Lost and Found

A Secret.

I spent an hour or so doing yardwork yesterday. The sun felt nice, as I planted gardenias, calle lillies and the nearly dead flowering plant that Bryan's mom gave me for Easter. I like doing labor around the house. I enjoy cleaning, cooking, gardening. I like to dance around the kitchen in my retro apron when no one is home. I knit for fun.

I have gardening gloves and I like to wear them.

I don't know when I got so girly. It's strange, but I like it. It goes against all of the feminist ideals taught in my Ohio University education. In Ibsen's *The Dollhouse,* the woman escapes dull housework and being misunderstood by men in general, by drowning herself. We're supposed to rebel from the shackles of "women's work." We're supposed to get out there in the workplace and get promoted above all the men.

Women are amazing creatures. We are creative, strong and gentle. We can think on our feet and accomplish the impossible. We can finish tasks and multitask, and we have the ability to enjoy ourselves while doing so. So. Is it a sin to "waste" these talents in the home? Wouldn't society be better off with our skills in the workforce?

These are the things that I think about. And when I look at the women in my life that I admire, half of them poured their hearts into the home - my aunt Marcy, my maternal grandmother, my mom, Bryan's mom. And then there are the ones that poured hours upon hours into their careers - my boss at the Library, a few teachers, my friend Alisa, my cousin Lisa. Is one set of women better than the other? I don't think so. Is one set happier? It's tough to say. Happiness can't be measured.

Nonetheless, I'm writing a tiny secret: sometimes I think it would be nice to be a housewife. A witty, intelligent, well-read housewife who listens to NPR during the day instead of watching soap operas or Dr. Phil. Don't tell my dad. Or my professors.

Sleep.

Good God, I'm twenty-seven. I don't know how it happened, but I've made it to "nearly thirty." I don't have a lot of time to write impactful prose, so I'll just give you a list of things from the past couple of weeks. They all have to do with sleep.

• I've been sleeping with the windows open, and now I can hear the cats in the neighborhood procreating. I told this to Sara, who lives a block away, near the entrance to the dog park. "Do you hear the cats having sex at night?" I ask her. "No," she answers, "That's your part of town." Of course.

• Two Arabic men came into my house yesterday to deliver box springs. The ended up assembling my bed for me. They used power tools. I was very grateful. On the delivery truck, there was lettering that read "Kathy Irland". I asked them about the name on the truck and they said that it was the owner of their company. I told them that the owner was very famous. They kind of laughed and left. (Side note about small businesses in Columbus. In less white areas of town, such as Linden and West Broad Street, Arab business men buy businesses and then market the businesses as American-owned as to stop tension and not lose customers who might be biased against Arabs. It's an interesting thing. That's why, I suspect, the moving van said 'Kathy Irland' on it.) Anyway, I slept kind of well last night.

• While I was sleeping the other night, Sara called to tell me that she was engaged and sitting on a hill near our house. I could hear, through the phone, Andy chatting on *his* phone, announcing to others that they were engaged. It was an interesting circle of communication. I congratulated them and went back to bed, but not before asking Sara, via text message, if a) he asked her dad first and b) if she wants a lot of penis-themed crap at her bachelorette party. She wote back answering "yes" and "no".

• Bryan and I have date night on Tuesdays. It's exciting to get together with him and go on real dates. Sometimes we go to restaurants. Sometimes we cook. We almost always go on adventures, and we usually have desserts. Last Tuesday, at the end of date night, he had to work on some Russian verb translations. I was exhausted and while I wanted to be reading a book, I ended up falling asleep at his feet. Fun fact: up until that day, I'd never been asleep in front of him. He said that I was lightly snoring, but it was "cute snoring." I can deal with that.

I'm Not Kidding.



I hope that no parents or lawyers ever find my blog. Just in case, all participants in this image of a high school Bible study survived and are not only living happy, healthy lives, but are also considered spiritually mature.

Cool.

So I've been doing high school ministry for a little over a month, now. Every Sunday, I ride out to Sunbury, Ohio and try to engage in meaningful conversations with middle school and high school kids. Hanging out with them makes me feel like I'm in high school again. All of the insecurities come back in full force. Coolness, once again, is a measurable trait.

I spend a lot of the time being amused by the kids and seeing a little of (the high school) me in each one of them. I watch them eat.* I watch them interact. I watch them try to kill themselves.

Every week in Sunbury is like an episode of South Park. In each episode Kenny is going to die. It's just a matter of how. In our group, "Kenny" is literally "Every Boy." The first week, every boy climbed up a semi-fragile looking pine tree that was almost certainly going to fall over. The second week, they played tug of war on the second floor of a barn. Within seconds, I knew that one side of the rope would let go and the kids on the other side would all fly out the window, breaking every bone on my watch. I think that that was the week that they tied up the kid with dreads, dragged him around the barn floor and then attempted to hang him from the rafters, until one of the "real" adults suggested that hanging might cross some sort of safety line. The next week, they voluntarily jumped out of the second floor of the barn, not into a soft pile of hay or even mud, but onto a gravel driveway. Yesterday, they tied a noose around a kid's feet and with a simple pulley system lifted him, upside down, from the ground to the second floor of the barn. And then, when it got dark, a few of the kids climbed onto the roof of the barn and jumped into the horse pen.

When the upside down kid stopped shrieking in horror from having his legs bound together with a rope, I asked him if he'd do it again.

"Yeah," he said. No thought to it at all.

So I've stopped freaking out. These kids are going to go home wet, muddy, with bruises and broken glasses. And that's what happens. Their parents are fine with it. The other "adults" are fine with it. And the horses don't seem to mind company in their pen.

On Saturday night, I went to a cd release party at Little Brother's. All the "cool" indie rock kids were there. It was dark. There was PBR. Everyone wore the right kind of shoes and liked the correct bands. In Sunbury, Ohio, it's cool to try to kill your best friend and then shove ninety-six pieces of caramel corn down your pants. It's amazing how "cool" changes in only a matter of years.

In both cases, I'm pretty much "uncool". I think that I'm okay with that.

*One thirteen year old boy can eat seventeen pizza rolls in one bite. It's amazing.