Please Wish Me a Merry Christmas

This year I have done more to get in the holiday spirit than in any year before. Rather than stress out and worry about getting exactly the right gifts for the right people, I chose and wrapped presents and put them under the tree weeks before Christmas.

We watched every Christmas movie I could think of, including "Miracle on 34th Street," which I'd never seen before, if you can believe it. I saw "Polar Express," which has the the most realistic depiction of Santa's workshop and elves that anyone could dream up. I saw "Bad Santa," which is a hysterically funny dark comedy with Billy Bob Thornton playing the drunk, debauched mall Santa who has a little theft problem. And of course there's always "Home Alone," which makes me laugh so hard I get a great rush of endorphins.

We saw lights on houses, and Blossoms of Light at the Botanic Gardens. We went to my friend Kate's Christmas concert, which rocked the house (check out the Colorado Chorale's concert schedule here). We went to the tuba Christmas concert downtown. I had a ball!

But a friend of mine who is Jewish posted a message on Huffington Post titled "Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas," and it really got me thinking about why I celebrate the holiday. I'm not a Christian (fully 25% of folks in the U.S. are not, lest you think I'm a freak of sorts). It's a bit disconcerting to think that my motives are purely commercial and gluttonous. Who doesn't like to get gifts and eat good food? But I have to say that all this getting in the holiday spirit made me realize that I believe in Christmas because it makes (some of) us feel goodwill toward each other.

People give lots of money and gift to charity at Christmastime. We get together and laugh and love and give hugs to folks we don't see that often. We bake cookies for the neighbors. We wish strangers happy holidays and mean it. And from a practical standpoint, it gives us some way to deal with long nights and short days, cold weather, and the associated seasonal affective disorder (SAD). So I'll continue to celebrate the holiday every year, though I don't celebrate it for the traditional religious reasons. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

Have a Spooky Halloween

Bwah ha hahahahahahahahaha haaaaaaaaa!

This is my sister's masterpiece from two years ago: fanged cannibal pumpkin stalking next victim

I've been doing the big scary laugh around the house a lot lately because our Halloween decorations inspire me to be eerie. I even intentionally scared Gary when he came around the corner. He didn't think it was all that funny or cool. Aw, come on, where's your sense of humor? Don't you like to be scared once in a while? It shakes you out of your complacency. Bwahaha hahahaha ha ha haaaa!

I like wearing a costume for Halloween because it lets me be something and someone else for a few hours. And I can act the part. I've been a vampire, a Renaissance wench, a fortune-telling gypsy, and death, to name a few. The more elaborate the costume, the more I fill in the details to play the part. I usually have an entire backstory for my character.

Renaissance wench: who's ready for an ale?

An alter ego, perhaps? A break from me? Who cares? Death just wants to have fun!

I'm coming... Is it for you?

Fabulous Fall

Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. My birthday kicks off the fall season, the weather gets cooler, the foliage is beautiful, and the holidays are just around the corner. And who doesn't love to carve a pumpkin?



My 2008 work of art titled "Barfing Pumpkin": I put it up on the front porch on Halloween with a sign that said, "Hey kids! Don't eat too much candy on Halloween or you'll end up like this."






Here are some of this year's textures from my garden. Enjoy!

Living on the Grid

I always knew that all of my data was being gathered and aggregated and sold to the highest bidder. It's part of the price we pay to live on the grid. Credit card purchases, travel patterns, websites I visit, and yes, even the groceries I buy are now fodder for marketers everywhere. Google presents ads that are based on the content in my Google email. This is capitalism at its very best. If there's a buck to be made, someone will exploit me and my privacy.

So I knew that intellectually, and of course I've been Googling myself every month or so to see what turns up under my name. Usually, it's all stuff I was aware of already, though it is sometimes a bit shocking to see a photo of me at a charity event or read a comment I made on someone else's blog. Big, flashing, orange and yellow neon sign: PUBLIC - PUBLIC - PUBLIC.

