To Infinity and Beyond

Of lately I have been feeling trapped; sensing an innate desire to seek out a new adventure. Perhaps it is the need to start anew, to build again and start something exciting in a new place, that I find appealing. Every time I leave a place it provides an opportunity for some much needed spiritual cleansing. As much as I love it here I long to strike out on my own again, to simplify my life, edit the superfluous, and pack purely the essentials. So today I commit it to writing. My goal is to spend my 30th birthday abroad, to live in a foreign country and continue my development as a designer. My list of locations so far includes: Scotland, London, Copenhagen, Berlin, New Zealand, Sydney, Barcelona, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, and Stockholm. Well here I go.

Crazy Lady #2

Mary is a wonderful lady that works in my apartment building; but she is crazy. How do I know this? Well she is lovingly referred to as "Crazy Mary" by the residents. Her responsibility is making sure the building is clean and tidy. She rakes the yard, vacuums the halls, and sweeps the floors. She goes about her job with conviction and dedication; finding a sense of pride in the work she does. She once told my visiting parents that she loved her job. She had to make sure the place looked good for all the residents. "They go out and work all day. It is my responsibility to make sure their homes are nice." Mary is a wonderful woman and our building is lucky to have her. But as she has become a regular element of my living arrangement, sometimes I forget to warn visitors of her presence. I am reminded of this oversight when my friends start animately talking about "this woman" in my building. The combination of their wide eyed expression and heightened verbal energy lend me to interrupt their story with a reassuring, "Oh you met Crazy Mary." Conversations with Mary are disjointed; starting at odd moments (like just after you have turned a corner and are out of eyesight) and ending with a prolonged awkward pause.

Mary has a couple of utility closets in the building, places to keep her vacuum and supplies. Apparently it is also home to one of the most diversely prolific collections of stuffed animals from the 60's-80's. The closet teems with these plush creatures, each with a name and story. Occasionally, these cuddly cuties go on adventures. They sneak around the building and end up in unexpected locations. They may provide security as sentries on the stair landings, conversation at the laundry room table, or engage in a building-wide game of hide and go seek. It becomes a rather enjoyable act discovering the new locations of her animals.

Stuffed animals adventures are one way in which Mary displays her eccentric disposition. She also decorated the laundry room which, has another closet. The walls are dotted with an eclectic combination of sci-fi trinkets, airline calendars, cute animal posters, and plastic flower pots. On the closet door a red sign with white letters reads, "I love animals." Inside are more past treasures. An alien mask without eyes, Star Trek posters, and a stuffed parrot hangs from the ceiling (although his location may be more indicative of an adventure he is on than a permanent living locale).

Mary dresses simply, muted colors, classic cuts, and old jeans. Her sneakers bear the marks of her labor; grass stains, drops of wood polish, dust and dirt. Her mousy gray hair stands straight like the whisks of your grandmother's broom. Her face and hands devoid of embellishment; no make-up, polish, or color. She withholds expression from her face, only her voice signaling minimal variations in energy and excitement.

But to really understand Mary, you need to have a conversation with her. She will begin with the weather, but after that you struggle to keep up as she takes you on a magically disconnected journey. A recent conversation took me from a simple discussion of the warm weather and beautiful rays, to the removal of the fun forest (a local amusement park at the space needle), the current lack of approval for our mayor, her joy in the killing of a cop killer (cause he was a bad man and needed to die), and lastly to the abolishment of NASA. This is where I got really excited, for I had never talked about space with Mary. She concluded our five minute conversation by expressing her hopes that we discover aliens with an alien planet who are nice and have gold so that we can mine it at get ourselves out of this recession.

I laughed so hard when I got inside my apartment. Mary represents a crazy woman with an amazing degree of creativity. I am tempted to write the President and inform him of this surefire way to rebound the global economy. Thank you Mary.

Making Progress

My soccer officiating career has been taking a fairly successful upward climb. I have been fortunate to travel the country working some of the greatest tournaments. Each new opportunity has yielded new friendships and unique experiences to develop my skills as an official. This week was my first professional referee assignment. The weather was nice for the match and over all I was pleased with my performance. This week I also made my usssoccer.com debut. I was featured in a photo with some of my friends at a recent tournament. It is cool to be among an elite group of young aspiring officials. Each of us commits ourselves to perfecting the art of officiating. I am excited by where these opportunities are going to lead.

Crazy Lady #1

So I have decided to start a series of posts documenting the various crazy people I meet. Only through cataloging them can the range of craziness be realized. So here I go with Crazy Lady #1.

A few weeks ago I was walking to my car. The morning was bright and unseasonably warm. The trees were beginning to flicker with spring's new buds and the annoying birds had returned early from winter. My spirits were high and I was excited to begin my day. I make it a habit to walk the alleys in my neighborhood. Not only are they faster but I frequently run across some amazing events, (recall Guttersnipes beseech Demeter or Urban Scarecrow). This time the alley treasure was less alarming and more fanciful, like a smartly dressed English chap. Down the alley I turned only to have my path crossed by a bubble. This was no ordinary bubble cast from insipid amateur lips; this was a truly magnificent orb. Awestruck, my feet ceased working; eyes cast upward frantically tracing the bubble's path in search of its divine creator. That is when I saw her: a round jovial woman, all bounce, rhythm, and song. Dressed in a long white nightgown she rocked about on her balcony, jet black hair gleaming in the early morning light; the platinum streaks radiating past youth. She must have been around sixty and looked to be a close relative of Aunt Jemima. A she sang and danced she effortlessly drew her wand through the sudsy water and cast silver translucent effervescence into the world. Transfixed by this sight, I found myself in a satisfied stupor. There I paused, watching this woman share her art with the world. She looked down at me...gave a large wide grin; proudly displaying her missing tooth and a euphoric cackle. Shaken back to reality I continued down the alley processing all which I had just experienced. You may ask how I know this woman was crazy? To which I would counter; only a crazy person would choose to wake early on a weekend and decide to mix up soapy water and cast bubbles in their alley. But if you ask me she is just the right amount of crazy.

Glad to be Glee Free

Dizzy with Living

I believe that people generally exist within two camps. Some amble through life, experiencing a rather level series of ups and downs. Their life experience is normal and ordinary; and not in a bad way, more like the comfortable beeping movement of a healthy EKG. Let's call them the "baseline" group since they are the baseline through which the second group can be compared. This second group exists in a more excited state, atomically speaking of course. There life is like one of those small town carnival rides you know was designed just to make you throw up. I will call this second group the "riders" as the only time there life seems like it is in focus is when they are in proximity with another "rider."

Now myself I am a rider. Despite my best attempts my life is inherently endowed with chaos, surprise, whimsy, and absolute shock. Perhaps writing this blog is my way of cataloguing this life. Take any one of these events and have a baseliner tell it as their own story. No one will believe them. But when a rider tells the story, people are in awe of how something such as this can be real.

So despite the fact that there has been a momentary lapse in blogging; know that the ride has not stopped. My head is spinning and I am trying to hold back the vomit. Plenty to come...