Firsts and Fourths - Bye, Bye, Birthday Month

Nameplate by my office door arrived - I'm official and my location is even in Braille.

It is the eve of the end of my 40th Birthday Month (unless I generously extend that to the official end date of February 4), and I find myself surprised by some friends asking me why I have not posted a blog update recently. Well, the academic year has been picking up quickly and is in full swing. So the workdays have been long, complicated, busy, fully scheduled (mornings into evenings), and with the entire campus population back, it is back to professional life for me in "adult day care," i.e., everyone around me is sniffling and coughing and sneezing and taking real sick days (as opposed to snow days). So it was inevitable that I would start to feel under the weather too. To recap the last few weeks as I sip my hot tea and medicine, here are some facts of my life in St. Louis to add to the blog update:

• First speech for all the Resident Advisors at the end of their spring training week. I thought I was under-prepared, but apparently I was a hit.
• First meet-and-greets with the Student Government Association, the Cultural Student Organizations, and several other campus departments - all continues to go well, and everyone has been pretty hospitable and gracious, and yes, my task/to-do list keeps growing every day.
• I was introduced to the entire campus in the school's newspaper, featured in its weekly "Let Us Introduce You" page 2 column (and then quoted again in the weekly highlights on the Op-Ed page 4) in its first issue of 2011. Let me explain the stern photo...the interview included me naming some favorite TV shows (including shows that are no longer on the air, like "The X Files"). The photographer saw the draft copy and thought I should give a spooky pose in addition to the dozens of "hi, nice to meet you" poses with me smiling. Unfortunately, the whole section of the interview about favorite TV shows was edited out in final copy, and the Photoshopped Mulder and Scully never appeared, so the introductory photo feels a bit more disconcerting than I would have wanted. Oh well. So far people have been OK with meeting me, so maybe the introduction was made well enough and I was not as scary as I thought I appeared. (Sorry, Tyra, I will not...be...America's...Next...Top...Model.)

After the continuation of decidedly wintry weather, I experienced my first practically balmy spring days in St. Louis since my arrival in December - two consecutive days of daytime highs that reached into the forties (40-43 degrees), a week after this screenshot. Phew!

• First time I was ousted from not one but four different San Francisco check-ins on FourSquare. I've made up for it by maintaining my "mayor" status at several St. Louis locations including "St. Louis," "St. Louis University," my building on campus, my office, my temporary apartment, the closest freeway exit ramp, the local gas station, my great tailor, the campus bookstore, my yoga studio, and even the Missouri History Museum. Phew. Take that, FourSquare ousters!
• First Sunday mass in St. Francis College Church: a big Gothic cathedral that felt cavernous but warm: full of happy Catholics (who all seemed Midwesternly tall - I was once again the shortest person in the room).
• First time eating in local places like Baileys' Chocolate Bar, the BBC Asian Bistro, Bissinger's Chocolates, and Spaghetteria Mamma Mia (the Italian food here was decent and cheap, but sadly no ABBA music piped in as the name may have suggested).
• First time seeing theater in the Missouri History Museum, and then a week later first time sitting in a packed audience to learn about urban decline, urban renewal, and local neighborhood history from a historian who characterized St. Louis as a city with the culture and demographics of the South but the organization and design of the North - a great lesson to me as I continue to apartment-hunt!

Impressive: very intelligent autobiographical theater (with original music and songs) in the Missouri History Museum.

First time in the St. Louis University Chaifetz Arena, and not for basketball, but for the touring Cirque du Soleil production, "Dralion" (also my first time seeing that particular Cirque show, so that is another one crossed off that list). I even survived the four clowns that mucked around throughout the show (yikes - scary)!

The first time I have ever known a campus bookstore to be closed during the first week of classes, due to snow and ice and wind that prevented a lot of people from coming to work, and over 900 schools being closed. So why was I in the office?!?

 

A typical winter day: snow blowing outside, as seen through an office window with the SLU fleur-de-lis.