Today I was nonplussed to click through the White Pages ad for Erin Landeck. And I'll tell you what I found about someone else on that site, because everyone and her grandmother can find the very same thing: There is another Erin Landeck that lives in Lansdale, Pennsylvania at 18 Windsor Court. Her middle name is Denise. She's 35. She lives with Jackie, Robert, and Lindsey there in her house on the dead-end street with a stream running behind it. Couldn't see her house, though, because Google didn't send 360-degree cameras roving around her neighborhood like they did mine. Oh, and if she gets real sick, there's a hospital just down the street from her. Buried on page 6 of the links to pages that contain Erin Landeck (the first five pages are links to me), I see that she graduated in 1992 from Brandywine High School in Niles, Michigan. She's also lived in Mishawaka, Indiana and Granger, Indiana. Her maiden name is Burgess. If I wanted to pay just 95 cents, I could get a report with her birthdate, phone number, and relatives. For just $14.95, I could also get a report with birth, death, divorce, and property records related to Erin. I can pay someone else to check her criminal record.

And that Erin, I'd have to say, is pretty much living under the radar as much as possible because I can't find anything else about her in the first 10 pages of Erin Landeck links on Google. I, on the other hand, am a different story. You can see the books I've authored and edited, organizations I've given money to, my career history, my business websites, where I'm on the board of directors, where I teach and what I teach, and soooooo much more. But, are you ready for it? Here's the kicker. On the very same site where you can see my age, my husband's name and age, my address, and other cities I've lived in, you can click through to a site called MyLife.com to see my profile (if you register for free). And what do suppose is there, before you even register on the site? My profile photo from my not-public Facebook page. Can you say copyright violation? Yes, I've contacted them. We'll see.

As much as I like all of the really cool free stuff I have access to because someone is making money off of selling my deets (this blog, Google Analytics, Google docs, the Internet in general, directions and maps, the Google search engine), I'm still struggling with the fact that the tradeoff is that nothing is really private. In fact, so many things about me are not private, and they're not things I would have chosen to share with the world. How public does my life have to be if I live on the grid?

Talk to Action: Moving toward a More Inclusive Community

Please help to spread the word about the 2009 Denver Foundation Inclusiveness Conference. Its focus is building inclusive organizations: “Talk to Action ~ Our Next Steps on the Journey.” Up to 300 participants will participate in this day-long conference that helps attendees move beyond exploration and "talking about inclusiveness" to concrete and effective action steps. This conference will provide opportunities for shared learning for nonprofit board members, executive directors, staff members, volunteers, and community partners committed to guiding their organizations towards becoming more inclusive of people of color.

Inclusiveness in the Classroom

I joined the Inclusive Excellence Faculty Community at the University of Denver this fall, and we had our first orientation meeting this week. One of the participant's comments keeps coming back to me: "It's not always the responsibility of the underprivileged to point out the mistakes and privilege of the people in power." Some of the black folks and white allies in the group agreed that they do get burned out on it. Then another participant quoted Bishop Desmond Tutu who said something to the effect of, "To be silent in the face of oppressor is to be allied with the oppressor."

Can you tell that these people are some of the best minds in the academic world? And then there's practical, realistic me. When we talked about barriers to creating inclusive excellence in the classroom, I said that it reduces my hourly rate and cuts into billable time. Seriously, I tracked my hours spent on class last quarter, and after accounting for my time and expenses, I grossed (that's before taxes) somewhere around $13.50 an hour. Another adjunct tells me, "You're better off working at Wendy's." Well, not quite, but it is a labor of love, for sure.

What is the driving force that pushed me to become involved in this group, which means more meetings and discussions and emails? One of my core values is continuous improvement, and that's high up on the list of motivating factors in this case. I want to constantly evolve into a higher state of being, and I want to be a better teacher every time I teach. And it's also a forgiving group that will provide some basic peer support, which is pretty much absent for adjunct faculty. I get to talk to people who struggle with the same issues I do, and they'll tell me it's OK when I screw up; it's all a journey.

Forgiveness and support and a push to be a better person. It's like Nirvana for me, actually. So forget my hourly rate. I'll consider it a cheaper solution than therapy.

The Plight of Women Is News... at Last

I wept when I read the story Saving the World's Women and others published in the special section of The New York Times Magazine this weekend.

I cried not because the stories are so terribly sad, which they are; not because of the heartfelt response by other countries, which is fantastic; and not because it was the first time I had learned about the plight of these women and girls, because it wasn't; but because a major newspaper is finally covering women's issues as a serious problem that we can't just accept as status quo anymore. Because The New York Times is reporting that sexual slavery, rape as a tool of warfare, marrying off 12-year-old girls who are raped and then die in childbirth, honor killings, and genital mutilation are horrifying truths for millions of women around the world, to say nothing of the financial subjugation and lack of education that keep women "in their place."

