What I wish I knew then, I guess I know now

Writing Prompt: If you could write a letter to your younger self, giving advice for troubles that will happen in the future, what would it look like? What would you say? Would the letter be funny, or would it be serious? (from Apricot Tea., check out her new project - Ask Apricot)

Dear Younger Self,

It’s me, Older Je. I’m here from the future, briefly, to tell you a few things you should grasp tight in your memory and not let go of. Tidbits of advice, if you will, to help tackle some stuff that you’ll find hard, a perspective on the things to come and a few words to still your mind. If I could be there with you then, this is what I’d tell you:

First and foremost – stop feeling bad in your skin. It’s you. The only body you’ll ever have; and it could be a lot worse. Let me tell you, every time you’ve felt squishy or pudgy or unlike the pretty girls in the magazines, I’ve looked back on pictures of you, and you looked like a million bucks. I only wish I could have that figure right now. I work every day to get it back. So dammit, put on a f*cking bathing suit in public and prance around. Kick your toes in sand. Bend over and pick up your beach towel without putting a T-shirt on. Look in a mirror and appreciate what your momma gave you.

Speaking of momma – try to let up a little. You’ll look back of some of the stuff you said and did to hurt her feelings, and it’ll sting. She’s great, and all she’s ever wanted in life is to be a fabulous mother, and your best friend. And while she might be a little hard on you (yes, I still agree Bs are not a bad thing and a midnight curfew blows), she molded you into what you’ll soon become – smart and independent. A lot of girls don’t get a supportive family. Appreciate that they love you so much they’re willing to push you, ask what you’re doing and punish you. It might feel like you’ll never agree, but trust me, she’s a great friend waiting in your future, and she’s worth it.

You know what’s not worth it though? Credit cards, a poor credit score and calling your parents to bail you out because you lost your job and can’t pay your bills, or living paycheck to paycheck and barely squeaking by. Or not being able to drive your car cause you spent your last $9 on Snickers ice cream and Oreos while drunk one night instead of gas to get to work. This one is easy – stop freakin’ spending. Stop it. Now. The eight sweater coats in every color and length that you couldn’t live without – they’ll be the ugliest thing you’ll see in a couple years, so you don’t need all of them. And that poncho. And those jelly sandals. And that suede Pocahontas-looking jacket. It’s all just material junk that you’ll look around at, unable to sell it for any sort of value, and wish you had all that money back to pay off your credit cards.

I know you’ve never been good at money – but you’ve always been good at friendships. Keep that up. Friends and your family - they are what matter – not the latest fashion, or 46 tubes of the shiniest lip gloss, or the car you can’t live without and the perfect vase for your living room. Just remember – there are a few of these people you’re going to lose too soon, and it’ll be hard to grasp or understand. So always return that phone call, and always visit when you feel you don’t have the time. Because you’re going to look back and wish you did.

And finally, I’m here from the future to tell you to stop worrying so much about me. Take it one day at a time. Here's a tip - you’re not going to be married at 27. So chances are you’re not going to have your first kid at 30. And guess what; it’s all going to be okay. You’re not going to love your job, but you’re working toward smaller goals and you’re figuring it out. All the answer won’t be at your fingertips when you thought they would be, but you’re well on your way. You’ll discover that living in the moment is much more rewarding than always worrying about the future, so why not start that now? That job you felt like you’d never get – you’ll get it. So continue to sling coffee and live for free off your parents. You’ll never be that free of responsibility again. That relationship you thought would never come – life is full of love and being alone is some of the best times you’ll have to grow. So stop moping on the couch because you couldn’t find something to do for one night. Relax, take a breather and let it all just come, one day at a time…

Love,
Older Je

Bad luck in the Random Shiz That Goes On department

I have some serious bad luck in the Random Shiz That Goes On department.

I don’t think I’d consider myself a clumsy person – I don’t generally have a problem with dropping things, falling over, tripping, etc. But I do have a problem with little mishaps and sometimes I just do stupid shiz, so I guess I might be a little accident prone.

It appears as if I have to “initiate” myself into a new home with one of these little accidents before my body, mind and soul can feel comfortable there. It’s becoming a tradition.

