There Is No Wealth But Life

Why I am Watching Attack Ads Rather than Voting

By Rae October 30, 2010 Funny Thing Is 5 Comments

Thanks to my laziness in not registering to vote, and the great state of Maryland’s apparent need to have lots of time to process registrations (and no same day registration!) I will not be voting on Tuesday. At first I felt guilty and spent some time researching candidates to see if I felt strongly enough about anyone to spend this weekend campaigning. I did not find anyone whose positions I liked well enough, but it did at least make me feel better about not being able to vote!

So instead of finalizing our choices and fighting over whom to vote for, Josh and I have been spending time watching and voting on attack ads thanks to WSJ.com.

I cannot figure out exactly how it happened. How did I go from the 15-year-old who told my parents whom to vote for in primaries to the 19-year-old who went door to door campaigning for a certain candidate for president to the 25-year-old who is not voting and feels a little bit guilty but not upset?

The oddest part of all is that I am actually enjoying apathy. I like the fact that Josh and I are spending our time laughing at things like this:

and not fighting over candidates. It is hard to feel like one vote matters in a state like Maryland, and maybe I will end up with a bit more balance after taking a walk on the apathetic side.

How are you feeling about the election? Are you emotionally involved with the results? Have you campaigned before? Have you ever not voted?

Not Married, Not Welcome?

By Rae October 28, 2010 Meta 42 Comments

Question for my not-so-married readers: do you feel “welcome” here?

My blog is about my life, so I write about whatever interests me without concern for whether it matches up with the interests and experience of all my readers. But I do not want others to feel as if I only want readers who share my experience.

I try to write posts and ask questions in such a way that reflects the fact that I love comments from whomever feels like reading and sharing their thoughts with me. But recently I have realized that what I think of as open may not feel that way to others.

Several of the bloggers that I read have recently started the wonderful journey of motherhood. I have read blogs of pregnant women and mothers of young children for years, so I did not anticipate any change in my response to these blogs.

But then far more of them than I expected changed their headers to read “If you are not a mother or at least pregnant you really don’t belong here. K THX BYE.” Well, not really, but they might as well have.

And one day as I read yet another post by a pregnant woman (and did not comment because the questions at the end made it clear the blogger did not want to hear from me) I realized that many single people may feel the same way about my blog. Sure, I try not to gush too much about Josh, but I probably exude “not married, not welcome” vibes in other ways without knowing it.

I do not want to do that.

So, will you do me a favor? Please let me know a few little things I could improve to make everyone feel welcome. I will not completely stop writing about Josh, or my religion, or anything that is a part of my life. But I can write things a little differently, or lose the pretty pink flowers in the header or other small things in order to make this a better little bit of the interwebs.

August 2010

By Rae October 26, 2010 Life 15 Comments

I have a secret. I looked forward to August 2010 for two and a half years. No one knew that I was anticipating it, let alone why. Some things you just do not talk about.

Two things happened in August this year: my second wedding anniversary and my 25th birthday. I knew that they would happen in August of 2010 and I knew that for many adoption agencies, states and countries this would make us eligible to start the adoption process.

When Josh and I were dating I knew that I wanted a long engagement. And I would have been quite happy to be engaged for a year longer than we were. But I also realized that it is good to build a solid foundation of marriage before having children, and that we would need to be married for two years before we could adopt. I deeply desired children, and figured that if I had to wait at least two years I should start waiting as soon as possible!

This was not the main reason we got married when we did, but it was a very important factor in making me feel happy about getting married sooner rather than later. Right before my 23rd birthday Josh and I got married.

Then August 2010 arrived. There was absolutely no doubt about the fact that we were not anywhere near ready to responsibly welcome a child into our home.

And somehow it was alright. The world continued to go ’round, I continued to breathe, and children continued to live and die without any concern for whether I was a mother.

This too is beautiful.

Babies

By Rae October 25, 2010 Happy Days 6 Comments

Thanks to Jiza, I found out that Babies is now available instantly on Netflix.

In our house Netflix is most definitely Josh’s domain and I rarely watch anything without him. So we watched Babies together.

I loved it. I wholeheartedly recommend it with only two caveats:

It is about as exciting as Into Great Silence. Which is to say, not really exciting at all. It is wonderful and beautiful, but c’mon, it does not have a plot at all… other than the deepest meaning of life and all that.

It features breasts, the source of babies’ food. It is a great example of the sort of Catholic modesty which John Paul II promoted, but if you subscribe to the American form of “objective” standards of modesty where breasts are seen primarily as objects of sexual pleasure, then several parts of Babies will be offensive.

Have you seen Babies? What did you think of it?

I am thankful 10/24/2010

By Rae October 24, 2010 Gratitude No Comments

For monasteries. Last weekend I got to visit two monasteries, and it made me quite happy, even though I did not get to stay at either for more than a few hours.

For a an effortless and affordable heating system, plenty of blankets and lots of warm clothing. I do not like being cold and am so very thankful for the fact that I have no reason to fear the winter.

