Joining

During law school, people started making fun of me for joining so many groups. The child advocacy group, the animal law group, the domestic violence group, Street Law, Legal Education Project, even the summer UVA social committee for Philadelphia -- I think it was really that last one that people made the most fun of because of all the people least likely to actually attend UVA social events in Philadelphia I would be at the top of the list (and, in fact, I did not attend the one event that the committee managed to plan that summer).

Since coming to Philadelphia, I may have joined a group or two as well, although most of them have been one-time things. I went to the Returned Peace Corps Association monthly dinner one time this summer. I joined a movie group and so far have only gone once. I became a member of the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society but have only volunteered one time. I've been going to church but have only attended two events sponsored by the church's young adult group. I joined one book club's email list, even read the book, but then didn't go to the meeting (although I have joined another book club that I do attend and intend to continue with). I recently went on one run with the local running club but probably won't run with them again; there's another running group that meets a little further away that I spent all summer thinking about joining but never did. I've recently joined a bike club, although none of their events take place until spring, and I also plan to join the Philly triathlon club. I joined a writing group for people who want to write young adults novels. I tried to join another writing group but the person in charge was too unorganized and I got sick of reminding her to put me on the email list.

Haha, I didn't even realize how many things there have been! I guess I've been a little desperate to meet people in town. Without being in school it's a lot harder to make friends in a new city, so I thought groups might be a way to do it. Of course, that's not true if all I do is go one time and then never go back. Maybe in the new year I should narrow down my list of groups and commit to attending more regularly. Or maybe there's a group joiner anonymous group? Or maybe I should join group therapy????

I hope everyone is getting ready to enjoy the holidays with their friends and family -- my mom is coming to visit which means I get friends and family rolled into one! We're planning to see movies pretty much every day so I'll give y'all the scoop on what to see and what to miss. I just saw Slumdog Millionaire and I can definitely recommend that -- especially if you need a little help believing in happy endings.

The Holiday Spirit

I've been trying to get into the holiday spirit lately. I rented Fred Claus, which I enjoyed far more than I should have. I just finished baking about six dozen cookies. I'm working on the tree part but have been hindered by the small apartment and the thought that it will be just a matter of time (i.e. probably seconds) before the cats manage to knock the tree over at which point I can imagine LuLu chomping down on the top and dragging it down the hallway.

And today I went to church. I've been going to the Universalist Unitarian church on and off since I moved to Philadelphia. My favorite thing about it is that every single Sunday is started off with the simple phrase "welcome home." For someone who felt a little lost during the summer, it was extremely comforting to hear every Sunday, especially when it was said without condition. In the fall I took a class there called "Writing as a Spiritual Discipline" in which we started each class with a breathing exercise to prepare our minds and bodies to be creative. It was hoaky and I loved it.

Today's sermon was especially nice and also helpful since UU is a somewhat confusing religion. I've been asked what it means to belong to the UU church and the best I could answer was that it was a religion where people could believe what they wanted and where they could come together to ask questions even if the answers to which they came were different. The sermon today was at least in part about coming up with a bumper sticker answer of what being a UU means. This is what the reverend came up with:

1. We believe that it is a blessing that each one of us was born
2. We believe it matters what each and every one of us does with our lives
3. What each of us knows about God is a bit of the truth
4. We don't have to do it alone

I haven't had enough time to really think it through, but I immediately liked the sentiment and thought I would share it.

Catching Up

So, I know I haven't posted in a long time. A really long time. And it hasn't been that I've been too busy but that despite going through a lot of transitions, things have felt pretty stable. Work has been good, not too crazy or stressful. The cats are good and healthy. I was running until my IT band decided to hate me; i'm now training for a half-ironman triathlon in May, by which time hopefully said IT band will have forgiven me the sin of trying to make the running shoe last through just one last race (FYI, I've started a triathlon blog at www.rutmaniatriblog.blogspot.com. Apparently there are a million triathlon blogs out there and you know how I'm a joiner). I'm making friends in the new city; it hasn't been easy but it has been happening. In the meantime I've been reading at a pace that matches my undergrad days.

I knew this would be a problem for me once I contemplated "settling down" -- I've lost all sense of an arc to my days and weeks and so it seems like one week could somehow stretch into 20 years and I might not really notice. I'm not specifically working toward any one goal anymore, like when I was in school, I'm just living. But while it was easy to know if I was doing all the right things when it came to getting into and finishing law school (as in, I knew that I should not watch two hours of Charmed reruns a night because I should be studying, even though I sometimes did) now I'm less sure.

And also I'm having an identity crisis. Nothing so extreme as a gender bender crisis, it's more subtle, but it's still there. One of the first things we learned to say in Romanian was "I'm a Peace Corps volunteer." I suppose they worried we might get into some sort of trouble where those words would be helpful (of course the translation was quite literal and unless the person was familiar with the Peace Corps we would just be saying we were a body of peace, which made us sound more like cult members than anything else.) But it was something I could be proud of saying; it made me sound interesting and adventurous. And now I tell people that I'm a lawyer, which does neither of those things. Not that I can't be an interesting, adventurous lawyer, just that it requires other people to want to get to know that part of me.

I just read a book called Choke -- which I loved but cannot actually recommend because it appeals to probably a very small audience -- but there's a character in it who starts collecting rocks, one rock for every day, because he wants something tangible he can say about what he accomplished that day and he wants a record of what his life has added up to, even if it adds up to a pile of rocks. I guess I'm looking for some way to spend my days so that I also have something to show for them (but rocks are heavy and my apartment is small, so I'm going to need metaphorical proof of my days).

That's it for now but I will seriously try and update this more often -- perhaps with something more mundane and less heavy, like how awesome the chili is that I'm making tomorrow (it calls for beer but I don't like beer so I never buy it just for the chili, but this time I bought it for someone else and it's still in my fridge --this excites me more than it should, but good chili really can make or break an entire day).