Author: Trish

Sunday Summary #9: What’s On the Internet

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1|  Intrepid Travel has created a year-long adventurer’s trek across the world, and I want to go so badly!  Covering “34 countries, 5 continents and over 200 breakfasts” (lol) it’s not a bad deal at $75,000.  Anyone want to fund me?

2|  I am so late to the Kid President game, but his pep talk is a thing of pure beauty.  “We got work to do – we can cry about it, or we can dance about it.”

3|  J.J. Abrams explicitly says his new Star Wars movie was made so that women and girls would feel included in the universe, and my 8-year-old self is SO HAPPY.  I’ve seen commercials where a young brother and sister team up to take down Stormtroopers with lightsabers, and I’m so glad a new nerdy generation will be raised without all the “I’m a girl – should I like this?” shame that I did.

4|  I’ve never watched The Tudors, but this emotional reaction to the historical inaccuracies feels like it could apply to most TV shows (and movies.)

5|  One Direction was on The Late Late Show with James Corden, where Harry lost a game of tattoo roulette and Louis sat on James’s lap pretending to be a cat, and I had absolutely zero feelings involving tearing my eyeballs out of their sockets and/or shouting into the sun.

6|  White Walls & Wanderlust put together a list of Christmas gift ideas, and I fell in love with the Etsy shop ResilienceStreetwear, which has t-shirts that say things like “Single and ready to get nervous around anyone I find attractive.”

Workout Week #1

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Progress Report

By the Number

I worked out every day this week (from when I started on Monday).  And I even worked out twice on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, which, I mean, is a grand total of 14 minutes.  WOw.

By My Feelings

My goal was to do just the 7 Minute Workout once a day, every day.  I am a big believer in not pushing yourself, because if you (I) get disappointed, I just give up entirely.  But by Thursday, I had internalized how quickly seven minutes goes by, so I worked out twice (at different times of the day, though).  By then, I was also getting tired later and later in the workout.  I felt stronger!  More capable!  Still a gasping weakling, but slightly less so.  That’s all I want, so I’m feeling pretty great about continuing this.

Goals for Next Week

I will be in New York City with my mom Tuesday-Saturday next week, and I hate working out in front of people, so I will revise my standards.  If I don’t do the 7 Minute Workout, my goal to replace it will be to walk 10,000 steps according to my Apple Health App.  I realize that some people walk 10,000 with FitBits on the regular, but I think we’ve already established my level of laziness, right?  I’m nowhere near that on a normal day.  SO.  Either the 7 Minute Workout or 10,000 steps.  Should be easy enough, traipsing around NYC, right?  HOPE SO, because I also intend to eat a lot of delicious food.

The Death of Cultural Irony

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My friend Elizabeth recently brought an article called “‘Hamilton’ and the end of irony” to my attention.  Because it is about Hamilton, I was immediately interested, but it drew me in further by making some really interesting cultural observations.

I had the good fortune a few weeks ago to see “Hamilton,” the musical currently swallowing Broadway whole (AND WHOSE CAST RECORDING IS NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM ONLINE!!!! YES, THIS ABSOLUTELY MERITS ALL CAPS! THIS IS LIKE BROADWAY CHRISTMAS! ALSO THE WHOLE THEME OF THIS PIECE IS SHARING YOUR ENTHUSIASMS!!!).

(Ahem.)

Alexandra Petri makes the astute observation that Hamilton is an earnest musical about an incredibly earnest guy, and that this sincerity is the heart of its success.

I agree!  I think we live in an age of sincerity, if I can steal a phrase from Jonathan Fitzgerald’s article “Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age’s Ethos.”  Uninhibited love for things is everywhere, from the 90s nostalgia of my generation to the huge success of The Avengers movie.   Continue reading →

The Nest by Kenneth Oppel

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the-nest-9781481432320_hrWhaaaat a weird book.  Now that I’m done with it, I guess it’s about a pre-teen with some severe mental disorders – anxiety for sure, but also possibly schizophrenia.  It is utterly disorienting to be in his brain, especially for me, because my reading habits predisposed me to think that this was fantastical.  I’m still not entirely sure it wasn’t.

Steve, the aforementioned pre-teen, has a history of anxiety and OCD-like symptoms.  They have taken a turn for the worse ever since his parents had an unhealthy baby that may or may not survive.  He’s always had nightmares, but now his dreams include a seemingly benevolent wasp who promises to replace his baby sibling….if only Steve will help them by opening the window and letting them in so they can do their work.

If that sounds ominous, IT REALLY IS.  Now, I have a negative tolerance for scary stuff, so perhaps I am overreacting.  But his dreams and the subtly shifts in the wasp’s tone from understanding to demanding really creeped me out.  Oppel does a phenomenal job allowing for Just Enough reality to make sense of Steve’s hallucinations…but then there are times it really does seem the wasps are relaying information to him while he’s asleep!

It’s super weird.  But it’s also super short, so I highly recommend you set aside a couple hours to read it and let me know how you made sense of it all.   Continue reading →

Letters Between Friends: VACATION GUILT

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LettersBtwnFriends

Dear Tricia,

I am stuck today.  I haven’t a clue what to write about.  We both have been traveling…you come home ready to embark on your final month here at home before a HUGE transition, and I come home to sick children.