Almost feels like I'm back in New York City with the wind and snow - the scene with a residence hall tower on campus.

• My first time refilling the in-office coffee machine that makes coffee, tea, lattes, cappuccinos, hot chocolate, and even a "Milky Way latte" (yum!). 50 cents in the coin can for each cup - just think of what I am saving on coffee runs from the dining hall or Starbucks!

My happy "fueling station" by the photocopier. A welcome oasis from the winter weather in an office building that stays notoriously chilly.

• My first time seeing the St. Louis Symphony perform in the gorgeous Powell Hall venue. And not just any concert, mind you: but my fourth time seeing the amazing Tony Award winner, Idina Menzel in concert performance, on the local stop of her orchestral symphony tour. And holy moly did my girl deliver: left the audience stunned with an a capella, off-microphone "For Good" from Wicked (and stopped the show cold with a rapturous double standing ovation for that number alone), she has honed her in-between-songs patter with more focused funny anecdotes than the last time I saw her do this show in San Francisco, she demonstrated her five-octave range and tremendous belting ability with everything from classic showtunes to new American composers, and yes, even her Lady GaGa number from Glee. Her presence just glowed to fill that space: absolutely resplendent in a shimmering purple dress, barefoot and fancy-free! Oh yes: she sang it, sold it, blew the roof off of it, tore it up, spit it out and left us all wanting more!

Chandeliers in the lobby of Powell Hall - used to be a movie theater.

Interior house ceiling of Powell Hall.

Sadly, no meet-and-greet for a Celebrity Sightings photo, but as Kathy Griffin would say, "Sold out, motherf*&$@#s, sold out!" That's how we do it.

• First time seeing a show at "The Rep," The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (which doesn't actually do shows in repertory - go figure). It was no Vanessa Redgrave on Broadway (very intimate small studio theater and I felt the emotional and intellectual pacing was uneven in delivery), but quite good nonetheless.

Joan Didion's genius acted out in a solid one-act, 97-minute, one-woman show.

So that's my update for now and my recap of the final half of my 2011 Birthday Month. I'll end with these ever-poignant lyrics from Jonathan Larson's RENT because Idina Menzel encouraged the entire Powell Hall audience to sing along with her to this number and I have found myself humming it to myself every day ever since - a nice mantra to face the new year, to deal with new challenges, and to greet each new moment.

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret - or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today

There's only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what's right
No other course
No other way
No day but today

I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be

There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today

The campus will thaw soon enough, but for now, this is a typical serene still of the place.

Cool and Cold: Birthday Month, Week 2

Maybe every week of Birthday Month should end with a cupcake? This one came from Jilly's.

The full pace of work is an ever-growing reality that hit me hard this week, leaving me mostly exhausted before it was even over. Oh well, so much for easing into the new job. The transition period is all gone; now it's clearly all job. But luckily the job is still all good: no complaints, and I'm still smiling.

I guess this makes it all official.

Sometime during my all-day workshop on Monday and my half-day planning meeting (that I facilitated), my first box of SLU business cards arrived, blue fleur-de-lis and everything. Oh, how I've missed working at a school where blue is one of the official colors! Forget green and gold, orange and black, or even "blush and bashful" - blue is my signature color! (Quick: name that play/movie.)

People are still asking me if I am doing okay with the winter weather. On Monday, as I walked between buildings on campus, snowflakes tickled my nose. How can that kind of weather possibly be bad? Sure, the wind was fiercely cold on Tuesday and Wednesday, with overnight lows in the single digits and daytime highs barely hitting the high 20s. But I really have missed the winter season, and I think I've even missed bundling up for it.

I also gave my first "speech" at work this week. Well, nothing major: just remarks at the end-of-training dinner for the RAs and professional staff of Housing and Residence Life. I had the general narrative mapped out in a burst of inspiration a few days before but incidents stole my preparation time away from me on Thursday so I only started typing out my notes about an hour before my scheduled time at the podium. I trusted the worthiness of my storyline and found myself referring to my notes only once or twice and managed to easily fill the 10 minutes of pre-dinner time speaking mostly off-book. Moments after my applause, I greeted each student coming through the buffet line, and I was happy that several gave me great feedback about the speech: "smart," "funny," "lively," and best of all "cool." Already double the age of these students? - Sure, I'll take those compliments. Thanks. I've still managed to be cool (in the cold and dark St. Louis winter).