I wept because I felt the kind of heart-jumping-out-of-my-chest elation that I felt when Barack Obama was elected president: joy, relief, gratitude, and restoration of my faith in humanity. Thank you to all of the journalists and authors who participated and made women's issues news worth reporting.

I promise to do my part by volunteering for organizations that address women's and girls' issues. I pledge to make a difference in one girl's life by sticking by her and showing her that there are options beyond pregnancy and dropping out of school at 15 or 16.

What can you do, what can you pledge, to keep the momentum going?

The Joy of Teaching

After a whirlwind five-week quarter, I'm reflecting on the joy of teaching once again. I'm coming off of a six-month break, which is nice because teaching kind of consumes your life. The prepping, the organizing, the subbing in new material for old, the research, the grading, the administration: it seems endless (which is funny, because "endless" is exactly how the students describe their plight to me; even the ones who are about to graduate still have this exhausted, haunted look about them). The workload is mighty and the hourly rate low.

But there's something about it... a definite adrenaline rush associated with being on stage. The warm, squishy feeling you get when students say that something you did mattered to them, mattered in a very personal way. There's the interaction with live human beings rather than teleconferences and email, which, for extroverts, is as necessary to life as breathing. You're perceived as an expert in something, and lets' face it, we all like to think we know a little somethin'. There's the paycheck. There's being part of a community.

All good, but still not it. Not compelling enough to keep me coming back for more. Got it. It's the chill. There are these moments sometimes in class when I say something that really means something to me, and I can tell the students understand that this thing, whatever it is, is true and real and raw and may make a difference to them. They get a certain look that says, "I get you. I'm listening. I know you're here to empower me." And a chill runs through me. I actually get goosebumps. And those are hard to come by at work.

So when I am complaining again about having to rewrite my class to fit in some new format mandated from above, I'll think about the chill and know that I'll always come back for more.

The Great Outdoors

Last attempt at camping: disaster. Tomas sat shivering after having an allergic reaction to these tiny little bugs we'd never seen before. And that was the last straw.

Following the advice of an expert, we drove three hours and took a trail off of a trail off of a trail. The campsites were trashed. Piles of ashes everywhere. Fire pits full of beer cans and plastic water bottles. Toilet paper and plastic silverware strewn about. And these are the sites that supposedly no one wants to camp on because there are no facilities.

Then there was the noise pollution. Group after group of people drove by on their ATVs and dirt bikes. (One set of people even had their full race gear on. That shows you how seriously they take their sport.) Each time, you could hear them coming for at least fifteen minutes, and after they'd passed, a fine mist of dirt would settle over the campsite. Oh, and did I mention the gunshots? Apparently we were near enough to a firing range that we heard series of gunshots repeatedly.

But there were quiet times, too. That's when I remembered why on earth we would drive three hours to be at one with nature. Utter silence, and trees and blue sky as far as the eye could see.



Saddened and disgusted, we packed up and left days early.

Deconstructing the Movie "Up"

The Pixar movie "Up" was the first kid movie I've seen in the theater in a long, long time. I took Consuelo, my mentee, to see it because it got excellent reviews and it was not about violence. (You try picking an appropriate movie to take a 13-year-old girl to see; it's tough. Holy bursting bombs, Batman.)

On the face of it, it's not your typical superhero movie. An old white guy with a big schnoz and a little round Asian-American kid were the heroes. The evil crazy guy was white. The little girl likes to pretend she's a pilot. The dopey dog is the one who finds the treasure. In the end, the old white guy ends up subbing as the Asian-American kid's dad, so it's obviously pro-nontraditional family.

But this is how privilege works. On the surface, it's fighting a lot of the stereotypes. So hooray for them, right? But then I started thinking about it, and I found a dozen reinforcements of the messages of privilege. Hmm, let's see:

-The bad, evil dog is black. How obvious can you get?
-The black dog gets his comeuppance and is put in his place in the end.
-The little kid is fat and is portrayed as weak because of it.
-The kid doesn't have a mom and a dad, because how could a person of color have a happy family?
-Not being able to have children causes the white couple much sadness, because it's not normal for couples not to have children.
-The little girl who wanted to be a pilot and an adventurer ends up being a housewife.
-Only boys are adventurers.
-The fat kid can't control himself when it comes to eating. (Well, duh, because that's why all fat people are fat, right? They eat too much chocolate.)
-The old guys either get fat and ugly or mean and crazy.
-The bird, who is different from everyone else, is hunted her whole life.
-Marriage is between a man and a woman.
-Heroes are able-bodied and able-minded.

