On New Year's Eve

Forgive the poor typing. I'm still getting used to the iPad, and although I've borrowed a wireless keyboard, I'm not tech savvy enough to know how to set it up at this time. Like everyone else in the blogosphere and in the real world, I'm thinking about the new year tonight. It honestly thrills me beyond words that I have this newfound capacity to blog when I feel like it, without descending the stairs to my apartment building, bearing whatever the weather might be, entering my neighborhood Starbucks and ordering something I don't want just so I can utilize their free wifi. I blog from home, tonight. Although it probably doesn't intrigue my readers much, I'll still give a quick shout out to the successes of 2011. Among others, I visited 6 different states, read all off the Harry potter books (and before midnight I will have seen all the movies), got promoted at work - into a career that I think is truly a good fit for me, spent lots of time with my niece and nephew (whose mere existence fills my heart with so much joy),practiced lots of yoga,ran my first 15 k in 4 years and PRd a 10k. I was a guest writer in the classroom of a truly awesome professor. I helped raise a beautiful black puppy into a handsome black dog. I kept loving and being loved by my serious sweetheart. I spent lots of time watching NOVA, drinking beers, or having text chats with my besties. I also found my footing in Chicago, began to start planning ahead again (after a brief period of trying and failing at being a day to day type gal). I started working on my Dino blog, which will officially launch in February. I became a field museum member. I also met, shook hands with, and received the signature of, one of my greatest literary heroes, Roger Ebert. Overall, I stayed largely the same - which for some reason is comforting. Maybe because I think the years of seeking drastic change, of remaking myself whenever I have the chance, or seeking to be a different me, are behind me. These are the years of becoming a better me. A happier me. A settled and full me. I expect 2012 to be full of change. Of growth. Of faster times, longer distances, focussed intentions, and stronger relationships. Here's to continuing to improve the parts we like, cast off the parts we can do without, and seek the parts we desire. Here's to 2012. Namaste, my friends. Ps: I forgot to factor in "cats perpetually desire to walk on iPad" when I started typing. Love from Shake and Eli. (I also cleaned up a lot of cat puke and broken glass in 2011!)

Bitten by the Apple

I can still very clearly remember the fist time I saw an iPod. It was the original, classic white machine - owned by a techy Apple-file classmate of mine. I think I knew two people who had them sophomore year of college, but for me it wasn't until much later. Even though I like technology, and was raised with a surprising amount aof access to it, I'm a bit of a grandma at heart. I did eventually get on iPod, and then a MacBook, and then a tiny pink shuffle for running. All in all, however, I still spent a great deal of time thinking and talking about how downloading music cuts out an important part of the user experience, about how the first draft of a story is always better in pen and ink, and how I don't want to read a book that I can't feel and smell and dog-ear and write penciled notes in. All those things are stills true. This grandma is still holding on, but I also share these words with a couple of grains of salt (this is a phrase I need to look up. I dont reall understand the meaning), because the blog post you are reading is my very first from my iPad. Regardless of my nostalgia for the past, I'm living my greatest blogger dream. I'm riding the train to work, tiny computer on my lap - the whole interwebz at my finger tips. It's almost hard to believe. I remind myself, in moments like these, where I leave behind a part of myself that would hae scoffed at this image, that the reason humans have gotten this far on this earth is because we put down the familar and moved into the unknown. Because we never decided who we are, and instead focussed on who we could become. If this little computer enables me to write more, there's not too much I can complain about. Post script: thanks mom. It's a wonderful gift.