House hunting brings on a number of challenges, and one of the challenges is that there is a good chance your mortgage will be higher than your rent. So the question is, how much can you swing as a monthly payment?
I think for a lot of people, they have been saving towards a house for a long time, and so their monthly payment is their rent + what they have been saving, so the idea of a higher monthly mortgage payment isn't crazy to them. There are also people who are of the school of thought that since you are paying money into "your house", it's worth it and that your house is an investment and a savings of it's own. Nobody has explained this to me yet in a way that makes me feel like my house is a savings or an investment and not a money pit of interest, insurance, and taxes. But that's another post.
Anyway, we sat down to try to figure out what we were willing to pay in a monthly payment. We started by asking ourselves what we were comfortable with. Then we realized that what we were comfortable with was an unreasonably low number, so we moved on to "what can we afford?" Which is a much harder question. It's an even harder question when you come into it after a period of prolonged unemployment. Because is it, "what can we afford?" or "what can we afford on your salary and my unemployment if I get laid off?" or "what can we afford if one of us isn't working?"
I didn't drink the kool-aid about BigLaw jobs and how I'd make six figures, no problem, but there's a lot of assumptions about non-profit jobs being easy to get, especially if you have a demonstrable commitment to public interest work, so when I graduated from law school, I fully expected to be able to find a job doing something that I liked, that I was good at. As the months wore on, I expected to be able to find a job, period. And I went on interviews and I sent out resumes and I wrote cover letter after cover letter and there was nothing. The firms wouldn't hire me because I was too public-interest-y, the public interest orgs had no funding, the non-profit organizing jobs thought I was overqualified, and the retail jobs just threw my applications in the trash. I was financially dependent on my husband during that time period, something which gave me endless guilt, feminist and otherwise, and we spent a long period of time living very strictly within our means.
Having come through that and out on the other side, it's not hard to recognize how lucky we are. How lucky we were to not be depending on credit cards to get us through the rough patches, how we still managed to pay our bills, how we did not have to dip into our savings. It's also a scary reminder for the future, because I'm keenly aware that if one of us loses our job, we might not be able to find another one quite so fast. That prolonged unemployment is a possibility in this economy.
So how do you commit? Not just to a big monthly payment, but to a monthly payment at all? Has anyone else done this? Does anyone have any advice or how to tackle the uncertainty of finances? Or do you just pretend everything is fine, everything is going to be fine, and life will go on?
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Lately
I haven't written much lately, and it's partly because of this:
I KNOW! I have a NEPHEW! He is the BEST THING EVER. So what little free time I have, I head down to my sister's place and hog the baby for awhile. They grow up SO FAST. He can even roll over already!
A few other things are going on around here. It's gardening season, so we're breaking out our tools and have planted seedlings and are running a few grow lamps indoors until everything is ready to transplant. I can already taste the fresh tomatoes and herbs and everything else.
We started house hunting. House hunting is, it turns out, an extremely difficult process which makes you feel all kinds of confusing things. For example, I look at a lovely two bedroom house and write it off for being too small. And then I think, "gee, what kind of a person am I that I have so much stuff that a two bedroom is just too small for me already?" And people say things to you like, "well, as you get older you'll make more money and you'll want a bigger house and nicer stuff." While that is likely true, I am not sure that I am okay with it being true, and I'm trying to figure out how to fight consumerism and also how to deal with issues like gentrification and public schooling and public transportation, which are all issues to consider if we continue to live in this area.
How are all of you doing? Is house hunting something you would like to hear about, or does it bore you to tears? (It bores me to tears, so no offense taken if you don't, but now that I'm in the process, I'm more interested in it.) Any specific issues you have faced with house hunting?
A few other things are going on around here. It's gardening season, so we're breaking out our tools and have planted seedlings and are running a few grow lamps indoors until everything is ready to transplant. I can already taste the fresh tomatoes and herbs and everything else.
