red sox

As I left my apartment this morning to go out to run some errands, I grabbed at hat to wear. I don't wear hats too often but when I do, I usually default to my Red Sox hat. It occurred to me as I was walking around that perhaps I should have chosen a different hat. It was only a week after the Sox completed the greatest regular season collapse in baseball history and days after they forced out Terry Francona, the manager who made the Red Sox blowing a lead be something unexpected. It was no time to be showing pride in my team.

I got the hat in 2003, the first year I lived in Boston. It was after the season had ended, after the Aaron Boone home run crushed my soul, after I had been a fan for all of my 18 years with no championship season to show for it. The Red Sox were my team, though, and I wanted the hat. The mood after that season was different than today--not from the team, the manager was still fired, but from the fans. The way the season ended was horrible and probably worse than what happened this year. We didn't know anything different, though. We mocked ourselves for thinking that they could actually win the World Series. We bonded together, like we did every year, over the misery of defeat.

This year's Red Sox collapse reminded me of what being a Red Sox fan before 2004 meant. It didn't mean winning championships, or even winning games. It meant having Don Orsillo's giggle waft throughout our house all summer long. It meant listening to my Dad talk about wins and losses and trades and rules. It meant, win or loose, going to a game felt like Christmas morning. It meant seeing Red Sox fans in other areas of the country and high fiving them.  The Red Sox wove themselves into our lives and became a family member.

After this season ended, I was pissed off off at them, disappointed in them, concerned about their future, and questioning my loyalty to them. I still loved them, though, so I wore the hat.

nine eleven

There is nothing special or new or even particularly interesting about my 9/11 story. I was two weeks away from my sixteenth birthday and just started my junior year of high school in South Portland, the only home I had ever known. I was sitting in band rehearsal in the second period of the day when Erin Falconer sauntered into the practice room twenty minutes late. I had known Erin for my whole childhood. We went to the same elementary and middle school; she lived down the street from my best friend and next door to my hairdresser, a friend of my Mom’s. Her dad coached me in softball. I was never more than friendly with her, though, and there is no reason I should remember her, ten years later, when we aren’t even facebook friends. 

Erin was the type of student who usually showed up late and didn’t care. She wore pants that were so baggy you couldn’t see her feet. Our shared geography and affinity for band were all we had in common. She sauntered into the band room that day, late slip in her hand, and said with an air of nonchalance, “All of the secretaries in the main office are freaking out. Apparently a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York.”

At the time, I didn’t know that I had just learned of a terrorist attack. I didn’t realize that I would spend my next class, a study hall, watching the towers fall over and over again on a television the teacher had rolled into the room. I didn’t expect to become addicted to the twenty-four hour news coverage. I wasn’t yet haunted by the picture of the young Indian man who ate at the restaurant I worked at near the hotel where the hijackers were known to have stayed. I would never have heard the rumors that circulated around school that afternoon about our town’s rank on a maximum destruction for minimal effort list based on the amount of oil stored near our school. I probably couldn’t have even picked the World Trade Center towers out of a New York City skyline poster. Most of all, I had no way to know that moment would define my generation.

There will always be the demarcation lines. We are old enough to remember where we were when we heard the news. We are young enough to have it define our worldview. We never voted in an election where terrorism wasn’t an issue. We don’t understand wars that have an end. We look back on the Clinton-era as the good old days when the most outrageous lying that went on in Washington was about extramarital sex, not weapons of mass destruction. The victims of the lies suffered embarrassment rather, not death.

When we graduated high school, we left our parents and our lives for a world that was scary in ways that were never known before. The first time I ever lived on my own, I lived on the eleventh floor of an eighteen story, three-tower dorm in Boston. Somehow navigating my first day of classes, figuring out the train system, and living in a high rise became political acts. We wouldn’t let the terrorists win.

Ten years later, the lasting effects are becoming clearer. We weren’t shaped by the unity that came in the days following the attacks, but rather the response that followed. We are cynical and untrusting. We are disengaged. We mourn the deaths of that day, but we don’t mourn the loss of America as a super power. We never knew that America.

