Birthdays, what do you do with yours?

First, I have never met as many people who do NOT celebrate their birthday as I have since I moved here. Why is that? Were all my friends so badly scarred by their suburban birthday parties that they can never have another one? And why do they say “It’s no big deal. Just another day.”

I call B.S.

I have *always* felt that if you celebrate ONE day a year, it should be your birthday. Not Christmas or Hanukkah or Halloween or Boss’s Day. It should be the day of your birth! If you can’t/don’t/won’t celebrate the day that marks the fact that you exist, the one day out of the whole year where you can say “Hey! Guess what world? I am here! And I am loving it! And, dammit, give me a present to commemorate the awesomeness of me and my life!” Okay, I don’t actually believe that presents are necessary, but do you get what I’m saying here? Maybe it should be, “And, dammit, I’m going to give you all presents to commemorate how glad I am to be here and that you are sharing in this amazing journey with me!” (That’s much better.)

You are alive. This is the one day to celebrate it and shout it from the rooftops.

If you wanna celebrate mine with me, it’s on Monday. No big plans. Dinner with friends. Maybe picnic style somewhere where we can see the lake? And the whole time I’ll be thinking, “Yay for me! Yay for being alive! YAY YAY YAY!!” with the biggest cheesiest grin on my face knowing that this is my day to celebrate me, my life and the friends that are in it.

 

Home

The idea of home is a complicated one for me, even more so after this week’s turn of events. Is home where your bed is? Or maybe it’s the state in which you’re registered to vote? What about your permanent address? Or maybe it’s the place that you long for when you’re sick?

I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit of a wanderer in the ten years since graduating from high school. When businesses ask me for my previous three address I’m bound to screw them up. And right now I’m going through some nonsense with insurance companies, trying to save money while at the same time not committing insurance fraud. I’m really not trying to get sued by a national insurance company while on VISTA salary.

This insurance business is going to end with the driving of Violet (my van) from Vermont to North Dakota and flying back to VT–all in the period of four and half days. The idea of being home for Easter though is what propelled me to write today. This home is my parents’ house. The one I grew up in. The one I go to to celebrate Christmas. The one with the front porch where I love to sit and read during summer months. My parents’ home is where I am most at peace. It nourishes my soul and mind to be there. It reminds me of where I came from and who I am.

I am ridiculously excited to be going home so unexpectedly. I am even more excited that a good friend is going to experience “The Middle” for the first time in his life. I can show him around the frozen prairie and introduce him to the best pie in the entire world (found at Paula’s Cafe in Mayville). He’ll be able to experience my family celebrating Easter as well as a Lutheran Easter church service. We will dine on all things white (lefse, mashed potatoes, bread, cookies, etc) as well as my aunt’s pickles (which are delicious).

This return home coincides with my growing love and appreciation for the MidWest. I’ve found myself yearning to hear the howling wind outside while I’m snuggled up with a book and my mom. I miss the small town community where everyone waves at each other while driving (whether you know them or not). I want to live in that slow paced life that runs NoDak. But mostly I’m excited to go back because I consider my home to be North Dakota, where everything just makes sense.

While looking for images online, I came across this article posted in National Geographic about North Dakota.  And here is how ABC News gave North Dakotans a chance to respond.

So…home. Where your body resides? Or your soul?

 

A wonderland of knowledge

Books have always been a refuge of sorts for me. I grew up in a “reading” family. When I was ten I helped my mother catalogue all 1200 of her books on the computer (which ran off of DOS…uff da). Both my parents were members of book clubs. My sister and I were both reading before the first day of kindergarten. My mom used to say “You’ll never be lonely if you have a book.” Etc, etc, etc.

So it’s no wonder that I get this giddy feeling when I enter a library. I walk in and my heart races…so many possibilities! Who will be my new friend to bring home and get to know? Will I read about a specific moment in history? Or maybe a three year old girl dying of cancer? Or possibily my favorite: a sociology text? Each time before I move I research the public libraries in the town I’ll be living in: how far from my new home, how big, what kind of events do they have, do they offer ILL?