We started house hunting. House hunting is, it turns out, an extremely difficult process which makes you feel all kinds of confusing things. For example, I look at a lovely two bedroom house and write it off for being too small. And then I think, "gee, what kind of a person am I that I have so much stuff that a two bedroom is just too small for me already?" And people say things to you like, "well, as you get older you'll make more money and you'll want a bigger house and nicer stuff." While that is likely true, I am not sure that I am okay with it being true, and I'm trying to figure out how to fight consumerism and also how to deal with issues like gentrification and public schooling and public transportation, which are all issues to consider if we continue to live in this area.
How are all of you doing? Is house hunting something you would like to hear about, or does it bore you to tears? (It bores me to tears, so no offense taken if you don't, but now that I'm in the process, I'm more interested in it.) Any specific issues you have faced with house hunting?
Friday, April 26, 2013
Travel
I read this article, and then I felt a little annoyed. Because I traveled with wild abandon when I was young. I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, I dove the Red Sea, I traveled by ferry through Norway and train in Amsterdam and cable car in Switzerland. I took the Parisian Subway with shakey French and traveled by Safari through Kenya. I saw poverty and concentration camps and people living on the side of the road in the desert. I saw ancient ruins and fantastic new buildings. I stood in Berlin after the wall came down and stared at the bullet holes and graffiti on the walls. I rode a horse through Monument Valley and learned about John Wayne. I whale watched on the Olympic Peninsula and went white water rafting in Alaska. I climbed to the top of mountains in Greece and to the bottom of salt mines in Salzburg.
I did all of this before I was 18 and my parents who were in their forties then their fifties were right there with me, telling me how much fun the slide in the salt mine would be, how the boat wasn't going to tip over, how the lions couldn't come into the safari van. It is something I will always be grateful for, and it's something that gives me pause whenever anyone acts like the only time to travel is right now and if you put it off, it will never happen.
You can travel young. Or you can travel always. I plan, with all my heart, to make travel like this available to my children. Because there is nothing greater than walking through the Louvre after reading The Second Mrs. Giaconda and there is nothing cooler than seeing 221 Baker Street when you just read Sherlock Holmes (and then stayed up all night completely terrified) and after a long unit on Greek and Roman history walking through the streets of Italy. It gives you all those things that the author of the article talks about - culture, perspective, and life being about more than just you. Because every winter, we would sit down with a map of Europe and start throwing out destinations. And my Dad would research plane tickets. And we would decide where we wanted to go. Life wasn't just about me, and life wasn't just about them, it was about us as a family, being a unit that worked together to plan and execute these trips. My sister and I whined an acceptable teenage amount, but we also learned a lot about each other and about ourselves. My parents learned to know and respect us as adults, rather than as children. We packed our own suitcases, learned exchange rates, wrote notebooks about where we were going, wrote emails and letters to our boyfriends about the interesting things that happened to us.
Travel with children is expensive, I will not lie about that. We were extraordinarily lucky. My parents prioritized travel over almost anything else, and made their careers work for them - we went to Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest for conferences, Egypt so my Mom could work with a hospital there, Chicago for an annual conference, Alaska because my mom had a colleague there and could put in several days of work. My parents sacrificed a lot to give us these memories, and in hindsight, it was some of the best parenting they did.
My parents worked remotely a lot. Do you remember what the first laptops looked like? I do, because I helped cart them through airports. Have you ever seen somebody dial up to the internet via a payphone? My mom used to have a portable modem with adapters for every single kind of phone jack that existed around the world. We stayed with friends and family and ate picnic lunches bought at the grocery store instead of at fancy restaurants. These days, that kind of travel is even more possible with sites like VRBO and AirBnB. Yet we hear so often that traveling is something you should do when you are young, before life gets in the way. And that's just the wrong message. I think maybe people think children don't appreciate travel, that it is meaningless to them. And before they are three, that is correct, but the Berlin wall came down when I was five. And when I was in kindergarten and the wall came down and tickets were dirt cheap, my parents pulled us out of school and put us on a plane and my Dad showed me the bullet holes and the guard stations and talked about having to show his passport when he went from one side of the wall to the other. I didn't put everything together until I was in middle school, paging through my history books, but it was powerful. Seeing world history as you learn world history in school is incredibly powerful, and it's played a huge role in who I am today.
