Today was:

• Walking downtown, smelling doughnuts and hearing a man play a saxophone. It drizzled today but never rained hard. Our first stop was the Corcoran, where we spent most of our time with Jesse’s favorite sculpture (probably favorite piece of art, ever), the “Greek Slave” by Hiram Powers. So much time, in fact, that a woman from the museum came up to us and said she had to know what fascinated us so much about the piece. We had a lovely little chat about the sculpture, and she said if we came back again during our trip, that she’d give us her personal guest passes.
• Walking through the Museum of Natural History until our feet ached and our brains felt numb. Sitting outside the museum after it closed, drinking water and Dr. Pepper and enjoying the chance to just sit.
• More walking…this time to Chinatown for dinner. We found a crowded place with cooked ducks hanging in the window, and we ate steamed pork buns, egg rolls, and ginger beef with spring onions. I drank probably a half dozen little cups of tea, so wonderfully warm and soothing. The message in my fortune cookie said, “Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life.”
• And, then, heading back to the hotel, surrounded on the Metro by people dressed in Halloween costumes.

A picture. Of me, with a stuffed lion.

We’re in DC!

I wasn’t going to blog until we got back, but I’ve changed my mind because I’m having such a great time. We got here late this afternoon, took the Metro into the city, and met up with Jarvis, one of the most down-to-earth and best-dressed guys we know. No, make that the most down-to-earth, best-dressed guy we know. Which cannot be an easy combination to pull off. He teaches and writes up here, has the Metro lines memorized, and generally spends his days being awesome, as far as we can tell.

We ate at Chipotle (because it’s Jesse’s all-time favorite—but he has agreed that all other meals will be new and exciting and decidedly not at restaurants we can eat at in North Carolina) in a neighborhood that made me just happy to be alive. The air was brisk but not too cold, and we were surrounded by Indian restaurants, Japanese restaurants, a shop selling breezy, floppy clothes and bellydancing skirts. We talked writing, Star Trek, politics, weather, beach towns. Then we walked the Mall, saw the monuments all lit up and gorgeous, and I felt a little surge of patriotism. How can you not, when walking up marble steps, a brightly lit Lincoln seated and serene looking down at you? I nearly wanted to cry, it was so lovely.

Now we’re back at the hotel, and I’m showered and ready to relax. Jesse is playing a little toy electric guitar. We can hear traffic outside the window, but it isn’t bothersome. It’s actually rather soothing, a constant hum, a reminder that we are in a place with unlimited possibilities, that the vacation is just beginning.

This is one of those days with too much to think about. Sentences to write and laundry to do. There is Kierkegaard, a NY Times blog about the difference between depression and despair (Kierkegaard on the Couch).

Jesse goes to get his stitches out today. He had something removed from his back, a little persistent thing, and since the biopsy came back negative I haven’t thought much of it, except to put Vaseline and a band-aid on it every morning. I could not be a nurse, cringing at the sight of the stitches. I don’t know if it was the stitches themselves, or the fact of them on that back, where my stomach says they should not be.

There is the futon; since my in-laws left, I haven’t moved the featherbed off it, so now it’s folded up on the couch, lengthwise, and it dips slightly in the middle, making this perfect little nest, exactly the right thing to take a nap on. Which I did yesterday, a solid hour of staying in exactly the same position, dreaming about something I can’t remember anymore.

And of course, a bit of frustration with myself over the yard sale thing. Jesse got in touch with the lady, and she acted, I don’t know, confused? Said, the money’s in the account. And she was right. It was there. On the one hand, I’m glad I let Jesse handle it. He had what I lacked—compassion, a willingness to suspend judgment. So, letting him take over was the right thing to do. But on the other hand, I wonder, why is it I still can’t keep myself from jumping to conclusions? Why am I so quick to see the bad in people, to think the worst? Yes, it looked bad. I’ll give myself that. The bad phone number was what did it. And there still hasn’t been an explanation for that. But, goodness, I of all people should know there’s an answer for everything, there’s a reason, whether it’s obvious or not. So, I’m sheepish today over this, the fact that I couldn’t extend just a bit of grace and wait before thinking I knew everything I needed to in this situation. And, the story of the servant whose debts are forgiven, going straight out and throwing someone else in jail because of what he was owed. Ugh.

(But, Michael, what you suggested about the local crime ring is probably true, and once they knew I was hot on their trail, they aborted the mission, put the money back in the account. I’m sure that’s the most reasonable explanation.)

I saw a shooting star last night. Well, it didn’t appear to be shooting as much as it seemed to be falling. It seemed so close. Ridiculously fast. There in one part of the second, and gone in the next. Maybe it wasn’t a shooting star after all, though I’m not sure what else would make light do that. So, that is what I’ll land on today, my day of many thoughts to think, and while I do laundry I’ll try to get reoriented, to remember to have perspective. And, because I have too much to do, I will try very very hard not to take a nap.

(almost one year)

Haven’t written much for a few days. You are getting sweeter every day. Your personality is beginning to take shape. Just as the American Baby Magazine said, you are becoming more and more attached to your Dad. When he comes home at night, you say, “Da, da, da, da,” with your arms outstretched. You also cry to go with him when he puts his coat on. You even kiss him without being asked.

Your birthday is coming up next week. Can’t believe it.

Since the age of seven, I adored Nancy Drew—she was smart, independent, well-mannered. She drove a Mustang and always managed to outsmart all those dumb people trying to get away with theft, or murder, or any variety of misbehavior. She always knew where the secret passageways were. I devoured every new mystery that came out, soaking up all kinds of mystery-solving tidbits.

