Dear Sister,

This is going to be short, as I am currently doing an impression of Rudolf while simultaneously hacking up my lungs. (Translation: I have a head cold, and I'm not happy about it.)

I was going to write to you about chicken guts, and find some sort of website the determines once and for all if those organs of question in your chicken roasting adventure were the kidneys or the gullet cut in two, but...Well, I can't find anything straight forward and quite frankly I can't stomach any more chicken gut images. And so, I will let you duke it out with Grandma. Good luck.

I think that's it for now. My brain isn't really functioning properly (point in case: I just wrote probably instead of properly and then fixed it). Back to bed-- er, sleep, for me. I haven't really been out of bed much except to go to work.

It snowed again here this week. I'm just saying, this is not funny anymore. Why am I getting all the snow?

love,

your red-nosed sister

rules for the road

Dear sister,
After much brave and often harrowing experimentation, I have been able to ascertain the following set of rules for driving in this, my new state of residence (not that I've changed my license yet or anything, though).

1. Plowing is a process, not an end goal. Don’t expect to see tar or pavement until, roughly, June.

2. Therefore, silly things like lane markings and turn-only arrows aren’t to be followed. Instead, follow the ice-ruts.

3. Also due to the omnipresent layer of ice on the roads, stopping for a red light is encouraged but not expected. Slowing down for a yellow light is more or less a ridiculous idea.

While fairly widely followed, none of the above driving rules explain these people's near-ubiquitous preference for:
1. passing on the right
2. drive-through espresso huts
3. vanity plates

And don’t even get me started on the “choose-your-adventure” ice arenas that qualify as parking lots.

A list of top 10 vanity plate sightings to follow soon.

Love,
your white-knuckled, that’s-ok-I’ll-just-stay-at-home-today sister

A List of Lists

(as in, literally a list of lists, not as in the best list that ever was list to end all lists)

Dear Sister,

Err...Hi? Long time no blog? *Sheepish smile*

I don't have a good excuse for my lack of presence on the blogosphere. I've been getting two, that's right two whole days off a week. Can you believe it? I basically don't know what to do with myself, which I realize is an incriminating thing to say since your answer will be "post me a blog!" or "blog me a post!" (Both of which, as we've discussed, are accurate and acceptable uses of both post and blog.)

What I've actually been doing with my time off is trying to figure out what to do with my life. It's a rather daunting task, and leaves me overwhelmed and, as you witnessed the other day, somewhat panicky. Okay, true, somewhat is an understatement. Although, I'm happy to report, I have yet to have a panic attack today. So, go me!

How do I deal with said panic attacks, you ask? (After I call you, I mean.) Well, KA1 (as I have three good friends with those initials and cannot think of a better pseudonym but will edit this later when I have thought of one) asked me what I was panicking about and I replied: job, making rent, student loans, friends, new city, boyfriends (or lack thereof and confusion about)-- this is the point at which she stopped me, and pointed out an obvious fact: that would give anyone a panic attack.

Oh, right, duh. Thinking about everything at once does induce panic attacks in even the saniest of the sane. So, I need to focus on one thing at a time. How did I do this? Lists! (Again, duh).

And because you like lists, I like lists-- we all scream for lists-- here they are:

To Do List (comprehensive, ongoing).

Job-related To Do List

(you'll notice, "find one" is not on there. Hey, I can only control so much.)

Writing Sample Blog To Do List

Places to Apply To List

(The blank space after each--that's for writing details and updates about. Err..Haven't gotten that far, is all).

Things Not To Worry About Yet List

(AKA Things That Give Me Panic Attacks List)

Things To Blog To Aila About

(Editor's note: For video of apartment please see "I've Been Busy")

There are more (Apartment Wish List, Non-Apartment Wish List, Things To Get Done Before DC Trip, Things To Clean), but they are mostly in my head and I'll spare you (sorta). You probably noticed, most of the To Do lists are, well, mostly un-done. But the thing is, just getting it out of my head and onto paper actually does quite a bit to calm me down. Which leads me to the conclusion that there is just too much going on in my head. Also, I really like checking things off and crossing things out. Sometimes I even make lists of mostly things I've already accomplished, just so I can cross them off.

Hmm...I think there was something else I wanted to tell you, that I thought of earlier but didn't write down because I had no pen near me...And now I've forgotten. Darn.

love,

your list-happy, panic-prone, back-to-blogging sister

can I embed video into this blog?

Dear sister,

This is the short (15 seconds) video that, when I tried to email, turned out to be a huge file. The question is, can I figure out how to embed it here?



If the answer is yes, what you see is me learning a new skill, and then saying "I don't think I did that right" (which I hadn't - I raised it up too early), which is then why OAF starts laughing.