Please do not think I am blind to the incredible amount of privilege afforded to me by my upbringing, which follows me into my current life and makes travel possible, I'm well aware of that. But travel is not limited to people with my upbringing, and it isn't limited to the young and foolish. In fact, it isn't limited at all. Don't think that only fancy childfree people travel. Don't think that you have to be "ready" to travel before you can make travel happen. I have an extremely inconvenient job but I have traveled more in the last year than we have since college. Some trips have been cheap, some have been expensive, but all have been worthwhile.
I don't think it's a coincidence that when I think about the life I want to leave, I would rather go on vacation than upgrade our TV to anything but "the one that came with the apartment." That when I think about what kind of job I would like, it's something with reasonable hours and the ability to go on vacation without waking up in the middle of the night sick with worry. I recognize now that it will be challenging to give our children the life my sister and I had. Three week trips to Scandanavia and Alaska are probably out of the question given our career choices. A month in Europe will likely be off the table. But adventure doesn't come only in 3 week increments. It does not require a 7 hour time difference. It can, in fact, be planned into vacations to visit the grandparents or the aunts or the cousins.
This kind of travel is possible, it's just going to require us to make a lot of strategic decisions from very early on - trying to find the right company and stay at it to accrue enough leave time, actually using our leave time and making it clear that it matters that we be allowed, and supported, in doing that. Just like we shape our priorities as we house hunt, we shape our priorities towards the life we want to live. If you are also prioritizing traveling, and trying to shape a life where you can get up and go as much as possible, what kinds of things are you keeping in mind as you shape your careers and settle down? What are things we should keep in mind while we are squirreling away money so that we can go to Spain and South America? What is on your travel bucket list?
I don't think it's a coincidence that when I think about the life I want to leave, I would rather go on vacation than upgrade our TV to anything but "the one that came with the apartment." That when I think about what kind of job I would like, it's something with reasonable hours and the ability to go on vacation without waking up in the middle of the night sick with worry. I recognize now that it will be challenging to give our children the life my sister and I had. Three week trips to Scandanavia and Alaska are probably out of the question given our career choices. A month in Europe will likely be off the table. But adventure doesn't come only in 3 week increments. It does not require a 7 hour time difference. It can, in fact, be planned into vacations to visit the grandparents or the aunts or the cousins.
This kind of travel is possible, it's just going to require us to make a lot of strategic decisions from very early on - trying to find the right company and stay at it to accrue enough leave time, actually using our leave time and making it clear that it matters that we be allowed, and supported, in doing that. Just like we shape our priorities as we house hunt, we shape our priorities towards the life we want to live. If you are also prioritizing traveling, and trying to shape a life where you can get up and go as much as possible, what kinds of things are you keeping in mind as you shape your careers and settle down? What are things we should keep in mind while we are squirreling away money so that we can go to Spain and South America? What is on your travel bucket list?
Monday, April 22, 2013
Books
I was saddened this morning to read of the death of E.L. Konigsburg. She is one of my very favorite authors, and even though she writes "kids books", if you have never read any of her books, or if the only one you read is "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" you would do well to pick yourself up a copy of "The Second Mrs. Giaconda" and "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver" and "The View from Saturday."
My mother read several of these books to us growing up, even though by the age of 10, we were voracious readers ourselves, it was a nice thing to do, especially on long trips. She would also buy me Konigsburg's books for my birthday or Christmas, or sometimes just before long trips, along with a number of other oddly selected but extremely good books, and I say it like that, because my mom isn't really a reader. But she seemed to have discovered, even in the nineties before Amazon was a thing, a way to select excellent reading material. I think one of her secrets was to pick a few good authors, and buy all of their books, which is basically what I do as an adult.
