable fashion sense? Well... I guess there's always room for improvement.

A Favor House Atlantic,
Cathers

Motional

If love is a labor, I'll slave 'til the end

Emotional people have never made a lot of sense to me. And when I say "emotional" I don't really mean "cries at the drop of a hat", I sort of mean "has emotions on a regular basis". I, for one, am in more or less of a perpetual state of contentment. I veer slightly off sometimes into mild amusement, gentle frustration, or sometimes even vague giddiness, but all in all I run on a pretty even keel. Even when I was a kid I never really saw much of a point in the wide and varied expressions of my peers. I was never one for running around and screaming or throwing temper tantrums. I've never even been in a fight with a friend. Nothing ever really seems worth it.

All of this is nice, of course, when it comes to maintaining relationships and being on good terms with my parents, but when my...wherever it is that emotions come from (hypothalamus? hippocampus? Heh. Campus for hippos) decides to kick in, I get pretty confused on top of whatever emotion has cropped up. My knowledge of how to handle emotions is about as extensive as my know-how of automobile maintenence, except I know enough about cars that I was able to help my daddy change a headlight yesterday.

For example: I didn't even realize how much Alex going out of town affected me until I started crying when I got off work. The thought process went something like this.

1) I can't believe how late it is
2) I'm really hungry
3) It's sort of late, what's open?
4) Dennys!
5) I should call Durbs and make him come get food with me
6) ...
7) ...oh wait.
8) Dude this sucks.
9) I'm crying?
10) I'm crying.
11) Why am I crying? It's not that big of a deal.
12) I'm still crying
13) Sad face.

Total incompetence in the emotional department has its perks as well, such as always winning "Honey I Love You" and being able to shrug off criticism. While it might make me robot-like, I'm pretty okay with it. It keeps me from flipping out on obnoxious customers and vapid lab partners, at hte very least.

Linda Thursday!
Cathi

birthday/scheidecker

Ich liebe dich sehr, und bin glücklich mit dir

Sportfreunde Stiller is my current obsession, along with trying to find an authentic "Berliner", ala JFK's fatal "Ich bin ein Berliner" mistake, before I head back to America.

My 21st birthday was one to remember, and I mean that in all possible ways to interpret that phrase. We toured the bomb shelter bunkers underneath Berlin, saw a two mile stretch of the Berlin Wall, drank the best Milchkaffees ever, and then I went out to an Egyptian restaurant with some of my new trip friends. I was buzzed after one glass of white wine, and annoyingly tipsy after two, so I called it a night. I suppose I am what one could call a "lightweight".

So I logged onto facebook this evening to be greeting with the group invitation "In loving memory of Mr. Scheidecker". It's a hell of a way to find out someone died, let me tell you. I'm still in a little bit of shock, I think, because I don't feel upset or sad yet. I'm sure it'll sink in when I'm trying to sleep, though. It's a bit strange when someone whom you've been holding a grudge against passes away. It's not like I'm remotely glad Mr. Scheidecker is dead, although he is the man responsible for making me notice every time someone uses the redundant phrase "reason why", I'm just trying to figure out if it's wrong not to be immediately reduced to tears about it.

I'm really wishing I was home. I can't tell if Berlin is getting old, or I'm just really homesick. Maybe if I had more money I'd feel like there were still lots of options available for me to experience here. Ah, well. We've had a good run, Berlin and I. I'd just like to get back to the boy, family, friends, bed, and life.

Being away for so long essentially by yourself makes a lot of things more clear.

RIP Shy,
Cathi

(PS: I would have made a lousy team captain anyway)

Septembre Elf

I'm about to embark upon a mild diatribe that was intended for two days ago, but the lack of immediate internet access makes timing a bit tricky.

"9/11" annoys me. Not in the way that mosquito bites annoy me and not quite in the same way vertical and horizonal stripes worn in combination annoy me. Perhaps it's the use of the numbers, rather than the date that gets my gears grinding, but it's mostly the attitude that surrounds the date.

We are encouraged to be blindly patriotic out of respect on this day while at the same time from different sources told to be skeptical, critical. I for one am just trying to go about my life normally. Did my gut clench up just a little bit every time I had to tell someone that school started on "September 11th"? Yes. Did theirs when they heard me say it? Probably. Every time someone shows images of "9/11" I get the same panicky feeling I got 5 years ago when I was watching that footage live, and I'm not sure I'll ever get over that.

