Music

I don't listen to podcasts.

I want to be a podcaster. Really and truly, I do. There are tons of podcasts which I do enjoy listening to, from Savage Love to the Infinite Monkey Cage to This American Life.  I click through websites and think "Huh, that's interesting" or "I've always wanted to know more about that" or "I'm driving through Wisconsin, I'll need something to occupy my mind."

I download SO many podcasts.

***

Before I go any further I need to make a confession. 

There's a mixtape that goes with this blog post. 

Rather, there's a playlist on Spotify, the paltry 21st Century version of the mixtape (it's under my name, cleverly called "Mixtape.") There's a folder in Dropbox. An actual playlist for this post is a thing that exists. And while listening to it while reading this post certainly isn't mandatory I'd suggest that you do, dear reader. 

Because when I was thinking about this post and about music and what I was going to say, I thought about the songs I wanted you to hear. 

Yes, you.

Because I have something I want to tell you. Maybe it's "This is the sound of settling." It could be "Help, I'm alive." It's possible that it's "You ain't a beauty, but yeah, you're all right."  Regardless of what it is precisely, there's something I want to say to you.

And because no one has tape players anymore, I did the best I could. 

Got it queued up? 

Good.

***

That isn't a photo of my high school year book.

Those are the inside covers of my high school/early college journal.

Almost without exception those are song lyrics. There are a few quotes from things I read that stuck with me during my adolescence (looking back, ohmygod how insufferable was I? What seventeen year old reads Lolita?), but 90% of them are song lyrics. The back covers look the same. It is intentionally blurry because I had some extraordinarily embarrassing taste in music in high school (I suppose, so does everyone, but it's really pretty emo in there). 

And in case you're thinking "Oh, Kel, who cares. Everyone was like that in high school." Here's one from my most recent journal. 

Those lyrics in my high school journal, the lyrics that still make it into my current journals, are as much about the music (which I can hear in my head immediately when I read the lyrics) as about the lyrics. Sure, an over-wrought, desperately in need of therapy, sixteen year old version of me found a lot of comfort in The Smiths lyrics, but she also simply loved the music because it expressed something she couldn't figure out how to talk about herself. 

Unoriginal? Absolutely. Still true?

Hell yes.  

***

You know that John Waters quote? The one about books? 

Of course you do. Everyone does.

I feel that way about music. 

Let me back up. 

I listen to music more than I do anything else during the course of the week. 

I'm serious. There are 10,080 minutes in a week. I spend (on average) 2,700 of those minutes asleep (too few), 3,000 at work (too many), 600 reading, 450 commuting, and 210-300 working out. 

I spend a minimum of 5,000 minutes a week listening to music. 

I fall asleep to jazz. My alarm is The Current. I commute to 60s Motown. When I'm stuck on a project at work I crank The Rolling Stones.  My Spotify profile has mixes as varied as "Angry Girl Music" to "California Dreamin'" to "Banjos!" I cried when I found out Pete Seeger died this week. 

Music was a huge part of my upbringing. My parents love live shows, regardless of whether it's the Lake Wobegon band or blues in Arkansas or jazz in Chicago. My brothers and I own terabytes of music and are constantly asking one another "Have you heard the new Steeldrivers album?" "Do you like Alice Coltrane or do you really prefer John?" "What was the last show you saw live?" The worst thing any of us can say about a city we've lived in or traveled to was "The music scene sucked."

A little snobby and short-sighted? Absolutely. But as a result, I'm conversant in everything from punk to 60s Motown to the differences between Dixieland and Bop. 

It's a trade-off I'm willing to make. 

***

I download podcasts with the best possible intentions. 

To put it in the dorkiest way imaginable, I always want to be learning something. In my constant quest to be Kelly 2.0, I want very little time that is not actively devoted to making myself a better person in some capacity. Podcasts always seem like an excellent way to multitask, an opportunity to clean the kitchen and learn something about theoretical physics. 

I try to listen to them. I really do. And I can get into them for a day or a week or a couple months. But inevitably while listening to one I'll get distracted by something a host or a guest says. I'll think of how  a joke reminds me of an ex and I'll start humming Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." I'll hear a story of how friendship changes you and I'll remember how two people I adore learned "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver for my birthday and forever changed the song's meaning for me. Without thinking about it I'll shut off whatever podcast I've turned on and open up whatever music app is closest at hand. 

