You know you are old when...

Merry-go-rounds are no longer make you feel merry, but more like you may want to puke. I loved merry-go-rounds when I was little. It was exciting to hold on tight and watch the world zoom around you, wind through pig tails, all the adrenaline rush a four-year-old can handle. Well, somewhere between 4 and 25 something changed.

Today I am at the Gormley family reunion running around with my niece and nephew. Natalie wants to go on the merry-go-round, and since she is two and liable to decide that walking while the merry-go-round is going is a good idea, I offered to be the good aunt and ride along with her. I love Natalie. I love merry-go-rounds. Kind of a no brainer. But after a couple of rounds of "faster, FASTER!" being yelled by Kyle, I was feeling quite sick. That's right. Sick, from a merry-go-round. I must be getting old. LAME.

On a separate note, 25 must be the age where people automatically assume you are going to have babies soon, or have one cooking in your belly. As I climbed off the merry-go-round and passed Natalie off to Kevin for MGR duties, my cousin said, "Nauseous? You have a baby in that belly?" To which Kevin and I both responded emphatically, "No." Seriously, I am going to get a shirt that says "No. I am not. Please stop asking." or a favorite response from my friend Rachel, "I don't have any ovaries." That should shut them up. :o)

Fun on the job

I work with Web sites all day at a Christian publishing house. One of the projects we are working on is a user review/comment function. Since I am the "business owner" for this project, the programmer came to me to get a list of words that would be filtered out if they were entered. Yes, I had to come up with a list of swear words. The thing is, I started and realized there was no WAY I was going to come up with them all myself. So I enlisted my friend Baa, and we enlisted our friend Becky, and still we were stumped. So, I asked one of my IT friends for a list. I mean, such a thing must already exist, right? The list exists and WHOA is it crazy. Some of the words I had never seen written down before and there were some that I didn't even know the meaning of (and I don't consider myself to be THAT naive). The list had close to 300 words - whoever knew there were that many vulgar words and sayings out there! We got a good laugh out of it though - picture three girls in Christian publishing trying to come up with all possible swear words. :) Just more fun on the job!

I'm sorry you feel that way

I hate that phrase. Because people say it when they don't think that they have done anything wrong. It essentially says, "Your feelings are wrong and I am sorry that your feelings are messed up, but I am still right."

It is a load of bull.

This Weekend I...

1. Sang happy birthday to my nephew, Evan
2. Ate a piece of Evan's bday cake
3. Got a pedicure
4. Raced my nephew Isaac and lost
5. Ran a 5k (and got my best time ever!)
6. Hosted a bridal shower
7. Ate a piece of shower cake
8. Bought seven large mylar balloons with my cousin Kelci
9. Sang happy birthday to my cousin Angie
10. Ate a piece of Angie's bday cake
11. Collapsed on my favorite chair from exhaustion
12. Listened to my three four-year-old nephews jabber over breakfast
13. Pushed my nieces on the swings
14. Celebrated my grandparent's 60th anniversary
15. Watched a fun slide show full of family photos in celebration of above anniversary
16. Ate a piece of anniversary cake

4 pieces of cake later and the weekend is done and I am dead tired, but it was all worth it. Every calorie and every single memory.

bag o' books

I love books. So it is not surprising that I work with books, about books, and for books all day. I just love reading. Ever have since I was just a lil thing. But, my love of reading + my job at a publsihing house creates a BIG problems.

Stacks of books. Everywhere. I have a ton of books (boxes and bags upon boxes and bags) sitting in my basement that need good homes. Books that I got, read once, and then didn't care to keep. And I still have two decent sized bookscases in our office that are full of the keepers. The ones I go back and read over and over and over again.

Where do all these books come from? Well, a couple of times a year there is an employee sale at work. Now, we have an awesome discount every day for our books. But this sale is for items that get returned to us that aren't ours (really you would think bookstores would be smarter). It is a chance to pick up a ton of good reads that we don't publish. And get this, it is all for a donation. There are no set prices. It is a book lover's heaven.

So here is my bag of books sitting on my desk:

Don't be deceived. That is one of those fold up reusable bags I use for groceries. I stuffed a lot in that ole bag. Now, most of these are quick summer reads. This bag of 20 or so books will last me through the summer. Then the lot will get thrown in the basement with the other discarded books. But right now I can barely wait to get my claws into all those stories. And if they're lame, they'll just get to meet the basement pile sooner than later. The weekend cannot get here soon enough.

Chicago and ferrets?

I am in Chicago for an Internet Retailing Convention. Yippee! Chicago is really a lovely city. Which is exactly why I dislike that I am spending most of my time here in a convention center (though it really is quite nice). I am also bummed because one of the topics I was looking forward to discussing and learning more about got switched and now someone is talking about forums (still useful info), but forums about FERRETS. It is really hard for me not to laugh right now.

I think I am going to skip the last 10 minutes of this session and head to dinner early.

Anger

I think I have anger issues.

Even as I write this, it just seems weird. I am a happy person. I love to laugh. I am a people pleaser. I like to see other people around me happy. But to that end, I often get angry about things and never tell people. And that, my friends, is not a good way to live.

My anger outlet: sports. I regularly swear during softball (which, btw, is a church league). I get pissed off if I strike out, miss a ball, or make a bad play. And this is not the kind of angry that leaves easily. It definately penetrates the entire game. Even when I was in high school I became a completely different person when I played sports. The caring nice Megan flew out the window in favor of elbow jabs and jockeying for position on the basketball court.

And, really, it is not as if I am that upset over the game. Part of it is the fact that I may be doing poorly, or the team as a whole is losing. But there is something deeper there. The rage is boiling, not from the heat of the game, but from something deeper that simmers under my lid every day. I carry it around under wraps, only to unleash when a step onto the field or the court.



Ouch. Watching this hurts. It hurts because it is true. I am looking for a fight because I haven't already joined a big beautiful fight that can change this world.

So even though I may save the rage and anger for the softball field, it is not enough. Being generally happy and nice to people is not enough. I need to be angry and enraged about the things that matter. About health care and AIDS and orphans and widows and children who feel no love. It is not enough to put on a happy face and let the anger out during sports. I need to realign, readjust and let the anger come out in strangely beautiful ways. Like building houses for those who have none. Helping the single mom do yardwork. Visiting the kids at the neighborhood center. Microfinancing in Burundi. Because if the anger has to go somewhere, it might as well veer towards hope.