scales...of justice?

when i started my professional career three years ago particular emphasis was placed on my professional obligation to maintain a work and life balance. they (they being the corporate types) contended that time i spent at work should be countered with complete personal maintenance on the other end. oh, to dream. i managed, but i never really took vacations. i felt guilty when i got sick. i felt accountable to someone, i guess, or at least some idea that was bigger than my self.

failed balance was met with the ultimate counter-weight-- a layoff. unemployment is nice, but it is one nasty mother when it comes to brain atrophy and capacity for thought, multi-tasking or simply tasking, for that matter.

now that i am a grad student, i realize the true necessity of balance. in my opinion, this idea of balance, i have realized, may be the most essential element of my life, besides water and air. i guess, though, i'd forget to consume those things, too, if i didn't institute some policy of self-maintenance. i kid you not, my life would be all $5 wine from plaid pantry and the foods i made in september and froze for the days when time to cook would be redistributed to time to book (is it healthy to eat chili and lentil soup five nights a week?).

i'm having a hard time getting the hang of grad school. honestly, i don't remember how i did it during undergrad. four courses a quarter and three jobs? if i even attempted something so daring today i'm not sure i'd survive.

i guess, i write this mostly because i realize the profound need for balance in my life. i need an equal distribution of social time and school time and work time and homework time. i need to fulfill my deep-seeded need for human connection and interaction while maintaining my school work in the face of unrelenting academic rigor. right now, i simply don't have the answer. all i have is a stack of articles that need summarized, and a plan that needs analyzed. school, how i love to hate you while i love you.

and, oh, how i long for you, corporate america, with your vain insistence upon work life balance; you poor thing, you don't know the half of it.

there are a 100 reasons this week is perfect

here is a list:

when the blinds are open in my bedroom, i feel like i'm in the tree outside my window.

painting and crafting

wonderful neighbors

i have time on my hands

i'm sleeping!

distance makes the heart grow much fonder

rosebud salve makes everything right

the quilt my grandmother made for me

coffee and bagels and hillary

new friends with challah baking skills

a desire to paint my kitchen table teal

it is fall

i'm photographing again

we see, we are

blogging here for the time being: weseeweare.wordpress.com.

i'll fight

in recent days it has begun to supremely irk me that the insurance industry in this country has the power it does to reduce human life to simple cost/benefit ratio that determines whether life is worth it or not. insurance companies are not god and they should not get to decide the fate of people like my friend. here is her situation:

I write to you because I know you are a passionate advocate for health care reform. I write to you as a 24-year-old newlywed who has been fighting for her life since childhood. I write to you as a victim of our broken health care system.

I suffer from Type I diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, problems with my thyroid and a severe immune disease. It is this immune disease that will, without further treatment, end my life in only a few years. Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID) has left me with a severely depleted and dysfunctional immune system, unable to fight disease and with organs that are rapidly deteriorating as they are under constant attack.

I was diagnosed with CVID in 1999, but my doctors believe I was born with the genetic defect that caused its appearance. Since 2006, I have been battling the most severe complication that has resulted from my CVID – pulmonary dysfunction. Pulmonary dysfunction has left my lung capacity at half of what is normal. Since 2006 I have coughed 1,230 days straight. I have learned to function with a fever. I have mapped out the quickest routes in and out of buildings that don’t require stairs because a single flight of stairs leaves me short of breath and afraid that I may pass out. I have given up on my dream of carrying a child. I have lived my life as a 24-year-old in a 90 year-old body.

But now my immune system has stopped working, and I am left with no other choice but to pursue a stem cell transplant to rebuild my immune system.

Without this transplant the common cold could leave me dead. This transplant would give me an entirely new immune system – the expectation is that it would cure me of CVID and Crohn’s Disease. When my doctor informed me that a transplant would be my only option, my husband and I began planning for the invasive treatment. While we knew it would change our lives dramatically, we thought the tests, the quarantine, the surgery, and the long recovery would eventually allow us to rediscover our lives as normal 20-somethings with our whole lives ahead of us.

But just a month after we started our preparations, I was informed by Regence that they will not cover my transplant. According to Regence, Those who suffer from CVID do not usually see such rapid or progressive decline in health, so transplants are rarely necessary for those with my diagnosis. Regence claims there simply is not enough proof that a transplant will help my adult body. However, the common and most successful treatments for patients with CVID have been tried on me — they have failed.It is the opinion of my immunologist and his world-renowned team of colleagues that transplant is the only option left to save my life.

I have appealed Regence’s decision three times. Now I have few options left. My husband is a police officer and I work for the American Diabetes Association, the $250,000 operation cost is not within our reach. My doctor has been a tireless advocate for me, but our appeals to Regence have fallen on deaf ears. These deaf ears have written my death certificate at the age of 24, a death certificate that could be avoided if it weren’t for corporate greed.