Because the truth is that regardless of whatever smart things Ira Glass and Brian Cox are saying, they don't get me in quite the same way as hearing Paul McCartney sing "Blackbird." And as much as I'd like to believe that I'm a radically different person at 29 than I was at 16 (someone who cares more about facts than feelings), the truth is that I still have feelings I don't know how to express. I haven't quite figured out how to say "I love you" or "I miss you" without a mixtape. And while I want to understand theoretical physics and gun violence in inner-city schools, a bigger part of me wants to sort out how to talk to people about the feeling I have for them.

Koo-koo-ka-choo.

Naked

"Ren Fest was made for you!"

I roll my eyes. The geeky men in my life have long been on a quest to get me to attend a Ren Fest. As with their quest to get me to play D&D, I've managed to hold firm. I've heard every possible explanation of why I would love them, but this guy is reasonably charming and we're on our way back to my apartment so I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Why would I love Ren Fest?"

Surprisingly he doesn't go for the historical reenactments, the wordplay, the unselfconscious geekiness that occurs at Ren Fests (these are all reasonable arguments people men have made to me over the years.)

Nope, instead he just goes right for it. "Because you could actually wear clothes that would look good on you."

You know the expression "my jaw dropped"? I always thought it was an exaggeration. I grew up as the Liberal Democrat child of two Tea Party Republicans. I know that when someone says something absurd your jaw doesn't drop. Your eyes roll. Your head shakes. Your feet carry you out of the room. But jaw-dropping? Doesn't happen.

Except this time it does.

Because, yeah, while I'm at home I have a slight tendency to live in leggings and a Cosby sweater. But when I'm out on a date? Trust me, I can bring it. I know exactly what to emphasize (uh, boobs).

Tonight, for example, I'm wearing a red dress that makes me feel like Joan from Mad Men. Yeah, that Joan.

But apparently while I'm going for a vibe of unselfconscious sexiness with a dash of waittillyouseewhatI'vegotonunderneath! what I'm actually projecting is more of a vibe of Wench! Get me another ale. 

***

I can count, on one hand, the number of people who have seen me naked. 

It's not because I'm a prude or because I dislike sex. 

Both of those suggestions are, in fact, laughable.

Yeah, we all know where this is going. 

I hate writing about weight and body image issues because, you know, this isn't Seventeen. I turn thirty this year and I feel like I should have this shit figured out. Or at least be able to better hide the fact that, when it comes to things like being naked in front of men I like, I'm a black hole of insecurity.

But then I go over to a friend's house to hang out with my lady friends and we spend the entire night talking about a TED talk about self-objectification. How, even among some of us who are with long-term, committed partners who adore us, we still have nights, days, weeks, where we simply cannot get out of our own heads. And instead of being able to come home and make dinner or watch a movie or have sex while taking all of our clothes off we're wondering if we should skip dinner because we had a burrito for lunch, counting the number of calories in this glass of wine and weighing it against what we did at the gym that afternoon, or chewing gum between meals because we're actually still hungry. 

Here's something sort of crazy. I can't even get worked up over the unfairness of this situation. I have zero desire to start lambasting the paradigm of patriarchal normative structure. I don't even want to bring up photoshopping in magazines or beauty standards, or whether or not BMI is just another way for us feel badly about ourselves (ugh, please). 

Let me be very clear about this. While hanging out with smart, engaged, interesting women I have zero desire to discuss feminist theory. 

The women I hang out with are tremendously capable, brilliant, confident women. They're quickly making headway in their various careers, are socially and civically engaged, are well-read and articulate and interesting. 

And about 80% of them are completely neurotic in some way when it comes to their bodies. 

The reason I can't work myself into a lather about how we got to this point is because it makes me inexpressibly sad that we are here. 

***

You know you've made significant strides in weight loss when your corset no longer fits. 

I'm standing in my closet, in front of a full-length mirror, trying on every piece of lingerie I own. It's been, um, awhile since I've had any reason to even think wearing any of this and now that I finally do I come to the sudden, startling conclusion that after losing nearly thirty pounds, none of it fits. None if it. Jesus. My bras don't even fit anymore (and cue horrifying montage of what my boobs must have looked like over the past few months) Realizing that I'm in danger of running significantly late, I start to consider calling and cancelling on the guy. That line from The Smiths song This Charming Man pops into my head. 

I would go out tonight

but I haven't got a stitch to wear. 

I am actually thinking about cancelling on this guy because there's a slight possibility that we'll end up together and that if we do, I'll be caught without my battle armor. 

For the record, I do recognize the inherent fucked-up-ness of using the phrase battle armor in any context regarding one's sex life. I mean, the only place it might be appropriate is if one has a Beowulf fetish (I don't). But the fact of the matter is that, staring down the barrel of literal (and figurative! Layers.) nakedness, I would rather spend Saturday night in the house, in my leggings and Cosby sweater, alone. 

