hello.

Goodbye Blogger. Hello Wordpress.

2009-07-11T20:51:00.001-07:00

I moved blogs.
You can find me here.
Sometimes I just like to switch things around.

139 in New Orleans

2009-06-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sigh. Last night at like 2 in the morning, I woke up to a lady screaming outside my window. I was totally disoriented and couldn’t figure out if I was night hallucinating or if I’d just had a bad dream, until I heard the lady scream again, then yell—I mean, like, yell, like scared and desperate lose-your-voice kind of yell, HELP! She yelled help again, long and whimpery and hoarse, and I sat up in this weird paralyzed terror. I listened to her scream, and I heard a car drive away. I thought I was going to throw up. I didn’t know what to do. I just sat in my bed in the dark. Yes, I realize normal people would have run to the window, grabbed the cell and filled the dispatcher in on everything they saw. But I was too afraid to look out my window.

When I finally snapped to it and peeked out the window, the street was empty, and leaves were swirling around in the middle of the street where the car must have pulled away, presumably with the lady in it. I could hear the lady screaming in the distance farther and farther away.

I never called 911. I don’t know why—maybe, I think, because I could imagine them saying: where? What did she look like? What did the car look like? Why didn’t you call right away? And I just didn’t know any of those answers. The longer I waited, the more stupid and irresponsible and guilty I felt for not looking and then for not calling right away. I just stared out onto dark, creepy Jackson Avenue, and the saddest, angriest feeling of hatred for this city came over me. I just wanted to pack up all my stuff and go back to Indiana. Like they don’t have abductions, rapes, murders, etc. there…

I love this city, and I have this beautiful view of the skyline, and the front of my building sits right on Saint Charles with the streetcar line and parades and everything. But outside my window, six floors down is Jackson Ave. I started to wonder about Jackson when I first moved here and people kept asking me where I lived, and I’d tell them, and they’d say, ‘Oh, Crack Corner? Just don’t park on the lakeside of St. Charles and you’ll be fine…’ and just the other day Will said, "Isn't that inside the triangle of death?" Yes. Yes it is. Also called mid-city.

I’ve seen a thousand million drug busts and arrests and roll calls out that window, most of them at like 6pm, with a beautiful sunset and skyline view behind the cop car lights, and safety is a daily discussion in class, but I just felt unaffected. Until this lady’s screams came in my window.

So I turned on all my lights, the TV, my music, watched videos of my baby niece, Lily, for 2 hours and took an Ambien. I had to wake up 3 hours later to work this family therapy conference in the quarter—and my body was still on Ambien, I think, until noon. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that lady, and I couldn’t stop wondering if she was safe, and I couldn’t stop asking: what if that had been me and people heard me screaming for help but didn’t do anything?

Anyway. I’ve been telling myself that if I heard her, other people heard her too, and one of those people probably called, right? We looked up the crime stats for last night—3 murders in 3 hours, no women.

At noon today I got caught in a downpour and went home to sleep. I woke up 3 hours later in a gloomy haze. It was a beautiful night with a beautiful sunset and I couldn’t even bring myself to look outside or acknowledge Jackson Ave out my window, which is so obviously unhealthy—as if me and that street and this stupid city were in some kind of irreparable fight. It was so strong a feeling of withdrawal and isolation that I forced myself to get up and seek out all the places in this city where I knew beauty existed. I went to Audubon Park, I went to the fly, and I went to the lake. I ran and jogged and walked until I couldn’t take another step, and then I cried for a long time. I felt like God didn’t exist here last night, and that ugliness had taken over.

But it’s not true. Ugliness is everywhere. But so is truth and beauty. Are New Orleanians eating and laughing and enjoying things and generally being held together? Because if they are, then God is here. These things—truth and beauty—can’t exist here without Him.

I read this book—it was given to me by my Grandma, who’s friend’s granddaughter had self-published it—called Charismatic City: My New York. She did a funny thing with Psalm 139, and I liked it. I claimed it as a way of humanizing this amazing, ugly, beautiful, complex city:

139 in New Orleans

Lord, you have searched Crawfish Guy, and you know him.

You know when that avocado vendor sits and when that preacher on channel 79 who hangs out at the Daiquiri shop rises.

You perceive that pickle-tub drummer’s thoughts from afar.

You discern the deaf guy outside my apartment’s going out and his lying down.

You are familiar with all the meter maid’s ways.

Before a word is on the hotdog man’s tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for this streetcar driver—too lofty for him to attain.

For you created those scary guys on the corner of Jackson and Carondolet’s inmost beings, you knit them together in their mother’s wombs.

I praise you because that little girl with the booty shorts is fearfully and wonderfully made. The man following her on his bike was not hidden from you when he was made in the secret place.

How precious are your thoughts about that homeless man under I-10, O God.

How vast is the sum of them! Were he to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When the super skinny lady on Louisiana Avenue awakes, you are still with her.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Amen.
Oh, and please let that lady be safe tonight.

Now Showing...

2009-05-22T12:38:00.001-07:00

Watch and share the video below- it was created as a public service announcement for our Global Social Work class and we are using it to promote awareness and funding of this program for kids in Belize:

In August, a new program will be introduced at a grassroots domestic violence shelter in Belize teaching coping skills to kids who have witnessed domestic violence. The cost of the project is $3,900. Email me (brkwilson@gmail.com) or read this for more information on the project or how to support!

It's also on YouTube, if you want to share the link: here
And you can join the Cause "Help Kids of Domestic Violence in Belize!" on Facebook.

Hey guys. Its about that time again...

2009-05-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

I have to tell you three things:

1. I have a boyfriend. That’s both ‘boy and ‘friend’ in the same word. I do not have to pay a monthly boyfriend fee. It's totally voluntary in his part.

2. I’m graduating this year! Not in May, but in December. I have been working toward my Master’s Degree in Social Work at Tulane University in New Orleans. I’ve had the most difficult but rewarding experience doing individual and group grief and trauma counseling in the Recovery School District with kids who are experiencing stress due to having witnessed a violent crime or having been through Hurricane Katrina.

3. As my culminating capstone experience, I will be taking this grief/trauma model to Belize in August and implementing it in a grassroots Domestic Violence shelter. I’m dying to tell you the story of how this whole thing came about, but it would be impossible and annoying to make you read a 5 page letter, so I’m just going to list the facts:

I went to Belize in the fall with CFI. A team member saw “Open Doors” on a storefront. Team member said, “Hey, we have an Open Doors food bank in Westfield! Let’s see what this place is!” Team drove around for an hour trying to re-find Open Doors. Couldn’t be found. Gave up. Went back to hotel. Front desk lady said her aunt works for Open Doors and lives right behind hotel. Open Doors Lady came over after dinner to talk. Open doors lady has a name: Marilyn.

Turns out, Open Doors is a domestic violence shelter in San Ignacio that was just opened last February. It’s only the second safe shelter in the entire country. One woman walked miles from three villages over on a broken foot, broken hip, and broken hand carrying a baby and a three-year-old with a broken arm.

Marilyn and her friend, Anna, started Open Doors to provide support and help for the women who come in, but they have no idea what to do with the kids, many of whom are imitating violence and showing significant distress.

I have been trained in how to help and treat kids who had witnessed ongoing, traumatic violence in New Orleans. I felt the tug to find a way to bring the New Orleans program to this shelter and train the shelter staff.

I went back to Tulane over Thanksgiving break and proposed the program. Tulane pulled strings to get me into the International Program, but said I’d have to find someone in the country to supervise me.

I called Open Doors. Marilyn said she had a student was working with her, and I should talk to the student. The student wasn’t there. Dead end. Student walked into the office as we were hanging up. Marilyn handed over the phone. I couldn’t hear the student because of a bad connection and only 1 minute on my phone card. I asked for student’s email address to e-mail questions. Student said: Melissa@TULANE.edu. As in, TULANE UNIVERSITY, my school in New Orleans!! She (Melissa) is a cultural anthropology doctorate student and has been doing research on domestic violence in Belize since 2002. She will be leaving in July. I’ll come in August. A seamless transition.

Even in the retelling of this, I feel unable to express God’s clear and shining presence in all our lives in that moment—Marilyn, the Tulane student, me and the kids who need services. All of our lives intersected in the realization of that little email address, and God’s plan became clear and undeniable to all of us. Everything we’d wondered on and off before—why I was at Tulane of all places, why Melissa was in San Ignacio of all places, why Dave (the team member) had insisted on finding Open Doors that day, that the front desk lady happened to be the niece of Marilyn, and that their exact need was my exact training—it all came together. God makes me cry, He is so perfect and organized. Sigh.

In addition to this project, I’ll be continuing the AIDS/HIV prevention programming I did last fall in the schools, and starting a mentoring program through CFI to match up the Standard 5 and 6 girls with “big-sister” type women in the States. These women will hopefully serve as pen-pals and supports, and will be a source of encouragement for the girls to continue their schooling past primary school.

Please know that if you’ve been involved in any of this Belize business for the past few years by supporting or encouraging in ANY way, this opportunity could not have come together without you. Although I am certain God would have met their needs with or without me, I appreciate your willingness to serve through prayer and financial support so that we could all be a part of it.

I’m working hard to fund the projects through student loans and corporate sponsors, however, if you feel particularly drawn to any of these upcoming fall projects, I’d love your prayer and support. The total cost of all three projects is $3,900 and if you’d like to contribute, it can be done in three ways:

• Make a check out to CFI with “Brooke Wilson” in memo line and mail to: CFI, 448 Leeds Circle, Carmel, IN 46032 (this method is tax deductible)

• Go to CFI website and contribute online (this method is also tax deductible): www.cfikids.com- designate to “Brooke Wilson”

• Make a check out to Brooke Wilson (this method is NOT tax deductible): email me

I hope you get a sense of my heart and my calling through this letter. It’s hard to put into words, but I feel blessed through this opportunity and want to help with the skills I’ve been given.

The end!

Brooke Wilson
brkwilson@gmail.com
www.brkwilson.blogspot.com

Spectacular Lil Vanil

2009-05-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is how the Wilsons roll.

2009-04-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

Other pictures from the birthday weekend: here!

Take home exam, Part II

2009-03-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

I had a meltdown tonight that started with the realization that there was a Part II to my take home exam. I called Sprinky. She asked if I had a cold. I told her no, that I was crying and that I couldn’t even think of a good reason why since Part II only added two more double-spaced pages.

By the end of the conversation, I’d cried through the cellulite I had discovered on my thigh 20 minutes earlier and the resignation to aging and out-of-shapeness, which was only amplified by the understanding that I would not be able to get to the gym to play basketball tomorrow at 6 because I’d have to stay up later to finish the stupid exam; and after that, that I’d seen the most beautiful sunsets from the levee 4 nights in a row and had done my best to share them with people, but that at the end of the day, it was still only me walking to my car in the dark; and after that, that I’d missed the gorgeous moon tonight, but saw it last night when everyone else was busy and I was exploding with spectacular full-moon goodness; and after that, that the plane tickets I went to buy jumped like $70 during the 3 minutes I was trying to purchase them. My family—all 8 sides of them—will be together on the same day at the same time for my niece’s first birthday party, and American Airlines is messing with me. I don’t know when that will happen again barring a funeral or my own wedding. Doesn’t the airline industry know that?

In the end, it turned out that 80 degrees and sunny reminded me of summer in Fort Wayne with our little sliding door open, and me on the couch and Sprinky in the bedroom, and everyone coming in and out, and air mattresses all over the place, the OC and champagne, and the baby Weber grill, and my family only 2 hours away. I haven’t spent a summer outside of Fort Wayne in almost 10 years. What I’m missing here is couple of SCAN peeps, a very icy tall nonfat mocha on the corner of State and Coliseum, Elaine on my air mattress, a ten-year old following me around for weeks at a time, dusk on my balcony, and one very important Sprinky on the couch.

What I have instead is Schroeder’s take home exam part II, which seems to be as hazardous as tear gas or something.

Brooke, vegetables. Vegetables, Brooke.

2009-03-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

Don’t they look lost and lonely on my counter?

After a nice little rally from New Years to Mardi Gras, and then a month straight of King Cake and margaritas, I have reintroduced fruits and vegetables to the diet. They were kind of shaky on the way home from the grocery, and they were very quiet all night, sort of clumping together and looking around nervously. I told them they’d get used to it, and they didn’t really protest. They just sat there and eyed the frosted frog cookies trying to creep up on them from the left. They are a smart bunch.

Yes, I know I’m weird.

Really, Mardi Gras? Really?

2009-02-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

Mardi Gras is here. Do you know how I know? My apartment building is fenced off and there are guards at every entrance. I can’t park on the street, and to get into the building, I have to have to be wearing a wristband corresponding with the parade color of that day. My apartment number is on each wristband, and if I forget the wristband or wear the wrong color, I sleep on the streets. If that happens, though, I wont starve because I can reach out and touch 5 different funnel cake and corndog stands. It’s beautiful, really.

The upside: drinks and beads all around for the next 10 days!

Is this thing on?

2009-02-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

I had this beautiful moment today driving across the industrial canal—the lake on my right, a giant cruise ship on the left, making my way from the upper 9th, where I successfully led my first grief and trauma group (!) through the city to the lower garden district, where I live. Twice, there was traffic and I ducked down and around and over and sideways and made it through the city quickly and efficiently, realizing: a) I know my city. At some point, my brain automatically began to calculate the shortcuts through an entire city separated by canals and interstates and really confusing u-turns. That moment felt like home. And b) I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do. How often does that happen?

I would also like to state for the record after careful consideration and eight articles that I have plenty of securely attached features, thankyouverymuch. I have also come up with my own theory. It’s called, we shouldn’t be forced to do 8-page reflections on a thousand articles covering the same basic theme, even if courier new does take it down to 5. It’s alarming what you find out. Did you guys know about this ‘reading’ business? Either way, bring on substance abuse. Now there's a topic I can handle. With two hands.

Winn Dixie ran out of chickpeas. I think that’s so weird.

Fifty something.

2009-01-25T13:10:00.000-08:00

I sure love this guy.
He's the reason I am so unbelievably skilled in the art of 70's dance.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Crawfish guy

2009-01-23T19:05:00.001-08:00

Well. I realized two things today:

1. No matter how many years I’ve been doing this, or how many stories I’ve heard, or how many hurt kids I’ve seen, or how well-trained I am, or how supportive an agency is: some days will just be hard. There will always be thirteen-year-olds committing suicide. There will always be live-in boyfriends beating little kids up. There will always be caregivers dying and overwhelmed teachers flying off the handle. There will always be anniversaries of deaths and seven-year-olds whose first response is to stab someone with a crayon. Kids will always make fun of other kids’ teeth and shoes, even if their mother has just died. Even if the kid is an excellent singer. There will never be enough resources. I will never go home and feel okay about it.

2. In New Orleans, sometimes a crazy guy will run after you with a boiled crawfish and say, “Good mawnin! Good mawnin!” moving the crawfish’s little mouth up and down like a puppet, and you won’t know it at the time, but at the end of the day, you’ll feel overwhelmed and discouraged and crawfish guy will make you smile.

You and me

2009-01-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution…

Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God's universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

-MLK Jr.

Lets get this party started.

2009-01-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

Dear B,

Wear less sweatpants. This is the beauty of a tropical climate. You own a thousand cute outfits that are perfectly wearable year round. Hello?

Do not wait until the last minute to read an entire semester’s worth of articles. You are paying a trillion dollars for this education, so you might as well learn actual theories and not just Marva Lewis’s notes on attachment via overhead (read: iChat).

Get more than 6 hours of sleep per night. This will likely mean limiting midnight back-to-back episodes of Chelsea Lately and Sex and the City. You will manage.

Remember the athletic center you are forced to pay $900 a semester to use? Go to it. Your friends used to have to come pick you up because you rode your bike too long and too far. Figure out where that bike riding joy went and reinstate it. Except, don't ride yourself silly in New Orleans. You will get kidnapped.

Do not drink Diet Coke for breakfast. Start each morning with a giant glass of water. End each day with a giant glass of water. If you must have the Diet Coke, at least buy it from the machine where Molly won $1.25 and haunted house tickets.

Stop writing emails on Ambien. If you send an email after 10 pm, there’s a good chance it was written under the influence (cough, Judy Lewis). You are not more hilarious on Ambien. You simply have no filter. Find the tool on gmail that screens for irresponsible emailing and enable it.

Stop being so afraid of new things the first time around. They always turn out just fine.

Be patient. Timing is everything.

Clean your apartment so you can begin hosting the over-promised, under-delivered hot tub reading parties and Sex and the City Sundays. Your home should be your place. That means you should be able to walk through it without having to scale piles of clothes.

Purchase cleaning supplies and hangers.

Be intentional with keep-in-touch-Sunday even when other things try to crowd it out. Relationships are most important. Don't forget.

Ski. You know you want to.

You are about to become an intern again. Be yourself and trust that who you are is good enough, cool enough, nice enough, honest enough, funny enough, pretty enough, smart enough and competent enough.

Embrace the next eight months and try everything. You’ll never get this season back.

Graduate! It’s sort of the point.

Allow God to lead your heart. He did a fantastic job in 2008, and if you pay attention, your whole life could be as amazing.

Love,
B.

2008, we did the best we could.

2008-12-29T00:18:00.000-08:00

January Moved to Belize. *Carry-on bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment. Attendant made me take out bulge on top, which happened to be a Ziploc gallon-sized bag of underwear. Held underwear on lap for duration of the flight.

Lived on an Iguana reserve. Learned how to do laundry with a hose. Experienced Belizean wedding and funeral in the same week. Set out to teach everything I knew about conflict resolution, drugs, and AIDS. Learned everything I know about love. Got accepted into grad school.

February Caught a parasite, hiked to the top of a ruin, swam in a cave, experienced my first Belizean election and confirmation. Fought a piñata. Lost.

March Overcame fear of spiders. Discovered a new love for choco-bananas. Played with a monkey. Met real Guatemalan Indians in Guatemala. Bought skirt from them. Watched the Ruta Maya river race. Said goodbye to the Caribbean. Understood that life would never be the same.

April Got a niece! Heart opened a little wider. Fell in love with her.
Turned 27. Panicked. Cut my own bangs.

May Got another step-family. Danced! Celebrated! Laughed!
First laid eyes on my new city, New Orleans. Stabbed my foot with a parking lot spike.

June Went back to work at Boys and Girls Club. Happy to find that I still loved the kids. Got shingles. Thought I was dying.

July Sold everything I owned on Craigslist. Moved out of Fort Wayne (ten years!) Received Carrie Bradshaw as a parting gift.

August Moved to New Orleans. Found the two-story target, which I had previously thought was an urban legend. Took a family vacation to Destin. Came back. Became acquainted with city life. Loved it. Went to Tulane for student orientation after a month of waiting. Got evacuated for Gustav at lunch.

September Stayed evacuated for two and a half weeks. Went back to school. Dropped ten pounds for lack of friends.

October Made friends! Gained ten pounds. Heard that Taylor Fort Wayne would be closing. Felt orphaned. Dressed up like a ninja and fought pirates on Jackson square.

November Watched history unfold in the TSSW building with snacks and wine. Found out Bry and Jess are pregnant again. Went to Belize. Delivered school supplies. Painted a cafeteria. Provided flood relief with two armed guards on the Guatemalan border. Became acquainted with Big Mac and Quarter Pounder, the tarantulas. Realized I had not overcome fear of spiders. Had the sweetest reunions I could ever imagine at San Marcos School.

Learned that a plan is usually unfolding around me even when I am not still or patient enough to see it. Discovered that if I feel lost even for a second, all I have to do is ask for help. Understood the beauty in a prayer that goes, “Hi God, I’m an idiot and I don’t trust myself. Could you make this one clear for me?” Trusted completely. Found out I am purposed. Convinced Tulane I am purposed. Doing last semester internship in Belize!

