a bit of a katie girl.

although i rarely use this blog for the purpose of vindication, with the general exception of a running commentary on a certain past relationship and my current irritation with the state of reading in america…something has happened that must be addressed.

two of my dearest friends in the world, m. and r., have recently indulged in some serious minnesota-hating via facebook. now, i’m certain that they knew i would see their respective comments (after all i, like every red blooded female in america, am addicted to facebook newsfeed)…but regardless of whether they are provoking me or not i am rising to the challenge. why? because i am fiercely proud of my native state. some might say abnormally proud…but before you jump to conclusions i would like to share with you several reasons why minnesota, in fact, is the best state in the union:

1. barack obama announced his candidacy in st. paul. need i say more? and even though i may disagree with them, the republicans are also holding their national convention in the land of the frozen chosen. why, you might ask? well, perhaps it has something to do with our exceptionally high level of civic engagement and voter turnout. in fact, we averaged a 76% turnout in presidential election years between 1992 and 2004. that is 16 points higher than the national average and the best in the upper midwest. we also allow same day voter registration, in the ultimate effort to be sure that everyone is included in the democratic process.

2. minneapolis and st. paul constitute two of the top three most literate cities in america. we are also home to the minnesota center for book arts and graywolf press, one of the nation’s leading independent book publishers.

3. minnesota is home to some of the most physically imposing and beautiful landscape in the country. from the rich prairies of blue earth county in the southern part of the state, to the bluffs near red wing and winona, to the craggy shores of lake superior…we have 267,000 acres of state parks. this number does not include the 1.9 million acres of the boundary waters canoe area in northern minnesota, one of the most pristine wilderness areas left in the country. All of this in addition to our famed 10,000 lakes (and, for the record, it is actually closer to 12,000).

4. minnesotans enjoy an exceptionally high quality of life, we are rated the second most healthy state overall and have one of the lowest poverty rates in the country. we are ranked third for the overall wellbeing of our children and have one of the highest rates of volunteerism in the country.

5. minnesota has one of the finest arts communities in the country. the minnesota orchestra is consistently ranked among the top ten in the nation, while the walker and minneapolis institute of arts offer two of the most well rounded collections of art in the midwest. we are also home to the st. paul chamber orchestra and minnesota public radio, one of the most successful public radio stations in the country. minnesota has also produced significant popular music acts, including bob dylan and the jayhawks.

6. famous writers from minnesota: garrison keillor, f. scott fitzgerald, maud heart lovelace, louise erdrich, anne tyler, tim o’brien, sinclair lewis and robert bly.

7. some of the best institutions of higher learning in the country are in minnesota. including four of the 100 best liberal arts colleges (as ranked by USNews). these are: carleton college, macalaster college, ST. OLAF COLLEGE and the college of st. benedict. oh, and for all you haters out there, st. olaf college is THE ONLY college in minnesota to be included in loren pope’s acclaimed book “colleges that change lives”. so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

8. inventions that wouldn’t exist without l’etoile du nord (the star of the north): masking tape, scotch tape, wheaties, aveda products, caribou coffee, spam, milky way candy bars, bisquick, staplers and green giant vegetables. not to mention TARGET, perhaps the single favorite retail store of 20-somethings everywhere.

9. we are the source of the freaking mississippi river!

10. the list could go on, but the number 10 reason is that i am from minnesota. and that, in and of itself, makes my state great.

xoxo.
ellie

my mom is one of those delightful people who dispenses a lot of advice. and i mean, a lot of advice. she has spent the last twenty three years advising me. and while i wish i could say that i listen to all of her wisdom…i don’t. like most willful, sassy children i tend to let it go in one ear and out the other. until later on when it bites me in the ass and i think…i should have listened to mom.

there are many mom-isms that i’ve only recently come to understand, even though they are all advice that has been offered to me over and over again. these include (but are certainly not limited to):

1. if everyone else says it is a bad decision, it probably is. if everyone else says you are wrong, you probably are.

2. everyone deserves to love and be loved.