I have started visiting public libraries while on road trips as well. I was in Chicago last spring, staying at a hostel two blocks from the public library–TEN STORIES of library wonderment! I was there for over three hours, walking through the stacks, pulling books off of shelves, writing furiously a long list of books I want to read. It was awesome. Here’s a picture of Binkey in front of the library.

I must say that the library in Burlington is a let down. I expected the Fletcher Free Library to have a superb collection of books, periodicals, journals, music recordings along with national speakers coming to give lectures/chats. This is not the case. The book collection is mediocre. The building itself smells funny…not fresh and new like an unread book. But I think my biggest problem with the library is the creepy statue of a man sitting by the front door dressed in a cardigan sweater reading a book. Seriously creepy.

But back to books. It’s such a sensual experience reading a book. I love the way they feel, smell, look. They are a great escape, especially on these cold gray days in Vermont. They are great conversation starters as well as an excellent way to judge a person’s character. I believe that perusing someone’s bookshelves is better than snooping through their medicine cabinet. Are the shelves cluttered with tattered paperback copies of “classics”? Or maybe hardcover, obviously never been read self help books? Oh, dear God, maybe every space is filled with Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel?

I sometimes believe that I will find another bibliophile through my addiction to libraries and books. Maybe they will have written my new favorite sociology textbook. Or maybe we’ll both reach for the same copy of a book at the library. Or maybe we’ll make eye contact sitting at some bookstore while both reading “How to Post Interesting Blogs for Dummies”.

 

Bloggin’ ‘Bout Boats

Intro to me:  My name is Annie, which means graceful and doesn’t describe me at all.  I am originally from North Dakota (one of 630,000 NoDakers).  I have had many different jobs ranging from A*VISTA to third shift cashier at a truck stop to beet piler…beets as in sugar beets.  I look forward to letting the world in on the corners of my heart and mind that are filled with joy at the randomness of life.

‘place to express what we’re excited about’…reading those words on the site’s description of itself made me think about what made me irrationally exuberant. What is it in this world that makes me giggle like I used to when Robby Lee walked by my fourth grade desk? The answer: boats. And not just any boats. (In fact, most boats scare me.) The boats that make my heart giggle are the huge boats that went in and out of the Duluth harbor in Minnesota.

I was slightly fascinated with the boats while I lived in Seattle, but once I moved to Duluth I became obsessed. I could hear the horn from the lift bridge and the boat’s response from my home. It was as if they were talking to me. I almost crashed my car several times while driving because I was busy staring boats as they came into or left the harbor. I was having a bad day and my buddy drove me down to Canal Park because he knew there was a boat coming in.

Now, some people insist on calling these boats ’ships’ or ‘cargo ships’. They are wrong. Ships are fancy things that rich people sail around the world on. These boats are amazing in how much they do for the Midwest and its industries. My dad works at the sugar beet factory (ask me about it some time) and he told me that after they get all they can out of the beet they put the pellets on railcars and send it to Duluth, where it is put on one of my big boats and sent to Asia to feed pigs. These boats also haul ore from the Iron Range in Minnesota (where the movie North Country was based and filmed).

I love the endless possibilities that these boats pose. What are they hauling? Where did it come from? Where is the boat going next? Who is on the boat? Where are they from? How the hell does it stay afloat?!!

I’ve looked into how to catch a ride on one of these bad boys…it costs a bit of money, but I plan on doing it one day. There is a Polish shipping company which regularly stops in Duluth. You sign up with them giving them a rough estimate of when you’d be able to go and for how long (as in: May 2009 for one month). You usually get a week or two warning about when the boat will be leaving and where it’s going. I could end up going to Morocco or Spain or Norway or Western Africa or Michigan! Endless, irrationally exuberant possibilities!