I write because I want my story told. I write to bring attention to this problem. My death certificate may have been written, but it is not signed yet.

essential ingredients

the bad thing about entering a professional graduate program is that there are a whole set of professional skills that are somehow required.  so instead of talking about how that makes me nervous i'll just point blank state that i don't know how to use auto cad (nor do i know what that is), google sketch-up, or the adobe creative suite.  i don't know how to draw exceptionally well or visually render perspective drawings of space.  but these people let me in, so they get what they get. 

however, on the upside, i do know how to make mac-and-cheese from scratch, a recipe that never fails to make me feel good about myself and my capacity to do anything.  i can make a roux, a béchamel, and delight the senses.  i also know how to politely sever my relationship with an organization where i suffered the angry meanderings of an employee to on a daily basis.  oh, and i get to hang out with some awfully wonderful people this entire weekend in what will soon be my new home.  

life, though more complex, is still very good.

Also, you should try making this: CRACK  If all else fails, this will make you feel like a genius.

the feeling of space

I knelt over the vacant cinder-block border into vacancy, the dirt was iron rich , dark yet empty.  I thought about the day I spent an entire afternoon in her lavender and blush colored button-down gingham.  That was when the grass was potato-greens and the beds were all gladiolas and daisy.  I thought, "he loves me, he loves me not," and she chanted alongside me on the front stairs.  The slam of the gate as he returned from his work just up the hill, that black-iron structure looming in the background.  How's my girl?  Today, who does he mean?  

There is loneliness.  A loneliness much larger and grand than empty flower beds or the loss of a loved one.  There is the ever present reminder of their life, their love, their smell in the foreground and background of everything you see.   It is her sliver-white hairs in bristles of an old silver-plate brush, her finger-print on a measuring cup.  It is the way he sits there waiting to see her thinking nothing about her old grey hairs, but the affirmative daisy petals that flew away in the wind.  And he sits there in his seat, waiting to be carried away with them.

 he loves me.

we made a deal

I applied to graduate school because I have a romantic relationship with industrially desolate places.  They're just the environment to rust the edges of your own humanity and enable you to gather up the muster to do things that are really difficult.  Like attempt to learn from them in an effort to preserve and revitalize despite their failings.

I took the above photo of the gold medal flour mill on the bank of the Mississippi river from the Guthrie theater's citizen overlook in Minneapolis, Minn.   I'm sad to report, that despite everything I loved about this place, in particular the incredible architecture that proliferates throughout the city, the intersection of working-class culture and industry, the city's successful endeavor to preserve its history through the adaptive re-use of industrial space, and their successful reinvigoration of a challenging environment, Minneapolis' gross failure in keeping its city vibrant and alive makes it practically impossible for me to join the University of Minnesota's urban planning program with good conscience.  

With so many of their graduates working with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, I have a hard time understanding how they can argue that street-level commercial space is unnecessary, that infrastructure investment for wider sidewalks is inappropriate, or that suburban separation of businesses districts is acceptable.  I mean, if the goal is a world class city isn't the first step getting people to actually want to spend time in the city?!  It was enraging.  People don't walk in Minneapolis.  They drive.  Every where.  And more disappointing is that not one neighborhood managed to capture my imagination.  With the exception of the recently revitalized wearhouse district, there was absolutely nothing visually interesting about the urban environment and that was more depressing than the allegedly depressing and desolate industrial surroundings.

After a brief return to Seattle, I spent two days in Portland.  Immediately after stepping into the central business district I witnessed people using public transit and walking.  God forbid!!  

Portland is not as visually interesting as even Seattle, and has much to be desired in the way of architecture, but they have green space, public space, public transit, navigable neighborhoods and a planning department that is obviously focused on putting the public in space.  For these reasons Portland is the kind of city I want to live in, and the place where I want to learn.

Portland State's planning program offers specializations in sustainability, community and economic development, and transportation.  I will spend 50% of my time practically applying the theories of urban planning in the field.  I will work directly with the community in bettering the urban environment. 

Sure, leaving Seattle is a hard decision, but I'm already well suited for things of this nature, I've got that rusty grit of industry under my nails, and I've made changes like this before.  Sometimes parting is for the best, it allows a girl to test her mettle.  I mean, Seattle is the type of city that spoils a person.  I spend so much time here that when I'm away for a little while I truly come to realize how wonderful it is here.  Sure, it has it's faults (transportation among the most significant), but it is also cleaner, brighter, easier to navigate, visually interesting, and more beautiful than most places.  Living in Portland and learning in a city that succeeds where Seattle fails will only enhance the fervor with which I will return.  