I'm sure there are many more that I didn't catch because I'm too immersed in the social messaging associated with my privilege. But scrutinizing what seems OK at first and realizing that it's maybe not so OK after all helps me to not perpetuate and support the status quo. I do wonder, though, what messages Consuelo took from it. We'll have to discuss.

Out with the Old

I was doing some research for an article, and I ran across this blog called "stuff white people do" (written by a white guy, by the way). One post was about the casual way American's toss around the word "Nazi," as in "the soup Nazi" from Seinfeld, the "parking Nazis" who give you tickets, etc. Perhaps you have used this word in passing or in conversation. I have. And in so doing, I have cheapened it and made what the Nazis did much less horrible by comparing it to my own inconsequential problems.

How many other words do we use every day that trivialize people's pain and suffering and cover up our own bleak history of privilege? Here are a few I can think of that really have no place in our lexicon:

rape, as in "The banks are raping us with those high interest rates."

butt hurt (I have not used this one--it's new on the scene of twenty-somethings and makes my stomach flip every time I hear it), as in "She was butt hurt because he didn't call her back right away."

slave, as in "That intern will be your slave for the summer" or "I slaved over a hot stove all day."

retarded, as in "Those song lyrics are so retarded."

And don't even get me started on swear words. We live in a Christian-dominated society, yet "Jesus Christ" has become an accepted curse, even when used by Christians. Being a non-Christian, I started thinking about how my use of these words would be offensive to some of my more faithful friends and have begun retraining my brain.

Does your language reflect your respect for other people, their beliefs, and their lifestyles? Mine doesn't always, but I'm thinking about it, and trying hard to match my mouth to my mind.

Back in the Saddle Again

Just before I started driving at 16, a car hit me while I was riding my bike. It wasn't a bad accident, but I couldn't get back on again. Every time I thought about riding, it made me feel kind of sick. It was OK for other people to do it, but not me, no sir, nohow.

As the years wore on, the sick feeling never went away when I thought about riding a bike. Walking became my preferred means of outdoor exercise. "You see more than when you're riding a bike anyway," I'd think, feeling smug as the cyclists whizzed by. I'd point out a particular flower to Gary or Lindsey and stop to smell it. We'd walk down to the pond to see if the turtle was sunning himself on the log. I'd watch how the seasons change the gardens along the many paths I walk: the incremental changes you'd never see if you fly by on a bike.

Then a couple of months ago, my sister bought a bike. My mom and stepdad started riding again, too. We were all talking about it one day, and a switch clicked in my brain. I wanted to ride. I test drove my sister's bike in my Crocs and jammies in the back yard. I knew I wouldn't crash, and I didn't. I knew I could balance, and I did. I knew I could stop, and I did.

I rode for five miles on the Ralston Creek and Clear Creek trails yesterday. As I peddled harder, I felt the thrill of speed. Oh, I'd forgotten how fun this was. Birds and trees and ponds flashed by in seconds. I almost felt guilty, and I stopped a couple of times to look at this waterfall or that bird. But mostly I just took it all in. The smell of the water and the green spaces, the cotton flying up my nose, the bugs bouncing off me, the joy of moving along under my own power.

Perhaps it's a metaphor for the rest of my life, this taking charge of my fear and changing an old belief in the blink of an eye. What would happen if we pushed through that old programming every single day? What would my life look like? What would yours?

The Pretty Privilege

I attended the Pedagogy of Privilege conference at DU this week. After a day of self-evaluation, reflection, identifying the roots and triggers of my prejudices, and talking to others about how I fight oppression and whether it's enough, I was utterly exhausted. Another attendee said to me as we walked from one building to another, "I feel this so much at the core of my being. I feel everything so powerfully. Now I want to go home and put on my sweats and read a trashy novel." I knew exactly what she meant.

I purposely started the day with something that I thought would be a bit lighter, a workshop on "the pretty privilege." Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I think that any privilege is laughable or unimportant, but you know me when I have to get up early: I just couldn't face workshops about pornography or race hatred first thing in the morning. I need copious amounts of coffee before I can deal with the heavy-duty stuff.

The pretty privilege is this: in Western culture, we value women who are young, thin, and have symmetrical features. And there are lots of other characteristics that make one young, thin, symmetrical person prettier than another: blue or green eyes, long hair, blond hair, white skin, large breasts, tall (but not too tall), full lips, beautiful clothes, straight white teeth, and no wrinkles. But a preference or bias does not a privilege make. There has to be power, too.

