Party Time!

Every month local Twitter folks try to meet up somewhere for an evening of eating, drinking, and laughs.  I will say that these people mean a lot to me, because they form my base of friends since I moved to Salem a little over a year ago. I am blessed to know every one of them, and many of them have drastically changed my life for the better. 

It also happens to be my 40th birthday coming up very quickly. I rarely pay attention to which year I'm at, but since so much has happened to me in the last year or so, I feel like this is significant for me.

Soooo, because the holidays and this important birthday coincide for me somewhat, I am offering up my home for a combination tweetup and birthday party on Friday, December 10th. Of course all my Twitter friends (both local and further away, if they are willing to join us) are invited, but I am also opening up the party to others that I know that aren't on Twitter, as well as guests of invitees. This is a little different only because tweetups are usually limited (just by design not to be exclusionary) to Twitter folk.

Anyway, this one is for everyone I call a friend. I will provide snacks, including Cincinnati-style chili, and mixers. I just ask you to bring your favorite drink, which could include beer, wine, or infused liquor (!).  I will have non-alcoholic beverages available, although if you have something special you prefer, you might want to ask ahead or bring it. Most importantly, bring yourselves!

Follow this link to an evite invitation, and contact me through DM or email to get directions.  I really hope to see some new faces at this party, if anyone that hasn't attended is interested/willing to come by. We'll start around 7 and go until the last person passes out or leaves.

Please note, I've never used evite before, so I'm not sure how to add people whose email addresses I didn't have.  Any help is appreciated. If you just want to leave a comment or DM me, that'll work as well.

Just who do I think I am?

Sometimes, I wonder how I could possibly still be trying to figure out just who I am and where I fit in at my age.  I mean, shouldn't I know myself pretty well at almost 40? What kind of person doesn't get things figured out by mid-life?

Well, whatever kind of person I am, I suppose. Perhaps I'm just way too analytical for my own good. In a way, I think I want to put a label on myself, against my own better judgment. For as long as I can remember, I have felt like somewhat of a blacksheep. When I was a kid, I was intensely shy and wasn't good at making new friends. When I met someone I got along with, I tended to hang onto them as long as I could because that was easier than making new friends.  What usually ensued was that, eventually, I would find myself hanging out with people I had little in common with. I would try desperately to fit into the group for awhile, until it became overtly obvious I was not one of them.

I usually feel like I am at the fringes of any group of people I end up aligning myself with, and sometimes that bothers me a little bit. The up side is that I tend to fall on the fringes of many groups, which broadens my exposure to people with a variety of backgrounds. If I associated it with a statistical concept (and of course I do, because I'm that kind of nerd), I would be a point that doesn't fit well into any cluster. I'm kinda out there on my own. Which isn't such a bad thing, now that I think about it. I mean, I am not easily labeled, and that's a good thing, right? If that means that people have to spend more time to get to know me, then all the better. Hopefully the effort turns out to be worth it in the end.

The  point is, I find myself about to turn 40 and still kind of evolving, still not fully knowing who I am. And although it causes me distress at times, when I just want to fit in somewhere and know where that is, I am coming to peace with the situation. The idea of always changing as I age and my experience pool expands is actually very comforting. It means I am not really supposed to have things figured out because that's half the fun of life.

Going through this also makes me realize that everyone else likely goes through what I'm going through, to varying degrees. That is also a comforting thought, because I think we often feel alone in our struggles, failing to recognize they are more universal than they seem.

Do Not Read This

If you are averse to political discussion, do not read this. If you are sensitive the expression of strong opinions, do not read this. If you are looking for a fight to pick, do not read this.

Now that you have been forewarned, let me just give a little background to this post. Last night on Twitter, someone accused me of being ignorant because I said people that didn't vote the way I voted were stupid.  First of all, I did not say this. What I said was that people that voted a certain way were being short-sighted, small-minded, and selfish. I stand by this statement, but the argument that ensued was completely pointless as it evolved into name calling by the other party (who voted the same way as I did, for the record). This is when I had to exit the discussion, although it affected me deeply, and made me think about it all night long.