I still have all of our Konigsburg books, because even as I have taken to cleaning out my bookshelf in recent years, I look forward to reading these to my own children one day, and I also deeply enjoy rereading them.
Are you a Konigsburg fan? What is your favorite book? You can pick your favorite four, if you need to. It is hard to narrow.
My mother read several of these books to us growing up, even though by the age of 10, we were voracious readers ourselves, it was a nice thing to do, especially on long trips. She would also buy me Konigsburg's books for my birthday or Christmas, or sometimes just before long trips, along with a number of other oddly selected but extremely good books, and I say it like that, because my mom isn't really a reader. But she seemed to have discovered, even in the nineties before Amazon was a thing, a way to select excellent reading material. I think one of her secrets was to pick a few good authors, and buy all of their books, which is basically what I do as an adult.
I still have all of our Konigsburg books, because even as I have taken to cleaning out my bookshelf in recent years, I look forward to reading these to my own children one day, and I also deeply enjoy rereading them.
Are you a Konigsburg fan? What is your favorite book? You can pick your favorite four, if you need to. It is hard to narrow.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
New Orleans
Around the same time that we went to New Orleans, several other people were planning trips. So I thought I'd make a quick travel guide.
Lodging
We stayed at the Prytania Park Hotel. We loved it. If you are an "off the beaten path" type, this is a great hotel. It was extremely affordable, had tons of character, and was really close to the #8 bus (technically the streetcar line, but the streetcar was under repairs. The bus was actually quieter and faster.) It was also super-walkable to a bunch of really tasty restaurants and a nearby bike shop. The Garden District is quiet and charming, and the main strip of downtown where all the fancy hotels are seemed to be pretty full of loud drunks and near high priced touristy food places to eat, though if you walked a few blocks, you got to some pretty nice dining.
Things to Do
We had some trouble with this one. It turns out that 5 days in NOLA was a long time to spend there, and we somewhat ran out of things to do. I would think 3 days would have been fine. I would only recommend a 5 day trip if you know the weather will be good, or you are going during the summer, etc. The weather was lousy for most of our trip, which put (literally) a damper on a number of fun things.
We went to the Aquarium of the Americas (which featured a ton of stingrays, including some you can pet, and sea otters, which were really cute.) It was a small aquarium, probably not worth the entry unless you have kids or really want to pet a stingray (though they don't let you stay at the tank all day, sadly), but it was generally very nicely done - the exhibits were informative and interesting, though the oil rig exhibit that talked about how great oil rigs were for the environment which turned out to be sponsored by the oil companies, seemed a bit over-the-top. However, it only took about 2 hours to get through.
We went for a daytime cruise on the Creole Queen, which was very nice, though a bit chilly, and went up to the battlefield where Andrew Jackson and his troops held off the advancing British soliders and saved the country from British rule (nevermind that a treaty was already signed, pretty much everybody left that part out.)
We hit the Presbytere and this one is highly recommended. It has a fantastic Katrina exhibit that really goes through everything that happened and is quite interesting. There is also a Mardi Gras exhibit upstairs which is a nice bonus, but was definitely not worth the price of admission.
We went on the free guided tour of the French Market/Quarter, which was fun but I definitely wouldn't plan your day around it.
We rented bikes and rode out to City Park. This day, the weather was not on our side. We had planned to do a long bike ride along the Levee trail but the wind was horrible that day (and not great the rest of the time, except the last day.) If the weather is nice, definitely rent bikes and ride around. It would be really lovely. But we did a quick 2 hour tour, and the guy from A Musing Bikes could not have been nicer about being flexible with our rentals (though the shop did not open when it was supposed to, so call ahead.) We also took the streetcar down to the Audobon Park and walked around there. The streetcar ride was neat, because St. Charles St. has a bunch of really fantastic architecture and is also near Tulane, which was fun to see.