Earlier this year, when I learned that Osama bin Laden had been killed, I sat in my studio apartment in Brookline once again unable to turn off the new coverage, tearing up. I frantically reloaded twitter, searching for the latest reaction. I texted my friends, hoping they were still awake. It wasn’t long before I realized I was sobbing uncontrollably. I cried because remembered what it was like to be proud of my country. I cried for all the people who died trying to kill this man. I cried because someone else died. I cried because I felt relieved from ten years of stress that I didn’t know I had. But mainly, I cried because I will always remember Erin Falconer.

happy dad's day

Very few people in my family understand the word dad. For some, the man that should have been their dad died before he could move from a father, the man who is biologically related to them, to a dad, the man who would raise them. For others, they dad they knew died before he could watch them grow up to become teenagers. Their dads never got to see them graduate high school or college, fall in love, fall out of love, or grow into adults. For me, Dad is the guy who has been there for it all.

When the Bruin's won the Stanley Cup on Wednesday, I immediately opened my computer and sent a message to my dad. There was no text in the body of the e-mail; it only consisted of the subject line “YAYYYYYYYYY.” I knew Dad would understand what the e-mail was about. I knew he would be watching the game. He was the one who tried to get me to watch hockey while I was growing up. We lived in Maine, after all. He successfully taught me about baseball, and tried taking me to AHL hockey games and watching Bruins games with me on TV. I never got into, it, though, until I moved away and went to a school that rivaled Maine's college team. Dad didn't let it phase him, though, and quickly learned the ins and outs of my team so he could share his interest with me.

I knew that Dad would check his e-mail that night. He always claimed that my brother and I were the ones who inspired him to embrace new technology. We got him a DVD player five years after everyone else in the country had one, an iPod when he was still listening to records, and a GPS even though he still trusts his maps. But Dad had a car phone before any of our friends did, and a Blackberry before I understood the difference between that and a Palm Pilot. It was true, though, that he didn't quite understand what it meant to have his devices. When I traveled to see my college hockey team play in the national championship game, Dad knew he was going to want to send messages to me while I was in the stadium. I gave a tutorial beforehand clarifying the difference between an e-mail, a text message (SMS as he called it), and a blackberry message. Even since then, I have been at hockey games with my non-internet phone and returned home to find e-mails from Dad asking about the in game score.

While I wanted for Dad to respond, I opened another tab on my Internet browser to see what was going on with my social networks. My twenty-something friends were celebrating with tweets and status updates. None of us had been alive the last time the Bruins won the cup. Now, we had seen all four major sports teams in our city with their championship in the past seven years. I posted a status about how lucky I was to be a Boston sports fan in this era.

I saw the number in the title bar of my e-mail tab, and I jumped over to see Dad's response. He called the win “spectacular.” I can sense the awe in his voice, the appreciation, the understanding of how great this was after living through a 39 year drought. It was something none of my friends could understand. He wrote of how happy he was for the goalie, sentiments I had wanted to send back in my response. I wrote back, and he responded once more before I fell asleep. I was happy to share the moment with someone I knew would appreciate it the most.

It never occurred to me that, in the time I spent being grateful for Boston sports, I should have been grateful for Dad. Grateful for e-mails that need no context, peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, lobster dinners, minor league baseball, and a mustache. I should be grateful that any day I want can be a dad's day.

technology

There are many arguments against social networks, like facebook and twitter, and the technology that helps us keep up with them, like smart phones and tablets. Bill Keller's recent article in the New York Times makes the point that by forcing us to think in 140 characters, twitter is making it's users less thoughtful, more rash, and basically not as smart. We no longer know where to go without a GPS system, and no longer know how to interact with human beings.