I am of the belief that online debates are ridiculous. I think rational discussion can quickly turn ugly online because it is too easy to say things one would never say face-to-face. Hiding behind an online persona somehow brings out the worst in people. People are often very unlike their online personality in person. So here are a couple rules of thumb: 1) If you don't have the balls to say something rude to my face, STFU.  2) If you don't know me at all and start making assumptions about me and calling me names, STFU.  That said, I am guilty of letting myself be drawn into such discussions frequently. I should know better.

The whole discussion over my opinions really came to a head because I said that people who vote Republican tend to be selfish and short-sighted and care only about themselves and preserving their own power.  I still stand by these statements, and I won't apologize for my opinions. I said this because I believe if I were to vote solely based on how a candidate's policies would affect me personally, I would probably vote Republican. I have great health insurance, and my husband and I have great jobs and good job security. It's highly probable that we will end up paying higher taxes in the future to support current policies. I am not gay, and I have no kids, and so I am not directly affected by quality of education.

However, I don't not think this way. I believe Americans have a right to health care. I believe we have a moral obligation to help the less fortunate.  I believe in equal rights and equal treatment for everyone.  I am willing to pay taxes to support all of the services I receive through local and state government, even if this means I have to pay higher taxes personally. I believe in the value of personal sacrifice to support the greater good. If I were a lower animal that only responded in a way that propagated my own genes and only cared about myself, none of these tbeliefs would hold true. But as humans, we have the ability to think beyond our own immediate needs and wants to those of future generations and others unrelated to ourselves. I, for one, would like to get to the end of my life knowing I did something that made a positive impact on other people, even if it meant sacrificing my own desires. I know I am not alone in this.

Life after the first year

I'm thinking over my first year in Salem, Oregon, which is my first year in the Pacific Northwest and my first year in the West, period.  A lot has changed over the last 12 months, and I am just finally starting to feel at home again.

We arrived in Salem on October 21, 2009.  I was really sad about leaving everything and everyone I knew behind. It all felt so final. To make matters worse, I spent the first 3 months in Salem working from home at my job in Cincinnati. This just perpetuated the feelings of loss for me. I didn't really meet many people, stuck at home all day. I joined the roller derby league so I could meet people, and I did, but I didn't form many real, lasting friendships. I actually believe that part of that was my fault because I wasn't ready to accept my new home yet.

I really stagnated for a long time, and what finally changed things for me was Twitter. I know to some that sounds ridiculous, but Salem has a relatively small community on Twitter, and as they started getting together more frequently, I met some really great people, many of whom I am happy to call friends now.  Most of my social activities now tend to be with these people, and that social interaction has completely changed my life and my outlook.  Through those people and certain others I met through roller derby, I am meeting other people, and I finally feel like I am a part of this small city. I am slowly building connections to people in Portland as well, though it's harder to socialize with people 50 miles away. I keep trying, because I feel some kinship with these folks as well, even if they are a very different crowd than those in Salem.

If you had asked me a year ago if I could ever feel so at home here, I would have said there was no hope. It seemed impossible at the time, but I have come full circle. I am so thankful for all the people now in my life, those in person and those that I currently only know online. They have made all the difference in the world for me in my transition to this new chapter in my life.

I still miss and love my friends in Cincinnati, but I am finally in a place where I can really appreciate both old and new people in my life and be truly happy about it.

The optimistic cynic

If someone asks me if I am cynical, I tend to immediately answer in the affirmative.  After all, I work for the government, which means that no matter how apolitical I might feel my job is or should be, it still is.  I also say that I expect the worst, so that I won't be disappointed when things go badly and I'll be happily surprised when they go well.

I think this might not quite be accurate in terms of my relationships with other people.  It's true that I never assume people like me just because I like them.  I guess it just seems easier that way, although my feelings still get hurt when I find that I am right.  However, no matter how cynical I am, I still tend to give a person multiple chances, even when I feel they have wronged me in some way.  I suppose I believe that THIS time, things will be different.  Eventually, even I give up on someone.  However, if they show any remorse for their actions, I almost always forgive and am willing to try to be friends again. 

