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The girl can sing.

I’d like to tell you a little about a girl named Talina.

Talina is 12 years old, beautiful and bright. A student, sister, daughter. A musician, a vocalist.

The girl can sing.

I don’t say it just because she’s my cousin. She’s performed across the country and on TV and in the presence of people like Ryan Seacrest. She performs next week at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan.

I am so proud of her. And I am moved by what she proves.

Talina has autism. Don’t ever ignore a person’s abilities because he or she has a “disability.”

Sing it:

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Books worth reading.

From what I hear, a pretty popular new year’s resolution is “read more.”

And I like it. In fact, I’d make it if I believed I had the time to read for leisure. The truth is, I probably do, or will, now that I won’t have to regularly re-declutter or be distracted by a closet that spews its stuff across my room (It’s my clutter free year!).

But for anybody interested in some non-fiction books worth reading, I thought I’d share the literal few I have most recently read in full. I got something important out of each and you may get something good out of them, too.

1. The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community by Jesse Rice

I found this book at Border’s and bought it though I’d never heard of it. Best impulse buy ever. For the first time in book form, somebody agreed with me re: social media. Jesse Rice, who is a writer and musician and has a master’s degree in counseling psychology, shares my sentiments (almost entirely, except for the fact that he still uses social media). In the book, he communicates those sentiments in the words and ways I’ve been trying to find for years. According to the back of the book, “while personal profiles are revealing, they hint at even larger truths. They uncover our desire for identity, our craving to be known, and our need to belong. … Join Jesse as he explores social networking and its impact on culture and the church. Filled with fresh perspectives and provocative questions, The Church of Facebook encourages us to pursue authentic relationships with God and those around us.”

An excerpt from pages 142-144:

“First, being always-on reinforces the belief that an invisible entourage follows us wherever we go. Our nonstop connectivity ensures we are always within reach of someone, at least technically, and at least in a way that might cause us to act differently than we would if we knew no one was watching. … the more we believe we have an audience, the more likely our behavior will reflect that belief. We will live in response to a thousand imagined voices, rather than in response to our own hearts.

The cultivation of a healthy self-concept is being subtly undermined by the tendency toward always-on behavior. … The new phone is enabling parents and children to be in touch with one another, but it can prevent the child from having to face certain difficult tasks on their own. ‘With the on-tap parent,’ Turkle observes, ‘tethered children think differently about their own responsibilities and capacities.’ … Likewise, when a young person jumps on Facebook … they are newly connected to a vast and growing network of ‘others’ from whom they can receive guidance, comfort, and camaraderie. While this is often a positive experience … it can also be potentially harmful. Young people can come to so fully depend on the advice and opinions of others — including parents — that they become stunted in their ability to navigate life on their own.”

2. Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality by Rob Bell

I bought this book upon my friend Amanda’s suggestion — for somebody who wants to write about relationships and chastity, she said, it is a must-read. I’ll go ahead and add that for anyone who cares about relationships and chastity, it is also a must-read. I’d heard good things about the book for awhile, but until Amanda suggested it, I’d avoided it. And that’s because when I first flipped through it at a bookstore, it looked a little non-traditional, as far as books go, with lots of one- and two-line paragraphs throughout. I thought I’d find it too abrupt to want to read, but as it turns out, I’ll probably never judge a book by it’s one- and two-line paragraphs again. The book is so good.

An excerpt from pages 52-53:

“There’s a passage in the book of First Corinthians where one of the writers of the Bible addresses this worldview. He confronts his audience with a challenge: Can they live for a higher purpose than just fulfilling their urges? He then claims that their bodies are ‘temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God.’

This is provocative language. A temple was a holy place, a place where the gods lived, a place where heaven and earth met. The writer specifically uses this image to challenge them with the idea that a human isn’t just a collection of urges and needs but is a being whom God resides in. He’s trying to elevate their thinking, to change their perspective, to open their eyes to a higher view of what it means to be a human. He’s asking them to consider that there’s more to life than the next fix.”

3. Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent

I unwrapped this book on Christmas Eve: a gift from my mom. I hadn’t heard of it. I read the first few chapters in bed that night, and I read the rest of the entire book while we all relaxed on Christmas Day. I could not stop reading it. The book is the true story of Colton Burpo, a then 3-year-old boy who, after recovering from an emergency surgery, says angels sang to him at the hospital. A little at a time after that, Colton continues to innocently reveal what he says happened to him at the hospital. And what his parents at first think might be figments of the boy’s imagination start to seem real and miraculous when he begins to bring up up things he shouldn’t know. The story itself is amazing, as are the really good points Burpo makes about life and faith throughout.

An excerpt from pages 74-75:

“What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile. The lack of an agenda. It’s that precious fleeting time before we have accumulated enough pride or position to care what other people might think. The same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy, or point out loudly that you have a booger hanging out of your nose, is what is required to enter heaven. It is the opposite of ignorance — it is intellectual honesty: to be willing to accept reality and to call things what they are even when it is hard.”

And I’m always interested in book suggestions. Let me know if there are any you’d recommend.

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2011’s experiment: My Clutter Free Year.

Earlier this week, I spent an entire day decluttering.

I emptied every cabinet. Dumped every drawer. Dug through everything I own and found some things I don’t (Should my old friend Matt Szabo stumble upon this post, I hope he’ll accept my sincere apologies for never returning the copy of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich that I borrowed from him in 2005.).

The tedious task was a repeat. I have been there and done it, over and over again because something somewhere inside me still says what I always said as a kid.

“I hate cleaning my room.”

I always did it anyway, of course, but in a matter of days, the fruit of my labor would wither beneath the new clutter I’d create. Keeping my room clean is a feat I’ve fought and failed to master since childhood.

Exhibit A: The time my parents discovered little Arleen asleep on a pile of toys while she “cleaned her room.”

Bless my heart. I tried.

But I was the kid who wouldn’t rid her room of clutter. Instead, I’d stack it neatly and call it clean. A kid like that grows into a teen whose parents walk into her room and wonder aloud whether her closet projectile vomited. That teen grows into an adult whose desk at work is the worst one in the office.

Exhibits B and C: In June of 2010, I went to work on a Saturday to turn this…

into this:

BAM. And you’ll be proud to know my desk has consistently remained almost as clutter free since.

But until earlier this week, when I decluttered my space at home, my desk at work was as good as it got. I fought to keep clutter under control everywhere else. And I know exactly why.

When I come home at the end of the day, I throw all I bring in onto my bed. By the time I go back to my room, it’s late and I’m ready to sleep. So I throw everything on my bed onto the floor.

Every. Day.

By the end of a week, while I struggle to remember what color my carpet is, I realize what’s ahead: another Friday night spent cleaning my mess or another day off spent working. At least, unlike in my childhood, I value simplicity. I practice it an as many areas of life as I can. When I straighten up my stuff, I want to do it. And when I did it big earlier this week, I decided on this year’s experiment:

2011 will be my clutter free year.

The plan? No clutter spends the night. At the end of every day, I’ll browse my bedroom, closet and bathroom. If anything’s anywhere it shouldn’t be, I’ll put it back in its place. I won’t go to bed until it’s done. And barring any new decor or other such changes, my space will look like it looks today every day between now and Dec. 31, 2011.

So like this:

And this:
And this:


When compared to my sugar free year, a clutter free year sounds simple. But I’m 25 years old and I’ve never had a clutter free room for longer than two weeks. Nobody who has known me for awhile will believe it if I pull it off for a year. And though I’m embarassed by it, sharing it is all I can do to express the magnitude of my goal (I forgot to take before pictures.).

You should also know, however, that I’m a believer in the unbelievable. And I believe there is a lot of good to learn from this sort of exercise: To delay gratification. To prioritize. To manage my time. To be patient. Pulling it off means severing all ties to spending tons of time hanging up laundry that’s been clean for weeks. It means I won’t have to spend the first few hours of a study day cleaning so I can focus. It means I won’t trip over shoes when I wake up in the morning.