December Wrote a thousand papers. Failed a final. Got all A’s!
Watched snow fall in New Orleans. Saw Lily take her first 3 steps.
Went to Chicago. Smile.

The Great Snow of 2008, and other silly stories.

2008-12-15T10:04:00.000-08:00

I think you probably heard, but it snowed in New Orleans.

This was not just a little dusting; it was a full inch. School was canceled. Businesses pushed employees outside to run willy-nilly through the yard and throw snowballs. The entire city fell apart at the age line and turned six-and-a-half, simultaneously.

I’d heard there might be snow on the North shore, so when my mom woke me up with a text that said, “snow?” I turned on the TV and rolled over. I only jumped out of bed when Good Morning America and the Today show were preempted by local news standing at Audubon Park frantically and joyfully screaming about how blinding it is when it falls heavily. And white! I waited patiently for Geraldo to show up and walk sideways into the wind.

Kids were rolling around and spreading snow all over their bodies. Adults were sledding on suit coats and building thousands of teeny, tiny 6-inch snowmen, and then adorning them with full-sized hats and scarves and carrots and sticks. We were encouraged not to venture out if we didn’t have to, because the roads were very, very bad. The bridges and overpasses were closed, and government offices closed in two parishes. I ran outside to take pictures, and found clumps of people gathered all over the sidewalk and streets staring up at the sky. Most had their tongues out.

I called the Red Cross to make sure they were still open before I ventured out in the snow that wasn’t yet accumulating, and they asked me if I was comfortable driving in “this”. I told them they could count on me. They said good, because Orleans parish was in a Level One snow emergency and they were in the midst of pulling together staff and volunteers for two standby cold weather shelters.

All day stations played, “Let it snow” over and over, and it has since been referred to as the Great Snow of 2008. If you go to Tulane’s website, you’ll see an entire photo album and slide show documenting happy students playing in the lawn with scarves and hats to lure prospective students into thinking, “See? We have Christmas, too!”

It was a joyous and happy Christmas miracle. It melted by dinner, and the next day was 65 and sunny. Just how I like my snow—beautiful, then gone.

Here are some pics of the Christmasy city yesterday-

Santa and His half-brass Band

When right in the mall there arose such a clatter, I got up from the food court to see what was the matter.

Only in New Orleans would Santa and half a brass band saunter around the mall singing.

Finals Week

As of now, I am one-quarter Master Social Worker.
(You can call me Master for short.)

Things we like

2008-12-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

Things we like: cute nieces.
Lil is 8 months old now!

Pictures from Thanksgiving.

And fall. And summer.

Just a few to tide you over...

I've heard its going around

2008-11-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

Here’s the thing. I think I may have been born in the wrong country. Also, I might be living in the wrong city. It’s possible that I am totally lost in the world.

I have been so disoriented since Tuesday that I’ve done things like: pack up all my power cords and homework and earphones and books to do homework at the coffee shop, but left the computer at home.

Yesterday I could hear people talking, but when they walked away I looked around and realized I hadn’t heard a word they said. This was me all day: So, we are having class in room 103 today? So, what’s going to be on the quiz? So, when is that due? Wait. What article was it? Was I supposed to write that down?

Also, I sneezed while reaching for a cabinet on Wednesday and totally threw out my neck and back. I couldn’t move my left side or lift my left arm past 45% or turn my neck in any direction. My classmates kept saying I had a stroke or meningitis. I totally believed them because I’m prone to hypochondria. But deep down I knew I had the what-am-I-doing-here-I-don’t-know-anybody-this-is-not-my-home-plus-I-hate-homework-and-am-desperately-heartsick-for-my-hilarious-and-warm-Belizey-family...or-at-least-that-other-family-in-Indianapolis…you-know-the-blood-relatives… virus.

I’ve heard it’s going around.

So, at 4:30, I propped up all my little pillows around my left back and watched Christmas movies and Belize videos until I fell asleep sometime around 10. I have decided that this business of caring for people is hard. There are always goodbyes. And yes, they’re followed by hellos, but then usually goodbyes again. I don’t really feel at home anywhere. My foot is in two states and my heart is in two countries.

My friend Steph said: Brooke, welcome home to wherever you are hanging your fanny pack today. (Steph, for your information it's a rugged Eddie Bauer bag.) But then she quoted Hebrews 11, reminding me to live in the light of eternity and as a comforting reminder that someone is saying, I'll leave the light on for you:

Hebrews 11
9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God... 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Tonight, I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, Earth. I only have a few videos connecting me to some of my favorite places and people and moments everywhere else, but I’ll share them with you if you’ll have them:

Ricardo singing at the Teacher party

Election night with Inez and Antonia when UDP won

Standing on the balcony at Cahal Pech singing "Somewhere out there" with Ashley and Kenz to the village...

Teasing the boys.
(Don't get mad, you guys. I just miss you and your weird fear of cameras.)

On caring for people

2008-11-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

You may not see it when it's sticking to your skin,
But we're better off for all that we let in.

-IG

My little Belizey

2008-11-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

I sure missed you guys.
I can't wait to see you tomorrow.

I vote yes to Oreos in my sleep

2008-11-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Election day, New Orleans!

Watch out for Ambien, stomach!

Excuse me, do you know where all the ninjas are?

2008-11-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

Halloween in the Orleans: A picture monologue

Leaving the apartment

Me- you rode your bike here?
Will- yeah
Me- as peter pan?
Will- yeah. high school kids kept yelling fag.
Me- I can totally bust into this ATM with my ninja star

Pirates vs Ninjas: the final showdown

Pirates Corner

Hey, is that a Ninja?
Me: (run)

Excuse me, do you guys know where all the Ninjas are?

Stretching Ninjas

Me stretching with the ninjas

Lined up and ready at the stroke of 5...

In case you ever wondered what ninja shoes look like

We came to win

(I'll scale the wall and drop down on all the pirates.)

The Fight on Jackson Square

Pirates won- big surprise, since there were 50 of them and 8 of us.

Pre-parade Happenings with Social Work friends/Ninja Turtles

Krewe of Boo Parade

A good looking group of social workers:

You guys come over here!
No! YOU guys come over here!
NO! You guys come over here...

Scrounging for candy on the parade route

Costume Change: Attacked by a shark on Frenchman St.

Me: look at my friend Shea. She sure does look delicious, yes?
Shea: oh God. Somebody get this shark away from my face.

Early morning breakfast with Marie Antoinette

2008-10-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

Our friend, Katie.

Hello, goodbye.
We'll see you on the other side.

Elvis or Racism?

2008-10-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Originally I planned to attend a community event that was not centered on racism. I wanted to do the New Orleans Film Festival next weekend or German Fest or anything light and happy and fun. But then professor Chaisson offered extra credit points to attend the 10th annual Diversity Convocation where Tim Wise was speaking, and I reluctantly agreed, all but rolling my eyes. The thing is, she said there would be food.

Apparently, this is how I felt about racism: reluctant and eye-rolly. It’s not that I didn’t think it existed or wasn’t a current issue; it’s not that I didn’t think diversity was important or necessary. I just didn’t understand what it had to do with me. After all, it wasn’t my idea. I’m in social work! I’m here to fight injustice and help people—other people, like, international kids or people affected by trauma and things. Racism just wasn’t really my platform.
(Stay with me, here.)

Then I heard Mr. Wise speak.

As it always does for me about a thousand years after every one else, a light bulb came on during that hour-and-a-half, and I realized I had never really gotten it. While I listened when people told me about white supremacy and institutional racism, and I agreed that somewhere someone was probably being treated unjustly, I could not wrap my mind around the concept that I was where I was because the system was set up for me to achieve. I’ll admit I thought that sounded a little bit conspiracy theory-ish. I’ll also admit that subconsciously for that theory to be true, I had to accept that my successes were not necessarily achieved in my own right, but through a series of opened doors I was able to walk through that, in some cases, my peers of color were not.

Mr. Wise explained it in this way, which helped in my understanding: Mr. Wise is an educator who travels around and speaks to groups about racism. He got this job because immediately after college, two guys offered it to him. He was 22, and the two guys who offered him the job were people he knew from Tulane: a professor and a classmate. He was able to go to Tulane (even though his family was at poverty level) because his mother was able to go to the bank and secure a $10,000 loan. His mother would not have been able to get the loan had his grandma not been able to co-sign the loan on her home’s collateral. His grandma’s home was appraised at a higher value—enough to cover the loan's cost—because it had a higher property value and sat in a neighborhood that had been established as white in the 50s and 60s and retains higher property values even to this day.

So, to recap, Mr. Wise got the job from two guys he knew (1st degree) from Tulane (2nd degree), which he was able to attend thanks to his mother’s loan (3rd degree), which was awarded to her through his grandmother’s cosigning (4th degree) based on a higher-valued house in a traditionally established white neighborhood from the 60’s (5th degree). That’s 5 degrees and 50 years removed from the original racial act—and this man is still benefiting.

This is just one example of hundreds Mr. Wise listed, but when the light came on, I felt immediately burdened by my newfound understanding and heartbroken over my idiotic lack of others-awareness (as opposed to self-awareness, which I then realized I might have in excess) in how I relate to everyone else.

For this reason, for the impact it had on my racial worldview and the fact that even driving around this morning on the I-10 felt less sunny knowing that the I-10 high rise project had plowed through oak-lined park areas in the Treme neighborhood where black folks used to gather and live in the 60’s— to transport white people in and out of the city from suburbs—I decided to reflect on this community event instead.

Taken from the convocation program, Mr. Tim Wise is one of the nation’s leading anti-racism educators working toward dismantling racism. He has spoken in 48 states, on over 500 college campuses, and was chosen as the 2008 Oliver L. Brown Distinguished Scholar for Diversity Issues at Washburn University, originally named for the lead plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Obviously, the man has credentials.

As he spoke, I raced to jot down notes but at some point just put the pen down and listened, which worked out much better. I’ll first share a few points that were of interest, and then I’ll explain the importance of the event from a social work perspective.

One of the points Mr. Wise gave that made a lasting impression on my understanding of institutional racism was that prior to 1964, every white person was elevated BY LAW. This fact is so alarming it makes me wonder how there could not be institutional racism today if the supremacy of Whites was actually mandated 50 years ago. How would you ever get rid of such a mindset, especially considering those lawmakers and abiding citizens, plus children born to those same lawmakers and abiding citizens are still part of the current generation and population.

Another point I took as both interesting and funny was when Mr. Wise said a poll had been taken asking people if they thought racism was still a problem. Only eleven percent of those who took the poll reported that yes, racism was still a problem. Randomly, a different poll was taken asking people if they thought Elvis was still alive. Twelve percent reported that yes, Elvis was still alive. Mr. Wise (in humor) compared the two and noted how funny it was that more people believe Elvis is still alive than believe that racism exists in the United States.

Mr. Wise continued to make the point that in 1962, a time most people would now identify as an outright racially discriminatory decade, a similar poll was taken which asked if people believed both Blacks and Whites had equal rights, and if black school children had the same opportunities as white school children. In 1962, seventy percent of people said yes, Blacks and Whites had full equal opportunities, and 87% said yes, black school children had the same opportunities as white school children.

Mr. Wise’s point was that white people didn’t see it in 1962, a time that was clearly discriminatory, and most of us don’t see it now for this reason: white people are asking white people if racism exists. He pointed out that it’s pointless to ask the group NOT being oppressed if oppression exists because they are not the one experiencing it. You wouldn’t ask a man if sexism is operating. You wouldn’t ask the able-bodied if they were able to get into the building tonight. Of course they were. In order to find out the extent of oppression and marginalization, we need to ask the oppressed and marginalized. And then, when they tell us it’s happening, we need to believe them.

How does this relate to competent social work practice? Obviously this could relate in every possible area given that our primary mission, according to the NASW, is to enhance human well-being and help meet the needs of all people, with particular attention to people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty; but for right now I’ll focus on one specific relation to this event and social work: education. To quote my friend Kayla: If we don’t know, we absolutely cannot understand. If we don’t understand, then we’ll have no motivation to change anything.

We carry the responsibility and the duty to educate ourselves on every social issue—even when we don’t think it relates, because it always does. It’s the social part of social work. We do not exist to help and treat ourselves.

I’ll admit that after 7 hours of school and 3 hours of work, it was only natural to feel reluctant about sitting though another lecture in spite of the food and extra credit benefit. But it was my duty as a social worker to educate myself on the ways in which institutional racism is impacting all of us. If I hadn’t, I’d be right back to where I was on Wednesday at 6:29 pm: yeah, but what does this have to do with me?

On religion

2008-10-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Every day I pass this on the way to school and laugh to myself.

Prince vs. Michael Jackson

2008-10-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

Other appropriate titles for this post:

• In which I hit myself in the face with a bed frame
• Moving the entire Southeast Louisiana Red Cross down 8 flights
• An early morning sprint down St. Charles avenue

Last Friday, I moved out of the Med District downtown into a loft-type apartment on St. Charles Ave, uptown. When I got up the six flights to my new apartment and my key didn’t work, I had no choice but to call it a night. When I say ‘call it a night’ I mean I dumped all my stuff on the floor and met some people at Republic for the Prince vs. Michael Jackson DJ battle.

I got there at eleven, which I thought was appropriately late for someone approaching 30. But apparently eleven is the new 5:30. I made it just in time for the geriatric beer specials and sat down at an empty lounge area to wait. There were some little business cards with the Uptown Salon logo on the lounge table, and I wondered why someone had left all their business cards around. It wasn’t until I was served a bucket of champagne that I realized I was sitting in Uptown Salon’s reserved booth, and that Republic thought I was the first member of Uptown Salon to arrive.

I sent this text to Sprinky: I hit a new low. I’m at a club by myself drinking $2 miller high life in someone else’s booth waiting for a DJ battle between Michael Jackson and Prince to start. Where did things go wrong?

I was about to call it quits, but then Prince showed up. Everywhere.

Michael Jackson followed.
And then my friends.
I’m not sure if Uptown Salon ever made it, but I should send them a thank-you for the champagne…

Prince and Michael Jackson at the DJ booth discussing weather or not Billy Jean was his lover-

The next morning I met the furniture guy at 8:30, and the leasing agent let me into the apartment. This is what she said: Oh, there is a trick to unlocking the apartments. You didn’t know? (Hello. How could I have known that, lady?)

The apartment is amazing- full skyline view of the city, open loft-type floor plan, HUGE closet- think Carrie Bradshaw in the brownstone- and cheaper than where I was living before. Before you get jealous, realize I am only talking about 450 square feet of goodness. But for me, it’s perfect.

I spent two days moving and still have not unpacked. I did, however, put together a desk, a futon, a bed frame and a bookshelf and arrange them all myself. And then I hit myself in the face with the bed frame. I was trying to put bed elevators underneath, and the bed shifted and fell on my face. The next day I went to school and introduced myself to all my potential employers at the internship fair with a black eye and small gash.

I also spent Thursday morning moving the Red Cross, which has been displaced for the entire three years following Katrina. They’ll fling open the doors to their original pre-Katrina office tomorrow morning on Canal Street. The chapter has been functioning out the 4th floor of the T-mobile building in Metairie—which has no elevator. We lined up 50 people up and down 8 flights of stairs and moved the entire Red Cross, one box at a time, in an assembly line from the fourth floor down. It was exhausting, but I felt happy to help considering how unreal it is that this chapter, among everything in the city, is just now moving home for the first time, and I helped carry a box. Or two. Hundred.

On Friday, as if my body really needed the extra early morning sprint, I walked out of my apartment and caught a glimpse of the Tulane shuttle turning the corner a block-and-a-half away. I thought my days of chasing the shuttle were over. Turns out, the only thing worse than chasing the shuttle down Tulane Avenue is chasing it up St. Charles where my classmates can see me. I crossed my fingers hoping that no one was on the streetcar that day. It was an ugly, panicked run, knocking old men out of the way and flinging people to the side with my bookbag…

The most annoying part happened when I heaved myself onto the shuttle and flopped down, gagging and coughing and sighing and looking around saying, “Thank God I made it!”

We just sat there for another 5 minutes.

When I walked into Tools, totally stressed and falling apart at the outfit/hair seams from all the running, Allison said, “Brooke. I saw you exit your apartment this morning.”

She didn't laugh right away, which was nice.

I asked if she’d seen everything, and she said she had. She said she wanted to yell out after me, “Don’t worry! It’s only Tools!” but I was too fast.

Anytime I picture myself sprinting down St. Charles Avenue at 7:58 am, I laugh out loud.

Here are some pictures of the weekend:

Social Work crew at Superior

These jokers were at Lucy's on Saturday before the New Kids on the Block show. 1992 threw up all over the room:

Shea and I at the park on Sunday observing children for the Theory lab-

Seriously, we’re legitimately observing. Don’t call the police. (You kids want some candy?)

Social Workers Gone Wild- the TSSW picnic

Note the face and the hair below. I was just coming off a triple back layout with a half twist.
Karine's like, Oh God! Not the half twist!
Tiffany's like, If she dies I'm getting it on camera.

The poor kids we kicked off the moonwalk

Tim teaching kids how to fight in preparation for the Pirate vs. Ninja flash mob on Halloween night.

I love SGA for planning this picnic. It was fun to see everyone outside of class and outside of all the little groups. And for the record, our volleyball team won.

Dear TUFW: don’t go!

2008-10-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe TUFW is closing.

In the back of my mind—this is how painfully hopeful the world inside my brain is—as long as the school was there, we were all still somehow connected. At least there was a building and a lot to prove we ever were, and a dorm over by the woods off Lexington hanging onto a hopeless panicky eighteen year-old version of me, and a dorm next to the old cafeteria that always feels like a giant hug when I picture it inside. Two windows to the right of the door, on the second floor, is where I realized there was a chance I might be smart and capable and not crazy at all, but loved, actually. It changed my trajectory.

I feel like part of our history is disappearing. It’s the only place that ever felt like home; a place I can walk into even 5 years later and take a hopeful breath. One time someone loved me here, is what I think when I walk inside.

I’m so sorry for the staff and faculty being uprooted and displaced. I just can’t imagine:
A- how shocked and sad and uncertain everyone must feel
B- not being able to stop in and say hey to Dr. Cook or James or Tami whenever I secretly need to touch down on home base for a sec.

It’s heartbreaking on all accounts.

When I don’t feel so strange, I’ll do some kind of hilarious best memories post. But for now I just want to go home and hug people, and then pee on the library for old times’ sake.

(kidding)

Dear TUFW: don’t go!

Love Me

2008-10-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

And then I woke up in the Cafeteria, naked.

2008-09-27T22:57:00.001-07:00

Dearest friends and family.

I know it’s been forever, but besides the fact that I have no more time for writing (which isn’t really true, because I do it anyway) I was paralyzed for a short time by the fact that 58 new people who don’t really know me are all over my internet space.

Don’t worry, I invited them. Then I went and started a giant group on facebook. Then I realized this internet business is a two-way street (which my grandpa always warned me about) and realized they can see all my pages and my pics and my notes, too. That’s why you may have received a little message ex-naying any comments about how many new friends I have. Not cool. Equivalent to waking up in the cafeteria, naked…

Anyway, Elaine wants an update.

I currently live in the Public Health building downtown. I am not a Public Health student. I am a Social Work student, uptown. This is how things typically go for me. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’ll post some pics of my apartment downtown, but you should know, in two weeks I am moving uptown. It will be fantastic. For starters, I expect less mold. Also, I will not have to park on the 4th floor, take the elevator to the 2nd floor, walk across the skybridge, walk through the hospital, walk across another skybridge, take the elevator the 3rd floor and walk to the end of the hall to get to my apartment. Also, I’ll have a pool. Oh, and complimentary coffee and pastries in the morning. I expect 3-5 more friends after my chocolate party, poolside.

