I have taken some flak (or at least some well-deserved questioning looks) for the huge number of photos of myself displayed on this website. So I feel I should just warn you up front that this entry is chock full of pictures of me… but don’t worry, they are ALL EMBARRASSING.

Last week, when I was trying to decide what to be for Halloween, I took the opportunity to search through our family photo albums and pull out every single photo of me in a Halloween costume. Then I lined them up in chronological order, and realized that there has been a consistent thread weaving its way through my life: dorkiness.

And then, because the embarrassment of reminding myself what a dork I am was not enough, I had to post those same photos on the internet for the entire world to see.

So, here, for my own twisted amusement, are some highlights from my career as a wee Trick-or-Treater:

Halloween 1988

My first Halloween. I was born in September of 1988. So by the time Halloween rolled around, I was still only a small stub of a human being. My big brother Brian, who was eight at the time, was dressed up as a Ghostbuster. So Mom, being the creative and resourceful individual that she is, decided that her brand new baby daughter would make the perfect accessory to his costume.

That’s right, she put me in baby carrier, stuffed a white blanket around me, and affixed a smily face to my forehead. I think that look on Mom’s face in this picture can correctly be interpreted as, “Yeah, I dressed one of my children as a ghost, and the other as a ghostbuster. What are you going to do about it?”

Halloweens 1989 & 1990

Forever to be known as “The years that I was Supergirl twice.”

Some things to notice about these pictures: 1. I was Supergirl. Twice. 2. I had curly hair when I was a toddler. 3. Dad was pretty young looking in 1989.

Halloween 1991

First in a long tradition of costumes recycled from my brother. In this case, he had been “Buddy Blue,” a character from the TV show Rainbow Brite. A few years later, I was basically the same thing, except with bunny ears.

I think a look a little rightfully indignant about that fact in this picture.

Halloween 1992

… I don’t even know what to say.

Halloween 1994

This was the year I went as “Purple Sweatpants Girl!” No, really… this was another recycled costume from Brian. But the main thing I remember about this year is that it rained buckets on us all night, and that poor little “Batgirl” got so soaked that her mother made her take a warm bath immediately when she got home. (Which, I might mention, interfered directly with Bat Girl’s plan to begin immediate consumption of candy upon returning home. But I guess she survived.)

Halloween 1996

This Ladybug getup was an original. I remember that Mom and I pulled this together in one afternoon out of materials in our “Dress-Up” bucket when I realized in desperation that I did not have a Halloween costume. (Really, in case you didn’t know, Mom was a champ when it came to helping us with our Halloween costumes.)

THE END.

All of our other Halloween pictures are either too grainy to be worth much or they are T.N.T.T.O.A.T.A.S.T.E. (”Too Near The Threshold of Ages That Are Still Too Embarrassing.”)

You’ll have to excuse me for this self-indulgent journey back through time. “Man,” you’re thinking, “These bloggers; if they don’t have kids to post endless pictures of, they post picture of themselves as kids!” To which I say… erm, you’re right. But at least I’m up front about it, right? Right.

P.S. Mom would like me to tell you that the Smiley Face wasn’t really affixed to my forehead, it was affixed to a hat on my forehead. She thinks the first one sounds neglectful. I think she’s just feeling guilty.

P.P.S. Mom would now like me to tell you that actually nothing was affixed to my forehead, because I was facing backwards in the baby carrier. So that’s the back of my head you’re seeing. Piddling details.

Yesterday was perfect Halloween weather here in Eugene. Actually, it was just perfect weather, period. There is something enormously uplifting about cold, crisp, sunny autumn afternoons. I wish I could bottle up that feeling and bring it out on overwhelmingly gray days like today, when all my brain wants to do is shut off and go back to sleep.

When I was little, Halloween was a big deal. I still remember the palpable excitement I felt, rocking back and forth on my chair at the dining table, unable to finish my pizza because I COULD NOT WAIT for it to be dark so my little friends would arrive in their little costumes. Then we would canvass the neighborhood with our parents, searching for those elusive king-size candy bars and daring each other to go to that one house that was SO SCARY.

I am no longer a Trick-or-Treater; in fact, I was only eleven or twelve when I joined the ranks of the lame people who stay at home doing homework and don’t even carve Jack-O-Lanterns. Some crotchety part of me really objects to teenagers Trick-or-Treating. Come on, folks, leave the candy for the kids!