We walked around a lot - we walked through the French Quarter, we walked up and down Royal Street, which is full of awesome shops and art galleries, and is much slower paced than Bourbon St. We walked up and down Bourbon St., which feels like a weird mix of Times Square and The Block here in Baltimore (or whatever your strip club district is). It's also odd to feel like you are the only one not drunk, when it's 11am.
Dining
Green Goddess - We waited a looooong time for a table (we went at 1pm, so everybody who had come for lunch was still lingering) but the food was very good.
Crescent City Brewhouse - My sandwich was good but M's was better. (He got the Catfish Po'Boy). He liked their beer. They also have a walk-up bar outside.
Slice Pizza - pizza was reliably tasty. Would be a good post-drinking meal after spending an afternoon on Bourbon St.
Three Muses - they have Angry Orchard on tap, live music, and delicious delicious food. Tons of vegetarian options. Highly recommend the feta fries, and everything else.
Filipe's Taqueria - a good, fast, casual lunching place, with a bar and a lot of space. It took a long time to get a burrito there, but it was a solid choice.
Mia's Balcony - near our hotel, very tasty for lunch. We had a gift card and did several tapas. Not necessarily worth traveling out of the city for, but if you are staying in the Garden District (and you should), well worth a visit.
Melange - we had a fancy New Year's dinner here, it was very nice.
St. Charles Tavern - this place was pretty good and open 24 hours. We went for brunch after New Years, because we were tired of the hotel breakfast.
Cafe Du Monde - go at night, rather than in the morning. The beignets are still delicious, and the people watching is even better. Plus, the line isn't around the block. Don't wear black.
Drinking
Pat O'Briens - If you are looking for a real bourbon street experience, in which you feel like a giant tourist and get really drunk really fast, this is probably the right place to go. The patio is lovely though, and you can see why a lot of people might spend a whole day, and a lot of money, consuming large amounts of alcohol on the patio. We had one drink and left, partially because it started to rain and mostly because I needed a nap.
The Avenue - this is a beer drinker's bar, and they had cider on tap. The food looked good but we only went for "Crafty hour" which, sadly, does not involve drinking and doing crafts.
Rusty Nail - this is a smoke free bar, but because we are idiots, we sat outside. Which meant we were effing cold, and we were where all the smokers were. Once we went inside, we got to choose between the really loud front room and the super quiet loser back room. Then a drunk girl tried to befriend us and things got really awkward. It felt like we were doing a lot of work just to watch the Redskins-Cowboys game and so we eventually left and went to Slice Pizzeria, but their TV was tiny.
Do you have favorite bars, restaurants, or things to do in New Orleans?
Lodging
We stayed at the Prytania Park Hotel. We loved it. If you are an "off the beaten path" type, this is a great hotel. It was extremely affordable, had tons of character, and was really close to the #8 bus (technically the streetcar line, but the streetcar was under repairs. The bus was actually quieter and faster.) It was also super-walkable to a bunch of really tasty restaurants and a nearby bike shop. The Garden District is quiet and charming, and the main strip of downtown where all the fancy hotels are seemed to be pretty full of loud drunks and near high priced touristy food places to eat, though if you walked a few blocks, you got to some pretty nice dining.
Things to Do
We had some trouble with this one. It turns out that 5 days in NOLA was a long time to spend there, and we somewhat ran out of things to do. I would think 3 days would have been fine. I would only recommend a 5 day trip if you know the weather will be good, or you are going during the summer, etc. The weather was lousy for most of our trip, which put (literally) a damper on a number of fun things.
We went to the Aquarium of the Americas (which featured a ton of stingrays, including some you can pet, and sea otters, which were really cute.) It was a small aquarium, probably not worth the entry unless you have kids or really want to pet a stingray (though they don't let you stay at the tank all day, sadly), but it was generally very nicely done - the exhibits were informative and interesting, though the oil rig exhibit that talked about how great oil rigs were for the environment which turned out to be sponsored by the oil companies, seemed a bit over-the-top. However, it only took about 2 hours to get through.