So is pretty a privilege? One could argue that there are plenty of women who don't fit the profile who have power and money. One could argue that pretty is fleeting, because once you age or gain weight, you're not considered pretty anymore. But do the ones defined as pretty have more power than those who aren't? Do the good-looking ones enjoy privileges others don't? Oh, you betcha.

Research quoted in the workshop stated that people who were shown sets of faces assigned these characteristics to the prettier ones: happier, smarter, more balanced, and more successful, among others. Research shows that teachers give prettier girls better grades regardless of performance and regardless of the gender of the teacher. And there are plenty more examples where those came from.

The pretty girls who were studied had scathing and hateful comments about women who were older, overweight, or not dressed right. They called the women "whiners, socially inept, and lazy." "If they just tried harder and were less focused on immediate gratification [referring to fat girls], they could look better." Better, but not pretty. In fact, the researcher argued with them for hours about the fact that overweight women can and do see themselves as pretty. It was beyond the pretty girls' comprehension. "How could they possibly feel good about themselves?" they queried. Sigh. When asked how the pretty girls are stereotyped by those not part of the group, workshop attendees threw out terms like stupid, vain, shallow, self-involved, slutty, thoughtless, and rude.

So how can we fight pretty privilege? I make sure to show my self-confidence and my happy, outgoing personality around them (thus fighting the perception that I am lazy and socially awkward) and befriending them when possible. There is truth in the idea that once you know "one of them," you are less likely to stereotype the entire group. That works both ways.

Slice of Life

All kinds of people come into my mom's shop, On-The-Block Auction, where I work on Wednesdays. They want to know if my mom can sell their stuff on eBay and get them some cash: young people, old people, having-a-midlife-crisis people. Poor people scraping together a few bucks to pay bills or buy food, lots of people who have lost their jobs and are selling their treasures, and uber wealthy people who have closets or houses full of thousand-dollar luggage and handbags they've used three times. People of all colors and ethnicities, and people from other countries who have made their homes here. Hustlers and honest folk, and you never can tell who's who at first glance.

The cameo appearances these people make in my life can be enervating, amusing, invigorating, or haunting. I learn so much about them in the few minutes that our lives intersect. Sometimes they pour their hearts out as soon as they walk in; sometimes all it takes is a genuine, "How ya doin'?" and the words just come tumbling out. My mom often cries. She's got a big heart. "They all get to me," she says in response to my comment about her feeling sorry for someone in particular.

Yesterday a beautiful, tall man about my age walks in with two boxes of comic books that he and his dad collected over many years. He's selling everything that doesn't fit in a suitcase and moving to New York to start a new life. "What's in New York?" I ask, making conversation while I look up his comics, trying to get him to flash his lovely smile. "I'm going to do music there." "Cool," I say, "I bet that's freeing." "I feel free," he says. But he doesn't smile. He's still getting used to it, the free feeling. I'm a little jealous, but mostly just happy for him.

An older, short, stout lady comes in and asks about her collection of ugly porcelain birds that her son's wife's parents gave her. She hates them and is ready to sell them for some cash because she just lost her job as a hiring assistant at Macy's. "I'm 72. Who's going to hire me to do anything?" We commiserate about lost jobs and discrimination in hiring. I tell her to look into working for nonprofits and give her a lead on a job board. I'm sad for her, but I don't think about it for very long. My empathy for those who have lost their jobs is great, but I have to put a stopper on the sadness, or it would be endless.

While I'm helping someone else, a very petite young man comes in to pick up his check. He's been in before. I smile at him and greet him, and he gives me a big happy look. He always seems to be in a fabulous mood when he comes in, all chatty and smiles. But he's got a little problem. He calls the shop too much, sometimes five times in five minutes. That's when I shut the ringers off. OCD, I think. "Is he worth it?" I ask my mom. He brings in piles of new designer clothes that he's never worn, so yes. "You've got to find out what he does for a living," I say, being nosy. She gets the story: laid off from his job as an accountant at Denver Public Schools. How did he afford $1,000 jackets? "Family money," we agree.

Eddie the hustler comes in to pick up his check, and he talks to mom for quite a while about a pair of Leica binoculars he's brought in that could sell for $500. His little brother is tagging along, learning the business. "What other options do we give those kids?" mom asks after they leave. "Hustling is much better than dealing drugs," I say. She nods her head in agreement, and we let the moment pass.

