Blogroll

When I'm not here, you may find me wandering the pages below. (If I'm a regular visitor to your site and I've left your link off or mislinked to you, please let me know! And likewise, if you've blogrolled me, please check that my link is updated: thisroamanticlife.blogspot.com. The extra (a) makes all the difference!)

Archives

For posts sorted by date or label, see the links below.

For posts on frequently referenced topics, click the buttons to the right.

To search this blog, type in the field at the top left of the page and hit enter.

Body: in sickness and in health

I won't lie; this body and I have had our issues with each other for many years. Body image -- sure. Physical and mental overextension -- comes with being a Type A kind of girl. I still struggle with these things, so they show up from time to time in my writing.

More recently, illness, pure but not simple, has added itself to the mix in a multi-system sort of way. And the challenges in figuring out exactly what's gone wrong are many. As problems have revealed themselves in the last few years, beginning with reactive hypoglycemia in late 2008, I've documented them here, partly to gain a little clarity on managing complex conditions but mostly to give voice to vulnerabilities I feel but don't normally share with anyone face to face. Better out than in, they say, right? (Oh yes, humor is one way I deal.)

The links below cover the different angles I've examined (and from which I've been examined) within that experience.

Travel: neither here nor there

When the person you're married to lives two time zones away, you log a fair number of frequent flier miles. And if you blog about commuter relationships, you log quite a few posts en route too.

Since we're no longer in separate places, I blog less often from airports. But we do travel -- together now! -- which is much more fun to write about. So in addition to thoughts on our years of commuting, the links below cover the places we've been as a pair and, in some cases, the adventures that have happened on the way.

Writing: the long and short of it

Why do I do it? Good question. Maybe it's not so much that I like to write but that I have to write, even when the words refuse to stick to the page. Believe me, I've tried doing other things like majoring in biochemistry (freshman fall, many semesters ago). Within a year, I'd switched to English with a concentration in creative writing and wasn't looking back.

After graduating, I taught English for a few years and then worked as an editor, which I still do freelance. In 2007, I applied and got into an MFA program at a place I like to call Little U. on the Prairie. I finished my degree in 2011 and have been balancing tutoring and writing on my own ever since.

The following links cover the writing I've done about writing: process, content, obstacles, you name it. It's not always pretty. But some part of me loves it, even when it's hard. And this is the result.

Heart: family and friends

I'd have a hard time explaining who I am without being able to talk about the family I grew up in as well as the people I've met beyond its bounds. But even with such context, it's not easy! In the simplest terms, I'm a first-generation Asian-American who has spent most of this life caught between cultures. That, of course, doesn't even begin to describe what I mean to, but there's my first stab at the heart of it all.

That's what this group of posts is reserved for -- heart. The essential parts of my life whose influences I carry with me, for better or worse. The links below cover what I've written as I've learned how these forces work within me, for me, against me, in spite of me. They anchor me even as they change me, and they keep life interesting.

Recommended reading

What do I do when there's too much on my mind and my words won't stick to the page? I escape into someone else's thoughts. Below is a collection of books and articles that have been sources of information, inspiration, and occasional insight for my own work.

Monday, March 31, 2008

You are here ... and here ... and here

March has been a hectic month. I've spent four of its five weekends on the road and/or in the air, and I think my poor body would like not to cross any more state lines or international boundaries for a little while, if only for the sake of getting school work done!

I did get to see D (my husband) on all but one of those weekend adventures, so the travel was certainly for good reasons. This many weekends together in one month is actually much more than we tend to get since we usually aim for visits every two to three weeks. And we didn't even have that luxury when we were in college (no income, no travel funds), so this month was kind of like winning the lottery, even if it meant paying for it in jetlag.

At the beginning of the month, we visited one of my sisters in Boston, and then the following weekend was the start of my spring break. The day after I flew back to Seattle, D whisked me away to Vancouver for a little getaway at a boutique hotel downtown (yay, Hotwire), hugely convenient to the theater district and Granville Island's public market and art galleries. This was the first time I'd ever just surrendered all responsibility to him for planning a vacation, and it was so nice (I was good and didn't peek at the credit card bill to figure out where we were going beforehand, either).

The next weekend, we went to a few open houses around Seattle. We are looking into buying our first home, which is no small undertaking. Having to coordinate property viewings around the times when I'm in Washington makes it even more complicated. But it is exciting. When my plane took off on Easter Sunday from Sea-Tac to take me back to Iowa, I looked out the window and realized that somewhere below me was a place we would call our own someday. We're in the early stages of our search, so our list of serious candidates is empty at the moment, but I'll post news as it occurs.