Will it be hard? Heck yes. But I’m for it. Let’s do this!

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Resolutions and experiments.

In three days, the ball will drop over Times Square. Twenty-ten will end over mini quiches and coconut rum. The next day, we’ll wake up in 2011 chock full of the urge to live out our new year’s resolutions. And shortly after, we will fail at it.

BURN.

Oh, I kid. But I kid because while lots of us are miserable keepers of resolutions, there must be somebody somewhere among all people who can sincerely stick to it. I am not that person.

In 2010, for instance, I definitely made some new year’s resolutions. I don’t remember any of them. In fact, I have never kept one in my life. But last year, I also decided I’d conduct an experiment.

Twenty-ten would be my sugar free year. Excluding the added sugar in bread and crackers, condiments and alcohol, I’d live without it for a year. And to the dismay of naysayers and to the surprise of the people who know how I teeter along that blurry line between loving and being obsessed with chocolate, I — for all intents and purposes — succeeded.

I chose to quit added sugar because I got tired of feeling lousy after eating it and I know I don’t need it (and if I don’t need it, I don’t want it).

But I had a point in choosing an experiment at all. I picked the probably impossible and promised myself I’d accomplish it. I did it as a discipline and to stick it to the man.

I did it to prove that we are so much stronger than we’re told we are.

We live in a world where we’re certain we’d die if we had to go back to dial-up. We have cell phones and drive-thrus, instant music on iTunes and instant movies on Netflix. We can shop online, make new friends and work jobs without leaving home. None is necessarily bad. All are convenient. But where we live, we have never learned to treat conveniences like little blessings that help us out of binds. Instead, we depend on them. So we take the things we should expect in life and call them inconvenient — things like waiting in line at the grocery store or having to drive to Blockbuster. We percieve what’s convenient to be necessary, which, by default, inflates a person’s sense of entitlement and erodes his or her ability to wait. It communicates that what the world says is impossible is, in fact, impossible. And so we subscribe to that and stop trying.

It weakens us.

It’s why we are obsessed with instant gratification. It’s why your friends think you’re weird if you won’t eat fast food and why you hit a certain age and the assumption is you aren’t saving sex for marriage (or capable of it).

It’s why we can’t keep new year’s resolutions.

They tell us it’s probably impossible.

I am telling you that they are wrong.

I am not telling you that proving it is easy. When I woke up on New Year’s Day in 2010, I wasn’t really excited to start my sugar free year. I was horrified that after publicly professing to spend a year sans added sugar, I’d surely forget one day and eat some ice cream. I was afraid I’d be so weak I’d give in and give up and write “never mind, I quit because I really want a brownie” on my sugar free year blog.

But I did it. And I’m not bragging. I am thanking God that am stronger than the world says I am. And I’m not as scared about 2011’s experiment as I thought I’d be.

– – – –

Check back around New Year’s Eve to learn more about 2011’s experiment.

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Ten things that happened in 2010.

I say and/or think it every December, but dang. One day, you’re riding a pink bicycle, referring to it as your cop car and you’re seven. You blink and, BAM. You’re in grad school, bein’ 25 and learning how to diagnose mental illnesses with confidence.

Time flies.