Some of which, apparently, come in handy when trying to track down a woman who gave a bad check and a wrong phone number at a yard sale. See, I was banking on the lazy factor. It’s fairly easy to sweet talk a couple of gullible twentysomethings who are selling old Star Wars toys and music gear in front of their little gray house. It’s fairly easy to write a bad check and put a fake number at the top. But it’s much harder to fake a whole identity, to get a bank account under a false name, and so on. And her check had an address on it. So, thanks to the Internet, I found a phone number that was attached to her address in some random online Brunswick County something-or-other newsletter. There was a completely different name with the address, though, so I didn’t figure on it working, but I called anyway. A man answered, and I asked for [name omitted] and he said, much to my surprise and pleasure, that he’d be talking to her in about a half hour and would have her call me back!

Now, of course, she hasn’t called back. But the exciting part was successfully finding her! In less than ten minutes! Just dye my hair titian and tell Hannah I’ll be home before midnight.

Part of the problem with having a former Nancy obsession is that I tend to inflate the mystery in my head, becoming more focused on solving it than in the people involved, so I’m handing the whole thing over to Jesse to handle from here on out. Because he is not that upset about it and is able to deal with it with much more grace and aplomb than I would, and because he is more concerned with what’s going on with this woman than in the principle of the matter.

But, if he needs further help tracking her down—or if he runs into any secret passageways—he knows where to find me.

When you’re having a yard sale and someone tries to give you a check and your instincts are telling you “No checks! Cash only!” you should listen to them. No matter how sweet the little old lady looks. No matter how long she talks to your husband about ancient stringed instruments, or how she tells you where she (supposedly) works, or if she puts a (supposed) phone number on the check. Kudos on taking the check to her bank instead of yours, therefore avoiding the NSF fee, but really. Next time, listen to the little voices, no matter how cynical they make you feel.

I remember walking into a meeting room in the Student Union at UCF. I think it was the end of my first year of college, if I remember correctly. I was there for another meeting of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society. We were to vote on a new executive board.

I was the overachiever, the over-involved, I was young and had no need for full nights of sleep. I had just come out of community college, where I’d spent most of high school taking dual-enrollment classes. There was little to nothing that ever seemed to happen at the tiny Titusville campus of Brevard Community College (the honors English class I hoped to take was eventually cancelled after I was the only one to sign up for it). So, when I got to UCF, I decided to do it all. I went to work, padding my resume as much as I could.

Sigma Tau was part of my push to be involved in everything, but the little club was at that time a lot like the Titusville BCC. Nothing was really happening. I was active in other clubs and had just interviewed for a fairly important spot on an executive board of an established leadership organization. I thought my involvement in Sigma Tau would stop at attending meetings, maybe participating in a fundraiser here or there, and so on.

So, I showed up for the meeting. As I remember, it was me, Sabrina, and the outgoing president. Maybe our faculty advisor was there. Maybe not. I’m fuzzy on the details, but clear on one thing: Sabrina and I walked out of the meeting de-facto president and vice-president of the club. Sabrina was a clear choice—she was the only one who was actually doing anything in the club, probably more active for the chapter than the president had been. But I hadn’t intended to be part of the Sigma Tau leadership; I had just showed up.

As we left the meeting room, the outgoing president said to us: “Don’t bother trying to do anything with Sigma Tau. No one shows up, no one’s interested, no one cares. My best advice is to put your energies into other endeavors.”

Well.

He meant to be helpful. And he was more helpful than he could have realized. What he did was pose a challenge. A dying, derelict club with no influence, no prominence, and no member activity. And the guy in charge, telling us not to waste our time.

What you should know about Sabrina—and I hope she doesn’t mind my talking for her; I’m sure she will correct me if I’m wrong—is that she was more of an overachiever than I was. Not in the negative sense. She was, and is, the most intensely productive person I’ve ever met, and it seems to be part of her nature to accomplish more than the average human being is even capable of. Maintaining a high GPA while balancing work, campus involvement, and a thriving social life seemed like nothing to her. She’s the consummate multi-tasker, is absolutely brilliant, is a risk-taker. I swear she runs on batteries that never seem to need much recharging. What she wants, she makes happen. And she does it all while looking better than the rest of us, too.

We started talking about what was, and what could be. I ended up getting the position I’d interviewed for. I turned it down. I wanted to devote all my energies to Sigma Tau. Around this time, Sabrina and I were in a grammar class with Zea, and she hopped on board with the whole Sigma Tau experiment. We were going to make it great. I knew we could prove everyone wrong, that we could accomplish what seemed impossible.

And we did.

Those were some of my favorite college experiences. The club went from nonexistent to thriving. We were landing in the school newspaper, we were organizing lectures with standing room only, we were having a blast.

I miss that. Here is something I’m going to put on my desk, or on my wall, or somewhere I’ll look at it regularly: “What do I believe is impossible to do in my field…but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?” I don’t know where it originated from, but Andy Stanley quoted it in his book, Next Generation Leader. (This from the same author as Visioneering.)

It made me think about Sigma Tau. That’s what we had to do. We had no other option. Continuing with the status quo meant death for the club, and we weren’t interested in presiding over a dead club.

For a while now, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a rut. There is a whole lot of status quo and not a lot of thinking about how to accomplish the impossible. And now I’ve got this group of leaders I’m responsible for, my Pod People, and we had kind of been going along at a decent pace, but it was just exactly what was expected. And nothing that was unexpected. So, I’ve been thinking for the past few months—what if? What is, and what could be?

What I told them at the dinner party this week is that the worst danger facing their groups is mediocrity. So, time to start practicing what I preach. (Now, if I could just figure out how Sabrina gets so much done…)