Love,
your sister

35 degrees? I thought it was supposed to be cold up here.

Dear sister,

Thanks for your response. As you already know, I told PecanMama to read it because I knew it would make her cry. I would tell StrongDad too, but I know he would repeat some variation on the age-old question, "Wait, you girls have a blog?" and I don't feel like answering again. It's not like it was his birthday present or anything. Sheesh. What good is a birthday present that is ostensibly for someone else even though it really serves to fulfill your own selfish purposes if that someone else doesn't even remember they were given it? (Guess that photo of Nancy Anderson just eclipsed all else.)

Speaking of presents, here's your long-awaited round-up of what was waiting for me at the apt when I arrived:

First, Teddy made some new friends:

Myles the Moose and a puppy! I haven't named her yet. Maybe something like Blacknose? Strongfoot? The husky-who-actually-looks-like-a-husky?

Various kitchen supplies:

A book on cheese making (because I want to learn how to make cheese), a thermos which has yet to, but will certainly soon, hold a lot of hot chocolate, and a cast-iron muffin tin (which I was too lazy to go get for the photo, because it's already upstairs in use).

Various snow supplies:

Snow overalls, long underwear (top and bottom!), head lamp (not for spelunking, I asked), and the infamous snow skirt - my new favorite piece of clothing. Missing from the picture: two left-handed gloves (OAF: "Oops.")

Not to be confused with, various emergency snow supplies:

Wool blanket, heat pads, and 5 (?) gloves.

And finally:

From OAF (well, plus all of the above): my very own poser sweatshirt. Now I just have to live up to the label. And from OAF's mother, a pair of warm slippers to keep my feet warm. They are cow hide with deer skin inserts, beaver fur tops, and wolverine/lynx ruffs. At first, based on my upside-down-chicken-roasting "experiment," I thought I should keep a list of "animals I've learned to cook." Then I thought I'd also have to keep a list of "animals I've seen (alive)" while out and about up here. I never thought of keeping an "animals I've worn" list, but ... so far that one is longer than either of the two above.

Love,
your sus-sister (As in, suspicious sister: why is it 35 degrees here?)

Outlining

Dear Frister (that’s freezing sister, as I assume you must be),

You know what’s funny? I actually remember some of those too! I mean, clearly I don’t remember being in the car seat and grabbing your finger, but I think I might actually remember the seat belt excitement, or perhaps I was similarly allowed to unbuckle my seat belt to get Super Tiger his bottle at some point, and found it equally as astounding. But, I can say, quite certainly, that I do remember the kitchen story. And I remember thinking two things: 1) don’t be ridiculous, I have not replaced you and 2) huh, pretty cool, I’m being like Liz! Oh, and a third—3) here, have your spot back. These folks be crazy. You deal with ‘em.

I’ll be honest—I can’t think of an adequate response to your last post. The reason being, well…it was just an awesome post. I tried to brainstorm, but my thoughts kept going back to yours, and morphing themselves into something that would really just be a mimicry. And then I realized—oh, right, that’s what I do.

Here’s the thing—the best thing’s I’ve written are modeled after things you’ve written. 7 Miles to Manilow was the back-bone of both my funeral story and my leg story (hm, yes, I know my writing is somewhat morbid). I’ve had 7 Miles to Manilow stuck in my brain since I read it, and it’s probably somewhere in everything I’ve written. So is the purgatory story you wrote—that one just boggles my mind. I can’t think about it too much because it hurts my brain, and then I try to think about how your brain must work in order to have written that, and that hurts my brain even worse. I always assumed that you and I had the same brain, until I read that story. It was at that point that I realized that your brain does things that mine cannot. Crazy, cool, mind-boggling things.

There are other examples, but those two make my point. You told me that my leg story was a better version of your 7 Miles to Manilow, but you’re wrong. It’s not better, it’s just my version. And here is the thing, it’s only good because it’s based on you. And I think that’s sort of how it works in life. You do something, and then I use that as my outline, maybe make a few adjustments (like going abroad for a semester instead of a year) but basically just put my own spin on it. And I’m always, always trying to wrap my head around your cyclical double story and create something even half as, for lack of a better word, cool as that.

What I’m trying to say is it’s always easier to write from an outline than a blank piece of paper. So thanks.

Love,

Your can’t-wait-to-hear-all-about-the-igloos sister

this is not goodbye; or, three memories, two of which appropriately enough (for us) take place in a car

My dear sister,

I want to tell you about three memories I have.