And it won’t stop. And since I probably won’t have much time to write once Christmas festivities start tomorrow, I thought I’d take a little time now to share 10 things I won’t forget that happened in 2010:
1. My sugar free year: Last December, on a whim, I decided I’d give up added sugar for 2010. Exceptions would include bread/crackers, condiments and alcoholic beverages. My relationship with sugar had been on the rocks for as long as I could think back. Eating too much of it always meant I’d get moody or anxious or I’d sleep so deeply you’d have to shake me to wake me up. But eating too much of it had become inevitable — how can we not eat too much sugar when too much sugar is generally added to nearly everything we eat? Tired of feeling crappy for eating it and to prove that life can be lived (and still enjoyed) without dessert, I decided I’d sever my ties to it. My sugar free year — which officially ends 8 days from today — has been mostly a success. Sans a few snags in the plan (i.e. when I got so sick last January that all I could stomach was Jello, and all the Cheez-Its I ate before I knew sugar’s in it under other names, or when the Cake Boss made my cousin’s wedding cake and the family talked me into trying a forkful of the frosting [it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!]), I pretty much actually pulled it off. And I don’t foresee adding much sugar to my life now that I’ve gone without it for so long.

2. I quit Facebook (and, later, Twitter): There are countless reasons people think I’m crazy. This is probably the one that takes the cake. My stepping away from social media started in 2007, when I deleted my MySpace and had texting shut off on my phone. To quote the column I wrote when I quit Facebook this year, “When we feel like an invisible audience is watching us, the pressure is on. Our decisions are calculated to a fault because everything we do is fodder for a Facebook status. … Social media can also inflate our standards in the real world. We feel more entitled to convenience, averse to effort and uncomfortable with aloneness. Finding friends the old-fashioned way can feel like too much work. Social media makes what we once needed seem obsolete. It is to relationships what fast food is to nutrition — a quick way to feel like we’ve gotten what we need. But when compared with what we really need, what we get is insubstantial.” And the movement of social media through society is changing communication, relationships and brains in ways in which I’d rather not participate. Plus, quitting Facebook and Twitter were natural next steps when one is convicted to stick it to the social media man.

3. We said goodbye to Rocky: In winter in fifth grade, I watched my dad walk into our kitchen with a puppy on the palm of his hand. The silver dapple dachshund weighed a pound and a half and had a head too big for his body. We named him Rocky. To quote what I wrote about him earlier this year, “Together, we grew. I became an adult, and he became a trickster who got good at getting us to leave our food unattended. Once, I caught him chewing gum. Another time, I caught him sucking on a cough drop. He was a canine comedian. An intent listener. A fighter.” In the summer of 2009, our vet diagnosed him with cancer. He had six months to live. So we ran and played with him until he couldn’t anymore. We learned to be what he needed the way he had been what we needed for years. When he lost his ability to walk, we decided to have him put down. I was with him when he died the morning of March 22 at 13 years and 3 months old. We will always miss him.

4. A missionary moved in for a weekend: Right around Easter, I got an email from a guy I’d never met — David Thies, a friend of a friend. David is a missionary and musician who lives in Houston and planned to play music and share stories from Texas to Florida and back in the summer. He needed places to play and stay and wondered who and what I knew that could help that happen when he got to Florida. It happens that there’s an extra empty (literally) bedroom in my parents’ house, where I also live. So I shared David’s plans with my parents. And unlike anything we’d done before, we invited a stranger to stay at our house. David and his friend James came for a weekend in July. David played music at our house and at church and the guys slept on air mattresses in our home for a couple of nights. Hospitality, it turns out, is as valuable for the people providing it as it is for its recipients.


5. We adopted Rudy: This year, we had a dogless house for the first time since I was in second grade (which is when we got our first dog, Willy, who died in 2009). While my mom and I were in no rush to fill the void, it became clear this summer that my dad wanted a dog. So when I came home the on the evening of July 30, the amber eyes of an almost-two-year-old, 12-pound long-haired, red brindle dachshund stared at me from my dad’s lap on the love seat. We named him Rudy, partly because he had a red nose (Rudolph?), partly because I love the movie Rudy and partly after Mayor Rudy Giuliani because that’s hilarious. Mr. Mayor is, in the words of my best friend Laurel, a constant source of joy. He is a.k.a. Kangarudy (the boy can jump!), the Rude Dude and the entire chorus of the song “Hey Rude,” my slightly re-written version of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles. Rudy loves people who don’t catch him off guard, does not like other dogs and is the object of the obsession of almost every person who meets him. I love him.