For example, for those of you who are new readers, when I moved into my old apartment about two years ago, I came home after an all-nighter at the bars and accidentally knocked deodorant out of the cabinet above the toilet after flushing it, and it was SUCKED UP the freakin' toilet. Full story is here. Can you believe that? How does that happen? So, for at least the first week, the toilet was out of order while my landlord called a plumber. The whole debacle cost me $75. For bumping something out of the GD cupboard. Anybody else and the deodorant would have probably just fallen to the ground. But oh no, me – well, for me, it has to actually be timed just perfectly to be sucked up the toilet, clog it and cost me a mighty large fee for a drunken stumble. Bad luck in the Random Shiz That Goes On department.

So, last week was my first week living in the sexy new place, and I was packing away with bated breath, waiting for me to do something stupid. I almost lost an entire 16 ounces of dark iced tea all over the white carpet while walking into my room on the first night – but I caught it at the last minute. Phew. Looks like I was going to escape being a retard* just this once.

The next evening I was making dinner and hanging some pictures in the kitchen (I’m an ultimate multitasker), so I go to pick up the hammer, and the edge catches the plastic container of nails and screws that I have, and the ENTIRE freakin' container FALLS into the SINK with the GARBAGE DISPOSAL and at least 10 NAILS and other metal objects fall DOWN the disposal.

F*%#$@!

Now, because garbage disposals and gross food particles kinda give me the gag reflex, I told my roommate not to use it, put a plug over it and waited, sneakily for my boyfriend to come over a couple days later so I could ask him to fish out the nails for me, via the form of a “favor.”

Saturday morning I woke up and started off with, “I’ll make you breakfast if you do a favor for me.”

“Are you serious? Like what…” he eyes me warily. At this point, I’ve already enlisted him for moving my entire apartment, helping me break down and take out all the cardboard boxes, hanging items I can’t hang myself, storing a lot of my stuff I can’t fit at my place in his garage, and cleaning my old apartment. Some might say I’m running a slave relationship. I just say this is the reason why girls have boyfriends next to the fact that battery-operated items sometimes get old.

So I explain the nails to him, and he shakes his head, rolls up his sleeve and starts to fish around for NAILS and SCREWS in the garbage disposal. Of course, when I explained it to him, I just said, “a few.” I didn’t say “nearly the entire box.” So by screw number four and nail number eight, he was starting to get a bit frustrated with me. After about 40 minutes of fishing and a few scraped knuckles, he couldn’t see anymore, so we turned the disposal on.

RUUUHHH RUUHHHH SCUUUUUGG RUUH. zuuuuuu uuu uu u

The sucker stopped spinning. After further inspection, we still couldn’t find any more nails – so that means one is probably stuck somewhere we can’t reach, preventing it from spinning, and now I’ve broken the GD garbage disposal in week one and have to call my landlord to fix it.

The BF flicked off the switch, shook his head and looked at me.

I know exactly what he was thinking….

How in the HELL do you do this shiz?!

How?! I’ll tell you how – because I have BAD LUCK IN THE RANDOM SHIZ THAT GOES ON DEPARTMENT.

*I’m sorry if this term offends you. If it does, you should probably not read the blog. Hence the terms of my profile. Perhaps I should amend it to say, “I drink, fornicate and use the word retard a lot, therefore I’m not going to heaven.”

Currently Feeling: Jazzed up for the 30-day challenge I just enlisted myself in. Check it out!
Currently Anticipating: A dinner tonight to celebrate my Bestie's one-year return to home, a boat festival and parade on the Seattle waterfront tomorrow in 66-degree weather (!!!) and a lovely Sunday planned for Mother's Day, including brunch at a new spot in Ballard.
Currently Needing: Some really great summer/spring shoes.

The few, the strong, the braaaave

[If you haven’t already, please enter my blog giveaway for five copies of Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman’s Quest for an Orgasm. Contest closes Friday.]

When I first met my boyfriend, a little over a year and a half ago, he was a commercial fisherman in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Yes, like Deadliest Catch. It’s a running joke between us because every time it has casually come up in a group conversation, someone will go, “OHMYGOD. Like the DEADLIEST CATCH. That is SO SCARY/cool/dangerous/insert adjective here!” which I usually laughed at and rolled my eyes while he answered all their questions. I had never seen the Deadliest Catch and could never really commiserate with them, even though it was my boyfriend they were talking about, and I probably should have been able to say something like, “Oh my God, I KNOW. He’s so strong, brave and amazing.”

When I met him, I knew that commercial fisherman made a lot of money, but I could only focus on how it meant he was gone six months out of the year doing what some will deem the “most dangerous profession.” He left two months after we met each other, and we decided to do the long distance thing even though we were barely official. But, this wasn’t just any long-distance relationship; this was three months with only a two minute, choppy phone call once a week via satellite phone. One time, he didn’t get to call me for two weeks solid and I was sure he had died – swallowed up by the waves of the Bering Sea.