Standing there half-dressed and completely indecisive I get a text saying "Hi. I'm outside." and realize that I've dithered too long. I quickly pull on my red dress, the one that makes me look like Joan from Mad Men and hastily put my makeup on. I'm desperately reaching for some sort of moment of public-radio insight, some triumphant moment where I'll realize something about the patriarchal normative structure and my body and I'll walk out the door with a newfound confidence in myself. 

Ha. Yeah, that only happens on This American Life. Instead I rush out the door knowing full well that if we do go home together I'll spend most of the night in my own head, trying to get out of the incessant loop of backchat and simply enjoy myself. 

At least I've got the dress. There's nothing bad he can say about it. 

#21: Blog about Thirty By Thirty

Despite the fact that it's only 15 degrees outside, I am actually perspiring a little when I leave the kitchen. 

I've been making pizzas for about an hour and a half, and now that all my guests have been sated, I flop down on floor with a very large glass of wine. 

My best friend is scribbling something on a lined sheet of paper. My other friends are laughing over something she's said and I tap her on the knee and indicate that I want to see what she's working on. 

"Well, you know my birthday was yesterday?" She says before handing me the sheet of paper.

"Yup, birthday brunch tomorrow."

"Well, I'm making my thirty by thirty list." 

I start reading it and crack up. After fifteen years of friendship (at this point in our lives we've been friends for longer than we haven't) I could probably have written most of this list. I hand it back to her and pick up the thread of the conversation and lose myself in the course of the evening, laughing so hard I nearly spit out my wine a few times. After a ridiculous amount good-natured teasing (apparently my spinsterhood will involve not cats, but lynx named Gertrude, Gloria, and Tina--major points if you can guess why they're named that) I kick everyone out of the house and collapse gratefully into my bed.

The next day I head over to my running partner's house to do the most Minnesotan thing I can think of--we're heading to the U.S. Pond Hockey Tournament. As I'm pulling on all of my warm clothes, I catch sight of a lined piece of paper on the table. 

"What are you working on?"

"Well, Michelle really got me thinking about this Thirty by Thirty thing and I've got a little less than a year, but I figured I might as well give it a shot." He pauses. "I would have thought with your love of lists you would have sat down last night after we all left and made one."

***

Here are my dirty secrets. 

Despite making New Year's Resolutions every year, I think that there's only one resolution worth having. At the end of the year you should be a better person than you were the year before. 

That's it. That's the basis of all of my resolutions. 

Here's the second.

I have an absolute, fanatical, borderline religious belief in the power of quantitative data. 

I spend a not insignificant amount of time looking at 2010 Census Quickfacts for the various places I've lived in. I geek out when I get an annual report from a nonprofit I support. I track the hits on my blog, measure what kinds of entries people seem to like.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

I wear a Fitbit for Christ's sake. I track the number of hours I sleep, the number of steps I take, the minutes I exercise, and the calories I net during the course of the day. I keep lists of the books that I read, how the medications I'm taking impact my mood, and whether or not I feel more positive with more or less caffeine or processed food, or whatever.

Look, I realize how nutty and OCD this sounds, but the truth is that I believe (absolutely, fanatically, religiously) that with the right data, I can forcibly make myself a better person.

***

On Sunday morning I sat down and wrote my Thirty by Thirty list. 

It breaks down into a few broad categories--areas I know (from my obsessive data collection) need work. Those areas are: skill acquisition, financial & physical health, interpersonal relationships, and artistic/cultural growth. After I finished it, I considered posting it here, in this entry. Then I realized that it would be more interesting and a better approach to the list would be to write about the things as they're crossed out. Some of you already know all of them. Some know some. Most of you could probably guess at least half the list. 

It might be a little bigger or a more grandiose list if I had written it more than eight months out from my 30th. That's all right. The things that are on the list are things that matter to me and are actually achievable over the coming months. More than that, they're things that I feel like I'll be able to look back on in nine months and measure. In late September I'll be able to look back on the list, on the things that I've crossed off of it, and be able to say whether or not I'm starting my 30s as a better person than I was in my 20s. It is, I suppose, the last last grand experiment in a whole string of experiments of my early adulthood. Except this time I'm bothering to measure it. 

I can't wait. 

Wonderful

I am really good at New Year's Resolutions.

It is, I suppose, the benefit of being someone who has worked in the position I do. As someone who is used to quantifiable goals, who is a bit of a nut for data (I look up 2010 Census information for fun), and who gets (as previously mentioned) really excited about holidays that make you retrospective, I'm bound to be good at New Year's Resolutions.