I finish the photographs of 17 more batches of vintage paper dolls that a guy brought in a few weeks ago. His mom died, and he brought in her lifetime collection of stuff to sell. It holds absolutely no sentimental value for him and wants it o-u-t of the house.

A day at the shop. We are sad and happy, open and guarded, forgiving and judgmental. We must be careful with our hearts and theirs.

Trying to Be Zen

My friend Emily suggested that I don't have to be thoughtful and profound every time I write in my blog, that it's really more about letting people see a little slice of your life. So I thought I'd write about a typical day, because this is like no other time in my life. I have no office to go to, so I've made myself as much of a routine as possible:

Get up. Brush my teeth. Put on my most comfortable but still acceptable for being seen outside clothes (hmmm... are jammie pants OK?). Feed the dog. Make coffee. Take the dog out. I'm not really thinking about a whole lot at this point, as you know if you've ever seen me before 9:00 in the morning. I was up until 1:00 AM last night catching up on emails and doing some work. I am not a morning person. I have tried. It doesn't work. I am flying high long after most of you go to bed, so try not to judge.

Power up the computer, which I have now set up to automatically start Firefox and Pandora. Only the music I like starts playing: jazz (real jazz, not the smooth, Kenny G kind), classical, blues, a little Jimi Hendrix. Nice. Now, pick a beautiful mug. Pour coffee. Sip coffee. Aaaaaaaaahhhh. Starting to feel awake. Tomas settles into his place with me on my office chair. He has no shame.


Check emails to see if anything urgent needs to be attended to. Good, no craziness this morning. Take my time slogging through morning emails. You know, the ones everyone sent two hours ago. I hope they weren't expecting a response before now. Take the dog out.

If it's Wednesday, I start thinking about packing my lunch and the dog's accoutrement to take to work at my mom's shop. On other days, I might have a morning appointment or teleconference to prepare for, but generally not before 10:00. Learned that lesson the hard way.

Make calls or send emails to stay in touch with my network or generate leads for new business. Write correspondence. Do research for interviews or networking meetings. I'm in the groove now, and I'm thinking about how much work I can get done today and what my priorities are.

Lindsey might come over so we can walk together. Throw the dog's Dino Cuz ball a few hundred times to try and keep his mind occupied (aforementioned walk most definitely does NOT wear him out, no matter how far we go). Take him out. Shower. Spend the afternoon doing project work for clients. Make notes about the follow-up I need to do from phone calls or meetings from yesterday or this morning.

Take time out to deal with emails, teleconferences, and phone calls for Smart-Girl, my volunteer gig. Plan my next outing with Consuelo, my mentee--my other volunteer gig.


Take the dog out. Fix dinner, usually something simple and healthy involving meat and a green vegetable. Look forward to spending a little decompression time with my sweetie. In the evening, run errands, or once in a while watch a movie (no TV for over a year now). Gary takes over the dog duties for the evening. Settle in for another few hours of work. Tomas gets comfortable on Gary's chair. Did I mention that he has no shame?


Think about who I can call for a favor so that I've got an edge against the other hundred qualified candidates who applied for that job. Figure out how I can generate new business. Apply for jobs. Process evening emails. Plan ways to improve the class I teach at DU. Bid G goodnight when he goes to bed at about 11:00. At 12:30 or 1:00, take take the dog out, read for a half hour, and hit the hay.

On the weekends, throw in a few hours of working in the garden, listing jewelry on Etsy, making jewelry if I can squeeze it in, chores, once in a while dinner with friends, and errands.


Minimize the negative thoughts, worry, and fear. Meditate on how much I love my friends and family, and how beautiful the world is. Listen to the birds. Watch my garden grow. Admire how the light changes as the day wears on.


This is my life. It's both more simple and more chaotic than ever before. I choose to be happy.

Ode to Lindsey

Your infectious, funny chortle
As a baby in the back seat
Was one of the many joys
You gifted to me as a tiny treat.

As you grew older and wiser,
And your little hand grew bigger in mine,
I sometimes had quick twinges—
The baby that you were was gone in no time.

But now that you’re a big frog
All sassy and grown,
It’s a joy to watch you learn
As you make your life your own.

Should you feel lost,
All you need to know
Is that you’re surrounded by love
And you’re perfect, smart, and beautiful, so go!