After work one day, I was greeted back at the temporary digs with a new doortag - the handiwork of one of the RAs.

I knew that if I could just make it past Thursday evening's speaking engagement and into a relatively lightly scheduled Friday, I would be fine. And so it was that I got to the end of this second week of the month, and the university campus is slowly coming back to full life with a growing number of students, faculty, and staff returning. I got through some tasks, carried some over to the next week, scheduled some meetings and rescheduled some other meetings, but overall still felt quite productive and thankfully still useful. That giant vanilla cupcake was a happy surprise afternoon treat at the end of the week, as was the grocery run to Trader Joe's that ended up costing me a whopping 26 cents (thank you, holiday gift card)!

Halfway through Birthday Month 2011 and everything still feels fully fresh, alive, new, challenging, social, and yes..."cool."

Ending the week with pROjECt hApPine$S syrah - thank you, TJ's!

Gateway Birthday: Life at the Crossroads

January 4, 2011
Ever since my New Year's Eve arrival back in St. Louis, I had been happily following an "early to bed, early to rise" routine, to start the new year on the right foot of a healthy routine. And true to my personal routine and now rather long-standing tradition of not working on a weekday birthday, I took Tuesday, January 4, 2011 as a personal holiday off from work. It turned out to be a great day of patterns: discovering hidden patterns, observing more patterns, remembering old patterns, and establishing new patterns. So it was that I proudly entered my 40th year...

After a nice quiet morning, I headed out into St. Louis to run a few errands. Part of getting settled into this new hometown is requiring me to find the familiar in what is new, so off I went to re-establish more of the routines that make a place a true home: dry cleaner, tailor, post office, bank. It was a cool sunny day and I smiled feeling that I was finding more of what will become "my" local services.

Then it was time to begin the annual routine of treating myself to Birthday Adventures - hooray! Even after multiple trips to St. Louis for business meetings and conferences, I had never spent time at the place that is arguably its most iconic landmark, so Birthday Adventure #1 was a visit to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (JNEM): the famed Gateway Arch and Museum.

The good fortune of a weekday birthday (aside from the "stolen/found time" of not being at work) is that major tourist attractions don't seem to be very crowded, certainly not first thing in the morning (even if I didn't make it into the parking garage early enough for the $2 discounted early-bird-parking deal). After airport-like security screening, the National Park Service welcomed me to the JNEM site. I paid for my tickets and moved ahead for the full experience: "Journey to the Top" and the documentary movie about the building of the arch.

Waiting area for the tram ride to the top of the arch.

I'll take what's behind Door #3...

...and that would be the egg-shaped elevator-tram pod (seats 5).

4 minutes later, and I'm 630 feet in the air, above the site of the original St. Louis.

Looking Northeast, over the Mississippi River.

Looking Southeast, Missouri to Illinois.

Looking Southwest.

Looking West: hello downtown, and SLU should be off in the distance.

Looking Northwest.

Self portrait in the luminescent egg going back down to the underground lobby/museum level.

Thanks NPS!

Memorial to "The Builders," flanking designer Eero Saarinen.

Uh-oh! A bear greets me at the entrance to the museum!

Have we truly realized this vision yet?

Also the founder of UVA - wahoowa!

Appaloosa and Louisiana Purchase display.

History of expansion and exploration on display - sadly, an unrealized dream from one of the Wright Brothers.

Beaver alert!

Artillery strip.

Native art.

Tatanka! (American bison in Lakota language.)

Multi-panel mural of the Missouri River.

Peeking inside a teepee.

Beautiful shield, beautifully displayed.

A longhorn, for sure!

