in memory of a most beloved dog

it was may. i had almost completed the seventh grade. my hair was still naturally blonde and i owned many pairs of overalls, when my parents brought home a puppy on a friday night. it was a miniature red dachshund. however, unfortunately for that poor dog's sense of masculinity, my parents realized that they had got the wrong puppy--they'd wanted a girl and ended up with a boy. so after the breeder made a special trip to bring us the sex we wanted, we had two dogs. because after our bonding with the poor emasculated male, we couldn't give him up.

thus, dirk and diva became a permanent fixture of our family, the dachshund duo with the alliterated names. however, on friday, february 15th, diva passed away.

she was a neurotic little bandit, which made her a perfect fit for the scheidler clan. she was smart and wily. she learned to clank the food dishes when she was hungry. she chewed everything she could get her teeth on from blankets to books to coat sleeves (lately, i've been wearing the coat whose sleeve she mangled and thinking about what a little rascal she was.) she would lick your face until your skin fell off, if you'd let her. she loved us all so desperately. they would follow us anywhere. so many times diva waited with dirk as randi, seth or i sat playing inside a friend's house. when i trained for a marathon she and dirk and endeavored to run with me, as fast as their little feet would carry them, and coming home even more exhausted than me (two miles is a lot when your legs are only four inches long.)

it is so cheesy, but there's nothing like the crazily devoted, unconditional love of a dog to make you feel okay. it is insane how many times diva made me feel better about things by curling up with me.

last summer, i let her out of my mom's house to go about her business, and she didn't come back with dirk. i was frantic, calling animal control (they'd caught her before) and fretting over my irresponsibility. half of a day passed, until the couple that had bought the home the dogs had spent the majority of their lives in called. diva had traversed half of payson to go home. she was smart and persistent, and i imagine that she was longing for things to be the way they were before they got complicated and all of us kids grew up and tried to clear our way through the jungles of adulthood.

when diva was just a couple months old, she climbed up on my back while i was laying in bed. suddenly i felt this rather pleasant warmth spread across my back; however, the pleasantness dissipated when i realized the puppy was peeing on me. i high-tailed it to the shower, but ever since then, i have been wary of unexplained warmth--heated seats always get me worried.

oh man, diva. you will be so missed.

on the radio (maybe) and relics of broken marriage

i like to hobnob among the slc elite, and by the slc elite, i mean the nonprofit community. i attended a utah nonprofit networking social this evening, and it was a pretty classy event because they bought fancy crackers, cheese, and wine. (all events can be judged by the caliber of the cheeses they serve.) the event was hosted at krcl, a local, nonprofit radio station. i got to chat with "bad" brad wheeler, the drive-time deejay, and record a little spot in the studio. my bit went exactly like this, "this is roni from neighborhood house and you're listening to 90.9 fm krcl. community connections, music discovery." so, you could here the dulcet tones of my slightly lispy voice between native american tribal chants. (although, krcl plays more than tribal chants--i've heard laura marling played.)

i came home from my networking to find two packages under my doormat.

the greatest of the haul?

 yellow snap-in 45rpm adapters.

i can now play the bag of 45's that were played at my parents' wedding in 1988. for some reason, i find it particularly transcendent to listen to the tunes my parents selected while i was a six-month-old embryo. the songs are artifacts of a different time. a time that i can chalk up to being simpler, although it was surely rife with complexity as two young people prepared themselves to be stewards over the existence of an infant (me.) My mom was my age when she was married. My dad was a tender 19. this is incredibly cheesy to say, but listening to these songs three years after my parents' separation makes them so potent and not in an upsetting way. listening to belinda carlisle belt it and the soundtrack that patrick swayze did his dirty dancing to, makes me feel oddly hopeful and cognizant of all the crazy ups and downs of life. it makes me love life on this tuesday evening and so excited for the potential of the thousands of other evenings that are waiting for me.

i can eat cake off of a tupperware lid IF I WANT!