6. I got over a phobia: I can’t remember when I realized I had it. I have no idea how it started. But for years, at the thought of a) driving on I-275 and/or b) driving into or within downtown Tampa or St. Pete, fear paralyzed me. I could do the things I feared because I’d done them before — just not without a heck of a lot of anxiety. I knew that if I wanted to be able to do it without anxiety, I’d have to do it a lot in one shot — flooding. But mostly, and quite contrary to what I’d suggest to somebody else in the same position, I did everything in my power to avoid it. I didn’t go places if I had to take 275 to get there. I enlisted enablers. And since twice a month I have a work-related meeting in downtown Tampa, I really needed one of those enablers — Phuong, a good friend and colleague. She always drove us both to our meetings. You can imagine the panic that welled up in me when she announced in August that she’d be quitting her job. So on Labor Day, I got what I’d long needed: a few good hours of flooding. I picked my brother up. We stopped at Dunkin’ D for his coffee. And then, I drove. I-4. 275. Into, out of and throughout downtown Tampa in every way possible. Two days later, the moment of truth: the first meeting to which I’d have to drive myself. I made it — and fearlessly, and countless times since, I might add. I’ve also ventured to several other spots to which I wouldn’t have driven in the past. It’s incredibly freeing and I’m forever grateful to my brother for the encouragement and patience.

7. Frankie’s wedding: The first Friday of October, my brother, his girlfriend and I flew to New Jersey for our cousin Frankie’s wedding. It was the first time in six years I’d fly up that way. It was the first time in 12 years I’d see my cousin Louie. It was an awesome trip. Our flight left Tampa late and the wait for a rental car in Newark took awhile. It was midnight before we got to our hotel. We found Frankie and the family in the hotel bar and stayed up ’til 2. He married the lovely Christina in a beautiful church fewer than 12 hours later. That evening, a bus picked a ton of us up from the hotel and took us to the reception which, simply, blew my mind. Multiple buffets in the cocktail lounge. Ladies in ball gowns to announce when the dining room opened. A DJ and a percussionist whose music you could feel. A cake made at Carlo’s Bakery, the bakery from the show the Cake Boss. I, one who only loved to dance when behind locked doors at home, gave in and busted some moves for the first time publicly. So. Much. Fun! I flew home the next day — a super short trip. But entirely worth it.

8. I met and interviewed R.L. Stine, a hero of mine: Kim and I go way back: we’ve been friends for 15 years. So you can imagine all the ways we can reminisce. At dinner at her parents’ house probably halfway through this year, we brought up a book series she and I loved as kids: Goosebumps. The series of “scary” books for kids is by a guy named R.L. Stine. And though I donated my collection to the library when I outgrew them, Kim kept some of hers. We found them in the closet in her old room that night. For old times’ sake, we read part of one. While we read, I realized reading as much as I did as a kid is part of why I grew up to be a writer. I thought I’d thank R.L. Stine for playing a part in that. So I searched for him on Twitter (Social media is good for some things!), found his very active account and tweeted my thanks @ him. The following day, R.L. STINE tweeted @ ME! If, in third grade, somebody had told me that one day, after the advent of something called social media, R.L. Stine would send me a message via it, I never would have believed it. Even as an adult, that he thought about me, let alone tweeted @ me, completely blew my mind. Since I learned he is so easily accessed, I used my next tweet @ him to see if I could interview him for a column about growing up with Goosebumps books. HE SAID YES. Within the hour, I was callin’ him Bob, setting up our phone interview and pitching the idea to the paper’s book editor. Serendipitously, Bob would be in St. Pete at my own newspaper’s reading festival in October. So what I wrote ran in advance of his appearence at the festival, where — on Oct. 23 — we finally met face to face.