3. the people who are worth it fall in love with you because of the journey you are on. not because of the destination.

i often call my mom for advice. i also often call her when i am bored, sick, irritated, happy, excited, nervous, anxious…well, you get the picture. the woman has been subject to my every mood swing and tear since birth and as a result, knows exactly how to deal with me. so when i called her last night, after a weekend of moping where my internal dialogue went something like this–

i’m so bored. why aren’t r. and d. home. i miss my family. i want to move home. i’m sick of washington d.c. i’m never going to get a job. i’m irritated with my housemates. i want to travel. everyone else is getting married. everyone else is having babies. i’m fat. i’m ugly. i’m bored. my life is so uninteresting.

–i was expecting sympathy. no such luck. she was in the middle of finishing her final paper for her multicultural health class (because on top of the full time job of being my mother and managing an entire emergency room…she is getting her master’s degree) and after patiently listening for a few minutes she offered a new kind of advice. in the form of the following, simple question:

where is your spunk?

where is my spunk? what a pointless question. i’m tired, i’m crabby and for heaven’s sake I DON’T KNOW where it is. boy, was i irritated. i hung up the phone irritated. i went to bed irritated and thrashed around for awhile like a two year old. and i woke up this morning still annoyed. then, in an effort to make myself feel better, i went on dictionary.com and looked up the word spunk, because for some reason etymology tends to have a pacifying effect on my moods. here is what i came up with:

Definition #1: pluck, spirit, mettle.
Definition #2: touchwood, tinder or punk.

hmm. i cross referenced (good english major that i am) and came up with the following definitions for pluck:

1. to pull suddenly.
2. courage or resolution in the face of difficulties.

and then (finally beginning to feel a bit better), i cross referenced mettle:

1. courage and fortitude.
2. in the position of being incited to do one’s best

use it in a sentence, please?

the loss of the first round put him on his mettle to win the match.

okay. so maybe mom was right. although i’m anxious to be done with lvc…to move forward with my life…i need to face where i am right now with a bit more excitement. with a bit more spunk. i need to be on my mettle to come out of this year with a sense of achievement. a better sense of self. an unshakable belief that i have grown this year.

and in the name of personal growth, here are the areas of my life i’ve identified as needing to approach with a bit more pluck:

1. my commitment to exercise, eating right and personal health.
2. the eternal, awful search for employment.
3. my community.
4. healing my heart and forgiving myself.
5. enjoying my life in washington d.c.

so, in the name of pluck (and because mom is usually right), here it goes. i have seven weeks left and i am going to enjoy them and keep moving forward. because the truth of the matter is, when it is freezing cold in minneapolis next november, i am going to be pissed at myself if i don’t take advantage of the time i had to be myself, here.

xoxo.
ellie

i really like kathleen norris. “dakota: a spiritual geography” is one of those books i wish i had written. that i think i could have written, if i had significantly better writing skills and a bit more introspection. in “dakota” kathleen norris writes of her family’s homestead: “(it is) my spiritual geography, the place where i’ve wrestled my story out of the circumstances of landscape and inheritance”.

my dad and i were talking about kathleen norris when i was home this weekend. we were also talking about our spiritual geography. my spiritual geography. about the fact that (on his side) i am a sixth generation resident of the prairies of southern minnesota. i know that in our increasingly mobile world, this is more and more rare. very few people have that kind of tie to a specific location. we have to create our own geography.

its like those advertisements for the phone company that combine the names of major cities to explain to you the places that call most often. for me its owaolaftwincitiesmetro. next year it will be washiolaftonna. or maybe twinonnawash. depending.

i guess the point of all of this is that the older i get, the more i realize that home isn’t really home anymore. at least not how i originally envisioned it. like so many other things in my life, it is never going to be again what it once was. your geography changes. and even the places you think haven’t changed, actually have. because they now mean something completely different. so while blast softserve is still on the corner of rose and north oak, and still serves my favorite cookie dough ice cream treats, i saw it with new eyes when my brother and i went there last week. same teal shutters and walk up window. different heart.