My goals for 2014 are relatively straightforward. I want to cross 12 finish lines this year, read fifty books, write more than I did last year, and do something incredible and challenging on/near my 30th birthday.

Such go the goals.

I've had a tradition over the past few years of including a New Year's Wish, something I close my eyes and say to myself at (or near) midnight. Last year it was that I would be OCD free by the end of 2013. While wishes, they tend toward the pragmatic. I've wished for a new job, a new bike, a new start. I've wished for forgiveness. I've wished that I'll get over my OCD and panic attacks.

2014 brought something different.

To begin, I went to an actual Honest-to-God New Year's Eve party. With noisemakers. With champagne. With friends. With dresses. It was, somewhat embarrassingly, the first New Year's Eve party I've been to as an adult (I typically work both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day) and the whole night seemed to have some sort of magical realism about it. I didn't feel like myself in the best possible way. Or rather, I felt like the best possible version of myself. Then, at midnight I closed my eyes and made the following wish.

In 2014, I want to be kissed by someone who thinks I'm wonderful. 

I know. Trust me, I know how this sounds.

***

I wanted to see the Aurora tonight. 

The chances were good. There was a major solar flare earlier this week, and the skies are relatively dim. The issue, of course, is that I live in the city. While I love urban life (mass transit, restaurants, music) I have to admit that sometimes the star-gazing gets me a little down (I did, afterall, grow up in the country). However, despite the good chances, there were myriad factors that kept me from going out tonight: busted car, lack of interest or availability on behalf of my friends, an ill-timed glass of wine on an empty stomach. 

All of these things, of course, added up to me not going Aurora questing as planned. 

***

I cancelled my OkCupid account.

It was the most liberating decision I've ever made. After a number of unsuccessful (and horrifying) dates, one or two truly terrifying encounters, and any number of interactions that make Anthony Weiner look like the paragon of chivalry, I finally broke down and cancelled the damn thing. 

I don't regret it. At least, not yet. Because I refuse to buy into the mentality of You've got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Because, firstly, who the hell wants a prince anyway? I'd prefer a barbarian or master spy or Rumi-reading lumberjack or reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt. And secondly, that implies that those frogs deserve a kiss anyway. Trust me, if you use the word "skinnier" in any capacity other than "If that girl got any skinnier she'd disappear. She needs to eat a cheeseburger" in front of me, you don't deserve, well, anything. 

***

Earlier in the week I got a little uppity with a friend who hasn't read a book I maybejustatinybit consider essential to being a well-developed adult. When he called me out on my snobbishness (snobbishness around books is something I really do work extremely hard to avoid) it made me start to wonder if it mattered in our friendship (the answer, of course, is no). Then I started to ponder whether or not it would matter with someone I'm dating. If bookishness or rather, lack of my particular kind of bookishness, in a potential partner would be a dealbreaker for me. I thought about it again tonight, as I wondered if an eventual partner would be willing to (on a work night) stay up late with me and drive out to the sticks on the off chance we could see something wondrous. Silly, I know, but I couldn't help but think that if it didn't matter perhaps deleting my online dating profile was a bit premature. 

Then I thought about the wish that I made on December 31st, at 11:59pm. I realize how frivolous it sounds. How extravagant and ridiculous and middle-school that wish was. But it has been too many years since I've been kissed by someone who just . . . likes me. I mean, actually likes me. Not likes me for the night or the afternoon or for-the-time-being but likes me. My relationships with men tend to be, well, rather utilitarian and brief. And online dating, at least the kind that I was doing, made those relationships (liaisons, probably) thrive. 

But I don't want that. I. Don't. Want. That. I'm tired of those kinds of relationships, those kinds of encounters. I don't need someone to geek out over the new season of Sherlock or understand the conflicted feelings I have about IVAWA straight away, but I want someone to try. I want is someone who will read The Brothers Karamazov, who will go look for the Aurora on a work night, not necessarily because those things are important to him, but because they're important to me. 

I want someone to do those things for me because he thinks I'm wonderful. 

Endurance

I don't understand where you fit in genetically in your family.

What do you mean?

I mean, genetically.

I'm the spittin' image of my mom.

No. I mean, everyone else in your family is so . . . thin. 

-A Bennie

I am constantly amazed by the things people say to fat girls. 

I've got a collection of them. A Worst-Ever Greatest Hits of the things people have said to/shouted at me when I'm out for a run, when I'm not wearing much, when I'm crossing the street next to the library, when they meet me for the first time. It's become a hobby of mine, a little list I (unhealthily) keep in the back of my head.

And it's not just men either.