Then this past weekend, I drove to Chicago to meet up with my parents and the Boston sister while they happened to be there (sadly no D, but it was lovely to see family again so soon). This was really a whirlwind trip -- arrived around 11:30 on Saturday morning and got back here today at around the same, with just enough time to throw together a lunch and hop on the bus to get to campus for my first class. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have gone, given all the work that's been untouched all month and continuing to pile up, but it has helped in the past to fill my life with other favorite people in between visits (and D and I weren't going to be seeing each other for a particularly long stretch after spring break ended). So Chicago it was.

I hope April is a little less crazy.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Posts by date

Posts by label

Air travel Airline food Allergic reactions Astoria Awards Bacteremia Bacterial overgrowth Baggage beefs Bed and breakfast Betrayal Blues Body Boston Breastfeeding British Columbia California Canada Cape Spear Clam-digging Colonoscopy Commuter marriage Cooking CT scans Delays Diagnoses Dietitians Doctor-patient relationships Doctors Eating while traveling Editing Endocrine Endoscopy ER False starts Family dynamics Feedback Food anxiety Food sensitivities Gate agent guff GI Halifax Heart Home-making House hunting Hypoglycemia In-laws Intentional happiness Iowa Journaling Kidney stones Knitting Lab tests Little U. on the Prairie Liver function tests Long Beach Making friends in new places Malabsorption Massachusetts Medical records Medication Mentorship MFA programs Miami Monterey Motivation Moving Narrative New York Newark Newfoundland Nova Scotia Olympic Peninsula Ontario Ophthalmology Oregon Oxalates Pancreatic function tests Parenting Parents Paris Pets Photography Portland Prediabetes Pregnancy Process Professors Publishing Reproductive endocrine Research Revision Rewriting Rheumatology San Francisco Scenes from a graduation series Scenes from around the table series Seattle Sisters Skiing St. John's Striped-up paisley Teaching Technological snafus Texas Thesis Toronto Travel Travel fears Traveling while sick Ultrasound Urology Vancouver Victoria Voice Washington Washington D.C. Weight When words won't stick Whidbey Island Why we write Workshops Writers on writing Writing Writing friends Writing in odd places Writing jobs Yakima

Monday, March 31, 2008

You are here ... and here ... and here

March has been a hectic month. I've spent four of its five weekends on the road and/or in the air, and I think my poor body would like not to cross any more state lines or international boundaries for a little while, if only for the sake of getting school work done!

I did get to see D (my husband) on all but one of those weekend adventures, so the travel was certainly for good reasons. This many weekends together in one month is actually much more than we tend to get since we usually aim for visits every two to three weeks. And we didn't even have that luxury when we were in college (no income, no travel funds), so this month was kind of like winning the lottery, even if it meant paying for it in jetlag.

At the beginning of the month, we visited one of my sisters in Boston, and then the following weekend was the start of my spring break. The day after I flew back to Seattle, D whisked me away to Vancouver for a little getaway at a boutique hotel downtown (yay, Hotwire), hugely convenient to the theater district and Granville Island's public market and art galleries. This was the first time I'd ever just surrendered all responsibility to him for planning a vacation, and it was so nice (I was good and didn't peek at the credit card bill to figure out where we were going beforehand, either).

The next weekend, we went to a few open houses around Seattle. We are looking into buying our first home, which is no small undertaking. Having to coordinate property viewings around the times when I'm in Washington makes it even more complicated. But it is exciting. When my plane took off on Easter Sunday from Sea-Tac to take me back to Iowa, I looked out the window and realized that somewhere below me was a place we would call our own someday. We're in the early stages of our search, so our list of serious candidates is empty at the moment, but I'll post news as it occurs.

Then this past weekend, I drove to Chicago to meet up with my parents and the Boston sister while they happened to be there (sadly no D, but it was lovely to see family again so soon). This was really a whirlwind trip -- arrived around 11:30 on Saturday morning and got back here today at around the same, with just enough time to throw together a lunch and hop on the bus to get to campus for my first class. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have gone, given all the work that's been untouched all month and continuing to pile up, but it has helped in the past to fill my life with other favorite people in between visits (and D and I weren't going to be seeing each other for a particularly long stretch after spring break ended). So Chicago it was.

I hope April is a little less crazy.
Posted by This Ro(a)mantic Life at 6:53 PM
Labels: , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)