Current apt:

Yes, SJP is doing just fine. But she’s always staring off into space. I wonder if she’s not adjusting well.

Here is my home office, which doubles as my bed:

I searched all my files for a few pics of the campus. Here are two from welcome weekend in August while I was working in the bookstore:

(As a side note, I emailed Intervarsity last week and found a small group to join on Tuesday nights. They were very welcoming even though I walked into their living room off the street and said: Hi, I'm Brooke. The guy who emailed me about the meeting wasn't in attendance, so I can imagine it all seemed very street peddler-ish, especially when I started my tap routine and held up a sign asking for 5 dollars. They could have called the police. Instead, they invited me to sit down, thank GOD.)

Next. Sprinky’s sister, Christy—who I partially evacuated to during Gustav—came to visit yesterday. I was totally free to be out and about with no party-of-one situations.

(Like those even scare me.)

In 48 hours, Christy and I have eaten more food than we could handle. Christy weighs about 95 pounds, and had you been following us with a camera, you would have seen her eat 4 bites and slip off to the bathroom or something, and me digging into her plate looking over my shoulder. That’s a lie too. She outright gave me everything—jambalaya, margaritas, fajitas, ice cream, hummus. I had to roll myself home.

While we were out, I tried to snap some pics of the city. I live off of Canal, so anytime I leave my apartment after 9, I run into these guys, on the corner of Canal and Bourbon:

Me, playing the invisible trumpet with the band (one time I peed my pants playing the invisible trombone at Joe’s Crab shack—Engler, Jill, Lainey & Sprink, I’m tagging you on this one):

And, while I’m at it, me playing the invisible violin with the band in Prague:

Typical scene. Walking down the sidewalk behind a guy with a Tuba.

At Sucre (dessert boutique)-

I really feel like I might be getting a cavity.

Me with SJP. I came home and the house was trashed. She pulled this deer-in-the-headlights look on me.

Thank you and goodnight.
(I miss you guys.)

Somehow, I will get off work for this.

2008-09-26T21:35:00.001-07:00

Pirates vs. Ninjas Flash Mob

Meeting Time: 4:50 PM, Friday, October 31, 2008.

Where: Pirates meet at the corner of St. Peter St. and Chartres St. or Pirates Alley. Ninjas meet at the corner of St. Ann St. and Chartres or Pere Antoine Alley.

What: When St. Louis Cathedral clock bell strikes 5:00, Pirates and Ninjas should run to meet directly in front of St. Louis Cathedral and the back of Jackson Square. All Pirates and Ninjas will "pretend" to fight for exactly two minutes.... at the end of two minutes ALL Pirates AND Ninjas should be dead! An air horn will sound at exactly 5:02 PM and ALL Pirates and Ninjas will disburse immediately.

Other: Fight will be filmed and put up on youtube... if you don't want to be identified later, wear a mask or cover your face. Do NOT interact or interfere with camera crew.

Disclaimer: Please do NOT bring any real weapons or anything that could potentially hurt someone or get you arrested. We want to have fun and pretend to fight. Do NOT actually hit ANYONE with ANYTHING (including your fist).

Source

A Day in the Life of Poor Bristol

2008-09-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Already, you and your siblings have been named after an Alaskan bay, track and field, a bush plane, favorite fishing spots and a small Alaskan community- let’s just start with that. It’s not like you got stuck with the family name begrudgingly handed down through the generations; you are named after your parent’s interests. It would be like naming my kid Cookie or Late Night TV or Belize. I know I am being a little hypocritical here considering 2 of my immediate family members are Buffingtons- but they’re middle names, and they were family hand-me-downs NOT (as the name might suggest) tributes to the 1983 J. Crew argyle sweatervest print or something.

So, on top of your name and normal 17-year-old issues, like a zit before homecoming or who your lab partner is this semester or why someone hacked into your MySpace page and started posting spam, you wake up one day and—Oh snap! The whole WORLD knows you’re pregnant!

I imagine her nannies and parents and siblings were running around saying things like, “Honey, nobody even watches the Today Show (quick, somebody get rid of the papers and cut the cable line!)” or “Now Bris, you'll worry less about what others think of you when you realize they rarely do,”—which may have held until she logged into her email account and found, “Bristol, 17, knocked up” plastered all over the Yahoo log-in page.

Seriously, it would be like that worst possible nightmare you always wake up from, except, well, you don’t actually get to wake up.

Instead, you step off the bus, and not only do they get a horrible shot on the one day you wore your oversized OSU sweatshirt and didn’t fix you bus-head ponytail, but your boyfriend is no doubt standing there with his hand on his hip like, You just had to go and tell the whole world, didn’t you? And that’s the guy you have to marry. Well. At least he’s named after a respectable jean company.

Poor Bristol. Bay of Majesty.

*Disclaimer: This is not reflective of my like or dislike of any political party, though it should be noted that I fully support partying of any kind, in general. I just feel sad for Palin's daughter.

Six steps and a patch

2008-09-11T20:41:00.001-07:00

Hey Guys.

Turns out, graduate school= no time to write. In fact, this very second I am putting off 30 pages of Making Task Groups Work in My World to write this update. I'm risky like that.

The thing is, crazy Ike is right outside my window knocking things around, and Chelsea Handler's book, Are you there Vodka? It's me, Chelsea (which I got 60% off thanks to my nice gig at the bookstore) is staring up at me from the night stand begging for a quick chapter or two. I need a break.

I came home and the building next to me was on fire- FIRE- and smoke was coming into our lobby. Also, we were having 50mph wind gusts that blew open all the doors at Starbucks on Magazine St. (I know, what am I doing at a Starbucks on a street like Magazine, right? Comfort in familiarity...) and I couldn't walk around outside without having to hold onto a building. I decided today was not the day to quit updating. I need a program with at least 6 steps and a patch.

School is overwhelming and time consuming, and I am in full list mode. I walk around with a highlighter crossing off things like: call the grandpa, microwave dinner, wash face, etc. because I have forgotten how to manage my time. I set my alarm 20 minutes earlier than necessary because I know that I will need to lay in bed and pretend to feel carefree. Even with the structure, every single morning I end up running down the street trying to catch the 7:45 bus at 7:46 with my keys, phone, granola bar, sweatshirt, ipod and bookbag hanging off me.

I have not had time to unpack from Gustav yet, either, so every morning I dig through laundry baskets and boxes to find an outfit that is less wrinkled than other outfits, and spend another 15 minutes locating things like my watch, or earrings or matching socks. Usually I forget my lunch or something and spend $7.50 in the food court on carrot sticks and a diet coke, which I am half-tempted to eat in a bathroom stall for lack of friends, still. I wonder if they are secretly lunching in some special grad school cafeteria laughing about my 4 inches of grey hair. I have not yet managed to color it, because finding another Hannah is a hard task.

Even harder are things like biostatistics and health and economic development and policy: the core of the MPH program, which I did not understand would be the case. I could spend 5 years explaining the confusion of the last week and the revelation of an outdated program description on the school's website (from 04) or I could just tell you that I dropped the MPH component. It was not the program for me. I am strictly an MSW girl now, focusing on Disaster Mental Health and International Social Work. This decision saved me $30K and an extra year of school, thanks to a competent and honest advisor and a surprising ability to advocate for myself. But you should have seem my face in that biostatistics class-omg.

Whatsoever things are praiseworthy:
In the middle of this mess, an anonymous friend paid the balance for my Belize trip.

(Stop. Breathe. Smile. Breathe. Relax. Breathe. Cry.)

This friend has pointed my over-ambitious, under-resourced heart straight to God's eyes. He sees me. He sees Belize. He loves me. He loves Belize. He can juggle what I can't, and he helps us care for each other.

I love you, friend.

What I need now is a good coffee with my good friends. I would give anything for a Saturday brunch or Firefly run to sit down, throw my purse on the table and say, "You guys will NEVER believe the week I had..."

Hark! What shoe through yonder window breaks?

2008-09-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I am home! SJP is a little damp, but still fantastic.

It took 5 years to unload my car because of this:

Parking spot on fourth floor
Adorn myself with bags and tubs
Take elevator to second floor
Cross skybridge
Wobble through the hospital
Cross skybridge
Up elevator to third floor
Drag myself down the hall
Unlock apartment
Drop load.
Repeat.

Everything I own. One armful at a time.

By the time I was finished, it was 6:00 and The Hills was on—an excellent and surprising turn of events! I really needed groceries, but decided (in light of Audrina’s birthday party in Vegas) to put off grocery shopping until tomorrow. I could totally make do with these ingredients in my kitchen: oatmeal, shells, butter, and Diet Coke. Easy. I made shells and butter for dinner and had oatmeal for dessert.

Unfortunately, that held for only 20 minutes and what I really wanted was Double Stuffed Oreos, wine and milk for the morning. When Sprinky told me this exact same episode was re-airing tomorrow, I was out the door.

Right away, I noticed something different on Canal. People were already out on Bourbon St. and you could already hear Jazz, and it was only 6:30pm. Usually things are quiet until about 9:30. After 10, there’s a band on every corner. But 6:30? Unheard of.

(You should have seen me and Sprinky cruising around at 8pm when I first got here looking for all this so-called jazz and crazy nightlife...)

Then I remembered the curfew in still in place, and I understood that people were just getting everything in before dark. It’s like the whole pattern of nightlife was picked up and dropped off about 4 hours earlier. They must have gotten started at 2 in the afternoon! I decided curfew was just how I liked this city: a little food, a little jazz, a few drinks, some dancing—in bed by 10.

Bad news for early evening grocery runs, though. Everything closed at 5. And everything else closed at 6. Gas stations, Wal-mart, Whole Foods, Walgreens—everything. On top of that, National Guard troops were posted down every possible side street you could think to try—with their scary guns and big tanks and camoflauged hummers. I felt like they might not understand my late-night Oreo run as a matter of importance.

So I turned around. Dusk closed in. Street bands packed up their instruments. The city was a ghost town by 7 and it was dark by the time I made it back up to the 4th floor of the parking garage. No Oreos. No Hills. Only noodles. Oh, and a bag of peanut M&Ms from the vending machine: a well-balanced meal before my VERY important first day of school tomorrow.

PS: Hark! What shoe through yonder window breaks? The mustard mary-jane pair: my brand new school shoes that can FINALLY be worn tomorrow!

Cone of I’m-never-getting-back-in-this-car-again, Ike, so back off.

2008-09-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Every time this blasted Cone shows up I am in need of 8 Ibuprofen, a bag of Oreos, and $150 in gas money. It has been called the Cone of Uncertainty and the Cone of Probability, The Cone of Error, The Cone of Terror, The Cone of Confusion, The Cone of Contradiction, The Cone of Complete Cluelessness, and, my favorite: El Cono del Muerte.

I don’t even think I can evacuate to the Grampies this time because they happen to fall inside the Cone of Insanity, too.

I woke up today feeling ~~tired and desperate~~ bright and hopeful to return to NOLA tomorrow upon the dorm’s reopening at noon. Here is what lay in my inbox, a present from the devil:

Welcoming Students and Watching the Gulf

As we continue to prepare for the reopening of campus, we are still monitoring Hurricane Ike, which we have been doing since Tuesday. Originally, Ike’s track was predicted to travel along the east coast of Florida and up the Atlantic seaboard. However, in the last day this track has changed to indicate that Ike may enter the Gulf. If it does, landfall is projected toward the end of next week.  

While this current projection is not news we want to hear, it is too soon to determine whether the storm poses a threat to Louisiana or the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, the university’s leadership group is receiving multiple daily updates from our weather service and is ready to respond quickly if necessary. 

I need to go to school. This no-school thing is responsible for 40 blog posts a day, so YOU need me to go to school, too. Please join me in worrying about—I mean—praying for Ike.

One month party

2008-09-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was the one-month mark for me in New Orleans. I threw myself a celebratory nap and then ate some Oreo Cakesters and crossed my fingers that I would be able to go back this week.

Not so.

No power.

Still Sunday.

Daggers!

There are, like, 200 buildings here. Two of the only four damaged buildings on campus are schools of Social Work and Public Health. Those are the kinds of odds I live inside.

Yesterday the Grampies (that’s plural for Grandparents) left for North Carolina to check on the house-for-sale and hurry back before Hanna, Ike, Josephine and Unnamed threatened Flordia again, so I had to relocate. This put me on the road to Jackson, MS at 4:30—FOUR THIRTY—in the morning. It was a gloomy ride. Honestly, I haven’t seen the sun in days and I was passing busloads of Mississippians who were being escorted back to their coastal homes.

I was totally jealous.

The thought of not being home for another 5 days, along with a lack of Starbucks on Mississippi highway 49, along with being awake in another country’s time zone, along with not being able to get out from under the clouds of Gustav for the life of me, I almost cried. Almost. But it being so early and all, I slipped into a coma instead and pulled over for an hour and a half at Cups, and espresso shop.

I am now safely in Jackson, coma free, and staying with Sprinky’s sister’s nanny family. Strange? I know, but they offered and I said yes. I wanted to see Tulane’s shelter at Jackson State and also check up on Christy. She just moved here last month and is still figuring things out. Together, we have located an Indian restraunt, a cute coffee/smoothie shop and a bike trail. Saturday we’ll be going to the circus. I do what I can.

Thanks to all the friends and fam who offered to host—Lawlers, Pam, Dian, Elaine’s friend’s sister. It’s heartwarming that people love to love.

I should be home on Sunday.

Notice I've started calling NOLA home? My crazy grandma (the famous one) pointed that out to me. Home. It has a nice ring to it.

PS- Baby Lil turned 5 months this week!

And the newbies learned to run.

2008-09-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Today is my first day of school. I slept in, had a cup of coffee and then some steak and eggs from café evacuay @ gramps and grams. Next I’ll go to the market, and then to the beach. Obviously I love this school business…

But not as much as I would have liked to have actually been in school today.

Chin up! Orleans parish is supposed to start letting people back in on Wednesday and Thursday through some crazy tier system, Tulane reopens on Sunday, and school—fingers crossed—starts on Monday. So far the campus has only reported downed trees and few a blown windows. Easy shmeasy. Although, 80,000 are without power all over the city...

Either way, no more complaining about the tiny apartment or mean streetcar drivers. I just feel happy to come home. For a minute it was like watching my potential life here fall apart in slow motion. I have a profound respect for my neighbors who were doing this for the second time and hung onto eachother in hotels all across the south—if you have a chance to listen to Chris Bynum’s interview from the Times-Picayne on NPR, it’s great. She was interviewed from a hotel in Arkansas where New Orleanians and other hotel guests pitched in pounds of evacuated seafood from everyone’s freezer, then cooked and shared a collective meal together on picnic tables out back. The same thing happened in Nashville with Tulane’s leadership team: “This evening the entire Nashville team will gather together and we have invited all the New Orleanians staying in our hotel to join us. At a time like this, it is comforting to be with neighbors and those who have shared this experience.”

Aw. I love this little city and this ridiculously expensive school, and I love that there will still be restaurants when I go back to relive my little pecan waffle fix.

I read this article by Michael Lewis, a NY Times writer who stayed in New Orleans throughout the storm. I thought it was an interesting take on cable news coverage and Ray Nagin's “mother of all storms” speech:

The Waiting | 10:27 a.m.
One day someone is going to study the difference between our culture’s ability to process and respond to earthquakes (which strike without warning and so are of little use to cable news networks )and hurricanes (which might as well have been created with MSNBC in mind). The buildup, the uncertainty, the waiting — the narrative structure of hurricanes lends itself to melodrama. Click from the New Orleans local news — fairly sober analysis of the city’s chances, which the local weathermen concur are pretty good — to the cable news — where all bad news is actually good news, as it excites cable news viewers — and you get the feeling they are talking about different storms. New Orleans is safer from Gustav than it is from Geraldo…

… But now every little rustle in the trees has new meaning. Waiting for hurricane winds must be a little bit like waiting for an invading army; for that matter, evading hurricanes must be a bit like evading an invading army. The skills being acquired by New Orleanians these days will come in handy if, say, Guatemala ever launches a surprise attack. They’ll think they can sneak up on us but … poof … we’ll all be gone. We’ll be the world’s leading evacuators; anyone who dares invade us will find only an empty city. They won’t know what to do next.

Generating Fear | 10:49 p.m. Eastern time
The reaction to Gustav shows you what people learned from Katrina. The poor learned to flee; the rich learned to buy power generators and even more ammo for their automatic weapons and the politicians learned to express more sympathy and concern than they could possibly feel.

And the newbies learned to run when people start running ☺

Tulane Prez & Tornado chasing

2008-09-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

Tulane President Scott Cowen is being interviewed live on NPR's Talk of the Nation today at 2:30pm central time.

Yesterday we were able to do a live chat with the Prez in Nashville, and he did a great job of spreading the calmness around while CNN riled us all up. At this point, Tulane is officially closed until next Monday, September 8th and CNN is officially useless.

Here is a copy of the LIVE CHAT TRANSCRIPT - AUGUST 31, 2008. It’s an interesting read.

As far as the students in Jackson, they all seem to be doing great and are being sheltered in the Jackson State gymnasium with meals and snacks provided through the dining facilities. Jackson State has also opened recreational facilities and university center amenities to Tulane students. Aw, Jackson.

As for the rest of the city... things are looking up!

A report from the Bywater
by Kevin Allman

Talked to a friend who is hunkered down in the Bywater in her house near the Industrial Canal with a bunch of people. (Bywater folks: It’s Stacey G.) Her notes:

- The Industrial Canal is overtopping - they see it on TV like the rest of us - but she says there is no water in the streets of the Bywater except rainwater. Some of the wind gusts are stronger than they’d expected: “Some people are going to have wind damage.” Power’s out in the area, as is Internet.

- NO LOOTING. NO CIVIL UNREST. “The area is being really well-patrolled.” At the Bywater house they are BBQing on the back porch of the house and NOPD and National Guard are dropping by for food; the authorities say that they haven’t picked up a single person in the area.”

Me? I’m tornado chasing.

We keep getting squall bands and tornado warnings every 15 minutes. A few hours ago, with two tornado warnings in Destin- one to the east and one to the west- my grandparents said, “Grab your camera. Let’s go to the beach!” We wanted to see the beach swells and try to catch pictures of waterspouts. How did I get lucky enough to have storm-chasing grandparents? It’s my dream evacuation, for sure.

Storm chaser Brooke:

We stopped at the grocery on the way home for fried chicken and were attacked in the parking lot by fast-moving abandoned carts, not tornados. But the fried chicken was delish.

Home away from Home away from Home

2008-08-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

I had to give myself a mandatory 12-hour break from the Weather Channel and CNN so I could sleep last night. According to my dad, those channels play up weather problems to bring in more advertising revenue and it really won’t be all that bad, anyway. I told him he would be that guy standing on top his house waving and yelling out “Rescue Me! Somebody help! I didn’t know! I thought it was an advertising ploy!”

I’m sure he was just trying to make me feel better.

The school texted us last night at 11:30 to tell us to get out if we weren’t already. Today they are having an online news conference at Noon in Nashville and a live chat with school leaders at 3:30. To be sure, I have a list of questions for Mr. Tulane President. Mail? Financial Aid? My first and last check from the ol’ Bookstore? Transfers? Stop-outs? Host schools?

I can’t believe I left all my winter coats and jackets and shoes, and don’t even get me started on the unopened case of Diet Coke in the fridge, DVDs, Journals, socks, hair products, hats, sheets, etc. … but I had to share the bell-cart with a bazillion other people and it was a battle of picking and choosing.

Nagin just said, though, if anyone is caught looting they’ll go straight to jail. At least SJP won’t get kidnapped. She just better not break curfew, is all I have to say.