for those of you who are not aware, i am an adult. it is quite a thrilling realization to come upon.despite my love for sweatshirts printed with kittens and my propensity to eat cake for breakfast, i am no one's ward. anyway, as a surveyed my kingdom--all 450 feet of my studio apartment--i was basking in the insanity that is being a grown-up. not only am i an adult, but i have been a legal adult for more than six years! it seems like i should have something to show for that, like a couple of floor-crawlers with half of my dna, but i don't even have a pet (i can't handle the emotional investment of THAT so let's not even linger over the kid thing.)

so, i haven't found my life necessarily blog worthy. i have lived in the same apartment for 14 months now, worked the same job for 14 months now (well, i guess i did have a sort of promotion), blah, blah, blah. nonetheless, i really like reading everybody's blogs (especially when they get juicily personal), so i suppose i'll dump on you the news of my life.

1) i think i am developing a sinus infection. i do not really know what i sinus infection is, but i have heard of it spoken often. i assume it is like a cold that lingers in the top part of your nose and creates a mild pulsing headache in your temples, since that is what i feel and i am calling it a sinus infection.

2) i almost bought a bike on groundhog's day, but it was a day of thwarted impulses. (if they'd had a purple road bike, i may have been $500 poorer.)

3) i am going to new york city in two weeks to interview for a new york city teaching fellowship. i'm feeling weirdly complacent in salt lake city, like i could live here all of my days and be happy, but i figured there was nothing to lose but a couple hundred dollars by at least showing up for the interview and spending a weekend in the big city.

4) i cut my bangs in the bathroom of work with children's scissors. because I CAN!

5) i am trying to read some dostoevsky to enrich my mind, but it keeps putting me to sleep. so, in short, i am getting dumber, but i feel okay about that.

6) the guy who invented the etch-a-sketch passed away on February 1, 2013. i may need to buy myself an etch-a-sketch to honor andre casagne's memory.

that is all the news i am willing to share in blog form. thank you for your patronage.

the worst weeks are the best weeks

oy vey. mamma mia. ay coron. oh, man. it feels like the last 14-days have been a lifetime, because it seems i have experienced a lifetime's worth of emotion. likely, i am being hyperbolic; i don't think i have really fit a whole life's worth of feeling into a fortnight, but it has been intense. would you like to have an abbreviated list form of what i am talking about? (although, in the interest of full-disclosure, most of this happened in the last 10 days, but i really wanted to use the word fortnight.)