But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy Halloween. In fact, to be perfectly honest, right next to that crotchety part of myself there is an eternally youthful part that will never get tired of playing “Dress-Up.” I love costumes. So I was stoked to wear one for the Gutenberg Halloween party last weekend.

This year I decided to turn my love of photography into a party activity. Using some gorgeous red curtains I borrowed from my mom and an awesome light that I borrowed from a friend, I set up a makeshift photo studio in a room off of Gutenberg’s foyer. The resulting photos of everyone in their costumes are every bit as dramatic and fun as I had hoped they would be. You can see all of the photos from the Halloween party in a Flickr set here. I highly suggest you go look at them; there are a few gems.

Oh, and me? I went as Rita Skeeter, the “Enchantingly nasty” reporter-woman from Harry Potter.

… I will let you draw your own conclusions about the fittingness of that costume choice.

Yesterday (Friday) was my mom’s birthday. I was not sure exactly how to begin this post, because whereas I began the post about my birthday with the words “Yesterday was my 18th birthday,” I believe that Mom would like me to be less forthcoming with her digits, so I will just say that “Yesterday was my mom’s birthday upon which time she reached an undisclosed, definite age.”

Let me take a moment to tell you what a remarkable woman my mother is. She and I have had our fair share of scuffles, especially in the last few years, mostly because we are so darned alike. And, as a result, I rarely give her the respect that it is both my duty to give her and that she deserves. But the fact is, my mother is one of the most admirable people I have ever met.

Her life, like every person’s who is willing to admit it, is not neat. She makes mistakes. She makes choices she knows she doesn’t want to make when she makes them. But Mom has always modelled humility, honesty, and graciousness of character for my brother and I in her everyday interactions with other people. She is always thinking of other people before herself—a fact that, to my great shame, I often do not recognize as she provides for me. She also has real wisdom born of experience, and has shared it with me to my great benefit on many occasions. (Not to mention the fact that she is insanely organized and has done a fantastic job of making sure our household runs smoothly for decades.)

I do not think my mother is a perfect person. And sometimes, all that my blind eyes can see are her faults, perhaps because I know so many of them are also my own and I am afraid to own them. But when God opens my eyes, I see that she is a true woman of Character and Virtue, who has been faithfully doing her best to serve God and her family through the years.

I talk a lot about what a big deal this period of transition to adulthood, of starting college, of moving on and growing up has been for me. But it has been just as big a deal to Mom. She has watched me grow and struggle and learn. She has watched me prove what a selfish sinner I am time and again. She has watched me succeed and fail and encouraged me to look at what things are really important in life. Heck, she even faithfully reads my blog (and all your comments, FYI ).

And I know that she is proud of me, but I can also see that as she watches me prepare to leave the nest, her heart aches with that bittersweet mother-ache that I suppose I can’t yet fully understand.

I don’t know if I can possibly make that ache better, but I hope that letting her know how much I appreciate her will help. Thank you, Mom, for being a role model, a teacher, a comfort, and a friend. Thank you for sharing wisdom and caring and endless patience. Thank you for supporting my crazy ideas and interests, and for always being there for me. Please forgive me for the disrespect I have showed you and the pain I have caused you. I really do not think I could have had a mother better-suited to me. God knew what He was doing. I love you. Happy birthday.

(Update: I apologize to the people who were startled by this post’s title and opening sentence. I really didn’t intend to worry anyone. Perhaps it was just a stupid idea for a post. So just forget about that part and scroll down and watch those videos about Gutenberg!)

I am sorry to report that Erin Julian, the highschooler, along with all associated free time possessed by her, passed away Monday morning, September 18th, at approximately 9:00 am. She was last seen walking into the classroom in a small but fantastic Great Books college tucked away on a street corner in Eugene, Oregon. Friends and family members were unavailable for comment, but Erin Julian, the college student, had this to say about her former self: “There were good times, there were great times, there were crying-myself-to-sleep-awful times. Also, I have a feeling that Gutenberg is about to rock my world.”

She will probably not be very missed.

But anyway.

Now we have experienced two days of orientation. But, in all honesty, it feels more like TWO MILLION YEARS. I think that feeling has a lot to do with the fact that Monday morning I sat down with a group of seventeen mostly-strangers, and with every hour that has passed since then those strangers look a lot more like friends. I would love to tell you all about them, but since I haven’t really discussed my blog with most of them yet I don’t feel like I have permission. But someday, perhaps.