A "Wells Fargo Wagon:" oh great, I got myself humming songs from The Music Man for the rest of the morning...

Westward expansion was a rough life.

Homestead display.

Loved the light on this glass display; I'm always drawn to blue glass.

Stagecoach.

St. Louis, MO: positioned at 1830, in the concentric rings timeline that arranges the museum displays in a system that mirrors the theme of (westward) expansion, and moving through crossroads.

After the museum and the almost vertigo-inducing documentary movie about how the Arch was built in the 60s, I headed out to enjoy the rest of my day. I discovered that the theme of exploration beyond crossroads (of time and space) that was so present in this first adventure would carry me through the rest of my day.

Looking up, near the north side of the arch.

Sun + Arch = Natural and Manmade "diamond ring" view.

Arch pattern multiplied in tree-lined park vistas.

More man-made arches in the bridges over the Mississippi riverfront.

Next it was time to fuel up at a lunch break with my great friend, Melanie. After navigating some street closures and traffic snafus (anther necessary routine in any city living), I made it to the History Museum in Forest Park and Melanie and I headed out to Clayton for a bite to eat at Kaldi's, which I learned was selected to supply coffee in the Swag Room of the Golden Globe Awards. Sure enough, a very tasty white chocolate latte capped off my vegetarian sandwich at the original store. The lunch break was a nice remembrance of the unchanging patterns in the constancy of true friendships.

Pillow in the bay window seat for my Birthday Lunch.

Pineapple light overhead at Kaldi's.

Next was a short drive through Forest Park to the St. Louis Science Center, to discover and explore more designs and patterns in nature, science, and technology. I don't care if the museum is really geared towards kids: I always love a good science museum.

Ansari X Prize rocket #1 at the entrance.

Ansari X Prize rocket #2 at entrance.

Huge structure in the lobby - fun to watch the mechanics!

The animatronic greeter has to be modeled after a drag queen in San Francisco, I'm guessing...

You swallow a quart (one liter) of snot each day. Gulp!

Everybody poos.

"That'll do, Pig. That'll do."

My typical reaction to cats.

Rhinotillexomania? That's one science I am glad I never studied.

My vote (after the coffee at lunch): to pee.

Even though Melanie was right that "Grossology" was seemingly designed to entertain 10-year old kids, it was a fun exhibit to walk through - and that included walking into a giant nasal sinus cavity display...oh, so that's what it looks like in there!

Hello, Pteranodon.

Hello, Pteranodon Kite.

Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops: animated robot - cool!

The arch appears again, this time in LEGO, perfectly designed and created by Adam Reed Tucker.

Why yes, I am going to the OmniMax theater (to see "Legends Of Flight"). Why is the Concession Stand poster man wearing my identical black turtleneck outfit?

Under theOmniMax sign.

Traffic visible from walkway over the freeway.

Pedestrian walkway.

Model of Mars.

More arches.

Still more arches.

Good night, Science Center: see you again soon (I'm sure).

After the museum and sightseeing adventures of the day, I returned to the apartment for a quick change and then was off to some new highways and streets to get to Yoga St. Louis. Yes, my last major task of the 40th birthday was to start an 8-week series of classes at an Iyengar Yoga studio here in St. Louis, so as not to forget and forsake a routine that had treated me very well in San Francisco. The director and lead instructor at this studio, Bruce Roger, has studied with and knows several of the teachers back at the Abode of Iyengar Yoga in SF, so I was happy to be the "new kid" in the class.

One of the lessons that Bruce discussed with the class that evening is that achieving the stillness of mind that is the aim of yoga practice requires the circular pattern of learning, un-learning, re-learning, and doing, un-doing, and re-doing. Such is the case with all cycles in life and of life. I was happy to have the gift of this insight on this landmark fourth decade day of patterns, routines, icons, and lessons.

A final vestige of the holiday season - sipping to make it last, smiling to make it count!

A simple supper and glass of wine ended my personal holiday. Back to work on January 5. Happy Birthday to me. Happy New Year to all.

Best wishes for the new year - cheers!