• i attended my three-year old niece's dance recital and basically fought back a barrage of tears threatening to break through the dam of my tear ducts the entire time. "childhood! families! the sweet sense of accomplishment in working hard at something and sharing it with an audience! alas, my own fleeting youth!"  i only cry publicly when watching Titanic or My Girl (okay, and basically any movie tailored for emtional manipulation).
• my car was stolen. out of the lighted underground garage at my apartment building. (it had been broken into the week prior. literally, broken into. the delinquents broke the quarter window on the passenger's side door, and rummaged through my stuff, mainly dirty laundry,but they did take my driver's license, which was stupidly sitting in a cup holder and some headphones and possibly, a spare key, which would explain the grand theft auto.)
•  slept in the house i have called home since my adolescence one last time before ownership transferred to a new couple. the block i spent the majority of the last decade on is now mainly inhabited by retirees. in my head, and sometimes aloud, i call it "old row." with love.
• my baby sister turned 20! she really used to be my baby sister, but as we age at the same rate the relative distance between our years keeps shrinking and makes it feel like she is aging even faster. and also makes her my best friend.
• when driving said baby sister home from work in a car my mother had lent to us poor carless souls the dratted prius stopped in downtown salt lake and because we were not adept at managing its complex machinery. we spent forever merely sitting at the stoplight waving at people to pass us because we couldn't even figure out how to get it into neutral while it was malfunctioning.
• my car was found! but the tires and radio were not. this made the task of recovering it quite an ordeal. however, i found a cup of evidence that the culprits unwisely left, and unfazed by the grossness sifted through it until i discovered a McDonald's receipt with a time stamp. do you want to know the psychological profile of someone who orders a steak, egg and cheese bagel and ICE in their orange juice? a hardened criminal. i've already called up mcdonald's to get some tape but haven't had a chance to go to the police with the evidence yet. (i got all crazy about solving this matter vigilante-justice style, but that was because i had done the whole batman watching thing. (extra parenthetical side note: does anyone think the dark knight rises contained an implicitly anti-occupy message? i could see how it could be read that way, but i plead political innocence on its behalf. but i once heard a sociologist say "nothing is innocent."))
• i went to a mumford and sons concert with baby sister in honor of her birthday, but lost the tickets. after a laborious search through all the trash in my car, we decided to hope to be offered a chance to plead our case. as we walked through hoping to find a ticket-taker with a listening ear, we realized we had walked passed the ticket-takers and were in the venue. no harm, no foul, eh? also, i gave (by proxy) mumford and sons an embroidered pillow i had made. i trusted one of the less beloved touring bands to get it to the headliners who had taken refuge somewhere away from the crowds (and they did and said winnie thought it was awesome). tickets were found behind glove box the next morning.
• my dear friend eliza turned 23. we relived the exploits we engaged in on her 21st year. new tradition?
• bought a new battery for the motor scooter i intend to sell, any interested buyers here? ran into a long-lost friend at the battery store who gave me his personal discount (after my car debacle came up).
• sold off my childhood, yard sale style. with my dad's relocation, the cache of crap/physical memories that our family of five had accumulated over the past 24 years had nowhere to go. good-bye books. good bye toys. good bye freezer, even though we were never close. however, we donated most of the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (I am running the NYC marathon for them, if you don't recall. for more details, or to donate, click here:  http://www2.michaeljfox.org/site/TR/Sponsored/TeamFox?px=1012705&pg=personal&fr_id=1210 ) 
• i actually started to let people know about my Michael J. fox Foundation fundraising effort and a dear friend i met last summer and haven't seen in a year made a very generous donation. i was moved that she cared about me and the effort. 

the best weeks are the worst weeks because with the bad you know how to measure and cherish the good. every kind deed has felt immeasurably kinder in light of feeling so vulnerable. i have felt this before during difficult time. i think when things are hard you learn how to love people better and how to accept their help and affection with grace and gratitude. if i were poetic i would try to write things in profound moving words. but all you get is this recap of the madness and some ideas in prose.

sometimes, you gotta make things happen

so, i was not chosen in the random lottery to run the nyc marathon.

and i was gutted. i had thought it was my destiny.

however, i started perusing the other option for getting into the race: running for charity.

i scrolled through lists on many cancer research charities and then saw the michael j. fox foundation for parkinson's research and thought, 'i would love to run for them.' my father's family has a history of parkinson's (even though most research concludes it is not a hereditary illness. shall we blame environmental factors?) i sent out a email registering my interest, was put on a waitlist and one week later, i was accepted to team fox.

maybe this was my destiny after all.

also, would you like to make a donation to the michael j. fox foundation? i have a $3000 fundraising commitment, but it is for a great cause.

why tomorrow shall be a fateful day

Tomorrow, April 25th, 2012, the New York City Marathon draws from the lottery of prospective entrants to determine who shall run a torturous 26.2 through the five boroughs of the metropolis. I had made running in this race a resolution last year, but I was thwarted by the luck of the Scheidler. (If you succumbed to clicking the hyperlink, I will let you know that I also failed at writing a book and improving my accordion skills but did start flossing regularly and spent the summer in London.) Only about 10% of lottery entrants are selected, and in 2011 it was even fewer.

I am so ready to run this marathon. Well, ready fashion-wise, not physically. I have decided what to wear (pizza shirt), what to listen to (four episodes of This American Life and then some "pump-it-up" songs to try to finish at my goal time of 4:30), and how to do my hair (pigtail braids). The powers that be in heaven and on Earth should recognize that running this is my destiny.

But, tomorrow's drawing may have a much more profound influence on my life.

I have chosen to view being selected to run in the New York City Marathon as a sign that I should move to New York City.