At that point I'll re-assess my love affair and romanticism with industrial cities, and maybe Seattle will have finished it's light rail.  

list no. 2

University of Minnesota and Portland State University are in a fight.  I get to decide the winner.  I also get to write essay upon essay for scholarship money.  Instead of deciding where I'm going to go to school, and begging them to give me some funds, I think about what would be nice right about now.  Here is a list, in no particular order: 

A hunk of german chocolate cake

A glass of white wine 

Wild Mushroom Risotto

A lawn chair in my parent's backyard

Health for one of my close friends

The Food Network

A new pair of very cute shoes

An original thought

A tattoo of a wheat field 

Someone to sit with me at this table.

A job of some sort

To talk to Charlie Kaufman about Synecdoche, New York

An apartment that looks like the inside of a jewelry box

Someone to read to me from whatever their reading

Aaron to play the guitar for me

My bed made

Some one to pack my bags to Minneapolis 

And a Fairy Godmother

26 X 26

26 things to accomplish before i turn 26

1.  collage more, craft more, cook more

2.  take one photo a day

3.  spend twenty minutes every day doing something solely for myself.

4.  send more packages to the people i love.

5.  be mindful of the reminders of love around me.

6.  swim in the ocean for longer than ten minutes.

7.  challenge myself to try something i'm unsure of trying

8.  discover an outlet for my anxiety

9.  learn how to photograph with a manual camera

10.  finish the worker cottage article

11.  throw a dinner party for my friends that can be enjoyed on the floor or as a picnic in the yard.

12.  plant my succulent.

13.  clean out my closet and shed!

14.  finally forgive and forget 2008

15.   find a little teeny-tiny job.

16.  volunteer more.

17.  roast a pork tenderloin, braise some potatoes and regale myself in deliciousness.

18.  visit savannah, georgia.

19.  5k, actually.

20.  approach transition as a mature adult instead of terrified twenty-something

21.  start graduate school!

22.  National Folk Festival 2009

23.  Take family photos of my parents and siblings

24.  Embark on more ferry rides!

25.  travel abroad

26.  Spend my days living instead of sleeping, a fancy way to say rise and shine!

the x-y axis for those with math-trophy.

I never would describe myself a patient person.  Of course, if need be I can sit still for long periods of time without making a peep or moving a muscle.  However, when it comes down to it, if I set out to do something I expect nearly immediate gratification.  Lucky for me, my talents tend to populate the "fairly instant" quadrant of a plane ranging from "instant" to "ready sometime next year."  This is the case with one recent craft project that I have deemed "the orcas scarf."   

Sometime last year, I think it was January, my boyfriend and I embarked on a trip to the San Juan Islands.  The San Juans are remarkably beautiful islands in the puget sound that encapsulate exactly why the pacific northwest is so special.  Orcas Island is the largest and steepest of the islands and much to my surprise contains a number of small organic farms.  On our drive back to the ferry we elected to stop off at a local farm that advertised yarn.  Lucky for me I had just recently learned to knit.  I found a perfectly beautiful hand woven turquoise skein of yarn and snapped it up.  I started knitting the yarn last September and finished it about two weeks ago in a fit of rage.  I swear, the little ball of yarn would not die.  After four days of knitting four hours a day I finally hurled the ball across the room and stayed awake until I had knitted every last inch of the yarn I had unfurled across the expanse of my apartment.  After about six hours, and six or seven episodes of vintage "Beverly Hills 90210."  I am the proud owner of a turquoise scarf knitted in the very warm and cozy seed stitch.  I am also a former knitter.  

Unlike the scarf that took me 6 (yes, that's right, SIX!) months to finish, today I started baking caramel crunch bars at 3 o'clock and by 6 I had 50 delicious little bars cut and prepared for gifts or special treats for myself after particularly successful endeavors to the gym.    

I think about the quilts my grandmother made throughout her life or the fly fishing rods my father spends hours meticulously building and I get somewhat nostalgic that I have nothing to show for myself, that I have no tangible evidence of my creative talent.  Really, though, I know myself well enough that if something drives me to throttle a perfectly harmless inanimate object across the room that I should stick to something that offers the same creative satisfaction in a fraction of the time.  Thus, I cook.  

Is it bad that I prefer the instant gratification of two hours in the kitchen with nothing to show for my efforts an hour later or is it simply fine that I choose to refrain from endeavors in the long term quadrant ensuring less arthritis in the future?   