Contraflow began this morning out of New Orleans, which was so strange. I had received a map about this contraflow business last week and couldn’t figure it out. Basically all the lanes going into the city are reversed and used to evacuate people, which is great considering gas is gone and ATMs are empty.

Here is some other good information from local blogs and papers that are funny and informative:

Saturday

Saturday

Sunday

In the meantime, I have been staying with my grandparents in Destin (on the Florida panhandle just across the Alabama border) learning about everything hurricane. We started getting storm bands from Gustav last night and swells were supposed to start this morning at about 4. We put up hurricane panels over the windows and blocked the front door from the inside—all things I’ve never done before—and then filled up our gas tanks.

My grandma and I also went to the beach early this morning to scope everything out. It was so hazy and beautify and eerily quiet...

(Is that a silver lining?)

I have to say that my grandparents have been the best evacuation hosts a girl could ask for: great food, great company, great little puppy, and a full tank of gas to boot. Thanks for keeping me safe, sheltered, well-fed and gassed up! If it wasn’t on the verge of a panic/breakdown and it wasn’t totally inappropriate to joke about yet, I’d say we should be evacuated more often. It’s that great here.

Alas.

I am trying to act like a reasonable person (vs. my normal neurotic self) and realize that things happen, and we adjust.

This may be an important piece in the empathy puzzle that will help me understand what people are going through in the future. The levels of irony here are too many to list… three years ago my bags were packed and waiting by the door so I could get into the city and help, and today I am shoving everything into my car to get out- on the anniversary of Katrina itself, which is what brought me here in the first place.

“As they experience acculturation and assimilation to the culture here, these students are experiencing their first storm,” notes Johnson. “Many of our students will become leaders in public health — prevention, planning and emergency response — so this puts what they’re learning in the classroom into a real-life setting.”

-Jefferey Johnson, Associate Dean at the School of Public Health.

I’ll try not to be a baby and have the same attitude and optimism as I did before this was MY home, MY stuff, MY school, MY future, etc… it looks a whole lot different from the inside out.

For now, here I am:

Orienta-uh-Evacuation

2008-08-28T18:17:00.000-07:00

Today I had orientation!

I couldn’t decide between a t-shirt that said, “Be my friend” or a cute jersey-knit dress with a sash tie...

I opted for the jersey dress and took a picture of myself on the way to the bus. Yes, I take a bus. Yes, I had to use the self-timer mode. SJP would have offered to take it but she can’t move her elbows or hands, and she can’t move her eyeballs or talk. So she just watched while I positioned the camera on the counter and waited for the ten-second countdown. School, here I come.

Orientation was fantastic, and I met all the MSW/MPH people.

We also met the faculty and campus police, the librarians, the spiritual resource person, the work-study coordinator and a bazillion other campus organizations, then ate a red-beans-and-rice lunch with our orientation groups and adviser. It was all just perfect until we got a collective text in the middle of the afternoon telling us school was canceled and we had to evacuate by noon tomorrow.

Obviously THIS year, school, for me, is like a dangling carrot. Or, more accurately, a dangling slice of chocolate decadence cake from Whole Foods. It’s always one scoop away…

Ironically, the text came as we were discussing emergency preparedness with the campus officer, so we got all the latest information straight from the source. Apparently, Tulane has its own weather team contracted to provided updates in cases like this, and Louisiana has a state-wide plan to begin emergency evacuations 60 hours from predicted landfall. Thanks to Katrina, they said the days of “Well by-golly, I lived through Betsy and Camille, I’m just gonna ride this one out,” are over. The governor has already declared a pre-state of emergency, and 150 of the 700 busses needed to evacuate New Orleans are already here. If nothing else, they sure learned to evacuate.

Tulane has evacuated twice before—once for Ivan, which veered at the last minute, and once for Katrina. The year Katrina hit, 1500 freshman had moved in at 9am, and by 7pm they had all been evacuated—750 students went home, and the other 700 were bussed to Jackson State.

Most people ran out and bought water and non-perishable food items. I ran to the bookstore and bought Tulane clothes, then to the mall for some MAC eye shadow in case I never see either of them again. We all have our priorities.

I spent the rest of the afternoon re-packing the boxes I just unpacked and moving everything else away from windows and up off the floor (just in case this mandatory vacation turns into a four-and-a-half month effort to get back).

SJP agreed to stay and watch for looters while I’m gone. I am sort of devastated about my first day of school being canceled and really worried about things like having to sit the semester out or transfer to another school if we actually get a direct hit, but I’m trying to be an adult about it and keep things in perspective.

School is scheduled to re-open on Thursday, provided we have a school. In the meantime, I’ll be at Grampy’s agonizing over the 10 pairs of shoes and 12 purses that got left behind.

Speaking of hurricanes

2008-08-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

Everyone keeps asking if I've made friends yet.

Facebook says no. Facebook is just being smart, I think.

Fall is an apprehensive time around here. Everyone is obsessed with weather, and rightly so. I overhear ten-thousand conversations a day about active weather off the coast of Africa that might turn into a tropical system. Lucky for all of us, I am obsessed with weather, too.

I watch the weather channel 24 hours a day and have the local radar widget on my computer, phone and ipod. I wake up to Jim Cantore and fall asleep to Jennifer Lopez (the meteorologist, not the singer). I love local on the eights and the tropical update at 50 past the hour. I have the music memorized and I watch storm stories late at night. When I was little and my family returned from vacations, I couldn't WAIT to run inside to see what I missed on the Weather Channel while we were gone. My family can attest to this. It's true.

I also love tracking storms. In another life I would have been a tornado chaser. People give me tornado mousepads and buttons and books, and when there are hurricanes, they call me with questions about why the storm is taking a certain track versus another knowing I have been briefed by the Weather Channel itself. I explain about the high and low pressure systems and feel giddy. It's just all so delicious to me. I think, in reality, I am a nervous person and I enjoy something that updates me every 8 minutes. Whatever. I fit right in here is what I'm saying.

When I first arrived, we had to fill out a personal evacuation plan and sign up for text or email alerts. We got an alert today about Gustav. Just an alert to be on the lookout for an alert. I like how they think.

Katrina hit on the first day of school in 05. Orientation is Thursday, the storm is supposed to hit on Monday, and the first day of class is Tuesday. Everyone here is very concerned about the first day of school. All my friends (from the bookstore) are locals who go to Loyola or Tulane. They spent the first day of school in 05 evacuating, and spent the first semester of the 05-06 school year as strangers at other schools in Texas and Alabama and Georgia.

This says it all.

I really hope we have a first day of school here.

(I already have an outfit and all.)

I wish

2008-08-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

I wish the hostess had not yelled out “Party of One!” in the middle of an 8:00 Saturday night restaurant crowd.

I wish the streetcar driver had not yelled at me in front of the whole streetcar for trying to use a transfer ticket at a non-transfer stop.

I wish I had not cried on the streetcar.

I wish I could be in Fort Wayne tonight on somebody’s couch.

Weekend plans

2008-08-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

My motherboard, myself

2008-08-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

Macbook is home.

The motherboard was defective, whatever that means. I thanked the guy and said, “Yeah, my mom has been acting funny too lately, can you do anything about her?” He would have laughed, I'm sure, but my phone rang. It was my mom.

Which brings me to my next topic: Adult Children of Active Facebook Users.

When did it become normal for parents start creeping onto facebook? I realize my parents are just extra-technological what with finding internet spouses and all, but honestly you guys, as a group, we really dropped the ball on this one. Parents should be confined to the geriatric network (as opposed to the Indianapolis or FW network)—which could be visited, but, for the love of God, not flung wide open for all of them to just run loose. Don’t even get me started on grandparents hanging around—there goes my whole new blog idea: Conversations with Crazy Grammy.

Brookie?
Hey grandma.
Are you working?
No.
Are you busy?
No.
Well, I didn’t think you’d ever call me back.
Grandma, I’ve been calling you all week. I left three messages.
No, you didn’t.
Yes, I did. Check your messages.
Nope. My phone makes a little noise when there’s a message.
Well, I left one. Maybe its broken or something.
No, it always makes a little noise. You must have called someone else.
Grandma, it was your voicemail. Your number is on speed dial. It was you.
No. Huh-uh. It didn’t make that little noise.
Why don’t you just check your messages. Just in case. I’ll wait.
No, Brookie. It always makes that little noise, but—Oh! (laugh) Isn’t that funny? (laugh) I have three messages. (laugh) It always makes that little noise. (laugh) Isn’t that funny, darlin? (laugh)
See? I told you.
Well, I just hadn’t heard from you in a while. I thought I might get a thank-you card or something for the pajamas I gave you last spring.
Oh, well, yeah, I love those pajamas. I thought we covered that at the house. Sorry.
Well, you’ve been busy. You’ve got a lot going on up there. Are you running around with Sprinky today?
No, she is in South Carolina
Oh! She is? What’s she doing there?
Visiting our other friends, Bethany and Mike.
Oh! Bethany and Mike live in South Carolina?
Yeah.
You never told me that.
They’ve lived there for a year and a half.
Well, you never told me.
They moved last April.
You didn’t tell me they moved.

I didn't know you knew them.

You didn't tell me.
Grandma, I didn’t know you wanted to know.
That's okay. You never tell me anything about your friends. You’re just too busy. Too busy for your grandma.

Hmmm.

In other news, I started working this week. I got a job at the Tulane bookstore. I basically hang Tulane clothes all day and refold everything when waves of freshmen or cheerleaders or foreign golf players come in and try everything on in front of the mirror. My favorite is when the owner comes through, stands in front of a certain display and says, “Y’all’s folds are bad.”

I also love watching at all the bossy mothers in New Jersey accents holding up 80 different-colored sweatshirts to a nervous, eye-rolling new freshman while the little sister tries on $90 hoodies and the dad just moseys behind in search of golf gear or something. I can’t help but imagine my little brothers being interested in a sweatshirt or a Taylor hat. It just never happened. If my brothers had been there, we would have ended the day in Allen County lockup for theft or public intoxication or consumption of a minor, especially now that Brandon has taken to running around town with a can of Budlight in his hand pawning other people’s books. They have just never really been into things like college hats or college sweatshirts or college at all, really.

Moving on.

I made three friends in three days. They work with me in the bookstore, and all three wanted to know if I had gotten a daiquiri yet and where. They are serious about their daiquiris here. By the third day, I was directing new students and worried mothers all over campus or to the nearest Wal-greens or Whole Foods or daiquiri stand like a good little local...

PS- I thought about this all day. Nine years ago today my aunt was killed in a car accident. It was awful and heartbreaking and felt like, at the time, someone had taken all the color out of the world. Whenever I think of her, besides crepes and laughing and hideous hand-me-down purple zip-up bathing suits, I think of Mr. Gay and what he wrote on a little piece of paper in the guestbook at her funeral: Bonne nuit joli petit oiseau - Goodnight pretty little bird.

Rooftop pools.

2008-08-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

Honesty, I was just trying to get to the mall.

But then I saw a Starbucks in the Sheraton on Canal St. and ducked in for my little icy nonfat mocha. You know me, the Starbucks led to the spectacular lobby, which led to the elevators, which led to the balcony, which led to the courtyard, which led to the pool deck, which required a hotel key, which I did not have. But it got me thinking. Hotels are the key to success if you live in a hospital-ish dorm with no immediate pool access, and they create the best avenue to fake yourself into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Hotels could be my new car dealerships.

So today I went through every major hotel on Canal street to scope out the pool situation.

Harrah’s was a fabulous maze of casino and food courts and shopping areas which left me feeling very nostalgic for my annual Brookie-Dad-Sprinky-Mylissa weekend in Vegas. It would have been happening next weekend had it not been preempted by all these blasted school acceptances and weddings and unemployments. Next year.

I got a tiny bit braver and asked the front desk for a hotel map. Then I asked where the fitness room was, and then where the pool was. The concierge gave me a tour. She also told me that Harrah’s has an arrangement with Lowe’s next door to use their rooftop pool for $10. I just had to notify the bellman.

Harrah’s eventually wound around to Fulton Street, which was a pedestrian walkway with cute little outdoor cafés and restaurants, and Fulton Street wound around to the Hilton. Counting on the same success with Hilton as with Harrah’s, I asked the concierge for a general layout of the hotel. We matched the streets with the map and located the main pool deck on the third floor. I thanked her and made for the escalator, befriending a Spanish-speaking caterer on the way who escorted me to the pool deck, thrilled that I could speak in Spanish, as he could only understand about 7 words of English.

I examined every square inch of the Hilton, which was connected to the mall, and discovered that while the small pool on the riverside deck requires a room key, the main pool is open and available to all who can find it! Success!

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the mall and then hopped a streetcar to the Canal St. shoppes, where I had planned to see a movie for $5.50. But then Macbook crashed. Daggers!

I started to walk home to figure out how to un-crash it, but a pop-up rainstorm landed me back in the Sheraton lobby in a plush leather chair on the phone with the Mac help desk listening to soft jazz and piano music from the bar. We reinstalled the installation disc over the phone and all was resorted, thank GOD. Me with no macbook? I would sooner die.

*It crashed again. Gotta go. You might not hear from me for a while- tomorrow I have to give little Macbook to the Mac surgeons.

This little Brookie goes to Market

2008-08-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

SO! I discovered Saturday Market today from this NOLA blog. It’s like Barr Street (which I love) times a thousand. They have the best in fresh, locally grown produce, seafood, baked goods, plus entertainment by local musicians.

The fun part is Market Tokens. If you don’t have cash, you can purchase Market Tokens, which can be exchanged for food, drinks and merchandise at both the Saturday and Tuesday Markets. They're accepted by all the vendors, and they never expire.

Tuesday Market, which I plan to check out this week, features a local chef or restaurateur to create a special Tuesday Market menu with ingredients from the local vendors sold at the Green Plate Special tent. So fun and fab.

Also, in the spirit of staying, I unpacked the kitchen today. I even put a flower in the vase.

Oh man.

2008-08-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

My dad is learning how to text. He called me tonight and said it took him 25 minutes to text “Are you watching the Olympics?”

I told him I think its hilarious that he had a blackberry before they were cool and didn’t even know what it was, figured out how to “wink” and “poke” and find a wife on the internet, but is just now learning to text. Dads.

Okay. Down to business. Yesterday I got back from Florida. Sometime between last Thursday and now, I forgot that New Orleans was my home- I kept thinking I was going back to Indiana. Even worse, no one here knew I left, and no one knows I am back. I went all day today without talking to a single person except Navigon. To her credit, we had some great conversations about how to get to Target and Wal-Mart and the importance of u-turns. I eventually tabled the issue as she was getting edgy through her passive aggressive use of the words “Please” and “When possible” and “Now” but it was great to hear her voice. At 7:30 I realized Navi wasn’t actually a human and started calling real people. I just felt like someone should know where I was and what I was doing.

Then I came home to the cardboard cutout of SJP. She was glad to see me, I could tell by her stare. Her eyes were saying, “Welcome home. You look fantastic.” I wanted to have some coffee and tell her about Florida, but her legs don’t bend and she can’t handle liquids of any kind. So I settled for Subway and the weather channel meteorologist.

I feel like a stranger in my own life. Especially when I am in Wal-mart or Barnes & Nobles and get caught up in produce or magazines and walk out expecting to see Jefferson Point, but instead see the New Orleans skyline. I typically gulp and wimper and suck it up. But it is an awful 2 seconds during the realization.

Earlier today, I went to the uptown campus to find out about the job (the lady was gone) and must have arrived right at the beginning of welcome weekend or something. There were a million undergrads everywhere all fresh-faced and cute and hopeful. There were parents and little brothers and looks on their faces like, “This is my best friend, Sue. I just met her 5 minutes ago.”

I could have cried remembering that feeling—although my family never actually moved me in, it was the Broadheads—but seeing Elaine and Sprinky on that first day and thinking I was going to die when I got a load of Sprinky’s blues clues bedset. Hello? Blues Clues! Then making instant best friends with everyone, and switching friends, like, every 3 weeks until we found our places. I just loved it. Even things like Cara threatening to rip out people’s ovaries for being too loud in the lounge. Even that. And Jill tearing my shirt, and Sprinky killing Jill’s hermit crab, and Elaine saying inappropriate things to Millenium Bear in her sleep, and all of us making Helen pee her pants in the middle of the night; stealing all the shower curtains, Crazy Lena firing me in my sleep. Honestly, I could go on for 4 years.

This afternoon, already reduced to conversing with my navigation device and a cardboard cut-out of SJP due to lack of readily available friends, I couldn’t help but feel unbelievably jealous and nostalgic for my college friends and the intimacy of life together—literally, next door from each other. Now I am just a way older version. With less fun. And less energy. And less metabolism. And less friends. Boo.

My good friend said I am good at collecting people and that I’ll have plenty soon.
I said I USED to be good at it, but that I didn’t think it was my thing anymore.
She said it’s who I am.
I told her I was too worn out for social awareness. Those types of things take a lot of emotional energy and motivation, which I had in abundance at 19.
At 27, I feel very comfortable settling for 25 Oreos and America’s Next Top Model at home by myself.

Us as freshmen- you guys will love this:

Hausser

Me, Chuck, Steph, Beth, Trish

Making Koolaid

Finding moldy koolaid (we thought we had created a jellyfish)

Bball- I miss this! Team sports are the best.

Bethany (the person and the dorm :)

Valentine's Day- I actually got called off this shirt

Millenium bear- the giant stuffed bear my grandma sent me for Christmas. Not quite how she envisioned us using it…

Family weekend

Twister in Bethany lounge

Sprinky and the Bethany lounge mantel

Miss you guys.
Love you guys.
(This whole college thing just isn’t the same without you.)

Did someone say Olympics?

2008-08-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is my mom and my aunt. They are in their 49s and 50s. No one told them to do this, I was just trying to show them a few good ab exercises. Next thing I knew, they were synchronized-swimming and saying things like, "Look, a torpedo!" and shooting noodles out from underneath them. Leave it to them to turn my Bella-Ka-Brookia coaching into horseplay. I was trying to make a life for us. This is why I no longer coach girls. My brothers used to work hard when I pretended to coach them in Russian at the hotel pool.

Olympic baseball

Olympic volleyball

Olympic weightlifting

Olympic, um, birdwatching?

Olympic syncrhonized swimming

Reflexes like a drunk cat

2008-08-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

I feel like someone balled me up and tossed me into New Orleans over their shoulder with their eyes closed, and I landed on my feet, but then 10 seconds later fell over and broke both ankles and dislocated my knees and maybe, like, both wrists or something. Then 5 cars ran over me and I fell down a manhole, floated around and flew back to my apartment on a geyser.

The point is, I have an apartment now. Here is the order of events:

1. Arrived at Grad school dorm
2. Tried key to apartment 322A
3. Key didn’t work
4. Moved things into storage closet
5. Manager unlocked door
6. Moved things to 322A
7. Air conditioner froze, then melted, then molded
8. Moved things into temporary apartment 204
9. Waited in temporary apartment for 3 nights
10. Room was ready
11. Room was not ready
12. Went back to temporary apartment for one more night
13. Room was ready
14. Moved into new room
15. Discovered out old room was fine, they had meant to send me to 722A not 322A

Here is my new apartment:

My original room had a view of the skyline, but that room was accidentally given away when they assigned me to the first wrong room. The new room, and I’m not complaining, I’m just saying, has a view of the hospital. I am not used to being so close to other people who can see me 24/7 and I am constantly forgetting to close the bathroom door. I step out of the shower to see 4 IV drips and a nurse. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve screamed and slammed the door. Yes, it’s totally embarrassing and totally true.

Along the same lines, I had an entire list of stops to make at the uptown campus today and walked around for like 4 hours from the Accounts Receivable, which is in the middle, to the Uptown parking department, which is at one end, to the Registrars, which is on the opposite end, to Financial Aid, which is back to the middle, to the Bookstore (where I got a job!) to Student Employment to the food court. Here is where it gets great.