i was attempting to explain all of this to my best friend a. over dinner in northfield on friday evening and how much it used to bother me. how i used to look at the ice cream shop, owatonna high school and the steele county free fairgrounds and wish i could go back. that i could do it all over again and somehow fix things. prevent a broken heart. walk away sooner. live my life without being afraid of losing him. i used to look at these places, see these places, and only feel hurt and betrayal. the only thing i took away from home was how much i had missed. how much time i had wasted. the same with st. olaf. frankly, i decided to move to washington d.c. because i was terrified of missing my own life. which is what being at home used to make me feel like.

but as i told a., this trip was different. my lame-ass analogy went something like this: do you know how your foot feels when its asleep? numb, but when you try to move forward at all by putting pressure on it, it hurts like hell? that is what my life felt like, my whole body. i felt trapped by this searing pain every time i tried to move forward. because everywhere i looked i saw who i was. and i thought that was who i was supposed to be. but this time visiting home was different.

for the first time it felt like mine again. my own home. not the home of something and someone i’d rather forget. and while i don’t believe in signs, when i was driving up to st. olaf to visit some old friends, i heard the song. you know the one. that song we’ve all claimed as our own that resurrects the skeletons in the closet and makes a scarred wound feel like its bleeding again. mine happened to come on 89.3 the current just as i was pulling onto i-35. and i listened to it. for the first time. in two years. from start to finish. and there were no tears and no hurt. memories, certainly. like the time i recorded myself singing it on his cell phone. but as i remembered that it felt so distant from my life right now. more like a movie that i had watched once than a person i had ever been.

a couple months ago, when i was being super angst-y about staying in d.c. or moving home to minnesota, my brother (wise beyond his years at eighteen) said roughly the following to me: “i know that it took a lot of courage for you to move to washington d.c. and i know why you did it. but you’ve done what you went out there to do. don’t you think the really courageous thing to do now would be to move home and start the new life you’ve created here, where you belong, with your family?”

yes, russ. i suppose you’re right. and as much as moving to washington d.c. has complicated my personal geography, it has somehow managed to simplify it as well. home is home. d.c. is d.c. and i am myself in both places. finally.

xoxo.
ellie

i’ll be the first to admit that i sometimes tend to focus on fashion and urban living in this blog. little do you know that inside of me is an outdoors loving, sigg water bottle toting, birkenstock wearing, rei shopping, bona fide crunchy. and although i do love a good pedicure…i’m actually at my happiest when i’m anywhere near lake superior or the boundary waters canoe area. so for all you katie girls out there who defy the socially constructed definition of what it means to be female…this one’s for you.

oh, and in case you are wondering…i am, in fact, tossing a log. this picture was taken last fourth of july in the boundary waters while i was competing in the caber toss competition at wilderness canoe base. as i remember, i came in third for the ladies. not a bad showing for an amateur!

i am going to tell you a story, but in order to understand the context, i need to first share with you a few key pieces of information:

(1) i am an expatriate minnesotan currently residing in the district of columbia as part of a volunteer corps program
(2) i like to make lists. i have many of them. my lists include “goals for this week” “goals for the next six months” “goals for this year” and a “bucket list” of things i want to do before i die.
(3) on my “bucket list” (besides going to africa and taking at least one clandestine lover) is to ride the tram that goes from underneath the house and senate office buildings to the u.s. capitol.
(4) i am a katie girl.

my story begins sometime last month when a certain d.c. roommate who shall remain nameless signed us up to attend a weekly constituent breakfast with a certain minnesota senator who shall also remain nameless (hint: rhymes with robochar). the breakfast basically consists of doughnuts and coffee in the senator’s office…followed by a few pictures. we were scheduled to go today, so said roommate and i woke up at the crack of dawn to be down to the hart senate office building by 8:30 a.m. for our breakfast with other minnesota constituents. we arrived right on time at the senator’s office, only to see that it was being gutted completely. there were a dozen men (and a few women) in suits waiting to meet the senator outside the office, where a perky intern immediately informed us we would be going over to the capitol building to meet the senator there. with all the men in suits.