This weekend, I hung out with seven people in a three day, three state whirlwind trip. I was the only one who did not have a smart phone. The first time I noticed this was half a day into the first leg of the trip: a bike trip around Block Island. We stopped at a seafood restaurant for lunch. I was already tired from the two hours of biking we had done, hungry for food, and excited to be sitting on a chair that was larger than my hindquarters. I settled into my seat and looked at my menu, unaware of what the others around me were doing. After I had decided on the lobster roll and a $2 Narragansett on tap, I looked around the table to see my five other friends all checking their smart phones.

I commented on how I was the only one without a fancy phone, and my friends started to talk about what they were each doing. Two were checking their email, two were checking in on Scavengr, and one was checking in on foursquare. I knew what all of these things were from being an informed twenty-something. The two friends checking their email began asking about the two different location tracking tools, and a debate ensued about which was better. One friend installed the Scavengr app and another installed the foursquare app. They did a social check in, so they could say they were hanging out with each other at a certain place. I sat with my hands on my lap, watching as they talked about their social networking tools. I had nothing to add.

The next day, three of us went into New York City. After meeting up with friends in Brooklyn, navigating our trip from our hotel near Times Square to Brooklyn via GPS on the smart phones, we headed back to Times Square to try to find a bar to hang out in. By that point, the two smart phones had died and we were on our own to find a place to go. We did it the old fashioned way. We asked two sets of cops where we could find a fun, low key bar in the area. Neither set had any ideas. We went to two hotels to try to ask a concierge, but it was too late for them to be helping. We went to one hotel bar that turned out to be closed already. Finally, a movie theater employee gave us a bar name and intersection that we could head to. We used our commonsense and navigation skills to find the intersection but, an hour after we got off the train, we found ourselves two blocks from our hotel without a bar in sight.

We hadn't wanted to go back to the hotel to charge the phones, afraid that we wouldn't want to leave again, but we gave in and headed back. One friend owned an extra battery for his phone. It took 10 minutes for him to change the battery, search for a bar, and call to make sure they were still open. We went back outside, hopped in a cab, gave him the exact address of the place we wanted to go, and were at the bar fifteen minutes after leaving the hotel.

Those who avoid social media and the technology around it like to come off as better than those who do use it. They say that they don't need to interact online, they would rather interact in person. They say that they don't need the internet at their hands at all times, since they got by just fine without it before. The problem is, though, the world we live in is not the world we used to live in. We live in a world where our real life conversations revolve around things that happened on facebook and twitter. If you avoid it, you deprive yourself from participating in that in person interaction. We live in a world where concierges' close at 10 pm, because they expect you to be able to figure enough things out on your own to get by without them.

I thought about getting an iPhone a year and a half ago when my Verizon contract was up, but at the time, I couldn't justify switching providers and paying extra money for the convenience of having internet on my phone. It was a luxury I didn't need. The day my new contract is up in September, I plan on going to get one. It's necessary for me to fully participate in life.

family

A few months ago, if you would have asked me for a definition of my family, I would have told you that it includes all people related to me. I also could have named all of those relatives without having to use any of my toes in the process. The problem I started to see with that definition, though, was semantics. Related is defined as connected or associated. So by my own definition, my family would be everyone I know. That is definitely not true.

What I really meant, I figured, was blood relation. Family is anyone related to me by blood. That made sense until I realized that on my very short list of family members, two of them were family by marriage, meaning I shared no blood with them. This was becoming slightly more complicated than I expected. Also, wasn't being family more than about who gave birth to whom? Having a family member meant being loving and helping each other through tough times. By that definition, then, were all of my friends my family members, too?

Then, my shifting thoughts of family were completely blown up by the recent (i.e. yesterday) marriage of my second cousin (by blood!), Lindsey, in New Jersey. The problem with Lindsey's wedding was that I met all of these people that my mom considered family that a) I never knew existed and b) weren't actually related to her by blood! These were my mom's maternal uncle's wife's family members. My mom spent years growing up with them. Being incredibly confused by the whole situation, I kept making the point to anyone who would listen that I wasn't actually related to any of these people. After I started talking to them more and more, though, my point changed slightly. "We aren't actually related," I would say, "but I want them as my family!" These were nice, fun, loving people who all had a good time together. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?