I bought a coke and some fruit. Yes, I said fruit. It’s a new thing I’m trying. I took the full cup of coke into the bathroom and set it on the toilet paper dispenser while I hooked my bag to that little hook. Then I turned around and accidentally knocked the coke over. It just seeped out from underneath my stall toward the drain in the middle of the bathroom. People walked in, stopped, looked at the drain, looked at my feet, and walked out. You can be sure I did not make any new friends today.

But I did get a job, which is important, and I did get a refill on my coke. I also discovered an Aveda salon in the main commons area outside the food court and was thrilled. Also there was a Fedex.

My hair stayed straight all day and I have started adjusting to the heat- I have even been wearing jeans and shirts with sleeves on them, if you can imagine. I am finding new ways to get the same places, and I have learned how to drive without getting hit by streetcars. The crazy thing is that you can never turn left. Instead, you have to do all these unnecessary u-turns. Navi would just love it here!

Sprinky and I found two great breakfast nooks with fantastic pecan waffles, a French bakery & Café (that one is for you, Elaine), two dessert places, two pizza places and two Mexican places. We were also driving down Tchoupitoulas minding our own business when Sprinky said, Giraffes. I looked up and out of the blue, across the street from residential houses, was a bunch of giraffes eating off the trees. I guess the zoo keeps them there…

I also went to get my ID on the downtown campus and made for the skybridge, when, thankfully (although I think I would have figured this out on my own eventually) they told me that the skybridges connecting one of the 5 buildings collapsed during Katrina, and not to use it.

Well. I guess it had.

SJP is doing fine, thank you. She keeps telling me how fanTAStic everything is. I love that in a cardboard friend.

Sprinky, on the other hand, left today at 7am. When she left, it occourred to me for two panicky hours that I was by myself here. What would do if my car broke down or if a semi ran over me or if I stabbed my toe on a parking lot spike or ran into the bleachers during a basketball game? Things like that ALWAYS happen to me, and who would I call? It was a scary, lonely feeling.

(Pam- you are my closest relative. That means you’re on standby!)

I was thinking today- even though it seems a tiny bit backwards- that I feel like Belize prepared me for this. I have already jumped head-first into an entirely new place without a friend in sight, have even caught parasites and been in third world hospitals and came out just fine.

Welp. That’s it. Tomorrow I am driving to Destin to visit the grampies. When I get back, I start working in the bookstore, which means 35% off clothes and books!

Brooke Goes to the City

2008-08-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

All right, you guys. After 36 hours in New Orleans, here are the current stats:

Apartment- 1
Brooke- 0

Hair- 1
Brooke- 0

Heat- 1
Brooke- 0

Streetcar- 0
Brooke- 1

Navigating- 0
Brooke- 1

As you can see, the city is winning by about 1.

We arrived yesterday (Saturday) at 10:30 in the morning. When I first saw the skyline from I-10, I went back and forth between hyperventilation and something like optimism, only less optimistic. There might have been just a few seconds of excitement, but I was trying to regulate the breathing.

I checked into the apartment building, got my key, and ran (literally) around the entire third floor until I found my room. I smiled and clapped and jumped and then took a deep breath and tried to turn the key. The key wouldn’t turn.

I tried the next door and the next door, and then I made Sprinky try. We tried about 16 more times before I went back down and told the desk lady. Of course the desk lady had to come up and try herself. She did the same thing I did—put her ear against the surrounding doors and tried them all for good measure. Then she shrugged and said the manager was gone until Monday. She also said the on-call person, who has the master key, was off. I was wondering how an on-call person could be off, since that’s sort of the point of being on-call, but whatev. There was no key. She told me that someone would be back at 4 and could let me into a temporary apartment until they could get a locksmith out on Monday to open the right one.

If you know me, you know this sort of thing is always happening to me. You can be sure it gets worse.

Since my dad had to get back to Indy, we had no choice but to unload the cars—right there in the lobby. I was immediately extra self-conscious of every single personal belonging, like the little miniature lamp that I thought was so cute until I saw my dad carrying it through the reception area, also the magazine rack. And the crate of mismatched pots and pans. I didn’t see anyone else bringing in pots or pans. As a matter of fact, I didn’t see anyone with anything. Everyone I saw showed up with about 4 giant duffle bags. And here I am carrying in photo albums and little square wicker baskets and three tubs of hair products. Don’t even get me started on the 7-foot cardboard cut-out of Sarah Jessica Parker.

The desk lady opened a storage closet for us to “store our luggage”. I think she got mad when I started carrying in things like TVs and clothes. But what could we do? My first home in NOLA was a storage closet.

Once everything was in, we killed 5 hours in the heat of midday with shrimp that set my mouth on fire and beer. We also saw the giant oil spill, walked up and down the river and Decatur street, went to the uptown campus and garden district. But it was about a thousand degrees by three o’clock and we couldn’t take it anymore. We went back to the dorm to sit against the wall in the reception area are stare at the lady so she wouldn’t forget to call for my temporary room. Our luck, the desk lady said the manager had come back with the real key.

Cleaning up the oil spill

Firey cajun shrimps

We brought two loads of stuff up to the 3rd floor. The manager unlocked the apartment, which turned out to be a teeny little studio, and found that the air conditioner had frozen and then melted and then molded all over the floor. She said they would have to clean it over the weekend and I could check back Monday. She said for $50 more I could have a one-bedroom, but she couldn’t guarantee a good view. I asked if I could have it right then. She told me to come to the office on Monday.

Cripes.

The manager eventually let us in to a two-bedroom apartment for the weekend. At this point, my dad was at the bottom floor with everything in the storage closet, Sprinky was on the third floor with the stuff sitting outside the bad apartment, and Kathy was with everything else in the new temporary apartment on the second floor. All of us were running back and forth between the three floors trying to move things and keep an eye on them at the same time.

My second home in NOLA

In the chaos, my dad and Sprinky met a girl sitting in the lobby waiting for her room, and guess where she was from? No, really, guess. Just try. Okay I’ll tell you. Fort Wayne! When they came upstairs and told me, I went back down to meet her, and from the 30 seconds we talked, I decided she was everything I wanted in a first friend. But I was too shy to ask for her room number. Plus, she didn’t have a room yet. These types of things are so awkward. Next time.

My dad left around dinner time, and Sprinky and I, too tired to find food, shared a bag of kettle corn and granola bars and watched cable until we fell asleep.

Today we woke up early with a list of things to explore and find. On the top of the list was Target, Starbucks and Taco Bell. On the bottom of the list were just boring old things like the Social Work buildings and Finaincial Aid offices.

I also really wanted to figure out streetcars. You’d think it would be easy—just pick what direction you want to go and sit in the little hut till it gets there. But no. Three streetcars passed us by until a lady selling swamp tours across the street finally told me that when you see it coming, you have to go to the other side and stand next to these little white spray painted numbers, and then they’ll stop. What the? I spread the word all day and tourists thanked me like I was a local. I told them I just moved here yesterday. Turns out, streetcars have been declared moving national historic landmarks and have been running along St. Charles Avenue for over 165 years.

Thank GOD everywhere else I went people were friendly. One lady at a tour guide hut told me everything I needed to know, and you better believe the next time I need to figure anything out I’m going straight back to her little hut.

Once she found out my situation and how city dumb I was, she opened a map with pride and told me where to go, what to see, where not to go, where the projects are, where the good jazz is, where to catch the street cars, where the routes ended, etc.

She told us that Canal Street is the middle of city and that all the streets change names there because one side used to be a Creole neighborhood, and the other used to be a French neighborhood or something. So the street numbers all start at 0 and fan out on either side.

She also told us not to wait in line at Café du Monde, but to slip around to the other side and seat ourselves. She said most people don’t know there is a second entrance and that tables are first come, first serve. Sprinky and I walked past a line that would have take 30 minutes and sat right down. It was local-riffic.

After the delicious beignets, we caught the St. Charles car to the uptown campus and found all the Social Work buildings and the bookstore (which is a Barnes and Nobles!) and, most importantly, the food court. We cooled off in the cafeteria louge, which had freestanding water walls and a marble bathroom. It was such a stark difference from Taylor, I took pictures. People laughed at me. And by people, I mean Sprinky.

We walked forEVER around that campus and toured the rec center, the park and the pool, located a Starbucks, a future Borders and a Whole Foods, and then went up to Metiarie and discovered New Orleans’ little Castelton. There were two malls, bookstores, and all my favorite fast food joints. Plus—here’s the kicker—I did it all without my trusty Navigon. I left poor little Navi in my dad’s car, which, but the time I realized it, was already in Birmingham. This week was the sole reason I purchased Navi—to help navigate my way around the city. I was stuck using old-fashioned maps and internet. Obviously we found our way…

Right to Target! The biggest best Target ever, with 22 rows of clearance racks in the Women’s section alone. Did you hear me? Twenty-TWO clearance racks. Plus, wait for it...wait for it…an escalator with a cart rack in the middle! I felt like I was in my own children’s book called Brooke Goes to the City.

Tomorrow I should (hopefully) get my real apartment and my ID.
Tuesday, who knows.
Wednesday, Sprinky leaves ☹.

From the road...

2008-08-02T06:18:00.000-07:00

Pour some sugar on Sprinky, anyone?

The Hattiesburg Applebees singers:

Onward!

Over and Out

2008-07-31T20:26:00.000-07:00

The cars are loaded.

My things and Sarah Jessica are packed.

I have a nice coupon for McDonalds coffee in the morning.

See you in the central time zone.

reduced

2008-07-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

After 5 days of reducing.

Plus 9 months of moving.

Everything I own in the world:

Over and Out

2008-07-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

I moved out of Fort Wayne today.

By and far the best good-bye gift I received:
A life size 7ft cardboard cutout of Sarah Jessica Parker from Sofia.

She will be my first and only friend in New Orleans and will hang out with me in my living room at night or while I am brushing my teeth in the morning. We had a long talk on my way to Indy about how much things are about to change for us.

About New Orleans. I have gotten into this awful habit of checking all the crime alerts on campus by the hour. It has been integrated into my daily routine: check e-mail, check facebook, check crime alerts. Statistically, I’m sure to get shot, mugged, carjacked or burglarized within the first ten minutes.

People have encouraged me to take a self-defense class. The thing is, self-defense classes are in the recreation center, which is far away, which means I’ll have to drive. I am most concerned about getting from cars to buildings and back into cars. I will be doing it as little as possible, and most often with hand-held shrubbery to disguise me as I scurry between buildings. This makes something as dangerous as a self-defense class more risky than helpful since it will involve a parking lot and all. I mean, how would I get from my car to the building, or from the building to my car? Especially if the class is after 6pm or something?

A person has to think about these things.

Also, the fact that there is no Taco Bell in the city. My diet consists of mostly fast food and $3 champagne. While local fried food is available, I am worried about the effect this lack of Taco Bell will have on my body. Don’t even get me started on the prospect of having to introduce fruits and vegetables at some point. I don’t want to overwhelm myself.

Happenings of note.

I had to drink Sprite out of a bowl this week because there were no other dishes.

Saturday we had birthday mimosas at Spyros—our favorite breakfast joint. BYOCAOJ- Bring your own champagne and orange juice. Classy.

(Elaine’s) Birthday cake at Casa’s

Spending some quality birthday time together

And, as any good birthday party would have, a crazy Sprinky—on the left:

Favorite goodbye party moments of yore:

The box of sweaters in the closet that let me know I was definitely home at my dad’s

fw

2008-07-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

Good morning, fort wayne.
We only have a few more days together.
Maybe that’s why you’ve kept me up…

Three months ago:

Tonight:

You've held me well.

I'll miss you.

20 hours of alone time

2008-07-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Hi, I’m Brooke.
I used to live a relatively stress free life with lots of fun and a part-time job and no kids.

Then last week hit, and I had this epic adventure where the conflict was not, like, dragons or slaying or finding love, but babysitting a ten-year-old whose mom was flying standby and kept getting bumped and bumped and bumped for days.

My little miniature obstacles were things like death defying field trips to the Eagle Marsh—which is a never ending expanse of grassland with pockets of deep mud and murky water along the 102 exit on I69—dragging along a troupe of 7-year-olds in the 90 degree heat behind Miss Nancy, the Ultimate Journey lady, who loves this type of thing. Miss Nancy forged the way, while I jumped around because a spiky caterpillar was on my shirt and a mouse ran over my shoe. The kids were poking along saying things like: I hate this field trip. I want to go home. I’m hot.

I should have said something like, “Well, sugar, it’s almost over. We’ll get a nice long drink. Just keep going. One more step.” But instead, I was like, “I know. I hate this field trip too. How about if one of you guys pretends to faint?”

Then there was the Old Fort—which might seem like a fun trip, but it was with that same poor group of 7 year-olds who I had to beg and bribe and convince to come, with the promise of playing in the Headwaters Fountains at the end. Of course that day the Fountains were closed, and all heard was: I hate this field trip. I want to go home. I’m hot.

You can be sure that anytime I show up with the van these days, kids run screaming and crying from the club.

And, finally, there was the zoo—wherein a bird shit on my head. I had to take all the girls with me to the bathroom to wash my hair. I kept saying over and over that I was going to sue the zoo, which I thought was hilarious (get it? Sue the zoo—it rhymes). I just kept laughing and saying it and laughing and saying it, and none of the girls were laughing, which was so strange seeing as how I am so hilarious, but then I turned around. A zoo lady was behind me waiting to wash her hands. I had to tell her that I wasn’t really going to sue the zoo, but that it just rhymed and all.

Other hardships included occupying the 10 year-old while trying to video conference a Belize meeting in Indianapolis from a coffee shop in Fort Wayne, fighting the dog-and-cat-allergies in a dog-and-cat-house, plus an extra high mold and ragweed count, and warding off an especially annoying encore of shingles, which felt—and this was horrifying for me—like spiders were crawling across my stomach at all times. We also had to defend ourselves against the bathtub in my apartment. Apparently, you have to clean those things. Poor Elaine came to visit and was forced to stand on a tiny little washcloth in the shower so that the tub didn’t eat her alive.

I usually keep a clean apartment. And by usually, I mean 40% clean, 40% of the time. But this month—well, this summer—has been unusually filthy thanks to the chaos of moving. It took $25 worth of cleaning materials and an hour-and-a-half of hardcore scrubbing to get this tiny little bathroom sparkly—the magic eraser shower and tub cleaner gets a gold star.

I gave the ten-year-old a $10 bill and a dairy queen blizzard for her bravery in the face of black mold, and we both learned a lesson. Her lesson, she said, is never to let her bathroom get like this when she goes to college. God bless her for still thinking I am in college. My lesson is that all of us are just too old and too messy to be living together. No one wants to clean up anyone else’s anything. I guess marriage is out.

Finally, the height of action here- the beginning of the end- was running a red light at State and Coliseum ten seconds after finding out the kids’s mom wasn’t coming home for another 36 hours.

It was one of those miserable moments where I just thought I could not possibly handle one more thing. The lane next to me had a green arrow, which I mistook for a green light and pulled out. I realized in the middle of the intersection that I was the only one going.

I stopped cold and held my hand out to the scared old man and lady in the turn lane and mouthed, “I’M SORRY. I’M REALLY SORRY!” Then I looked around, totally embarrassed, and crept through the intersection to the other side where I could pull over. Immediately two police tried to pull me over. But I was already pulled over. Fort Wayne cops are just like that.

I tried not to cry, but I really believed that I might die of babysitting and sinus pressure. I didn’t have any money left to feed me or the 10 year-old dinner, and everything else I was stressed about somehow made its way to the rim of my eyes and I just laid my head on the steering wheel and looked at Elaine.
“Don’t do it,” she said. “Be strong.”
I quivered and sniffled and swallowed hard.

After taking my license and registration to the squad car, the police lady came back to my window and said. “Are you stressed out?”
I said, “Yeah.”
She held my license and registration behind her back and said, “Why?”
Elaine gave me the eye and I didn’t want to scare the kid.

I said in my best strong and shaky voice, “Um, well, it’s just been a long day.”
“I’m going to give you a verbal warning for this,” she said. “You have an excellent driving record.”

Thank God.

I gave the kid back on Monday at midnight, then had another 12 kids plus the original one all day yesterday at the zoo. One kid accidentally rammed his foot-high soft serve ice cream cone into my elbow.

Today I called in and was like, you guys? I’m taking the day off. I need about 20 hours of alone time, some coffee and a nap.

It has been a spectacular 20 hours.

Car accident day

2008-07-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

I was driving to work today and remembered it was July 9th— car accident day. Yesterday I forgot all about it, which is so typical, and didn’t remember until I was sitting at the light on Fairfield and Taylor today, on my way to the BGC. I looked at the clock and it was 10:15. Automatically I thought—wow, they would have still been cutting me out of the car. I was irritated in my memory that they hadn’t hurried it up already.

I texted Sprinky and said, “Do you know what today is?”
She texted back, “What?”
I said, “Car accident day.”
And she said, “Oh yeah. Glad you are alive ☺”

I was glad too.
I was also really glad that I was not one of those emotional people who freak out over things like “anniversaries” or “flashbacks” and that I didn’t feel the need to call in to work or speak with anyone about it, that I was a triumphant, resilient enough person to just drive to work and say, “Oh yeah. That old accident,” and then flip the radio station.

But then, without my permission, Sprinky’s face popped into my head and I remembered her expression when she walked into the ER. I remembered trying to lift my head to tell her I was okay, but being held down by the neckbrace and the Velcro on the backboard. I remembered tears pouring out, and the BGC staff standing around the corner behind the curtain. I remembered the guy pacing outside my car window calling everyone in my phone book, pulling at his hair and saying: fuckareyouokayshit!fuckdon’tmoveshit! And I remembered those terrifying seconds between when the guy hit me and when the wheel of the semi came through my window. I remembered that panicky feeling of knowing I was going to die right there and that no one would even find out for, like, two hours. I remembered how scared I was after it all stopped and I was waiting for help to arrive.

The terror of that day—of 10:15 four years ago—clamped onto me, and before I knew it I was sobbing through the intersection—like, not a pretty little reasonable cry, but hiccupping and wailing and dry heaving, the kind where people in the car next to you mouth: are you okay? And you nod and then wipe your nose on your work shirt and breath in another staggery little cry.

When I got to the club one second later, I sat there for a minute and called my dad (who was unavailable), sat there some more, breathed into a paper sac, wiped my face and went inside. I felt like I could pull it together. Then someone went and said “hello” to me. I lost it all over again and that caused a mild panic for the administrative staff, because they had never seen me act like this.

They tried to send me home, but I told them that I could not afford to go home, because my friends could not pay me twelve dollars an hour to sit at home and console me. And then I told them, crying like a crazy person, “And I’m taking the kids swimming today. I love swimming.”

I think they were telepathically transmitting the number to Parkview Behavioral between them, but they offered nicely to work something else out so I could take some time if I needed to. They even said I could just leave and come back in a few hours.

Instead I told them (like any girl who knows her psyche) if they could just give me some good gossip, I think I could get my mind off it and I’d be fine.

They told me something juicy. Sure enough, that did the trick. An hour later we were discussing the van schedule and I didn’t shed another tear all day.

I ended up meeting Sprinky for lunch at the little downtown Starbucks, though, and after a few conversations about California and work and the price of gas—with a few random interjections like, “Then I got so scared when they started cutting the car” followed by, “Do you know how many calories are in this?” normal breathing was restored.

The experience itself seems so lonely, probably because I was the only one in the car and the other guy died. All I can do is try to explain it, which is never as satisfying as I think it's gonna be. But lunch was great, and at closing time today when all was said and done, I felt like patting myself on the back and saying, as if I were 27 and 4 at the same time, “Yeah, that was scary. But it’s over. Let’s just go home.”