NYC has had a crazy appeal to me for years. Who know if I subconsciously internalized the episodes of Friends my mother watched dedicatedly throughout my childhood (a series which I watched myself chronologically in its entirety during college one or two episodes at a time over breakfast). I applied to NYU as an undergraduate, but was daunted by the crippling cost of tuition (okay, and a little bit of fear at the great unknown). The great travesty is that I went on to earn a Master's degree from NYU, but NEVER lived in the city or even New York state! (Sure, you will never hear me complain about living in Florence, but maybe it is now time to reside in the Big Apple.) I also may be strangely compelled to move to NYC because my mom changed the ringback tone on her phone to a well-known Sinatra song, so every time I call her I hear, "Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today. I want to be a part of it: New York, New York."

I am a prime candidate to be eaten up by a big heartless city. I can be shy and antisocial and absentminded and naive. But I am also hoping that living in the city of dreams (is that a real nickname, or did I just make it up?) I may be motivated to do the thing I always say I want to do: write. Screenplays, novels, short stories, zines, plays, musicals, songs, telenovellas, poetry, letters, resumes, quips, jokes, notes on the palm of my hand, maybe even graffitti.

I also think moving to New York is really terribly trite for a wannabe writer. But things happen in NYC. And how can it not be trite to move to a city where 8 million people live already. "Get off your hipster high horse (not stoned high, judge-y high), Roni and do what you want to do without arguing with yourself about its originality," I say to myself.

I have a job that I am suppose to work until November 16th. I like the people and like the job sometimes. To move to New York, I would have to forsake duty in the name of whimsical aspiration.

But if I do get it, I have a date for the day I hope to arrive in the city suitcases in hand: July 1st. But what will I put in these suitcases? Can I logically tote my guitar, cello and accordion across the country?

However, these problems can be considered after I see what fate the gods of chance decide.

Little Demetri

So, it turns out that I have an odd fetish with bestowing comedians with handmade trinkets.

When I bought tickets for the SLC Radiolab show, which featured Demetri Martin, I figured I ought to express my appreciation to the performer for coming up with some of my favorite quips that I routinely misquote, such as:

"Saying I apologize is the same as saying I'm sorry, except at a funeral."

"Owning a dog in a city tells you a lot about a person. It says, 'My desire for companionship outweighs my distaste for picking up poop.'"

"Dream catchers work, if your dream is to be gay." (No offense intended to dream catcher lovers straight or gay, or Native American communities. Mainly, I am making fun of my father. No offense to him either. I kid because I love.) 

So, I crafted (poorly) an effigy of Mr. Martin (that I hope he did not choose to burn.) The photo I posted was pre-stuffing, but I made his arms far too skinny, and stuffing them was devastatingly difficult, so I left his arms floppy and meatless. I explained this to Mr. Martin, and he self-deprecatingly remarked that it was anatomically correct. He may not have noticed that Little Demetri has no feet.

Our exchange was fairly routine. He was appropriately gracious and kind. He asked if he could keep it, and I said that was why I was presenting it to him. I told him I thought it would be creepy if I kept it. Especially after I embroidered "Fan Art of Voodoo" on Little Demetri's T-shirt.

Bringing Little Demetri and Real Demetri together wasn't terribly difficult. After the RadioLab show, which was absolutely terrific by the way, my friend Eliza's support supplied me with the courage to awkwardly stand by the stage hoping to get the attention of someone involved in the production. We tried to wave down  RadioLab host Robert, but he was distracted with equipment, but then Demetri came out to greet the handful of celebrity-obsessed loonies like myself.

I did not get a picture, so you may allege this never happened. It felt creepy enough giving someone a fabric rendering of themself. I also am not huge on the "getting pictures with celebrities." I feel photos can be a misrepresentation of reality. What does obliging a public figure to stand next to me smiling like we are buddies prove? That I was precocious enough to make demands of a famous person that I really know nothing about? I think we have this tendency to believe pictures are truth, maybe less so in the age of photoshop, but even before photoshop, photos are a framed isolated view of reality. And enough time on that soapbox.

But if you are looking for proof, Demetri said that if he ever updates his website (which he says he really hasn't had updated in like 5 years) he definitely wants to have a section of fan stuff, and that he would feature  Little Demetri with the tag that it was made by Roni from Salt Lake.