We went for a daytime cruise on the Creole Queen, which was very nice, though a bit chilly, and went up to the battlefield where Andrew Jackson and his troops held off the advancing British soliders and saved the country from British rule (nevermind that a treaty was already signed, pretty much everybody left that part out.)
We hit the Presbytere and this one is highly recommended. It has a fantastic Katrina exhibit that really goes through everything that happened and is quite interesting. There is also a Mardi Gras exhibit upstairs which is a nice bonus, but was definitely not worth the price of admission.
We went on the free guided tour of the French Market/Quarter, which was fun but I definitely wouldn't plan your day around it.
We rented bikes and rode out to City Park. This day, the weather was not on our side. We had planned to do a long bike ride along the Levee trail but the wind was horrible that day (and not great the rest of the time, except the last day.) If the weather is nice, definitely rent bikes and ride around. It would be really lovely. But we did a quick 2 hour tour, and the guy from A Musing Bikes could not have been nicer about being flexible with our rentals (though the shop did not open when it was supposed to, so call ahead.) We also took the streetcar down to the Audobon Park and walked around there. The streetcar ride was neat, because St. Charles St. has a bunch of really fantastic architecture and is also near Tulane, which was fun to see.
We walked around a lot - we walked through the French Quarter, we walked up and down Royal Street, which is full of awesome shops and art galleries, and is much slower paced than Bourbon St. We walked up and down Bourbon St., which feels like a weird mix of Times Square and The Block here in Baltimore (or whatever your strip club district is). It's also odd to feel like you are the only one not drunk, when it's 11am.
Dining
Green Goddess - We waited a looooong time for a table (we went at 1pm, so everybody who had come for lunch was still lingering) but the food was very good.
Crescent City Brewhouse - My sandwich was good but M's was better. (He got the Catfish Po'Boy). He liked their beer. They also have a walk-up bar outside.
Slice Pizza - pizza was reliably tasty. Would be a good post-drinking meal after spending an afternoon on Bourbon St.
Three Muses - they have Angry Orchard on tap, live music, and delicious delicious food. Tons of vegetarian options. Highly recommend the feta fries, and everything else.
Filipe's Taqueria - a good, fast, casual lunching place, with a bar and a lot of space. It took a long time to get a burrito there, but it was a solid choice.
Mia's Balcony - near our hotel, very tasty for lunch. We had a gift card and did several tapas. Not necessarily worth traveling out of the city for, but if you are staying in the Garden District (and you should), well worth a visit.
Melange - we had a fancy New Year's dinner here, it was very nice.
St. Charles Tavern - this place was pretty good and open 24 hours. We went for brunch after New Years, because we were tired of the hotel breakfast.
Cafe Du Monde - go at night, rather than in the morning. The beignets are still delicious, and the people watching is even better. Plus, the line isn't around the block. Don't wear black.
Drinking
Pat O'Briens - If you are looking for a real bourbon street experience, in which you feel like a giant tourist and get really drunk really fast, this is probably the right place to go. The patio is lovely though, and you can see why a lot of people might spend a whole day, and a lot of money, consuming large amounts of alcohol on the patio. We had one drink and left, partially because it started to rain and mostly because I needed a nap.
The Avenue - this is a beer drinker's bar, and they had cider on tap. The food looked good but we only went for "Crafty hour" which, sadly, does not involve drinking and doing crafts.
Rusty Nail - this is a smoke free bar, but because we are idiots, we sat outside. Which meant we were effing cold, and we were where all the smokers were. Once we went inside, we got to choose between the really loud front room and the super quiet loser back room. Then a drunk girl tried to befriend us and things got really awkward. It felt like we were doing a lot of work just to watch the Redskins-Cowboys game and so we eventually left and went to Slice Pizzeria, but their TV was tiny.