9. Kim’s wedding: A little less than halfway through 2005, I walked through University Mall toward Sears, where I’d meet up with a guy named Pat. We’d met on Facebook and become friends and in the moments before our first ever face to face meeting, I called Kim for moral support. “What if he’s crazy?” she said. “I AM SO SCARED FOR YOU.” Little did she know that in 2010, she’d marry him. Not long after I met Pat in real life, I e-introduced him to Kim. On the way to meet Kim at a coffee shop the first time she’d meet Pat in person, Pat and I stopped at the store so he could pick up a Ring Pop, with which he’d pretend to propose. Yada yada yada, Pat proposed for real in 2009 and I was a bridesmaid in their wedding the day before my birthday this year. The entire experience was amazing — bridal shower, bachelorette party, a day at the spa before the rehearsal, the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner and finally, the wedding. I held it together until Kim came down the aisle with her dad during the ceremony, at which point the figureative dam with which my body normally holds back tears actually broke entirely. Thankfully, people stare at the bride at weddings so my weeping with joy went unnoticed. The reception — at which I didn’t just dance publicly for the second time in my life (third if you count my nonsensical dance moves at CityWalk during the bachelorette party), but more in one day than I’ve ever danced before — is on an unwritten list of the most fun nights of my life. Lots of laughs, food, coconut rum (but not too much!) and stories we’ll share in years yet to come.

10. A cruise to Cozumel: Halfway through the year, Laurel (a.k.a. Ster) and I (also a.k.a. Ster) decided to plan a Stercation for this winter. We picked a cruise to Grand Cayman and Cozumel for Dec. 13-18. By the time it rolled around, she and I were both far beyond ready for time off. So when we pulled up to the port of Tampa, we were mildly concerned when just hours before our ship was to cruise to the Caribbean, there were no ships at port. Carnival called earlier that day to let us know the ship would be late because the weather was too windy to dock, but no ship at all so late in the day seemed a little sketchy. So, we waited. Then we waited some more. Then the cruiseline announced that due to the wind, our ship — still occupied by a couple thousand cruisers — wouldn’t dock ’til late that night. That meant our cruise wouldn’t start until Dec. 14. The loss of a whole day on the ship meant we wouldn’t go to Grand Cayman. It also meant for a nice discount, we’d stay in a suite at the Embassy Suites that night. (And we get a discount on a future cruise. Count me in.) Around four the following afternoon, our ship set sail. Shortly thereafter, I got seasick. Don’t worry: I didn’t barf, and by the time I woke up Wednesday, I felt fine. I gave myself permission throughout the cruise to do a lot of nothing at all (which is really what I needed). But Ster and I also enjoyed a few riveting rounds of UnoStacko (as well as a little game we like to call “What Are You Going to Name Your Kid?”), ate a lot unnecessarily, sipped some drinks, got some sun, toured some Mayan ruins, had Mexican food and margaritas on the beach in Cozumel and laughed really hard on an almost hourly basis.

I look back and thank God for the good memories and growing pains. The 10 things I chose don’t diminish the meaning in all the things I didn’t have room to list. But there are a few other things that I can’t not bring up: good things, like all the people I met through work or through friends and online. All the stories I got to write and the great classes I took in school. Another is sad: my Great Uncle Louie died in January. And lots that I won’t have room for are funny, like the time Phuong and I were out to lunch at Louis Pappas Market on Bruce B. Downs. After we ate, we both had to use the restroom but we couldn’t remember whether the bathroom there had one or two stalls. “You go first,” she said. So, I did. Upon my return, I sat down at our booth. Phuong looked right at me and asked, “So was it one or two?” I was taken aback by her question, but I answered anyway. “Uh… number one?” Phuong looked confused. And then, we both realized. She’d asked how many stalls the bathroom has, not what I did while I was in there. We laughed so hard we cried. Several times. For the rest of the day.
Here’s to 2011. In the new year, let’s pray:

“Lord, help us live so foolishly for you that we draw onlookers and those who would deride us. And while they watch and mock, change all our hearts that we might learn to laugh at the foolishness this world calls normal and run away with the circus that is real life.”

Happy new year!