For bookshelves. I first started stacking books on the floor when I was about 15 and many library sales had enabled me to exceed the space on my ample bookshelves. Josh was somewhat horrified by the idea of keeping books on the floor, but when we got married our combined book collections was far too large for our bookshelf space and a lot ended up in the fireplace. We have not had bookshelves since we moved this spring, but we finally do now. Yay.

I am thankful 10/17/2010

By Rae October 17, 2010 Gratitude 2 Comments

For health insurance. My health insurance card arrived this week, and I was struck by the fact that I may very well never again be uninsured. They say that no one likes going to the doctor, but I am actually excited to have the chance to deal with all the things not life-or-death enough to be dealt with without insurance.

I am thankful 10/10/2010

By Rae October 10, 2010 Gratitude 1 Comment

For potatoes. As a child I completely understood how a nation could starve due to a potato famine. I would often put a potato in the microwave for breakfast when my family ate raisin bran (before we were converted to “fruit ’till noon“) and on some days would eat potatoes three times a day. My microwaved potato would be eaten with nothing but salt as it was years before I learned to understand the concept of eating butter that one could see. Apparently I never got over my childhood comfort in potatoes, so there are now 30 lbs in our apartment. I guess it is time to return to eating them three meals a day, preferably mashed!

For friends. Especially a good “childhood” friend who has grown along with me, though differently.

For blankets. I don’t care what the temperature is, I find it quite comforting to have a blanket over me when I sleep. Which I guess means that I do care that it is not too hot to tolerate a blanket!

NPR Personalities Spoof Lady Gaga

By Rae October 6, 2010 Funny Thing Is 11 Comments

As a child, I wasn’t supposed to listen to NPR. Because NPR is the source of the alluring evil liberal ideology which transforms good conservative children into damned secular humanists.

I remember mocking my father’s concern about NPR to my eldest sister. She seriously responded that perhaps NPR had actually shaped her and catapulted the apple far from the tree. I thought she was crazy.

I tried to be good. But then one day I felt rebellious and tuned into public radio… to hear the voice of one of my parents’ attorney friends defending homeschooling. Mah Goodness! The irony pushed me over the edge, and from then on I did not bother to try to follow my father’s wishes.

So I spent days listening to the impeachment trial of the the chief justice of the state supreme court, and then stayed up all night to hear the results of the 2000 presidential elections. I even recorded part of the Bush v. Gore case. All isolated homeschooler geek jokes are so appropriate that they probably aren’t even funny. I may also have told my sister that I was going to name my first son “David” after a certain David A. Brancaccio.

Anyway, all that to say, NPR got me through some deep, dark, times as my rebellious teenage drug of choice.

So my love for various NPR personalities is not entirely healthy. And that is why I am convinced that this is by far the best Lady Gaga spoof ever.

Are you not amused?

Warning: I Don’t Believe in “TMI”

By Rae October 5, 2010 Things of Which We Do Not Speak 18 Comments

I have a confession to make: I don’t believe in “TMI” when it comes to blogging. It isn’t that I am unwilling to gory juicy details, what I mean is that I do not believe that there is such a thing as sharing too much information. Sure, there may be some people who do not want to know certain delicious bits of information, but there are also other people who will always want to know more. And one of the grand things about blogs is that people can read and ignore as they like.

So I worry about a lot of things when determining what to post, but I do not worry about sharing “too much information.” Because when readers do not want to read certain things, they simply skip it!

Given my attitude, I am surprised at the frequency of “TMI” warnings from other bloggers. I love a good long disclaimer as much as more than the next person, but is it really necessary to warn others that a post will contain details of blood, love, pain, gore, or glory?

Or, is a “TMI alert” only a trick to get people to read more to find out what exactly is too much information?

I am thankful 10/3/2010

By Rae October 3, 2010 Gratitude 8 Comments

For autumn. I’ve never liked fall. It is extremely depressing: grey, short days, cold with no snow to provide a fun reason to bundle up and go outside, and grey. Did I mention that it is grey? People always talk about the brilliant autumn colors, but I happen to know that they only last for about two weeks before the grey takes over.

Anyway, I never liked autumn, but I am starting to appreciate it. The feeling of slow, impending death is a helpful reminder that we are indeed beings toward death. This is simply a part of the reality of life. So I am thankful for the sadness of autumn as it is a constant subtle reminder that my life is short and slipping away. And yes, that really is helpful to remember every once in a while.

For free museums. Have I mentioned how much I love this aspect of DC? Real locals don’t appreciate it as the museums are for the tourists, but so far no one has asked for ID to prove that I don’t live around here, so I’ve been able to enjoy the museums right along with the tourists. And I love it!

For money to buy all the food I want. You have no idea how wonderful it is to be able to think of food that I want and then get it without even stopping to consider whether there is money to cover it. Food makes me happy. Especially onions on sale, for some reason.

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