It would be easier if it were. Just chalk one more up to the patriarchy and move on. Hang out with your girlfriends. Have some wine and gripe about the asshole that you kicked out of your apartment the night before. Tell the story so many times that it becomes just another bad date story. 

I have never in my life been a small person. Never. A combination of stunning non-athleticism combined with a household where carbs were comfort and a shit metabolism, and I've just never been a small person. 

I don't know that I'll ever be.

That's not to say that I don't try. 

Huh. With as much as you talk about running, I just thought you'd be skinnier. 

-A First Date Who Did Not Get a Second

In the late fall of 2007, I started running. 

I was exceedingly bad at my job. I was (at best) uninterested in the relationship I was in. I was anxious and depressed without ever understanding why. I was at a creative and emotional standstill, feeling like my life was on pause, reasonably certain that if you put your hand on my chest, you wouldn't be able to feel my heart beat. 

Honestly, I don't know how I didn't give up. Running was hard. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done. I went from a sedentary lifestyle to one where I was running four days a week in a few short months. And some time during that long, snowy winter, I fell in love with running. I fell for long Sunday runs next to the Mississippi. I learned to appreciate a perfectly executed Farmer's Blow, the way other runners would nod their encouragement to my chubby self as I shuffled along. I became acquainted with the Runner's High, that blissful rush of serotonin and dopamine that comes along occasionally during a workout, the rush that leaves you dizzy and giddy and feeling like you're about to fall in love.

Have I mentioned that my idea of a great first date is running a 5K together?

Anyway, running became . . . not a hobby so much as an on-again/off-again relationship. A real love/hate relationship. I ran throughout graduate school. I ran every once and awhile while I was in Duluth. But more than falling in love with running, I fell in love with, well, for as corny as it sounds, measuring myself. Setting big, impossible seeming goals and striving for them. Setting plans and sticking to them. Running introduced me to other distance events, particularly cycling.

Falling for running changed my life. 

I fell in love with the simple idea of sheer, grinding endurance. That if you look deeply enough into yourself you'll find what you need to (in the poet's words) keep on keepin' on. 

I'd like to work out until my thighs don't touch anymore.

Yeah, that's absolutely doable. 

Really?!

Yeah, Kel. When are you going to have one of your legs amputated? 

That's a shitty thing to say.

That's a shitty, unhealthy goal to have. Your thighs are supposed to touch. Do I need to show you a pelvic bone diagram?

-A Conversation with My Running Partner. 

It's midday on Saturday. I'm on my bed with my leg in my running partner's lap. He's doing the Ottawa Test on my right ankle. I whiffed it down the (inside) steps the night before and sprained my ankle pretty badly. He's checking to make sure that I don't need to head to urgent care to have x-rays taken (seriously, PT's make excellent activity partners).

"Well," he says, moving off the bed. "The good news is that I don't think you have a fracture."

"What's the bad news?"

"You need to kiss that half marathon in March goodbye, because you won't be running for six weeks."

"What?! What about biking?"

"With the way you like to go? Absolutely not."

I try to bargain with him a little bit, but he's having none of it. It finally sinks in that he's serious, that while I planned 2014 to start off with a bang, to be the year of endurance, of challenges falling neatly before me, the whole damn year has now been moved six weeks back. I'll be starting training from scratch in February instead of building up from where I was before falling down the goddamn steps.

It takes about fifteen seconds for me to lose it entirely and burst into tears.

Jesus! What cup size are those? G?! H?!
-Most Paramours

I don't like my body.

I know that's not, you know, unusual for a lady, but I really, really, REALLY don't like my body. I've never felt like a particularly pretty person. I've never been a huge fan of mirrors or clothes shopping.

Yes, I know. Howling vortex of insecurity. Fuck off.

Even now, with 10% less of it than there used to be, with a cute haircut and better skin, and excellent clothing, I don't like my body. The only times I've ever liked it are when its carried me from start to finish lines. When, sick with a chest cold, my running partner and I ran my fastest mile times ever. When we crossed the finish line of a 150 mile bike ride. When I ran off of the Gary Bjorklund course to hug my mother, who was waiting for me.

I like my body when it's moving, when I can shout down that list of nasty things people have said to me with the reply "when was the last time you ran six miles? Or biked fifty in two hours? Or went hiking or walked five miles home from work just for the hell of it, because it's a lovely day outside?"

I like my body when it's helping me run away from something.

Hence the crying like an idiot when I was told I was benched for the next six weeks. Six weeks with nothing but pilates, modified yoga, and strength building exercises. Six weeks were I can't pull my hood over my head and run through the dark, leaving everything in the dust.

Six weeks of nothing but sheer, grinding endurance.