Tap dancing in the cafeteria

2008-07-08T19:09:00.001-07:00

Behold the funny, followed by the crazy.

This is a video of the Fort Wayne Ballet doing some tap lessons with a group of our kids in the cafeteria. Note the big guy in the plaid shorts pointing his foot just so.

Hil-air.

Today I went to the McCormick site to collect some pre-tests and attendance records, and here is an account of everything that followed:

The radio announced a severe thunderstorm warning for Allen county.

I got out of the car and walked toward the club, but was momentarily distracted by the dark swirly clouds above me. Also, a witch on a bicycle in the sky. I think I have a sixth sense about these things.

The electricity went out in the club.

The plumber arrived to fix the overflowing toilet on the first floor.

Tornado sirens went off.

Parents came running for their kids.

We stuffed 35 kids into one hallway the size of a bathtub.

The executive director arrived to give a tour with the housing director and a potential donor.

At this point, Ken was standing on a chair in the bathroom shining a flashlight onto the plumber, and the kids and I were stuffed like sardines into the stairwell trying to figure out whether or not the tornado warning had expired.

The director didn’t even know there was a tornado. I can only imagine her internal dialogue.

After two hours with no electricity or air circulation, the entire club smelled like an overflowing toilet and dirty kids. We had to close early.

It took me 40 minutes to get back to the Fairfield site, because all the roads looked like this:

It’s a floating Cadillac.

An Independence Day miracle

2008-07-05T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sprinky said she woke up last night and I was singing "Proud to be an American" in my sleep.

I for one love America.

Berny hotfingers

2008-07-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

While I was in Belize, my greedy little brother pawned all my books.

I didn’t discover the books missing until an hour before my dad’s wedding, which is just like him. He had been MIA for at least a month and had shown up the day of the wedding to get his clothes from the apartment. My dad had changed the locks that morning, and Brandon all but jumped out of the bushes as soon as we pulled up. He smiled a sparkly smile, raved abut his great new job at the pet store, threw his clothes into a trash bag, gave me a hug, and promised he’d stay in touch.

Twenty minutes later, I found my empty book box. I stomped around the apartment screaming about what an idiot he was and how I’d throw him out a two-story window if I ever saw him again. My dad thought I was overreacting until he went to get his camera, which was also missing. It was the camera we bought my dad for Father’s Day—and by “we” I mean “me” since I paid both Ben and Brandon’s share. So, to recap: he stole my books, and then he stole the camera he himself gifted, at my expense.

Had he shown up for the wedding, he would have been uninvited. But that’s what makes him so frustrating. He is so unreliable you can’t even exclude him.

He finally called me about a week ago under the guise of “I heard you had shingles, how are you feeling?” which turned out, in the end, to be “I need a bed can I have yours?”

I told him I was feeling fine, except that I was broke and had to depend on the free clinic to treat my shingles since I have no money and can’t even pawn my own books for prescription drugs. Then I threw in something about food stamps just to make him feel guilty, and ten minutes later I was fielding calls from various family members alarmed about the food stamps.

“Are you on food stamps?”
“No, who told you that?”
“Brandon.”
“You talked to Brandon? Did he call you or did you call him?”
“He called me.”
“To tell you I was on food stamps?”
“Well, no. He said he was trying to buy dad’s furniture but that you might need the money more than dad. Do you need money?”
“No.”
“Do you need groceries?”
“No. I’m not even on food stamps. I was just trying to make a point.”

“Berny.”
“What?
“Did you tell mom I was on food stamps?”
“Yeah, because she said you might be selling your couches, and I thought you would need the money for groceries. And I need some couches. And a bed.”
“Brandon! I don’t need groceries. I’m not selling my bed. You can’t afford my couches. I just want my books!”

Do you know what he said next? He said, “Brooke. I left your yearbooks.”

As if all other books are merely ornamental.

As if he were a classy enough pawner to leave the things of real value.

As if I am not a smart enough sister to understand the translation: “Brooke. The bookstore didn’t want your yearbooks.”

For the record, the bookstore did not keep a record of books bought. There is no list of books sold. If I want my books back, I have to manually go through the shelves and pick out the ones I think might be mine and then re-buy them. Re-buy them. Hundreds of books. He managed to get my dad’s camera back, though. He originally used it to take out a loan at the pawnshop and then paid the loan and reclaimed the camera. But books? You should see the way they look at me when I whine about the books. Come on, Brooke. It’s not like they’re yearbooks.

Well. Today I bought three books. Now I am the proud owner of three books and 4 yearbooks. If you would like to give me a parting gift for grad school, please buy me a book.

Unrelated: I have a bookshelf for sale

Fun with BGC kids

2008-07-02T20:04:00.000-07:00

I really am trying to get back into the habit of posting consistently. By trying, I mean definitely thinking it in my head and sometimes making post-its. For now, you'll just have to settle for some summer highlights with the BGC kids.

The first is a video I caught of the McCormick kids singing in the van. Note, especially the enthusiastic singer in the lower right corner, and the girl who just ignores us in the lower left corner.

Next is a series of pictures from the penny pitch carwash we did with WOWO- thats, AM radio, if you didn't know. Ronnica and I were the only ones who showed up at 7am:

Here is how we spent most of the morning.
So... are there supposed to be cars to wash or something? Anybody want to donate to the boys and girls club? Anyone?

Our local celebrity

By 9am, we made $170 and 2 boxes of donuts.

The next is a series of Ronnica dancing for the carwash guys in the name of the BGC

And me attempting the same moves, not permitted to be in any way associated with BGC or Ronnica, who had a crush on Andy, the carwash guy

The next two are Girls Weekend Out with Janelle...

And my personal favorite: BLAZES OF GLORY- win or die trying.

I love these guys. I love this place. It will be a sad day for me in three weeks, the closing to a decade-long chapter here. Boys and Girls clubs, you're my heart.

stirrups doctor indonesia me

2008-06-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

I have this little thing on my page that keeps track of page referrals.

The following is a list of actual google searches that directed poor, searching (apparently ill) people to this page:

immunization clinic
life changing moments in paris
can we feel parasites
homecoming
lifechanging unemployment stories
shingles versus scabies
blood in stool turned out okay
in 19th week the baby moments feel continuously
amoeba parasite antibiotic

stirrups doctor indonesia me
avelut engagement
laws of avelut for shabbat

I'm happy to know my words are out there as a resource for immunization-seeking, parasitic, shingly OR scabie ridden people who have blood in their stool but want it to turn out okay, for those seeking life-changing moments in either Paris or unemployment, for pregnant women in 19th week, and also for the Jewish.

Thank you for keeping this page active. I salute you and wish you the best of health.

No clothes = no Ribfest

2008-06-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

If you are one of the tens of people who use google reader, you might get 35 new post notifications from me. I am transferring old blogs from other websites into blogspot.

What else am i supposed to do on a Friday night with the shings? At 3:30 today, I could no longer stand to wear clothes. There went Ribfest.

If Jesus had shingles, the ASK clinic would help.

2008-06-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

Why I am 65 on the inside:

1. I have gray hair
2. My knees hurt when cold front comes through
3. I have shingles

Let’s start with the shingles.
Leave it to me to get a disease for 60-year-olds during the two months of my life I don’t have insurance. Years down the road, this will be the dialogue between me and my potential clients:

“Do you have health insurance?”
“No, I can’t afford it”
“I think you should consider it. When I didn’t have insurance, I stabbed my foot with a parking lot spike and got shingles.”

In 2058, it will be an urban-health-insurance-myth: remember the girl who stabbed her foot and got shingles?

Here’s the thing, I had the stupid disease for almost two weeks before I even knew what was going on. I washed our clothes and sheets and couch covers in scalding hot water, because I thought we had some kind of a bug issue. I even walked around the B&G Club asking, “I’m sorry, I know this is weird, but do you guys have scabies?” I showed them the rash. No one had scabies. (I have this weird irrational fear of scabies.)

I covered it cortisone cream, and then in 3.7% benzyl peroxide face cream for good measure.

In the meantime, I started having all these kidney pains and rib pains and stomach pains, and thought I had jabbed myself too many times with the millions of boxes I moved this weekend out of my apartment into my dad’s. So I JUST KEPT HEAVY LIFTING, thinking I was just toning my rib muscles. My rib muscles, I tell you.

When I finally bared my torso and heard the word “shingles”, I gasped and then mentally ran through my will. I would die fighting, at least.

Kathy (my dad’s wife and a nurse) explained that it was neither life-threatening nor contagious, which was excellent considering I spent the weekend with my 2-month old niece and didn’t want to die—or end up like Dave letterman, who was MIA for three months with shingles. But apparently the pain only gets worse the longer a person waits to get medical attention, and I had already waited two weeks. They said I needed anti-virals and pain meds, like ASAP.

Enter: no health insurance. You remember my last experience with the free clinic, right?

I had no choice but to get up at 6 am on Tuesday morning, drive down to the free clinic and sit on the curb, in line, until the doors opened at 8:30. I was 7th on the list, and I waited for 4 hours. I wish I’d thought to bring a notepad to write down all the crazy conversations I heard at sunrise on the curb outside of the ASK clinic—as in Ask, and you shall receive…

But I have to say, wholeheartedly, the clinic ministered to me today.

I barely have an income, and I am in that two-month time period between the last thing and the next one. Every other clinic I’ve been to—and I’ve been to three—required proof of address, paycheck stubs, and a payment percentage. Once I paid $150 for vaccination, and once I paid $35. I was grateful both times. But I was seen by sketchy people and treated like the 75th person they’d seen that day who took advantage of the system and was just not worth the time and effort it took to provide the discounted service in the first place.

Today, the workers were kind and efficient, even the sign-in lady. Even the lady who walked up at 8:30 and unlocked the door for the mass of ill or injured people who were crazy for their meds or drooping on the curb with blasted shingles. She walked up and said, how is everyone today? I thought things might be okay right then.

The doctor turned out to be an actual, true doctor—albeit an 85 yr old one. I waited for 4 hours because he spent, like, 30 minutes with the guy in front of me who had a knee problem, and another twenty minutes with a lady who was afraid to get a mammogram, and the Indian family in front of them who were working with a translator, and the family before them who spoke only Spanish. Plus, he walked slowly.

But they cut the patient list off at 25 (from what I could gather) to adequately serve those who had already arrived, and made an effort to not over-promise and under-serve.

In the end, they never asked why I couldn’t pay. They did not require proof that I couldn’t pay. It was an interesting social-service concept: if someone says they need something and you have the means, give it to them. There were no hoops. Proof was not necessary. I was sick, so they helped.

They treated me like I was actually Jesus.

I was seen by the doctor and then sent downstairs for meds, and I received everything for free. FREE! Two hundred dollars worth of prescription meds were provided and filled by volunteer pharmacists, and I was seen and diagnosed by a volunteer doctor who greeted me with a smile and asked how my day was going. Can you believe it?

I love the ASK clinic.
I love that there are organizations giving service a good name to the actual client instead of just the donors.
And I love that there are people out there who treat other people like Jesus.
I hate the shingles. It feels like someone is continually stabbing me in the back and then setting my stomach on fire.

Nobody worry. I know First Aid.

2008-05-31T12:10:00.000-07:00

Dear six readers, I try to keep this space creative.
I don’t live in Belize anymore, though, I’m not traveling in Europe or responding to hurricanes, and I won’t be in NOLA until August. Right now I am doing things like working, and attending parents weddings and stepping on parking lot spikes and getting soaked in downpours and flash-floods. So those things, for now, are the spirit of this space. Sorry.

NOLA
Where to even begin…
We made this death-defying trip in 3 days, leaving at midnight after my dad’s wedding on Friday and returning at midnight on Monday. We saw my dorm, worked our way around the city, visited the uptown campus, took pictures of streetcars, walked the Riverwalk, took a spin on the Free Ferry, toured the French Quarter, painted for peace, drove down Magazine & St. Charles street, ate beignets and chickory coffee, stuffed our faces with Jambalaya, shrimp and dollar Daiquiris, walked Bourbon street, listened to some Jazz, found a “place” and, most importantly, found the two-story target and snuck into the Marriott rooftop pool.

On the first day, I flipped out and wanted to go home. This is what I do—it happened in Belize and it happened in Europe. I just need a warm-up act before the real thing, and then I’m fine. These were my issues: a free clinic is outside my dorm, which is connected to the Tulane Hospital. Imagine the demographic that hangs out on the street corner. Second, me as a minority. I just had never really considered it. Third, where I will live is in the exact middle of the dot on the map that says New Orleans. There is no escape. I live downtown, downtown, New Orleans. I felt so small, and the city felt impossibly large. Also, the temperature was in the lower thousands. But I’m okay with that—I like it hot.

In the end, I embraced the joys of living one block from Canal Street, four blocks from the Riverwalk, one block over and four blocks up from the French Quarter and the realization that there are no open container laws. Once I figured it all out, it didn’t seem so huge, and the dorm felt sort of cozy. I fell in love with the uptown campus, located the Social Work building and found some apartments for next June.

I am ready. I am optimistic. I am braced for Hurricane season—and crossing my fingers for both my beloved Belize and my new home in NOLA. (God please let the school still be there in August…) The next hurdle is getting the school to excuse me for two weeks in November to check in on my little Belizey with CFI.

Apartamento

They look good in this hallway, I think they should stay...

View from window- Tulane Hospital & Skybridge

Terrace

Uptown Campus

Canal Street

Jackson Square

Delicious Eats

French Quarter- Painting for Peace

Riverwalk & Ferry

I have to mention one more thing.
On our last night in NOLA, you know those little parking lot spikes that stick up so people can’t back up or go out the wrong entrance? I tripped on one. I couldn’t even look at it for a sec, because I was sure my toe was crooked or hanging off—but then it started bleeding profusely, and I started secretly flipping out inside, and it wasn’t until I sat down with some helpful passersby that I remembered I don’t even have insurance and couldn’t even get stitches.

My nice friends poured bottled water all over my foot and the helpful passersby, who happened to be a trainer, splinted my foot with Kleenex and rubber bands—straight out of his wife’s hair. Then we hobbled across the street to Walgreen’s to buy some first aid supplies—antiseptic, Band-Aids and gauze—and a slider sandal (they only had Youth size L) and walked off without my Credit Card, which I had to cancel the next day. If you know me, you’re rolling your eyes by now, because this sort of thing is always happening to me.

My stupid toe is broken and needed about 3 stitches and a splint. But no insurance means it only got gauze, Band-Aids and Neosporin. The experience wouldn’t be complete without a picture sequence.

The blasted spikes

(Look away)

Nobody worry. I know first aid.

Dad’s Wedding
Boogie Oogie Oogie! This is one of the best weddings I’ve been a part of. Lot’s of dancing and delicious drinks. My dad is happy, and so are we.

Link to wedding pictures: here

SATC
Loved it. Title aside, the heart of this story has always been friendship, and the heart of the movie is forgiveness. More than sex or shoes, Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte put each other first. Episodes like the one where Miranda's mom dies and Carrie jumps into the aisle with her and Samantha mouths "I'm sorry" or the one after Carrie’s birthday mess where Charlotte says, “What if we were each other's soul mates? Then men could just be these great guys to have fun with” have me cross-legged on the couch up to my neck in Kleenex.
In this movie, they take care of each other. It’s beautiful. That’s all I’m gonna say.

(That, and I braved a downpour and flash-flood to be a part of this movie on opening night.)

That's all and good night.

NOLA, be kind to me. I'm new.

2008-05-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend:

My dad is getting married!
I am driving to New Orleans with Sprink & Steph to find out about housing options and eat beignets. We’re doing it in 3 days, start to finish, with gas at $4 a gallon. (Sometimes opportunity does not wait for gas prices to go down.)

It just recently occurred to me that school means, like, class and homework. With all this moving and form-filling and financial aid and immunization records and passport-type photos (Yes, I had to order a set of 2x3 inch wallet prints of my face in order to send one in at the school's request. Now I have 7 more 2x3 inch pictures of my face lying around), I had forgotten that in the end my prize is, um, school? What the. I'll be honest, I wasn't really the best student the first time around. My plan this time is to make sure there are no classes after lunch. Or early morning. Or on sunny days. Or, like, during Ellen.

I’ve been wondering about school supplies, too. Do you think the other kids in my class would make fun of me if I showed up to grad school with these? I just really like them. And, according to Will Smith in the 1988 hit Parents Just Don’t Understand: If they’re laughing, I don’t need them cause they’re not good friends.

And look, the inside looks like wood!

I know what you’re thinking. I should buy these, and fast!

Okay. Switching gears entirely...
Please view, at your convenience, my latest Brookie & Lil pics. They are nice.

(Bryan. Stop zooming in on my face.)

You might be tempted to think I look pregnant here. Don’t do it.

Stop me if you've heard this one

2008-05-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote an article for CFI.
It’s mostly everything I’ve already said in one post or another, but I feel compelled to share.
If you get through it, I promise colorful binders in the next post.

(On re-entry from Belize)

Doc: Hello Ms. Wilson, It's time for your two-month check-in. How do you feel? Are you reintegrating? Adjusting well? Back to normal?
Me: Hang on. The zookeeper is trying to drag me out of the rainforest dome.

Two months ago my life was full of coconuts and lime, pick-up trucks, 90-degree days, meandering walks and dirt roads.

Today my life is filled with things it was missing in Santa Familia, like 8-lane highways and Starbucks and Fruit Loops and Grey’s Anatomy and 49 different kinds of Paul Mitchell styling products. Oh, and deliciously delicious Oreos- all of which disguise themselves as happiness.

But right in the middle is a gaping hole called "community" and another called "family" and one called "Antonia's Kitchen" and a few more little ones called "good weather" and "sweet limes" and "dollar ice-cream cones".

I have resigned to the fact that when I take a group of kids to the zoo, like I did on Saturday, and we walk into the Tropical Rainforest Dome, I'll want to cry—and not just because the kids aren't interested about the time I lived in a rainforest, but because I know in the deepest part of my heart that no matter how much money I make, or how many friends I have, or how many degrees I earn, I will never have the quality of life I had in the village for those short few months.

When I see birds or monkeys behind a cage in the zoo, I automatically think of Ronnel pointing out a toucan on the way to the sinkhole and feeding jackfruit to this little spider monkey our neighbors had in the village.

One of my favorite memories will always be that half-an-hour between dusk and total darkness when Inez and I would walk to the shop for a dollar ice cream cone or a Snickers or in search of hard-to-find flour.

Daily, those little triggers open this giant door inside called "My Other Life" and I wonder what they're all doing there in Belize—what the weather is like, what the village gossip is. I can almost feel the sun and the breeze, the warmth, the sweet smell of coconut and campfire, and I can picture myself sitting with Ms. Mig on the back stoop peeling sweet limes.

Tonight, I'd give anything to hear Antonia's deep laughter in the kitchen. I'd love to walk to the store with Inez. I'd love to flop down on David's couch and catch up with Nelly.

Sometimes the best I can do is go to the zoo.

Please make a U-turn

2008-05-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

I got up early today and ate breakfast at the car dealership: cookies, popcorn and Diet Coke. They had a dimly lit area for people who wanted to relax and read, a movie theater for the kids, couches, tables, WiFi, cable, cookies, coffee, popcorn and Diet coke. My own kitchen only has, like, one cinnamon & brown sugar Pop-tart and half a head of cabbage. Plus I keep selling my furniture, so its kind of bare. I just really needed a nice morning out, you know?

If only my car needed a repair.

(Just kidding- today I actually am getting a repair, courtesy of the economic stimulus check, not my recent 4 hours of employment.)

Sunroof, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Also, I got this new GPS system a few weeks ago, mostly for New Orleans- yes, I am afraid to get lost somewhere and end up in a wetland or, like, the eastside or something- so Sprinky and I gave it a whirl on our way to Chicago.