Since I am spending my week getting to know Gutenberg even better than I have ever known it, I figured it was only fair that I give you the opportunity to do the same. In the last few years, a filmmaker who is a friend of the college graciously took on the project of making short films to educate incoming students and interested parties about Gutenberg College and its institutes, Mckenzie Study Center and Art Project. Those films have recently been posted to Google Video, and I invite you to watch any or all of them if you are interested in learning more about my school:

(Because I am a n00b when it comes to embedding video, I am going to be weak-sauce and just link you to each one. Sorry.)

Students talk about Gutenberg College
(This is my favorite one.)

About Gutenberg College

About Gutenberg College as it relates to its Institutes

About Mckenzie Study Center

About Art Project

There you go! I know not all of you may find those videos riveting, but that’s okay. I figure if you’re not interested in it you don’t have to watch it.

(Oh, and before anyone asks me why the music in some of those videos is the score from The Village, the answer is: I don’t know.)

Yesterday was my 18th birthday.

This means I can now…

• vote.
• get married.
• gamble.
• smoke.
• get a credit card.
• go skydiving.
• buy things from infomercials.

… and generally do whatever the heck I want all the time. Right? That’s how this adulthood stuff works, right, Mom and Dad?

In all seriousness, it is blowing my mind a little bit that I am actually eighteen. Being eighteen was one of those things—you know the ones—that is always in the future and will never actually happen. But here it is. I can’t argue with the date on my birth certificate.

I was very close to—don’t laugh!—getting my nose pierced yesterday. There’s a tattoo parlor in Eugene that gives free piercings on one’s eighteenth birthday. I had actually been planning on doing this for a year or more… but I realized, as the day approached, that I actually did not really want my nose pierced. What I wanted was to feel eighteen. I wanted a tangible mark upon myself that would make me feel older and more capable of handling the world, I guess. But I didn’t really want my nose pierced.

… So I decided to start smoking instead.

Just kidding! Actually, I gave myself the gift of an eighteenth birthday portrait sitting. It may not have left a mark on my face to let others know that I am now “an adult,” but it did seem like a fitting way to comemmorate the day. I’m still me—it’s (sadly) not like I’ve changed into a magically more competent person overnight—but I have reached a milestone of sorts, and I think that’s worth remembering.

My dear friend Natalie indulged me in this endeavor and performed the role of photographer, using my camera. Unfortunately, because I am quickly being swallowed whole by the gaping maw that is “Gutenberg/all the stuff I need to get done before Gutenberg starts ON MONDAY” I have not been able to edit the portrait shoot yet.

Instead, here is a picture my brother took of the evening cake festivities:

So. Growing up, moving on, becoming a college student.

Yikes.

One year ago today, I brought this beauty home:

Between then and now, it has…

… had its first snow…

… had its hood stolen (!) and then replaced…

… had its stereo’s faceplate stolen and not replaced (sigh)…

… and taken me on multiple road trips, carried me to and from work and school, and contributed a great deal to my growing feeling of independence.

For our anniversary, I gave it an old, half-broken tape deck/radio combo that Elijah took out of his car when he got a new CD player. It appreciates not driving in silence all the time anymore.

Thank you, car, for being the (fairly) reliable companion that you have been. Please don’t get stolen again.

(P.S. I still haven’t washed it. As in, not once since I got it a year ago. The Oregon rain kept it clean in the winter, I swear!)

Last time I wrote I was sitting amid piles of clothes waiting to be packed. Tonight, a week and two days later (oh dear!), I have barely finished unpacking those same piles. Of course, Mom and I have been home in Oregon for three days already. But, unlike my Mother the Mightily Organized, I do not possess an innate desire to unpack and sort and fold and put away all my clothes and accessories the moment I arrive home from a trip.

My unpacking method is a bit more subdued—I tend to pass by my half-opened suitcase, abandoned unceremoneously on the floor, ten or twelve times, thinking that if I will only believe hard enough, my shirts and socks and pants will grow legs and crawl themselves back into their appropriate drawers.

Suffice to say, my room stays messier longer than Mom’s.

I meant to write a blog entry every night that I was in California. But every night Aunt Annette and I ended up talking or surfing the web together or watching a movie into the wee hours of the morning. (Or all three, often. ) I decided that quality time with my Aunt (who I hardly ever get to see) was more important than regular blog entries. (Besides, one can never see A Knight’s Tale too many times!)