This attitude doesn't seem to apply only to friends but to strangers as well.  For example, even though my gut may tell me that the person panhandling is in their situation through their own shortcomings, I want to believe that there is hope for them.  I want to believe that they are sincere when the homeless man at the park asks me how I am and seems friendly to me.  I want to believe that if I treat others with respect, they will return the favor.  It doesn't always happen that way, but hopefully more often than not.

So I think that although I AM a cynic in many respects (which I tend to think of as being a realist), I am an optimistic one.

Does anyone else think this way?

Joy in the little things...literally!

It recently came up in conversation that I am a zoologist by training.  It got me thinking about the happiest times of my career in the environmental field over the last 12 years.  But first a brief bit of background to put it into context.

I started out getting a B.S. in Zoology at Ohio State University, and I was what my advisor referred to as a "fuzzy lover", someone who really gets into the field because of large, charismatic mammals.  It was true, and for most of my undergrad, I remained this way.  It was only when I changed advisors before my senior year that my perspective changed, with a job working for my advisor.  It was then that I was exposed to plankton, and later, stream ecology, two fields that changed my life.  I went back to school after two years to pursue my master's degree in zoology, still at Ohio State.  I became fascinated with the tiny world of algae and zooplankton, teaching at the Ohio State field station on an island in Lake Erie. At this same time, I taught a class that sampled lots of mainland streams, and gained a new appreciation of the tiny occupants that live under and around rocks in these systems.

While pursuing my M.S. in Zoology, I decided to pursue a Master of Applied Statistics because I was always good at math, and it seemed logical. I know this is really what got me my job at the EPA, first as a contractor and later as a federal employee, where I continue today.  I love what I do, and I think it suits me perfectly, providing me with a challenge and feeding me a sense of deep purpose in what I do. However, some of the happiest times at my job are far away from my desk and computer.

At various times over my career, I have been involved in outreach to urban kids with little experience in nature. Usually these were summer programs, for which a group of us would sample a stream and bring rocks and critters to a group of kids that had little experience in real streams. There is nothing like the looks I saw on the faces of kids when they realized that the "nasty bugs" were actually fascinating and harmless creatures.  It was the same when I taught classes at Lake Erie, as many of the students were high school kids that hadn't really been exposed to aquatic insects or plankton before firsthand. 

All this said, I miss those activities. There don't seem to be those sorts of activities where I work now. So here's the deal.  I love this stuff.  I would take off work to do it in a heartbeat.  So if you are a teacher, or you have kids that need someone to do this sort of thing with their class or just for fun, no matter the age range, I am your person.  This is one of those things that brings me great joy, and there is no replacement for it. So keep me in mind when you look at a stream and wonder what's living in there, under the rocks.

Lesson #5 from my dog

I realized this morning that it has taken me awhile to pick up on the lesson our dog taught us as soon as we adopted her from the family that raised her from a puppy for 3 years.  You'd think that it would have been traumatic for her to suddenly move from a loving home to a new home at that age, but she took it all in stride and surprised all of us.  I think what it boils down to is that, no matter how much the other family loved her, it wasn't enough to keep her as part of their family.  I always assumed it was just because Grace's loyalty is to anyone that feeds her. While this may be true in part, I still give her credit for embracing us as her new family so quickly and completely. 

For me, this translates to learning to completely embrace that community of people that care about me and understand me.  At the same time, I am learning to let go of the people that were in my life that do not care enough about me to keep me around in their lives.  It's a lesson in moving on.  That doesn't mean forgetting or letting go of the friends I have in other places. It just means that when I find myself among people that don't seem to understand me anymore, that we part ways. 

As my dog has shown me, it does not have to lead to sadness.  She is a very happy dog that embraces what she does have at all times.  We are always a work in progress, and that means that we should expect that sometimes, we will move beyond the people that we used to call friends.