Navigon lady (that’s what I call her) directed us into the city just fine, but downtown she forced us around the block 40 times and ordered us to make U-turns every 5 seconds. We were just trying to get from the train station to the hotel. She kept saying things like, “Please turn left. Turn left now,” into a fountain or tulip garden, which is sketchy. I think she is alive and thinks she’s funny or something.

The thing is, I’m not supposed to drive and operate the Navigon at the same time. Apparently it is unsafe (so what if I almost sideswiped 4 cars and pulled over in a taxi lane? Its not like I hit anyone) and makes it hard for the system to locate me.

But the Chicago streets wait for no one. So she kept getting more frustrated with her unfulfilled U-turn and left turn commands and we just made fun of her for trying to make us left-turn into a street post. Of course we eventually realized we were lost on every street corner so I stopped the car, reprogrammed the directions, waited for the satellite to locate me and found the hotel in less than 5 minutes.

I think Navigon would have liked to have yelled, “Are you retarded? Just freakin pull over and listen to me! This is my job- I know what I’m doing!” But she couldn’t. Plus, she’s monotone. So she had no choice but to continually recalculate my route. After that, I believe her continuous U-turn commands were passive aggressive attempts to get back at me for not believing her.

I handed over my keys to valet guy and apologized to Navigon lady.

The next day I set her on “pedestrian” mode so we could walk around the city and find our way to Millennium Park. Of course, the very first thing she did was tell us to make a u-turn right there on the sidewalk.

I knew she would hold a grudge.

I turned her off (but I swear I heard laughing in my purse) and found my own way to the park. Turns out, we should have made a u-turn. I’m pretty sure the next time I turn her on, she’s going to say in her little navigon voice: “You stupid idiot. Please make a u-turn now.” And she’ll be right.

Then when I say “Taco Bell” she’ll say “Hell to the no! You need to drop about 20.”

Stupid Navigon lady.

Regardless, we had an excellent weekend in Chicago celebrating birthdays and Wicked. We were thrilled to have a downtown suite, tickets to Wicked, lots of drinks and overpriced food, a meandering walk to Millennium Park, blooming tulips and tassels.

And by tassels, I mean tassels.

Here are a few choice pics.

(Happy birthday to my mom from Sprinky)

Hard Rock

Harder Rock

Next, I’m gonna lower the gas taxes…

Oh, that won’t really help?

(I’m getting out of here)

Chocwat Cwassant

Wicked!

oh, OHH! (Think Amy poehler in Baby Mama)

Mom & Jill

Me: just take a picture of me walking through the tulips
Everyone else: no, i dont think that's a good idea
Me: no, just do it. hurry take a picture.
Cop on scooter: ma'am, you're not allowed to walk in the Tulips. They'll break.

Come to Mama, tulilps

The silver ball (center)

Lower Left

One of Brandon and Oreo 8 years ago, for good measure

And baby Lil, cause I miss her

Brooke vs. Lady

2008-04-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding desperate and pathetic, can I send this to the Angry Life Changing Email lady?

I’m not sure where it falls on the continuum between being rightfully assertive and crazy-angry, but it feels so good inside. That probably means I should keep it to myself. You know my policy, though: full disclosure. Here goes.

Dear Stacey:

I think you’re right. Clearly, I misunderstood the objective.

I wrote about life-changing moments. You are collecting LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS! The difference (I mean, besides the ALL CAPS which say: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY READ THIS!) is whether or not the alleged “moment” is accessible to the reader in his own life, or entirely out of his reach.

The thing about life changing moments, Stace (can I call you that?) is that they’re different for everyone, and they don’t typically happen with fireworks and a bullhorn, although I’ve heard that in some states an e-mail is sent confirming you’ve just had one. My friend got one. She lives in Arizona.

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback. I have appropriately renamed my collection of short stories: Unauthenticated Life Changing Moments.

Brooke

PS. I've put together a quiz for anyone wondering if they've experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please take a few moments to answer the following questions:

1. Was your experience accompanied by a bright light? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

2. Did you see any Aliens? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

3. Did people around you congratulate you for your experience? If so, proceed to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

4. Have you been contacted by Oprah? If so, continue. If not, please skip to number 10.

5. Did your experience involve at least 3 of the following: a massive car accident, being dead for 40 minutes and coming back to life, inexplicably growing a pair of fairy wings, the realization that your father is actually your half-brother, a magic beanstalk, a 30-day stay in a drug/alcohol treatment facility, a close encounter with a poisonous snake, a chance meeting with Audrina Patrige from The Hills, a unicorn sighting. If so, continue to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

6. Have you ever felt like you had extraordinary powers but no one could see them but you? If so, continue to the next question. If not, skip to number 10.

7. Have you ever found yourself at “fork” in the road? If so, continue to the next question. If not, please skip to number 10.

8. While at the fork, did you feel a “tugging” over your soul? Were you inclined to begin narrating your own life out loud? If you answered yes to both questions, continue to number 9. If not, please skip to question 10.

9. Congratulations. You have officially experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please consider submitting your experience to our new line of books entitled, TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS.

10. I'm sorry, but you have not experienced a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Please try again at a later date.

Back off, lady.

2008-04-25T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hello.
Yes, I’d like some rejection, please.
And then for dessert, I’ll just have a big fat slice of rejection.
Thanks.

I thought unemployment was the worst. Turns out, unemployment is better than rejection.

I got two emails from a publishing company looking to collect inspirational short stories for an upcoming series. They wanted stories about life-changing moments, a thousand words or less, and if they liked what they read, they would hire me on a contract basis to continue to submit stories, and then to interview others with the hopes of uncovering more life-changing moments.

I believed that inspirational life-changing chicken-soup-for-the-soul-ish moments were sort of my thing. I mean, have you seen the blog? They had. So I rewrote some old stories—ones about quitting jobs, moving to other countries, car accidents, death, birth, adoption. I sent in samples of life-changing moments in the middle of life-changing, or sometimes just ordinary, experiences. We had been emailing for days so I could get a clear understanding of what they were looking for. We seemed to be a good match.

In return, I received this:

Brooke,

I may not have been clear; the stories we accept are truly ONLY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS – not simply nice little stories. Please let me know which of the ones you have attached would be best considered a TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENT. Thanks.

Were the ALL CAPS really necessary? Isn’t that sort of aggressive for an email? It’s like she’s yelling at me in type.

For normal people life-changing moments don’t happen with fireworks and a bullhorn. Usually they happen on a stoop or in the back of a pick-up truck or something. I sort of thought the decision to relocate to a developing country would make the cut, or learning how to say 'I love you' in French, or being run over by a semi, or a simple conversation with an 8 year-old from the B&GC. But, apparently, those are not TRULY LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS, and I guess there are people whose entire jobs are to decide which moments in a girl’s life are TRULY LIFE CHANGING or not.

On top of that, I got an email from the Parkview Housekeeping Department thanking me for my application and explaining that they had decided to go with someone more qualified. The housekeeping department.

Where do I go from here?

(Dairy Queen)
(The liquor store)
(The cookie isle)
(Pizza roles)
(Uplifting and encouraging star 88.3)
(Greys/The office/30 Rock)

Birthday. Bangs.

2008-04-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

The bad thing about not having a job is that you have time to do things like cut your own bangs. If you look at my bangs, they’re equally proportionate to my life since returning from Belize: sort of aimless and random, but well-intentioned with a touch of frantic. They scream, something good can be done with this space if I could just get it together.

There was lots of cutting and fixing and cutting and fixing, because, well, you know how cutting and fixing goes. I tried to do it exactly how Hannah does it—I twisted them all together and snipped. Then I tried to even them up, but they were short on the left. So I tried to even them up, but they were short on the right. So I tried to even them up and they were short on the left, again. So I tried to even them up, but they were short in the middle. I gave up. Then I tried again the next day, because I still didn’t have a job yet and I had already seen all the E! True Hollywood stories.

My bangs are about 2 inches long now. Gosh.

Also, my birthday was Saturday.

We had a little birthday bash on Thursday night at Cheesecake Factory in Indy with friends and family, which was the best ending to an entire week of baby Lily, my adorable week-old niece. (Most of the time when I look at her, I want to eat her face off. She is that delicious. And by delicious, I mean cute and precious and edible.)

Weekly Lily pics

On the actual day of my original birth, I made a Belizean Cuisizean dinner in Fort Wayne for a few friends, and then—I’m just going to skip to the punchline here—Elaine from Germany showed up on my doorstep with Doug, home on leave. They spent the night. It was the best birthday surprise ever.

Pay no attention to Scary Sprinky on the bottom.

Sidenote:
Isn’t it weird that I’m 27?
There was a time when I thought 27 year-olds knew everything about life.
Turns out, they’re more like 19 year-olds with 4 grey eyebrows and really short bangs.
(The things I wish I’d known.)

On the upside, I have found that most car dealerships have free popcorn, Diet Coke, coffee, internet and cable. It’s my new thing. Car dealerships.

Lily

2008-04-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hello. I’m new here.

Lily came!
Obviously, she is adorable.

Essentials:
April 2, 2008
5:30pm
7lb 4oz
19.5 inches

Everyone is healthy.
Jessie is doing fine.
Lily has been so alert and awake!

Here are some favorite pictures, with excellent commentary.

Gag me with a spoon.

I’m thinking of a number between one and ten…

Sharon, I’m just going to lay this on you gently. You have something in your teeth.

(Yawning is the cutest)

Bry & the changing table.

Me & Lil (I can call her that, you know)

Grampy Brooksy

Three generations

My brother is a dad. Omg.

Great Grandma- she wants to go by Gigi (as in, G.G.) which is just perfect, don't you think? She made that up herself.

The thing to note here is G.G.’s golden shoes in the corner. Cute.

In other news, my laptop fell off the bed. Consequently, Season 3 Disc 6 of The OC is stuck in the DVD drive. Tomorrow I’ll hand my trusty sidekick over the Mac surgeons and wait for 7-10 days. I’d say you might not hear from me for a while, but I have a knack for finding internet come hell or high water, or even snow in April.

Just in case. I’ll see you in 7-10. Boo.

Waiting never prospers.

2008-04-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

The thing about patience is, I don’t have it.

My brother said they weren’t planning to call anyone until after Lily was born.

(I took that to mean hurry up and get to the waiting room the second Jess is admitted.)

I resisted that urge all night.
I resisted it all morning.
At noon, I packed up a day’s worth of entertainment and headed for the hospital, sort of expecting to see her whole immediate and extended family, and the neighbors and the Target cashier and the old guy down at the bike shop, and, generally, everyone except me.

I parked and stepped up to the elevator with my little “hello sunshine” onesie in hand, and when the door opened, I was face-to-face with some lady holding two giant overflowing gift bags and a blue overstuffed human-sized teddy bear. I sighed and pressed the button. She had probably been invited.

I followed her to Labor and Delivery. The desk attendant said we had to have an access code to get up to the waiting room. What are hospitals coming to these days? The other lady whipped out her code and was on her way. For me, they had to call the room, make sure it was okay, and then Bryan had to meet me at the elevator.

I stepped off the elevator, rounded the corner and there he was. I laughed, dropped my bags, and told him I just couldn’t help myself. Like any good brother, he said it was okay, and then he led me to the waiting room. Which was empty. I mean, not a single other person in the room. Turns out, when he said they weren’t calling anyone, they actually weren’t calling anyone.

He said it would be a while, that it could even be another whole night. I just smiled proudly at my resourcefulness and pulled out my handy computer and stack of magazines. “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Don’t worry about me.”

We talked for about 20 minutes, which was nice, and then he went back to Jess, who had just received her epidural.

(Let the record show, I was first.)

So... now that we’re all just sitting here in the waiting room, what should we talk about?

Oh! I know, let’s play with the camera.

Here is me normal.

And, me without my V8

Without my chin

With extra chin

Before my nose job

After my nose job

With no teeth

Cross-eyed

Before a date…

…with myself

Double Wide

Extra Long

So, the intake receptionist keeps sneaking peaks over her computer, and I don’t want to be escorted to the psych ward. I think I’ll quit taking pictures of myself and cracking up at what appears to be nothing.

How about the Belizean Cuisizean party? It was a hit! The whole team came (minus, like, 2 people) and we had a great afternoon eating garnaches and telling stories. Although, packing up and walking out of the house felt like closing the door on a very significant and meaningful chapter in my life. Hopefully there is an encore. Like, in November.

Pictures of the day:

Note. It might appear as though my shirt says “hell” but it actually says, “hello” which I thought was appropriate for a welcome home party.

Lisa & Denise: the CFI peeps running the show while I was there

Denise is also a part time disc-thrower.

Tortilla station

David’s obnoxiously large Mickey Mouse tortilla

Oh, Becky. (I took 3 pictures to catch her taking a bite)

Me & Kenz

The crew, plus Denise spinning records, which she also does, part-time

Ashley E. Roomie of my heart.

Um, is the baby here yet?

Belizean Cuisizean Saturday

2008-03-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

Hey you guys. Thanks for all the kind words in response to my SOS.
It turns out, people love.

(And while I’m at it, thanks for the gentle nudging to put down the Oreos. Thanks to Kenzie for wrestling me to the floor over a second slice of chocolate cream pie. And thanks to Sprinky for holding her back while I ate it off the floor.)

I have a few things to report, including reflections on my new hair color, the status of Samantha and Jon (my parasites) and pictures of our spectacular Belizean Cuisizean Saturday. But first I want to share a couple of insights from encouraging e-mails I received this week. Consider it eavesdropping. It’s much more fun that way.

God is good! He doesn't leave us where we are to wallow in our pity. He shows us how to find love, joy and peace. He is where you are.

Did you guys know about this? God is right here in my extra twin bed at my dad’s in Indianapolis AND he is next to Inez and Bryon and Antonia and David in their beds in Belize whispering us all to sleep. I just love that about God. It’s enough to make me want to stand on my dad’s balcony and sing “Somewhere Out There” to the moon. But he doesn’t have a balcony, and his porch faces the pool. So that option is out.

Next.

You're right. We've got lots of things really screwy. We'll probably never get them unscrewed. Our "progress" has come at a cost.

Interesting insight. I’d like to counter it with the John Legend song that always makes me cry in the hopes that it’s actually true:

I still believe that-
We’ll get it right again
We’ll come back to life again
We won’t say another goodbye again
You’ll live forever with me
Someday, we’ll be together…

Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be fulfilled until we are all sitting on heaven’s curbs eating calorie-free ice cream and cheesy potatoes together. Steven (my step-boo) wrote something last fall. I hope I am not taking this out of context, but it struck me when I read it and has stayed with me ever since— especially in light of my visit with Hannah yesterday and the time we spent remembering Katie, and in the wake of the Cerak/Van Ryn family tragedy:

This is what heaven will be for us. It is a journey we should look forward to with great anticipation knowing that we will not be disappointed as we round that last bend and see it all unfold in front of us. There will be the laughter of those we love most, the old friends we’ve not seen in years, even those we have known in our hearts but have never seen with our eyes, they will all be there. There will be peace and comfort and every earthly pain we have felt, every bit of sadness and heartache, they will all be gone forever. It will be family and friends and life and love and it will be unlike anything we could ever have imagined but it will be just as we had always hoped. It will be perfect.

And the coffee…

I love the part about the coffee. Thanks for letting me share, Boo.

The thing is, I had ice-cream with my old best friends last night.

These three saved my life once, literally. Tonight, they just reminded me that we really can reconnect even after 10 years. It gave me a sliver of what heaven might be like, because I couldn’t have pieced together better company, better conversation or better dessert. Unless, maybe, it had been Chocolate Odessey 2001.

Which leads me to my next comment:

No matter how much we want it and how much we miss it and how much we beg, Baskin Robbins is never bringing back Chocolate Odyssey 2001.

Well. I am starting a prayer chain calendar for a 2010 comeback. Who wants April?

Great. Moving on.

This is important, as Bryan would not let me touch the baby unless I had a note from my doctor:

I am parasite free!

I spent an exhaustive 3 days at the Doctor getting tested for things like TB, and making sure all my little parasites and E. Coli were gone, which involved a very intricate stool sampling kit. In Belize, they just handed me a container and told me to eat some burritos, walk around and come back with a full jar at 2. Here, I was totally confused by the take-home kit they gave me, and I’m sure Sprinky was thrilled to find the little container labeled “refrigerate” in the back corner when she reached for her Las Lomas leftovers.

Hil-air.

Anyway, the TB test came back negative and the chest x-rays are clear. Whew!

Tomorrow is the welcome home celebration with CFI & my Belize team from last fall. Lisa, Mackenzie and I spent the day experimenting with all our favorite delicious dishes from Belize. I like to call it Belizean Cuisizean Saturday.

The results were fantastic! (Except for the tortillas, which looked like tiny little weird ovals. Antonia warned me this would happen if I didn’t practice. She also frequently sent me out back to pick cilantro from the grass and said I always came back with the leaves that would kill us.)

So, who wants to try my special cilantro salad?

Here are some pictures of the day. I WILL be recreating this event in Fort Wayne, so friends beware. You’ll be receiving an invite shortly.

The international isle at Wal-mart. Actually, we just think this picture is funny because it looks like I am caught red-handed trying to hide, like, a pack of Oreos under the rice and beans, drunk.

Tortilla mixing

Result

Quote of the day: “Yeah, but I think she would say my balls are just too small.”

Empanadas (I realize taking pictures of food puts me on the same page as my Great Aunt Gwen, but I am just proud, okay? Cut me some slack.)

Garnaches

One out of one Randys found our food deliciously satisfying.

This was a trial run. Stay tuned for the real thing tomorrow at 2:30/1:30 central.

Thanks again for the support this week. I mean it.

Oh!
I almost forgot the funniest thing. Hannah colored my hair yesterday. We got rid of the highlights and took it back to my natural color, black. You’d think it was a simple procedure, but, actually, there are a million shades of black. This one is dark. I loved it at first. But now (maybe it’s just because I’ve had sun-streaked hair for over a year) I sort of feel like the Wicked Witch. Especially when toddlers look at me and then start crying. I’m just sayin.

Week Twelve: SOS

2008-03-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

I’m drowning in Fruit Loops and America’s Next Top Model.

It’s killing me, literally. I may have turned diabetic this week for lack of self-control and the abundance of Oreos and Milano cookies. I turned down lunch at the Indian buffet today, because yesterday I ate my weight in cheesy potatoes and didn’t think I could be trusted at a buffet.

Also, I spent 5 hours in the eye-shadow section at Ulta and tried to buy shampoo a few times with a 20% off coupon and finally settled on the Paul Mitchell Color Care line with a buy 2 get 1 free option, but gave up after not being able to pick the third product.

I guess you could say I am overwhelmed with the overabundance of food and hair product options.

After a complete meltdown on Sunday, it took a full 24 hours to figure out what was really going on.

Here it is: There are holes in my life that can’t be filled with Paul Mitchell Color Care Detangling Conditioner or cheesy potatoes, even though I am thankful for those things and love them with all my heart on a normal day.

I have come to the sad realization that we have everything backwards.

I was upset on Sunday because my family jumped through hoops to get to the right church (out of hundreds in the city) at the right time (out of 8 services) to meet my brother and sister-in-law, who didn’t even show up or call to tell us they weren’t coming.

In Santa Familia there is one church with one service, and your brother lives 5 houses down. Not everyone has cars. Most people just walk. And if Antonia doesn’t show up, Father Foley goes to her house for lunch—just to make sure everything is okay. Most people go to church if only to make sure Father Foley doesn’t show up for lunch.

As I settled in on Sunday afternoon with my bag of Oreos and the Disney Channel (don't judge), I understood that no matter how many cereals I can choose from, or how many Salon Style conditioners I get to use, no matter how great it feels to drive around 8-lane highways in my shiny SUV, passing two malls and 15 Starbucks, I will never have the quality of life I had in the village for those short few months.