On the first night (Sunday night) I wanted to tell you about the long car ride down during which we only stopped once and during which we had to endure an audio book that sounded like it had been recorded by a chipmunk on crack.

On Monday I wanted to let you know about my early 18th birthday present from Grandma, which was a new lens for my camera (picked out by my uncle the photography buff)! (It was an EFS 17-85 mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, for those who care. They also gave me a UV filter, a polarizing filter, and a lens hood to fit the new lens.)

Tuesday I would have written that I loved my new lens and that we visited the beautiful mission at Santa Clara University to take pictures, but that I made the mistake of switching to RAW format on my camera for half the afternoon, only to discover that I could not download the RAW pictures onto Aunt Annette’s computer with any of the software that she had (or if I could I couldn’t figure out how).

On Wednesday I would have mentioned our visit to Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, and maybe Uncle Tom’s book on portraiture that I found very helpful to peruse.

And on Thursday, perhaps I would have told you about the haircut that Aunt Annette gave me, or the photoshoot of me that she orchestrated in order to practice lighting and camera operation. (She is thinking about getting into professional photography… professional pet photography, to be exact, but I am choosing not to draw any unsettling conclusions about her choice of model on this particular day. )

But though I would have mentioned all of those things, you all probably would have seen right through them if I had not admitted what was really on my mind: my grandma.

In a lot of ways, this trip down to see her was not as difficult as I imagined it would be in my exhausted pessimism the night before we left. Imagination is often worse than fact in these situations. But, it was still plenty hard.

I think this anecdote sums up the experience pretty well:

One evening, we were stopping by a pizza place to get dinner. Mom and Uncle Tom had walked inside to get the pizza, and grandma and I sat outside in my family’s station wagon with the windows rolled down. For the first few minutes we sat there in the slightly awkward silence that has come to characterize my time with Grandma in the last few years. Whether because she is lost in her own thoughts or because she is too disengaged from her surroundings to make meaningful conversation, I don’t know. But I made a few attempts nonetheless.

“It sure is hot out.”

“I wonder how much longer they are going to be with the pizza!”

She would chuckle a bit at these pronouncements, but then she started to become more engaged in our conversation.

“I like your shoes!” she announced at one point, looking at my tennis shoes.

“I bought these shoes for work, because I have to wear close-toed shoes there, even in the summer time!” We both chuckled. She started asking me questions about work, and I explained my job. Then we talked about some of the people going by the window and a few of the shops we could see.

Among the many things about my grandmother’s body that are shutting down, her memory is failing. I knew this. I have known this for quite some time. But I could not stop myself, knowing that this might be one of the last times I would ever talk with her, from bringing up things that used to be meaningful to both of us—phrases that she used to use, and stories that she used to tell.

After a remark about food, I said, “You know, Grandma, you always used to say that you were not a picky eater; you always said you would eat anything except snails and frogs’ legs!” I had heard this phrase at least once a visit from her my entire life. “And it’s still true!” she said through her almost-toothless grin. It hurt, because now she can only eat liquids and she rejects most things set in front of her. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I said, “do you remember Brian (my brother) when he was a little boy? Do you remember him splashing through the mud puddles?” She had told me the story of Brian in his slicker and boots splashing through the mud puddles so many times that I knew it by heart. Now, her eyes became distant as she fought to bring this memory back to the surface. “Yes,” she said, finally. It hurt, because I did not know if she was telling the truth, and this had always been one of her dearest memories. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I tried next, “do you remember when you and I would go shopping together? Don’t you remember, we called our outings “adventures”?” Before my grandmother’s health declined so much, she would take me on a trip to the mall every time she visited. It was a highlight of her trip. This time she was really struggling to remember. “Okay, if you say so,” she said. And it really hurt, because I knew she did not remember, and those times together had been precious. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I said, “you have been a fantastic grandma. I’m so glad you are mine.” She turned and looked at me. For a moment, her eyes were not distant or staring. They were fixed on mine with a clarity I had not seen in them for quite some time. I saw in them a spark of the stubborn, spirited personality that has carried her through life and made her the person that she is. “Thank you, Sweetie!” she said, sounding genuinely surprised and grateful. And that moment hurt and was sweet with all the bittersweetness I could bear. But I was very glad I said it.

I may not have typed out all the stories and emails that I meant to while I was in California. But, in real life, I think I said exactly what I needed to say.