The first is from when our parents were still together, because they were both in the front seats of the car. You and I were in the back – you were in your car seat, and you were new, because I was torn between watching this thing squirming beside me and watching out the window, looking for the red tipped hat of the gnome who lived outside our car (I’ll explain the gnome-world another time). There you were, squirming and squinching and quite probably getting ready to start screaming again. I wasn’t really sure what to make of you, but there you were. The baby. Our baby, as I’d been told. And I wasn’t really considering what all this would mean – I was just watching you flail around a little bit – until you did something that explained it all to me. I reached out to touch you and you grabbed my finger. You wrapped your whole hand around my pointer finger and you held on, with warmth and softness and yes, strength. And it was then that I finally realized, without searching for it, “Oh – this baby changes everything.”

The second memory is also in a car, but this time our parents are divorced because Mama isn’t there. Dad is driving, and I am in the front seat next to him, and you are once again in your car seat in the back. You are little, because you still need a special seat and you still flail around a lot, but you are older too, because now your flails have a lot more kick to them. We are driving to Syracuse, I think, to spend Christmas with Dad’s sister. Dad and I are talking – about the ice on the trees, the cars on the road, maybe the meaning of Christmas or the legend of Santa Claus (I don’t remember when I knew it wasn’t real, but you know I don’t consider that to be synonymous with ceasing to believe). You started screaming. Well, maybe just fussing, but to my untrained four year-old ears, it all fell under the category of things-the-baby-does-that-I’m-not-allowed-to-do. Dad said you wanted your bottle. It was in the back next to you, but you couldn’t reach it. Dad looked around and said I should climb in the back to give it to you. I took the opportunity to point out the obvious flaw in this plan: with my seatbelt on it was physically impossible to climb into the back seat. Dad said I should take my seatbelt off. I stared at him. He was serious. Blinking with incredulous bewilderment, I broke all the rules of driving, unbuckled my seatbelt, climbed into the back so I could give you your bottle, and realized, “Well – the divorce changes everything.”

The last memory is much farther along in our lives. I had just gotten back from my college year abroad in France and, in the midst of dealing with much culture shock and a recent heartbreak, was at Shore St with you and the family. I had never lived so far away, for so long a time, with so little contact. True, you and I had grown up traveling from one family to the other and then back again, sometimes concurrently and sometimes like ships in the night. But this was different – this was a time spent away in a world whose only strings tying it to my previous life where those I could consciously make on my own. This was before gchat and Skype, remember, and when cell phones were carried in case of emergency and otherwise ignored. You had been to visit, once (with a recovering case of mono, you trouper) and so had some of the parentals and familial others. Still, in France I had known a new sense of individual separation that caused me to grow, and to learn, and to realize things about myself and the world and myself in the world and I was all the more shocked to discover that some aspects of this isolation, for better or for worse, had come home with me to New England. I was surrounded by the family I knew and loved but had no idea of how to fit back in. We were in the kitchen – there was some kind of chaos going on – and I thought, “Well, finally. This is where I fit in: I know how to do this, to solve these problems in this way.” And while I was thinking this, you picked up the phone, called the appropriate people, and re-set the gears moving in their own clunky-but-greased kind of way. And so I realized, “Well – everything has changed, once again.”

I give you these memories not to wax nostalgic on the eve of my departure nor to transfer any amount of responsibility, burden, or sense of necessity onto your shoulders. I simply wanted to tell you that everything will be alright. First, we are joined as sisters in a way that no distance, no time, and no boys can undo. (Sorry boys, but it’s true.) Second, while it is true that for every bond that is made in this world another is broken, this is not to suggest that the things that end can cause nothing but hardship. Sometimes we learn from them. Sometimes it is the only way things can get better. (Sometimes it means we get to break some well-established safety rules.) And sometimes the things that fall apart end up drawing us closer together.

Finally, thirdly, with as much support as I’ve given you over the years and as much as I’d like to take credit for all the good aspects of your development into a unique, creative, caring, wonderful human being (I’ll leave the blame for all the other aspects to someone else, because this is our blog and I can do that here), I know that you will always be ok without me. I know this because sometimes you have shouted it with your actions, and sometimes you have whispered it with your eyes. I know this because you have, somewhat stubbornly and at times defiantly, always insisted on forging your own path. I know this because you have nonetheless always had the strength, the persistence, and the love to make sure that this path, your own path, was nevertheless never too disconnected from mine.

I am going far away. For a while now our shared memories will have to be built over the phone, over this blog, over Skype. All this new-fangled technology we never had as kids, growing up in separate households, catching glimpses of each other on the weekends, sharing secrets and stories and advice and putting our two separate worlds together to try and re-achieve that one, elusive, coherent whole. I am going now to explore a little bit more of the world, to build more of my own separate sphere, but always, and forever, to share it with you.

Love,
your more-afraid-of-flying-than-of-bears sister