I'm all about honor, duty, respect, and patriotism. I believe that we should honor the unknowing people who died that that respectfully, regardless of whether it was truly an Al-Queda attack or a conspiracy of our own government. I take conscious pride in being an American more than your average college student probably does. I take offence, however, at people proclaiming that we will "never forget". "Never Forget" is a Holocaust phrase, not that it was expressly copyrighted for it, and I find it a bit unfair to the families and survivors of the Holocaust to put the same amount of importance on September 11th as we do that. I find it ill advised to make that claim when we will forget, in some fashion or another. We all remember the attack on Pearl Harbor but not the date.

I just want to move on. I want to go to school, work at my job, fall in love, see the world, and love my neighbor without doom, gloom, terrorists, and National Security looming over me. Are we safer? I don't know. We were not safe in 2001? I don't know. Is safety something I'm even concerned about? Frankly, no. Stop filling my head with propoganda. Stop using fancy words loaded with connotations to manipulate my thoughts. Stop this "us and them" mentality. Stop telling me not to forget, and stop trying to rule my life with fear. I won't have it.

Love for All,
Cathi

Poland

Don't you sit upon the shorline and say you're satisfied. Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tides

Poland was amazing beyond words, therefore making the whole experience hard to summarize adequately for those who, with varying levels of interest, ask me how it was. Something I don't talk about much is my spirituality, making me a poor Christian I suppose. My life had been, for lack of a less severe term, spiraling out of control. Slowly. So slowly in fact that I barely even noticed it happening. The Poland mission trip knocked everything back into place and I am now orbiting at the proper distance around God again.

(Good metaphor, me.)

I have a lot of stories I could share, including, but not limited to:

- Scandalous swim wear
- A daring escape from a watery fate
- Making friends on my own
- Learning random Polish
- The Baltic Sea: Overprotected Polish Child
- The water, sand, and silly string capers
- Being pwnd in dodgeball by a boy with only one arm and two stumps for legs.
- Scary driving
- Inappropriate jokes on a crowded train ("I feel like I'm going to concentration camp.")

However there is only one story I feel stands out as the defining experience of my trip.

We had a worship service every night where we would sing, hear a spectacular sermon from "Serge", and sing some more. The campers would dance in the aisles, throw their hands in the air, jump around, and praise God at the top of their lungs, and they would listen with interested. One night one of the founders of the camp came and talked to us and told us about his son, Ben. About how when Ben was a little kid he told his mom and dad that he wanted to tell the whole congregation that he loved Jesus. How when Ben was 12 he got a postcard that said something like "All that I have, all that I am, all for the Lord", and how Ben signed his name under that and put it on the fridge.

And then, with a big smile on his face, the founder told us of how one day when Ben was 14 and they dropped him off at his school, Ben walked across the street and was hit by a car. The founder kept talking faster and faster, smiling more and more, telling us about how it was so hard for them to go through, as parents, to lose Ben, but that they knew that he was in Heaven with the savior her loved so much, waiting for them. Ania, the young translator, began to cry as she had to share his Polish words with those of us who could not understand and her sorrow was starkly contrasted by his joy.

Even now as I type this, emotion is overwhelming me. He was so happy, so joyful, so incredibly sure about Ben's place. He obviously had a lot of time to put things in perspective and this happiness was, to me, the least expected but somehow most logical way to look at it. In Ostroda, Poland I learned again about the power of Christ and the healing power of belief, and above all that what we do on this earth has a greater purpose than just our whims.

I might actually be getting an apartment, for real, so here's to hoping. I might have to duel at dawn with Brian for the master bedroom. I'm not good at employing my feminine wiles, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to con a man out of a big bedroom, let me know.

Love,
Cathi

Perfect world

My tongue will taste of gin and malicious intent

You hear the phrase "in a perfect world..." a lot, usually prefacing some bad news, like when someone asks me for chocolate ice cream and I say "In a perfect world we could all get chocolate ice cream whenever we wanted, but here in reality we only serve vanilla. Sorry." Then when we talk about an ideal, perfect world it usually involves making sure everyone is fed and that no one notices that we have differences, and pudding is never even mentioned.

In my perfect world, the big, sad continent of Africa wouldn't even exist and I wouldn't have tummy flub no matter how much Taco Bell, cake, pudding, and Portillo's hot dogs I eat. All boys would be robots so I could turn them on and off as I pleased and when they say "I Love You" in their cute robot voices I'd know they mean it because I programmed them that way. No one would lie because we'd all be born with shock collars which would provide good conditioning and vast amounts of entertainment as we tested the boundaries. Toilets would always be manual flush, unless someone could invent them not to go off while I'm still on the can, and animals would stay the hell out of my way unless they were cute, well behaved, and non-allergenic.

Things I'm simultaneously dreading looking forward to:
-Poland Trip
-Getting an apartment
-Beginning of School

Me first!
Cathi