Do you have favorite bars, restaurants, or things to do in New Orleans?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Book Review: What Love Sees
I am a fan of Susan Vreeland, but I've mostly stuck to her books about art, such as the Passion of Artemesia and Girl in Hyacinth Blue. So when Amazon had What Love Sees for sale for $1.99, I picked it up for the plane ride back from New Orleans.
The book is a true story, but it reads like a novel. It has a pretty fast pace, and it's really not a "romance", but a genuine kind of love story. It's a portrait of a young woman whose life is difficult in some ways, yet also extremely privileged. She becomes blind at the age of 12, in the late 1920s, and this story is fascinating. Her parents continue to send her to regular school and she lugs around a typewriter to type her exams. Her parents have the resources to send her to summer camp and finishing school and Europe, and they also have an interesting kind of snobbery, which Jean has to navigate. Eventually she marries a man, who is also blind, and the two of them live on a ranch and raise four kids.
Four kids sounds daunting anyway, but Vreeland does a great job of explaining why some things are so difficult for Jean and Forrest. Things like changing diapers. Which, having spent time with a screaming, squirmy newborn recently, seems impossible anyway. But factor in cloth diapers, pins, and not being able to see what you are doing? That is really a challenge. Yet the hardest thing for Jean is that she will never ever see her baby's face.
I loved this book for being a very genuine portrait of a marriage. The couple tries to deal with each others shortcomings, manages each others tempers, tries to find time to spend with each other while working very hard, and also deals with the frustrations of four children who learn very quickly how to try to manipulate their parents.
The book is also interesting history. It starts in the Depression and goes into World War II. Jean and Forrest cannot serve in the military, but still try to contribute. It's also a great history of ADA issues and accessibility issues. Jean has one of the very first seeing eye dogs, and the family also travels by airplane occasionally - to visit her parents, they have to fly cross country, which requires five changes and their six year old son to navigate through the airport.
So if you are a fan of non-fiction, historical fiction, love stories, or good books, I highly recommend What Love Sees. Have you read anything good lately?
The book is a true story, but it reads like a novel. It has a pretty fast pace, and it's really not a "romance", but a genuine kind of love story. It's a portrait of a young woman whose life is difficult in some ways, yet also extremely privileged. She becomes blind at the age of 12, in the late 1920s, and this story is fascinating. Her parents continue to send her to regular school and she lugs around a typewriter to type her exams. Her parents have the resources to send her to summer camp and finishing school and Europe, and they also have an interesting kind of snobbery, which Jean has to navigate. Eventually she marries a man, who is also blind, and the two of them live on a ranch and raise four kids.
Four kids sounds daunting anyway, but Vreeland does a great job of explaining why some things are so difficult for Jean and Forrest. Things like changing diapers. Which, having spent time with a screaming, squirmy newborn recently, seems impossible anyway. But factor in cloth diapers, pins, and not being able to see what you are doing? That is really a challenge. Yet the hardest thing for Jean is that she will never ever see her baby's face.
I loved this book for being a very genuine portrait of a marriage. The couple tries to deal with each others shortcomings, manages each others tempers, tries to find time to spend with each other while working very hard, and also deals with the frustrations of four children who learn very quickly how to try to manipulate their parents.
The book is also interesting history. It starts in the Depression and goes into World War II. Jean and Forrest cannot serve in the military, but still try to contribute. It's also a great history of ADA issues and accessibility issues. Jean has one of the very first seeing eye dogs, and the family also travels by airplane occasionally - to visit her parents, they have to fly cross country, which requires five changes and their six year old son to navigate through the airport.
So if you are a fan of non-fiction, historical fiction, love stories, or good books, I highly recommend What Love Sees. Have you read anything good lately?
Monday, December 17, 2012
The hard things.