Oooo…Here’s something.  I was wondering if you deal with this much with the amount of travel you’ve done…When we were at the resort last week, I was struggling with the workers.  They were so kind and accommodating and great, but because of the trip I took to Guatemala earlier this year, I had a general idea of what they went home to.  I think I felt slightly ashamed or arrogant.  Nathan assured me that they had a great job and were doing what they need to do to provide for their families.  But I still couldn’t help it.

There was this one waiter, Antonio.  On Saturday, he served us all breakfast.  He would always welcome us with, “Hello Family!”  That night, Ashley, Daniel, Nathan and I were playing cards outside of the coffee shop around 10pm and he was picking up the garbage for the night.  I’m positive the labor laws are incredibly different, but I felt so torn.  Glad that I can help his family income, but by being at the resort was I endorsing improper treatment?

UGH.  The struggle.  Seattle, I’m sure, was slightly different.

Oh AND…I know LOTS about you…but I also need to know the answers to these questions…

  1. When is appropriate to start celebrating Christmas?
  2. If you had to pick an era to live in, which would it be?
  3. What TV series would you want to be a character in?
  4. What is your favorite Christmas cookie?

Happy Almost Friday, Friend.  Hope your week was more structured both in plan & thought than mine.

Love,

Lindsay

A Cliff’s Note Version of Hamilton the Musical

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Even though Entertainment Weekly has called Hamilton “the biggest cultural smash on Broadway this decade” it can be hard to convince people to give the two and half hour, 46-song musical soundtrack a shot.  For the sake of the joy and inspiration everyone is guaranteed to find in the story of Alexander Hamilton as told by Lin-Manuel Miranda, I’ve created a Cliff Note’s version of the musical’s story, links to key songs included.

[Side note:  You won’t see the actors while listening to the cast album, but I think it is extremely important to note that the majority of the actors and actresses are people of color.  Miranda himself is Puerto Rican, and the men who play Aaron Burr, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson are black.  Hamilton’s wife and her sister are played by a biracial Asian woman and a black woman respectively.  I am so in love with Miranda’s goal of telling the story of America’s past with the voices of America’s present.]

Alexander Hamilton was born on a Caribbean island, the bastard son of a Scotsman and a prostitute.  He becomes an orphan when his dad skips out and his mother dies, and the cousin who takes him in winds up committing suicide.  When he was a teenager, a hurricane devastated his hometown, and after writing about his experience, a fund was collected to send him to America.  Dude has a serious chip on his shoulder, and he is determined to prove his worth by demanding everyone’s attention and hiding his self-doubts (“Alexander Hamilton“).   Continue reading →

NEW: Workout Attempt

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My exercise bar is set incredibly low.  I don’t actually have one, as in, I don’t actually exercise.  This has never been a huge deal, since I’ve been lucky enough to stay roughly the same size my entire adult life.  But moving home to Peoria (the land of fast food), combined with a road trip where everyone was super kind and happy to buy and/or make deliciously unhealthy food for me in between long stretches of sitting behind the wheel of a car…has caused me to notice three changes.

  1.  I had to get a physical in order to put a letter of health in my visa application, and I was shocked when they weighed me.  I’m not telling you, because I hate scales and basing health on a number.  But it was definitely a catalyst to making me want to do something.
  2. My winter sweaters do not fit the way they used to, and I am NOT about to let myself gain enough weight to necessitate buying an entirely new wardrobe of pants and tops.
  3. While in Seattle, I was confronted by my lack of stamina when Roy and I slogged through snow one day and went bike riding the next.  The number of times I had to stop and catch my breath was embarrassing.

Continue reading →

TEN YEARS AGO…Pervy Teachers

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TEN YEARS AGO

Thursday, December 1, 2005

Wednesday was fun, as far as I recollect.  I helped out with Emily’s speech seventh hour.  Playing handbells with our moms.  It was weird, because…I never wanted to be in Mr. Sandy’s class ever again.  What a crazy pervy teacher.  Luckily, I don’t think I ever actually saw him.  I must have had tunnel vision, because I just walked in, played, and smiled at Andrea as I walked out.  No Mr. Sandy.  Yay.

TODAY

I’m cutting the old entry short because I want to scream I TOLD YOU SO.  I mean, this is a pretty awful thing to brag about getting right, but….I’ve never let appropriateness stop me from gloating!

Okay, so back when I was in high school, Mr. Sandy taught speech class (and ten years ago I was helping a younger friend with her speech, which is when I wrote this post).  The two things I specifically remember him doing that weirded me out are:  1)  he walked down the hallway once, belched loudly, and stumbled into the wall, and 2)  he stood behind my gorgeous friend Michelle in class and actually RAN HIS FINGERS THROUGH HER HAIR.

That’s the obvious one.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, when Mr. Sandy was arrested for videoing faculty (and one underage student) going to the bathroom with a cellphone intentionally left in the room.  Gross gross gross.

Honestly, I’m more surprised that that isn’t the most horrible thing to happen at my high school.  Just a couple months before Mr. Sandy’s arrest, another teacher was arrested for using a iPod on the floor to film student’s underwear!

So….proud.  Of myself!!  For totally seeing the shadiness.

Not so proud of my old school.  Yikes.

The Edge by Roland Smith

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Sunday Summary #8: What’s on the Internet

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1|  This is old news by now, but still, every time I watch the trailer for Captain America: Civil War, I devolve into a shrieking mass of fangirl.  BUCKY AND STEVE!!!

It is also, apparently, the only thing I had time to care about on the Internet. Which is totally fine by me, because Bucky and Steve!!!!