Pretend Brave

mlalonde — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:51:13 -0400

As a child, I didn’t even like to go out to dinner. I didn’t want to go someplace new, someplace where there were people I didn’t know, people I would have to eat in front of.

Even Mickey D’s was scary. I was happier at home with peanut butter and jelly, thank you very much.

Have Junker, Will Travel

mlalonde — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:42:03 -0400

Lucy was one of my finest companions. A spunky yellow miracle, I picked her out of the pack the minute I laid eyes on her. “I’ll take her,” I said to her owner without a moment’s hesitation.

Listening for the Click

mlalonde — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:26:21 -0400

I decided to move to Tokyo in the space of 13 seconds.

“I have some crazy news,” says my boyfriend. His voice is eager, and a little crackly from being in Nova Scotia, where he’s fly-fishing with his dad. “I just checked my messages—there’s no service up here. Anyway, Carl called from the company. A spot opened up in Tokyo. And somehow someone put me on a list and they decided to give me a shot and—I leave in two weeks!”

Escapade to England

mlalonde — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:10:14 -0400

In 2006, I started the New Year in a depressed state. When the ball dropped, I realized that not much had changed from the previous New Year. My routine consisted of work, gym, home and the occasional lip wax. It occurred to me that should a truck hit me, my obituary would read, “Jennifer Palumbo killed by truck. Leaves behind out-of-date VCR.” I was in a delicate state. So when I received a call from my friend Sharon asking if I wanted to go to England for a weekend, temporarily forgetting my hatred of fl ying, I agreed.

Tribal Confusion

mlalonde — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:25:44 -0400

I’m milling around a dance studio with twenty other barefoot women, but the minute the drums start, we line up like soldiers. Rink-a-dink-a-dink-dink goes the break, the signal that the West African rhythm sinté is about to be begin. Dinka-dink-dink! goes the djembe, a round drum played with slapping hands. Ka-doon-chuk-chuk! booms the big dundun under mallets the size of hammers. My arms and legs know just what move goes where in the complex syncopation: I’ve danced this one before.

Go See the Tiny Ninjas

mlalonde — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:38:03 -0400

My daughter, Emma, and I both felt a little ill, slightly nauseated, tummies grumbling, and with headaches that make you pay attention and not move too quickly. We both felt the helplessness of victims of food poisoning, facing certain doom.

Perhaps it was the heat, or the Mexican food, or the Indian food, or the Thai food, or the unidentified lunch objects from the conference I had spoken at that day.

Change of Plans

mlalonde — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:28:33 -0400

When I began planning the trip, the idea was to be big and luxurious; it was our honeymoon after all. After my fiancé broke things off and after he begged and cried and after I reminded him that he wanted other things, I began the sad process of cancelling our reservations —the caterer, the baker, the candlestick maker. When my finger ran down the list, it passed by the travel agent. Again and again I looked right past it and went about cancelling other plans, lamenting with my mother about lost deposits and crying about my newfound loneliness.

Navigating

mlalonde — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:14:17 -0400

We sat around the kitchen table in Maryland late one autumn night, drinking tea while we debated. My brother and his wife Sarah wanted to go before the leaves turned, but I was reluctant to travel when an avalanche of work remained to sift through––house repairs, medical paperwork, so many tasks unfinished. I drained my cup and finally said, partly because I wanted to get to bed, “Fine, let’s do it.” Peter and Sarah beamed at me and patted me on the shoulder as if I had been a very good child.

How Can You Be a Feminist Without Anyone Knowing?

mlalonde — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:58:15 -0400

“I’m not a feminist, but…” is a phrase I hear young women say quite often. Courtney Martin, an author whose work focuses on perfectionism and body image in women, encourages her young audiences to break out of that mindset and embrace a new f-word: feminism. This is a scary thought for women of my generation, who have distanced themselves from what they see as “extreme” feminist ideas and from the inevitable “bitch” label that comes with them.