now i am never under dressed. i pride myself on never being under dressed. and even though my gut feeling had told me to dress up a bit more…i had opted to wear a khaki skirt and my chaco sandals. i also went by what j. (nameless roommate) was wearing…jeans and a t-shirt. although j. isn’t exactly a style maven, she had gone on the website and seen pictures of the (very casually dressed) constituents who normally participate in this event. we had even giggled as we imagined our white-legged brethren wearing shorts because they were so thrilled about the warm d.c. weather. and maybe even one of those fbi t-shirts. well, let me tell you that there was nary an fbi t-shirt nor a white leg in sight. except for mine.

so the senator’s chief of staff (!) comes to escort us via tram to the u.s. capitol building. insert squeal here. i was actually achieving one of my life goals. something that was on my bucket list. and do you know what i was thinking about? my freaking outfit. and the truth is, i didn’t stop thinking about it for the next hour and a half. and i’m still thinking about it. i’m also thinking about whether a guy would have felt the same way if he had showed up under dressed. would it have mattered nearly as much?

the fact of the matter is, j. and i had an incredible experience this morning. we met a senator. we stood inside the u.s. capitol building. we rode the tram. and i’m still focused on what i was wearing. and how i felt in it. i know they say that clothes make the (wo)man, but what i’m really tired of is how they always seem to unmake me. i am so focused on pants sizes and making sure i carry my kate spade purse label side out that i miss what is really happening around me. a once in a lifetime experience. i am so obsessed with reading about everyone else’s sense of style in fashion magazines, what they weigh, what they eat…that i miss the goodness in my own life. my own style.

the fashion industry makes billions each year exploiting women (and men) by telling them that they have to dress a certain way to be a certain way. that some clothes don’t look good on you unless you weigh 115 pounds. i open up glamour every month and each page becomes a new wish. to be thinner, better dressed, more chic…and while i do believe in the power of a little black dress and kitten heels…what i don’t want, what i’ve never wanted, is for what i wear and how i look to define who i am.

so what i’ve decided is i’m going to have to figure out a way to get back onto that tram. and this time i’m not going to think about what i’m wearing. i’ll be thinking about the sheer awesomeness of democracy (insert audience groan here). or maybe about how surprisingly quickly those bad boys move (and they really do)…or maybe just about the beauty of having an experience you’ve always wanted to have. chacos and all.

xoxo.
ellie

I’m a Katie Girl because of society. Society has created a mold for me that I am simultaneously trying to fight and fit into. Societal pressures are so much a part of me that I can no longer figure out the difference between what I want and what society wants me to want. This makes me complicated.

Who I am in the context of my society allows people to make assumptions about me. For example:

I am female, and therefore must love chocolate and hope to one day have a family.
I am from middle-class white suburbia and must therefore be naïve about issues like racism and poverty.
I am 23 and therefore must enjoy alcohol and going out on the weekends.
I am blond and therefore must be not so smart
I am from Minnesota and therefore must like hot dish and cold weather.
I am from the U.S. and therefore must know how to read and write.
I am a feminist and therefore have to be pro-choice.
I am a math minor and therefore must a nerd.

These are only a few examples, and while some of these stereotypes are true, some are false. Some I embrace, some I fight tooth and nail. Why do I do this? Why am I so afraid to either meet or not meet these expectations? Why do I care about what society says I should or shouldn’t be? I act different around my parents than I do around my friends. My co-workers see me in a different way than my clients do. I am always trying to figure out what people’s expectations are of me first and then deciding whether or not I want to try and meet them. I continually try to decide what I feel and what society has told me to feel. Despite years of searching, I still haven’t figured out who I am and who I want to be. That makes me complicated. That makes me a Katie Girl.

i’d like to offer my formal apology to this week’s katie girl for taking so long to put her entry up on the blog. and for always eating her chocolate chips. thanks for such a thoughtful response. for more information on the katie girl project or to submit an entry, click here.