This blog has gotten pretty quiet, and this isn't an apology or really an explanation (and it will definitely not be accompanied by an ultrasound picture to explain my absence or anything), but more of a musing on why I'm not as keen to write.
When I saw Meg speak in January, I asked her about blogging and having a private life. She said that she doesn't write about things that are a) not up for discussion or b) not something that belongs on the internet. Other bloggers have shared their strategies, that for example, they do not share about fights they have with their partner until the issue is resolved, and some people don't share their fights at all and I feel both inspired by and inadequate because of their perfect relationships. I've had people ask me to share particular things on the internet, which is extremely flattering, but the flattery isn't worth jeopardizing my relationship with people I'm friends with or related to in real life, so I don't. Because those things aren't up for discussion.
I also have a job that requires a lot more discretion than some. I would never ever want my clients to think that I use them for blog fodder, that I would write about them in a way that demeans them, or really, at all, and I would be absolutely humiliated if opposing counsel found my blog and thought, "she writes about weddings?" or found my blog and thought it meant that I wanted their comments or input on my marriage. Or really, found my blog and thought anything about me at all. I also don't want to tip my hand about how I feel about any upcoming cases or any issues of law that I might then go into court and zealously argue against. In short, I think writing about work here would be thoroughly unprofessional.
But sometimes I have hard days. Sometimes I have cases that make me really sad, or really angry, and my husband asks me about my day but he doesn't really want an hour long rant about my job. When I talk about it when we are out with friends he nudges me because I'm going on and on and because it's boring and depressing. I don't really share an office space with anyone I can share with emotionally, and so I get very in my head about work. I don't have a very good outlet for that, for processing through everything, and for making connections and learning from my cases. I'm afraid that if I write anything, I will write everything, and that would be bad.
So simply put, that's the heart of why I don't write much anymore. My personal life has become intensely personal, my professional life has become intensely professional, and I do not want to incur the wrath of anyone for sharing my life on the internet but being unwilling to share all of my life on the internet. I will continue to post when I'm able to string thoughts together, and when it's appropriate to share, but I cannot make promises as to content or frequency.
When I saw Meg speak in January, I asked her about blogging and having a private life. She said that she doesn't write about things that are a) not up for discussion or b) not something that belongs on the internet. Other bloggers have shared their strategies, that for example, they do not share about fights they have with their partner until the issue is resolved, and some people don't share their fights at all and I feel both inspired by and inadequate because of their perfect relationships. I've had people ask me to share particular things on the internet, which is extremely flattering, but the flattery isn't worth jeopardizing my relationship with people I'm friends with or related to in real life, so I don't. Because those things aren't up for discussion.
I also have a job that requires a lot more discretion than some. I would never ever want my clients to think that I use them for blog fodder, that I would write about them in a way that demeans them, or really, at all, and I would be absolutely humiliated if opposing counsel found my blog and thought, "she writes about weddings?" or found my blog and thought it meant that I wanted their comments or input on my marriage. Or really, found my blog and thought anything about me at all. I also don't want to tip my hand about how I feel about any upcoming cases or any issues of law that I might then go into court and zealously argue against. In short, I think writing about work here would be thoroughly unprofessional.
But sometimes I have hard days. Sometimes I have cases that make me really sad, or really angry, and my husband asks me about my day but he doesn't really want an hour long rant about my job. When I talk about it when we are out with friends he nudges me because I'm going on and on and because it's boring and depressing. I don't really share an office space with anyone I can share with emotionally, and so I get very in my head about work. I don't have a very good outlet for that, for processing through everything, and for making connections and learning from my cases. I'm afraid that if I write anything, I will write everything, and that would be bad.
So simply put, that's the heart of why I don't write much anymore. My personal life has become intensely personal, my professional life has become intensely professional, and I do not want to incur the wrath of anyone for sharing my life on the internet but being unwilling to share all of my life on the internet. I will continue to post when I'm able to string thoughts together, and when it's appropriate to share, but I cannot make promises as to content or frequency.
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