I'm not sure.  I'll get back to you after I get home from the gym.  

seeing and saying

Ever since the moment docwong opened her mouth in my Housing Design and Sustainable Community class in January 2004 I knew I wanted to be an urban planner.   At no other point in my undergraduate studies was classroom material clearly in line with my personal interests and concerns.  Obviously, I wanted to be involved in the public sector, I just didn't know how.  In that moment, I realized that how and where a city builds its buildings and housing, juxtaposing them with environment and society, affects commerce, economy, education and a number of other political factors.  In January I finally applied to graduate school.  A lot of factors went into my decision to apply this year.  Certainly, if I did not apply this year, it would happen at some inevitable point in the future, but the cosmos aligned.  I was/am out of work, I knew I wanted to return to school and realign my personal and professional priorities, and due to a newly regained sense of confidence I was mentally prepared to undertake the process.  

I applied to six graduate programs.  Five Urban Planning programs received my application materials and one Public Administration program.   It was arduous; I'm relieved to be done applying, but now I'm partaking in the hard part-- waiting for decisions.  I am suffering on the metaphorical bench; I cannot wait to get in the game.  

What do I do to populate the time?  Well, to be honest, I deal with my favorite bureaucratic department, that which operates to serve the unemployed: UI.  Part of their job is to monitor my weekly progress and ensure that I've applied for 3 jobs.  Yes, I know three isn't that many jobs to apply for, but with approximately 6 Washington counties suffering unemployment rates in the double digits, and a statewide unemployment rate hovering around 7%, finding three jobs I'm qualified for is incredibly difficult.  I've applied to be a medical coder, a neighborhood watch person, a parking attendant, and more than 50 other positions I might like to do.  So I wait around to hear back from these positions.  And, mostly, I don't.  

So I've taken to enjoying a lot of coffee, walks, novels, perfecting recipes for crackers (rosemary, pepper, cheddar, water, etc.), knitting, running, ellipticaling, and reacquainting myself with reality television.  Am I miserable?  Not at all, I'm actually quite happy.  For now, I deem opening my mail box torment, consider job listings a necessary evil, and view my day to day an excellent opportunity to relish my surroundings.  I'm making the things I love a part of my every day life, and I love it.  I am documenting it here: weseeweare.wordpress.com.  

abstract city

the abstract city's I Lego NY.  

roasted

I have decided it isn't worth the money, time or calories to prepare and eat things I don't love.  I decided this about green peppers about six months ago.  It was a good decision in my opinion.  Though green bell peppers are less expensive than their more mature red, orange and yellow siblings, they lack the sweet flavor of their counterparts.  I am all for saving money, but when it comes to my appetite, there are certain things one should never sacrifice and that is flavor.  Green peppers taste toxic to me--bitter and disgusting. 

I have made a little habit out of roasting vegetables lately.  After reading Molly Weizenberg's article on roast tomatoes in Bon Appetite last summer and Luisa Weiss's suggestion for roast peppers I've been on a tirade.  I incorporate roast vegetables into as many dishes as possible.  My favorite is toast with cheese and roast vegetables.  Pairing the tart sweetness of red peppers or tomatoes with chevre seems to be the most perfect combination.  But desiring a more fulfilling meal, I decided I would amp things up with a Mediterranean spin.  I paired a whole wheat penne with roasted peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and kalamata olives.  A delightfully delicious meal I suggest you try soon.

Roasted Vegetables and Whole Wheat Pasta

1 egg plant 

2 red peppers

1 14 oz. can san marzano tomatoes

10 kalamata olives

1/2 box whole wheat penne pasta

1/4 t. red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 T. oregano

1/2 t. sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt

pepper

Roast Vegetables 

Cube eggplant into 1/2 dice, coat with 1/2 olive oil and salt and pepper.  Roast for 20 mins at 350 degrees, or until tender and flavorful.  

Halve each tomato and de-seed.  Place in a foil lined dish, sprinkle tomatoes with olive oil, oregano, and sugar.  Roast at 350 degrees for 1 hour, turning half way through.  Keep in fridge covered in olive oil.  

For peppers place two red peppers on a foil lined sheet in a 400 degree oven until they collapse (about one hour).  Remove from the oven, let cool, peel and remove insides and slice.

Boil pasta, halve olives, and mix with roast vegetables, chili flakes, and a little olive oil.  Serve with sauteed chicken, salad, or bread. 

bad ideas i discovered today

there are times in life where the cure and solution to all problems is a BLT.  I like mine on rye toast with either a thin slice of cheddar, three slices of avocado or a fried egg.  I understand that this is an always delicious and occasionally deserved treat.  like hot dogs or french fries. Basically, I like my bacon very crispy and in moderation.  Not so for some.  Please see this. And this.  These are bad ideas always.

hello, 2009, and welcome with open arms

the massive, heaving door to 2008 is locked and the key thrown away.  good riddance.  hello, 2009, let's be friends.  

meanwhile, a new list, 26 things to do before i turn 26 should be appearing here shortly.  any recommendations?