My entire family will never live on one street; I’ll never be within walking distance from everyone I’ve ever known; my best friends are not my cousins or my nieces or my back-door neighbors.

Kids there have 15 moms and 15 dads—aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends. It was so cute to watch David’s eight-year-old son curl up in Imanuel or Ricardo’s lap, and to watch Juliet be passed around the church from aunt to aunt to cousin to cousin (though it was sort of embarrassing when she woke up while I was holding her, took one look at me, and wailed like she had been abandoned at the local homeless shelter).

I’ll probably never speak 3 languages or enjoy a fresh orange or a chocolate-chip ice cream cone as meaningfully and effortlessly as I did with Inez and Frances— though my cherished single-dip cones on the curb of Ben & Jerry’s and Baskin Robbins with Bec and Sprinky rival.

But that’s my point. Happy, simple meaningful moments are rare and hard to come by here, which is why they are etched into my memory and logged as happy places for me. It was never about the ice cream (except that one year when they had Chocolate Oddessy 2001). It was 20 uninterrupted minutes on the curb with my good friends.

In the village, moments like that happened all the time. Nobody had anywhere to rush off to. My time there was a thousand simple, meaningful moments strung together into days and weeks. One of my favorite memories will always be that half-an-hour between dusk and total darkness when Inez and I would walk to the shop for an ice cream or a snickers or in search of hard-to-find flour. It was just nice to be with her, and to not have anything else to do but walk around together.

Now I have no choice but to settle for The GAP and America’s Next Top Model in lieu of everything my heart really wants—community, an entire Sunday afternoon with all my friends and family in one place (can you even imagine it—all your best friends and family together in one location, for LIFE?)

My friends and I used to joke about living in a commune.

In the village, they have that. They have community. Not as a concept or a small-group idea. But as their actual life.

We have water, Tyra Banks, paved roads, Fruit Loops and Paul Mitchell.

(And we think we’re the lucky ones.)

I agree: in some ways, we’re privileged. I feel blessed to live where I live with the opportunities that have been given to me. Even after village life, I don’t feel guilty for loving Target. Or TV. Or the mall. But more than privileged, I would argue that, mostly, we’re distracted. And I sort of feel sorry for us. I think we are distracted in order to not be depressed.

For example. On Sunday, when family plans fell through, I got my tall-nonfat-sugar-free-caramel-macchiato, sat down with a handful of Oreos and the Disney Channel (don't judge), periodically checked my Macbook for emails, and when there were no emails, I downloaded new songs on iTunes.

So I enjoyed a day of first world conveniences. But only as a filler for what I really wanted, which was to hang out with my brother, or chat with friends, or, in the deepest part of my heart, be celebrating Easter with everyone in Santa Familia.

Moments:

"Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good."

For Good
Steven Schwartz

Got Carrots?

2008-03-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself driving along—its sleeting and snowy out—you pull up to a stop light, turn to your left and see a convertible full of rabbits. You try to look away, but they just keep honking and yelling things like, “Happy Easter!” and “Got Carrots?” and “What’s up doc?”

Can you picture it? Here, let me help.
The one yelling “Got Carrots?” was me— the cute one in the back.

The other bunnies were Denise (founder of CFI) and Becky (our Belize Team 14 leader), both long-time friends of the family, and Lisa’s daughter, MacKenzie, also a good friend of the family who I happen to be staying with for the weekend.

Denise has been dressing up in rabbit suits and driving around the city in a rented convertible, hand-delivering Easter treats to friends, family and strangers for 20 years. I’m not sure how I got roped into it this year.

I mean—I’m not sure how I got to be blessed with this fantastic, unique Easter experience.

Step One: Bunny Prep

Umm. Does this outfit make my tail look fat?

Step Two: Car Prep

Step Three: Dunkin Donuts

(It’s important to start the day off right.)

(Oh, and its even MORE important to NOT spill your entire cup of coffee down your right bunny leg and into the tub of eggs. I'm sure you guys already knew that.)

Step Four: The Open Road

We drove out of Dunkin Donuts armed with signs, candy, eggs, toys, stuffed animals and donut holes, and we made it as far as 10th & Emerson before we were followed into the Dairy Queen parking lot for a picture with some lady’s son.

We made a few house calls to friends (Ashley & Pulfers: hay-ay!)

At about noon (sorry, I have to mention it), Denise looked at a girl in shorts and said, in all seriousness—That girl is wearing shorts and a T-shirt in winter. Is she crazy?

We had to remind her that she was the one dressed like a bunny in a convertible with the top down in the snow, and also she was honking and yelling. We had a nice laugh.

Kenzie and I (frozen in the back seat) “hopped” out just in time for the afternoon matinee of College Road Trip—I think Raven and I could be good friends, just like I think Jennifer Garner and me and Sarah Jessica Parker and me, oh, and Sandra Bullock and me could be—and then we spent the rest of the afternoon with Sprink-a-docious and BabyGap at the Fashion Mall.

Here are my most recent purchases for Baby Lily.
(Note: I am the coolest aunt ever)

Other weekend happenings of note. We made Easter cookies. They were cookie-licious.

I also dragged Sprinky and Kenzie to the Black & White store, tried on the dresses and settled on the black one for my dad’s wedding. I had a private goodbye with the white one and promised to come back for it when I was older, financially secure, and could assure it a good life. Boo.

Anyway, Happy Easter!

Week Eleven: Home

2008-03-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve been asking myself all week why we put ourselves through the pain and agony of good relationships. I mean, there are always goodbyes. I knew that going into this. I just didn’t remember it being this hard. Or depressing.

I’m home.
Ahem. I mean, I’m home!

Timeline:
School dismissed on Thursday for a two-week Easter Break.
Antonia left on Friday to present her Thesis in Canada.
Frances and Inez left on Saturday to spend Easter in Gualtemala.
The Cabbs leave next week for Houston.

After a long delay in Miami and an unexpected (but provisional) overnight in Chicago, I arrived in Indianapolis on Friday safe, sound & exhausted.

The first thing I did when I got home: put on my skinny jeans.
They fit!
(One more amoeba, and I think I could enter the world of singe-digit sizes. Note for next time. Two amoebas- good. THREE amoebas, size 8.)

My arrival was two weeks earlier than planned, so I surprised my family at my sister-in-law’s baby shower on Saturday. Here is documentation of the magical moment.

This is my grandma. After the picture was taken, she cried and stroked my face through the entire prayer, and then she had to sit down. Sprinky not only laughed at her, but laughed at her DURING the prayer. Then I laughed at Sprinky laughing at her, and, well, you know how laughing and praying goes…

Lisa & McKenzie were at the airport to pick me up, along with my dad and his fiancé—wiggedy-what? Rewind. Fiancé. Yes, my dad is getting MARRIED. He met someone while I was in Belize, and she happens to be just perfect for him.

Upon further investigation, I am happy to report: I approve (and not just because she reads my blog or drove me to Martinsville today to pick up my car). She maintained a perfectly respectable distance while I bawled my eyes out and made a fool of myself in the middle of the airport, then offered a sympathetic hug for the entire situation: the crying, the never-having-met, the jet lag, the Chicago ordeal and arrivals in general, because, as it happens, she is a nurse and makes several medical mission trips a year for weeks and months at a time. She understood.

Besides, she loves my dad. He loves her. I’m cool with it. The only question is which dress I should wear in the wedding. He told me I could pick anything, which was thrilling for me. I am stuck between these two dresses. Your vote would help.

Moving on.

I was able to attend the CFI board meeting on Friday night and surprised half the board members, which was fun. I fully intended to speak words of wisdom about the trip, but every time it was my turn, I just started crying. I guess that’s just how “goodbyes” followed by “hellos” are— our absolute lowest and highest moments all in the same breath.

Considering the debriefing period of the next few weeks and my transition back to Fort Wayne, I feel sort of stuck in Week Eleven and truly believe I could be happy living Week Eleven in the comfy bed at my dad’s house for the rest of my life.

After all, I have Trix & internet.

But, alas. I don’t know how to thank all of you for supporting this adventure, which turned out to be the most fun, challenging and meaningful time of my life, and for walking alongside me in the last 6 months. Your contributions, comments, cards, packages, emails and phone calls have been essential to this season of my life, and the lives of countless kids and families in Belize.

From the deepest part of my heart, thank you.

Many people have asked what’s next. I’ve been wondering that too.
I’ll be in Indianapolis for the next few weeks, and back to Fort Wayne in April for the summer. I just accepted the scholarship to Tulane ($9000!) and am working on finding housing for August.

Many people have asked how I’m doing. I’ve been wondering that too.
Let me put it this way. I burst into tears today at a traffic cop who told me to stop. I’m not sure what that means.

But I do know that I miss my Belize family (more than words) and I hate the weather here. I love driving, and I love the mall. I love Starbucks and I love bug-free sleeping.

I miss eating fresh oranges and walking from store to store with Inez looking for flour or choco-bananas. I miss the teachers and the pace of life there. I miss having a purpose.

But CFI has done a great job of providing a period of debriefing, lots of opportunities for me to "unload" and relax, and have helped in every possible, thoughtful way with re-entry. What they don’t know is that someone in Fort Wayne will have to debrief me from Lisa and Denise in a few weeks. I feel like a suction cup that just can’t let go, like I’ll die when I’m not somehow connected to CFI or Belize…

I am looking forward to meeting Lily (my niece) any day now and looking forward to time with friends in the Fort.

Other than that, I’m still working things out. Just know that if we run into each other and I burst into tears, its not you.

Here are some other pictures of the shower and the first time I got to feel Lily kick! (Note, in the shower pics, my awesomely awesome skirt from Guatemala)

The afterparty

Also, here are some answers from the report I sent back to CFI during my last week of service. They are the same questions many of you have been asking and might be of interest, especially to those who supported:

Regarding the purpose of the mission, what was the most rewarding part of the experience?

The most rewarding part was watching the kids become excited and participate with enthusiasm on a daily basis, their ongoing retention and application of concepts, and, ultimately, the increase in knowledge as reflected during post-test activities. (And I’m talking about little things here, like how they were able to give the definitions of empathy, toxic, abstinence—words they didn’t know before I came; the ability to list 5 different ways to say ‘no’, for example, or 3 ways they can calm down during an argument and then apply it all in role-play situations.)

Regarding the purpose of the mission, what was the most challenging part of the experience?

The most challenging part was adapting the program to fit different age groups and grades within one classroom, or within one session. For example, in any given class, you might have a kid who is 8 and also a kid who is 12. It was hard to figure out how to organize the sessions.

What was the greatest reward personally and overall?

The greatest reward personally and over all has been the relationships built with the students, with the Flowers and Cabb families and the slow inclusion of me into daily village life—that I can walk down the street now and almost everyone runs to the door yells, “Hi Miss Brooke!” instead of "gringa!"

What was the most challenging aspect personally and overall?

The most challenging aspects personally and overall have been bugs, sickness, dealing with water & electric outages, the laundry routine—general aspects of day-to-day life. I had more than a few showdowns with giant spiders, ants, no water when I really want to brush my teeth, etc. The illnesses were challenging, but manageable.

Knowing CFI is educationally focused, what do you see to be the most critical need at Santa Familia School and at San Marcos School?

The most critical need at Santa Familia: ink for the printer, internet at school, art supplies and art lesson ideas for each age group, PE equipment and outdoor PE activity ideas for each age group.
San Marcos: water system, art supplies & activities, David insists he needs an SUV. Exciting sidenote, San Marcos village was in the process of getting electricity the week I left. The poles were up along the main road and all the kids were asking me about TV with glowing eyes.

Was there anything regarding the purpose of the mission that you felt you were not able to achieve? If so, what?

I was not able to complete the second week of programming for 2 classes at Santa Familia school due to illness.

What did you miss most?

Tall nonfat sugar free Caramel Macciato
Oh, and friends and fam, of course.

Would you consider doing this again?

Absolutely. This was one of the best experiences of my life.
I wish I could do it again right now. Hopefully, November…

We are having a celebration on March 30th (and no, I did not throw my own welcome home party- it was thrown for me) but please come if you are in town. I would love to celebrate and share pictures and stories with you who have been so supportive during this time. Besides, it's a great excuse to get together!

(Email me for directions.)

Goodbyes & The OC

2008-03-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

Previously on the Brooke-C (my own real life version of the OC):

San Marcos school threw a good-bye party.
I received 26 key chains, 2 t-shirts, 4 snow globes and a porcelain dolphin.
We ate huge, overflowing plates of coconut rice & beans, chicken, tortillas and coleslaw- the staple Belizean meal.
We played volleyball all afternoon, teachers & parents vs. students
It was perfect

The dish-washing/kitchen cleaning committee:

(She ran out of chips, plus she couldn't play with the 409)

The serving committee

The eating committee

"So, how do you feel about our government's export of local wheat for ethanol production in the States?"

"Well, personally I think its a misappropriation of our local resources and puts us at a disadvantage."

The surprise good-bye assembly

My entire heart was in this school. It was a hard good-bye, though the porcelain dolphin and alligator snow globe made things easier.

In the meantime, after only one episode on a random Thursday last week, I came home to find the entire family addicted to The OC.

When I went to sleep, Inez was watching. When I woke up, she was watching, when I left for school, she was watching. Then one day, Ricardo started watching, and then Bryon and Richard. I became sort of concerned when I walked into the kitchen one night to find the whole family, plus Mr. & Mrs. Cabb, deeply engrossed in whether or not Ryan and Marissa would end up together. I tried to pull the plug. There was a mild panic when the electricity went out for a few hours and Season 2 disc 6 was stuck in the DVD player...

I love this family.

Brooke vs. Kriol

2008-03-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today the standard 6 students had an exam in San Ignacio, so I was in charge of the Standard 4 & 5 classes—and after my 40 minute lesson, I had nothing to teach them. So, they gave me Kriol exercises with the Kriol-Inglish Dikshineri, instead.

I copied some words and created a quiz for your reading pleasure.

1. Does “backarop” mean

to sing a rap about having one’s back
to hit on one's back
to go in reverse
a bag you wear on your shoulders

Context: Ah wahn backarop di kaa, soh moov owt a di way.

2. Does “memba” mean

participant
a large cat in the puma family
a type of dance
to remember

Context: Yoo neva memba yu oan bertday?

3. Does “nyoo” mean

new
me and you
yoo-hoo!
12 noon

Context: We ga wahn nyoo Faada da fi wee choch

4. Does “prosikyoot” mean

sort of cute
prosecute
prostitute
still a youth

Context: Polees di tek lang fi prosikyoot di teef.

5. Does “bizniz” mean

show business
cheese whiz
big nose
personal life

Context: Stap poak yo noaz eena mi bizniz.

Bonus Round

Does “pis-a-bea” mean

bed-wetter
bee killer
little green nut
type of flower

Context: Mei lee gyal ten an ih da reel pis-a-bea.

When the Kriol lessons were over, I showed the kids some card tricks and then taught them how to play Kemps so we could have a Kemps tournament, which went well and was very educational, I think. With an hour left until lunch, even after the tournament, we had no choice but to resort to hangman.

Me studying my Kriol, while they play hangman

This is random, yes, but every day I stare out the window at this tree shaped like a duck, and I just wanted to share

After lunch, it was volleyball until 3 (their big volleyball tournament is Thursday), and I am proud to say I took one for the team. This time it was teachers vs. students, and I did not have to play on the boys team. Although, now that I think about it, all the teachers were boys…

Cheering squad

My “one for the team”

Tomorrow is my last day at San Marcos school, so we’re having a party.
Classes break on Thursday for a 2 week Easter Break.

It’s the beginning of the end for me here...

ANSWERS

1. C
I am going to put the car in reverse, so get out of the way.

2. D
You don’t remember your own birthday?

3. A
We have a new priest at church.

4. B
The police are taking a long time to prosecute the thief.

5. D
Stop poking your nose into my personal life.

Bonus: A
My little girl is ten years old, and she’s a real bed-wetter.

Week Nine

2008-03-08T09:17:00.001-08:00

1. I just found out I got a scholarship to Tulane. I don't know details, as I am in another country and finding out super important news through friends and family on gmail chat is difficult. But I know it's for the social work program. I am still waiting to hear about the public health program. But the fact that I currently have no income and am living in another country gives me an edge, I hope.

2. Yesterday, the high was 101 degrees. I am not exaggerating. AND, I spent all day outside watching this huge canoe river race from San Ignacio to Belize City: La Ruta Maya.

We left at 6am to watch the start of the race in San Ignacio, then drove around all day jumping out at different river banks to watch the teams pass. I rode with Ms. Elda (the one who took me to the zoo & the blue hole) and Diana (the one who took me to Xunantunich) because Ms. Elda's husband and Diana's father were on the same team.

The start of the race

Ms. Elda & Janeissey (her daughter)

Running across the field and down a hill to the next river bank (fall #1)

The fam

Our team

Iguana Creek river bank

Our team (again)

I forget the name of this place

A pic of the girls team

After a long day

Our team, at Banana Bank- the finishing point for day one (it's a 3 day race, and the teams camp here)

(cute)

Antonia and Inez getting ready for parent night at school

Hot mama & Ricardo

My new career as a Dental Assistant

2008-03-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

Well, actually, it only lasted a day so I guess its not really a career. And, all right, I was more like an assistant to the dental assistant, but still.

This week I have been doing an abstinence program with the Standard 6 class:

But I took a break today to expand my vocational skills when a dental team from Alabama came to examine the kids. My job was to go through the attendance roster and bring the kids two at a time from the classroom to the kitchen, our makeshift dental office (minus the soft rock).

This job, which lasted all day, gave me the great fortune of being able to take before and after pictures of the kids.

Here are my favorite before pictures (some have never been to the dentist before):

And the proud after shots:

The scary waiting cooler:

David (principal) in the hot seat:

David after his "appointment"

David trying to tell me its my turn:

The dental team (minus the actual dentist, who will restore the teeth tomorrow at a different location that has electricity)

Melcher

2008-03-02T11:53:00.001-08:00

So, the plan was to go to Guatemala (only a few miles away) to Melcher so I could purchase all my little souvenirs for all of you, at a cheaper rate. You know, the little beaded bracelets and coin purses and things that say Belize? I made a checklist to be organized, because I break into a frenzied sweat when trying to buy souvenirs. Just ask Elaine, who sat with me on the floor of a German supermarket while I tried to figure out what kind of chocolate to bring home, and for who, and how much? It was stressful.

Anyway, the first thing I bought was ice cream- not on the list. Then I followed Francis around for an hour through rows and rows of clothing- not on the list. Then we stumbled upon this amazing little shop owned by real, true full-blooded Guatemalan Indians and purchased two bags of things not on the list. But CUTE things, okay? Including a little handmade Guatemalan sundress for baby Lily.

I never even saw one beaded bracelet or coin purse or anything that said "Belize" so, Erin, sorry. I am still going to do my best to find you the coinpurse that says Belize, but if I come home empty-handed, you'll know I tried... I can still check that one place by the river...

Anyway. Here are some pics of the day.

Me & Francis

Me & the Indians

France & the Indians

Dwayne, Frances, Me & Inez

After hours and hours at the Indian shop

Inez & Dwayne (on the streets...)

PS- My brother, Ben, graduated from boot camp/AIT on Thursday. He was one of 3 people (out of 190-something) to receive honors and a promotion to the next rank- go boonjy! He leaves for Alaska tomorrow, where he'll be stationed until he leaves for Iraq in August.

He told my mom, "Yeah, the tower was the scariest thing I've ever done. Man, looking down from there and having to repel down, i mean it was the hardest thing I've ever done, I'm so afraid of heights."
And then he said, "When I get to Alaska I'm putting in for Airborne school."
Good ol' Boonjy.

He's third from the right. The cute one in the back.

Love you Ben!