The problem was that they didn't fit any of my definitions of family, except for my first one which I wrote off as lame. Sure, they were connected to me, but they were not related to me by blood, they did not marry anyone related to me by blood, and the hardest time they had helped me through was deciding what drink to order at the bar. And yet, I felt connected to them.

In trying to make me feel less confused about the whole situation, my mom explained that being family wasn't about how you were blood related, but having a shared history with someone. The only problem? I had no shared history with any of these people, except for the few that I had met at the bridal shower two months before. That hardly seemed like enough to be family, though.

As I continued to talk to them, as they let me dance my crazy-awkward-white-girl-from-maine style with them, as they talked to me about sports, as they hugged me goodbye, and as we promised to see each other again, I understood that family has nothing to do with blood, marriage or relatedness. All it has to do with is sharing love. When I love the same people you love, we are family.

laundry

for the first time in my life, i live alone. no roommate, no family, just me and those possessions i deemed worthy enough to box up and move with me. going into this situation, i knew there were going to be perks (yes, i did just leave my dishes in the sink for two days without washing them, thank you very much) and drawbacks (my stuffed animals don't talk back), but what i didn't realize was how my outlook on life would be drastically altered. the time i get in the shower in the morning is no longer determined by when it will be free, but rather when i need to get in there to get to work on time. that 78 pound box of furniture that i ordered without knowing the weight is no longer something for a group of people collaborate on carrying, but rather a way for me to meet the new neighbors as i bring up pieces of the table in 5 different trips. weekday evenings are no longer something that just pass by without much thought or effort, but rather events to be for which i need to plan.

honestly, i was frightened by these weekday evenings of being alone. five whole days of just me and nothing else. what does someone who lives alone do with four hours a night? i worried i would go crazy holed up in a studio apartment with no cable, no roommate, and no pet. immediately, i started to think of things i could do at night that involved leaving my apartment. the less time surrounded by no one the better. the first thing that came to mind was laundry. the building i live in does not have any laundry machines in it, and the nearest laundromat is about a five minute walk away, so i figured one night a week i could do laundry. it would get me out of the apartment, take up some time, and be productive.

little did i know, that my focus on doing laundry would help me cope with the new lives-alone version of myself. first, it gave me purpose in figuring out how to plan for and get through my other nights alone. it turns out that having small, mundane goals for each night is exactly what i need. doing a load of laundry only takes an hour, but it somehow makes those four hours easier to get through. i now try to come up with a small goal for every night of the week. some nights i make myself a nice dinner, others i watch a movie, and sometimes i even make a goal to clean my apartment. that small bit of direction to start out the evening makes the rest of it feel like something to enjoy--a reward for accomplishing what i set out to do.

now that the laundry has helped me figure out how to structure the rest of my life, i realize that i actually enjoy going to the laundromat. that's right, laundry, a chore i used to hate doing, is now something i actually enjoy. how did that happen? logistically, doing one load of laundry for an hour a week is much better than doing two, or three, or even four at a time once a month. one load isn't that heavy and takes very little time to fold. hanging out at the laundromat isn't even that bad. i can read my book and i've even made friends with the man who works there. so if i ever feel like i am missing out on social interaction by living alone? i can just go do some laundry.

as i was sitting in the laundromat tonight, i realized doing laundry once a week wasn't just about making my life a little easier, or talking to some random people about cats. it's not that i don't mind doing laundry now, i actually have a fondness for laundry that was never there before. when i felt like my life was spinning in many different directions and i couldn't see anything through the fog of alone-ness, the simple act of doing laundry helped me center, focus, and move forward. is it weird that i now have an emotional attachment to doing laundry? probably. but every week for a few moments as i sit and watch my clothes spin around and around in the dryer, i am reminded that if i can do laundry on my own and have it be okay, i can do anything on my own and have it be okay.