More People You Meet in Your Neighborhood

I walk my little dog quite a bit because he's still a puppy and still being housetrained. We see quite a bit on our walks, Tomas and I, and the weekends are especially busy in my neighborhood. This weekend we ran across a couple of children I haven't seen before: a little boy of about five riding a Big Wheel (if they still make those) and a girl of about seven riding a scooter, the kind you have to push with your own oomph.

I walk by the little girl, who is riding her scooter back up a long stretch of a dead-end street where there is hardly traffic. She's within about half a block of home. I call "Hi!" cheerily as she approaches me. No response. She rolls past me, not making eye contact, moving toward her little brother, who is watching and waiting for her. I frown and roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. When I was a child, it was considered unutterably rude not to respond to and interact with people who addressed you in public.

Has human nature or parenting changed so much in thirty short years that children must be taught to be mortally afraid of strangers? To ignore them and even stick out their tongues as they cling to a parent's legs? I wonder how this training will affect the children's emotional intelligence, which is supposedly THE most important quality for success. I wonder how these kids will change the fabric of our society.

On the way back to the house, a gentleman in his 70s rolls his car up to the curb to chat me up about how he and his wife have a little girl Chihuahua that walks them, instead of the other way around. I laugh, and we talk about how funny it is that little dogs have so much personality. I am grateful for the human interaction. "You have a wonderful day!" he says as he pulls away. "You too!" I shout after him, smiling, feeling good and right about the world once again.

Conspicuous Consumption

Along with the rest of the world, I've been rethinking how I spend money. At first it rankled, having to cut back and cut down. But in combination with the lessons I've learned (and continue to learn) about privilege, the "reducing, reusing, and recycling" is now something I'm proud of.

I'm refinancing the house and shopping insurance coverage. Gary does the grocery shopping more often because when he goes, nothing comes home that isn't on the list (this is an excellent use of his single-minded focus). Rather than making me feel put out, I now like leftovers because I used all the vegetables before they went bad AND I don't have to cook again. Rather than spending $50 on new plastic organizers, I found a perfectly serviceable wood alternative at the thrift store for $3. I think long and hard about buying anything if it's something I like to make myself and can do in a reasonable amount of time.

This is a sea change for Gary and me. We were conspicuous consumers (and still are relative to most of the world's population). I hope these lessons stick when things look up financially. But I feel it in my heart as well as think it, so I'm pretty sure they will.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

As my partner and I plot how to earn enough income to stay afloat, we've learned to tap into our network in new ways. I asked my cousin, who's a pretty big wig at a university here in town, to give me some advice about getting new teaching gigs. I'm awfully excited about the nonprofit financial management and intro to fundraising class I teach at DU, and I wanted to figure out how to approach others in the college and university system in a way that would at least get me in the door.

In the nicest way, he said that it was pretty much a fool's errand to go chasing after new teaching gigs. The curriculum is already jampacked, my class would have to be an elective and they wouldn't be likely to add it, etc. Being the pragmatist that I am, I moved on to other things--no sense in wasting energy where the payoff will be small or nonexistent.

At a Women'sVision Foundation event last week, I ran into someone who is working on her Master's thesis at the Women's College at DU. We chatted for a few minutes, I asked a couple of pointed questions, and she recommended that I contact the Women's College to see if they might be interested in my topic areas. The next day, I figured what the heck, what would it would cost me other than a few minutes of time? I emailed the dean, and within an hour I had a response from one of their reps, who scheduled a meeting to talk with me.

The moral of this story? I need to follow my own advice--the advice I give other women: If you don't ask, you don't get.

I Left My Heart in Aurora

I got "the call" about the perfect job on Friday. I can almost recite it by heart. The words vary little; the tone varies not at all. There's some small talk, during which time my heart is sinking because I know the drill, then it goes something like this: "We were so impressed by your qualifications, and you were a close second, but we chose someone who was a closer match."

Though I am a bit hardened to the whole process, I have to admit that I cried about this one. It was the right environment, a match for core values, and in perfect alignment with my skill set. I sent three excellent letters of reference, unsolicited, that said I'd be great in the job. I explained how I would fit in and do excellent work. I showed my genuine enthusiasm for the job, the boss, and the company over and over. And still it wasn't enough.

There are hundreds of applicants for most jobs, and dozens of them are a really good fit--this I know from talking to colleagues who consult in the hiring process and from the many times I've been told same by the hiring manager/committee. But I think what was so disillusioning about this particular "no" was that the person who did the hiring explained that the process took so long because they got so many good candidates due to unemployment being so high and the economy being so bad.

Whoa, whoa, whoa--wait a minute! What about the people who genuinely WANT to work there? Who think they'd make an amazing difference? Who would be thrilled to come to work every day because it's such a great fit for skills and values? Who would spend the commute time to Aurora plotting ways to make the organization even more fantastic? Surely I wasn't the only one. I hope the one who got the job is in the latter camp.

In Honor of Valentine's Day

"By day the blue will pale down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a new circumference--orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple."
-E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

My heart beats faster when I read that sentence. But it wasn't always so. My personality style is ESTJ, which means my natural tendency is to think first and feel later, and to think about facts first and people second. But the stars aligned a few years ago and brought two women into my life who changed me forever: Elizabeth, who shared her art and her big heart with me, and Linda, who was forever asking me crazy-making questions like, "Do you think that will get you what you want?"

I dedicate this quote to you, because I don't know if I could have recognized the beauty in it without you. Though we don't work together anymore and see each other not nearly as often as I would like, you are in my thoughts and in my heart. Love to you and every one of my dear valentines...

Vibrant Voluntarism

I try to become more conscious of my life every day. For example, normally I just consume books and movies, but now I've been asking myself what lessons I learned from the movie or why I liked or disliked the book. As I told my friend Amy today, it's sort of like having a book club in your head.

I've been applying those same ideas to other areas of my life as well. I'm trying to figure out and articulate why I love Smart-Girl so much, because it's been such a great experience and I'd like to apply the same principles to other nonprofits.

First, I believe in the mission. We educate pre-adolescent girls in a fun and nonthreatening way and give them the life skills they'll need to become confident, capable, and self-reliant women. It just doesn't get closer to my heart than that.

Second, the members of the board of directors are smart, fun, and dedicated. At the board meeting last night, we were talking about how we could get through our meetings more quickly if we had a different kind of meeting, where we didn't laugh, followed Robert's Rules of Order, and were cut and dried. And someone says, "Ooooooh, let's not do THAT," and that was the end of the discussion. We like a little bit of bonding and fooling-around time, just like we provide for the girls in the program. Fun is one my core values, as anyone who knows me well will tell you. I like to laugh.

Third, my skill set and I are valued, and I know it because I'm thanked routinely in a meaningful way. Also, I like the work I do for the organization because it's a fit for me. I was elected as the treasurer starting January 1. Woohoo!

Last, I love this gig because we are not perfect and we know it. We do great things for the girls, and we're improving all the time. This aspect of the organization appeals to my core value of continuous improvement in a big way.

OK, so I like the work, I feel valued, I have fun, and I believe I make a difference to the organization and the girls we serve. What are the lessons I can apply to other organizations?

1) Make sure the volunteers are closely allied with the mission. I teach this in my class, and everyone involved with volunteer management will tell you it's essential.

2) Carefully match the work volunteers do with their skills and areas of interest. Envelope stuffing is really only appropriate for a few volunteers. Don't we all look for meaning in our work?

3) If you look for volunteers with the same core values as the organization, they'll stay longer and be more productive during their service.

Doggie Lovin'

Two years after my Rachel died, another furry friend found us and became part of our family. As I write this, the little brown Chihuahua we named Tomas (pronounced toh-MAHS) sleeps at my feet curled up in a ball.

We grieved terribly when we lost Rachel, and we still feel her presence in so many ways. I could never bring myself to take her photo off of my desk. Just a few days ago, I found some of her fur stuck on the underside of a chair in the basement. We hear her voice when the wind blows through the chimes in the garden, one of her favorite places to be. It was only in the last few months that I could talk about her without crying and feeling the lump in my throat (though I feel it now).

The people who understood my grief best just let me co-exist with it and never pushed me for an answer about when I was going to get another dog. Each one is simply irreplaceable, so it's kind of like asking when you're going to get another husband or parent. As if getting a new one would erase the pain and sadness anyway. The most comforting message of all, the one that stuck with me and gave me hope was this: "Another dog will find you when it's time."

And there he is--Tomas, the little Chihuahua. I'd forgotten what joy a dog brings to your life: gazing into your eyes, the excited wagging of the tail when you come into the room, snoring when sleeping peacefully, playing fetch and learning all the tricks you can teach him, snuggling with you on the couch. I'm happy to wake up to him in the morning and happy to come home to him when I've been away. He's a loving friend and constant companion. He is a joy to me.