To say it sucked is an understatement. Luckily, he had made the decision to quit before I met him, so the three-month trip we endured was his last. And since, it’s been really hard for him to let go of. It was a profession that he and others respected, and one he was good at. It was a lifestyle and a community he became a part of for five years of his life. It made him feel accomplished and manly and proud. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think a small part of him died when he decided it was something he couldn’t do anymore for other personal reasons, even though his decision brought me a huge sense of relief. I couldn’t imagine myself the other half of someone who was only home six months a year. I imagined myself a lonely and widowed wife of a fisherman. Uh, no thanks. So while he’s longed for it sometimes, I’ve told him he needed to move on. Oftentimes not so nicely. I recognized the way he felt about fishing, but I didn’t really understand it.

This last year or so of our relationship has occasionally been peppered with reminders of his past boat life – he’ll point out ships in the Seattle harbor that were fishing boats he delivered catches to; he’ll make a reference to “boat lore” or superstitions they used to follow; I’ll tease him about a particularly worn-out and stained pair of socks or underwear, and he’ll say, “They’re boat socks! I need to do laundry;” or I'll often poke fun at him when he wears his sweatshirt around the house that says, "Bering Sea Fisherman: The few, the strong, the brave."

"The FEW. The STRONG. The BRAAAAVE," I'll say in a deep, dramatic breathy voice, and make a face like this:

(I'm such a jerk).

"Shut up," he'll throw back.

Being a fisherman is a part of him. It makes up the DNA of his past, whether or not I understand it or ever will. So although I might have inwardly groaned last night when he asked if we could watch the season opener of Deadliest Catch, I agreed. I guess I decided to unravel one more strand of that DNA.

And I’m really glad I did.

For maybe one of the first times ever in our relationship, I felt totally engrossed in something HE was teaching ME. A part of him that I knew nothing about. I asked him hurried questions - I couldn't get them out fast enough.

“What’s a skipper??? I mean, besides Barbie’s little sister..., ha ha” (I like to laugh at my own jokes frequently).

“A captain. The captain of the boat,” he answered.

"Why do they have zinc on the bottom of the boat? Do all boats have that?!"

"Yes. The salt from the salt water attacks the zinc instead of the boat so it doesn't erode."

I watched as they baited the crab pots, dropped them, and pulled them up, searching for Dungeness crab. And he patiently explained every detail I wanted to know. As I watched the show, totally engrossed, I kept glancing at him and I could see the excitement in his eyes. The knowledge. The longing. The manliness. Rawr. I finally understood the magnitude of this profession. The magnitude of what it meant to him. It was almost, for an overly dramatic effect, like watching a caged animal in their natural habitat. I don’t know that I’d seen him quite like this before.

Anyway, it a special moment for me. In day to day life, there are very few moments when we are in total awe of our significant other. So when it happens, I feel it should be grasped onto and remembered, so the next time someone says, "OHMYGOD. Like the DEADLIEST CATCH. That is SO SCARY/cool/dangerous/insert adjective here,” I won’t roll my eyes. I’ll say,

“I know.”

Currently Feeling: Like I have the worst back pain in the world. I can barely sit at my desk or breathe. What the hell?
Currently Anticipating: Viewing this apartment tonight that I think is PERFECT. I’m so anxious that someone else is going to snag it!
Currently Needing: Drugs. Lots of drugs. And some Bestie Amanda time.

Deodorant Popcorn Snacks

Here’s an embarrassing little TMI fact for you – I have a weird obsession with men’s deodorant. Like I love, love, love the smell of it. I love to hug my boyfriend and kind of nuzzle my nose a little bit in the general armpit direction (or yah know, poke my nose directly in it) because his deodorant just smells so.damn.good. Why don’t they make women's deodorant fragrances an extension of our perfumes? We only get sickening smells like “Powder Fresh” and “Springtime Floral Escape.” All reminiscent of the same smells you probably find on Summer’s Eve package, if yah know what I mean. Gross. Anyway, I’ll be the first to admit that my obsession with men’s deodorant is totally weird, but it always seems to get a laugh out of my BF, so I don’t think he minds too much.

But, recently I figured something out about myself – while I love the SMELL of men’s deodorant, I don’t love to EAT men’s deodorant. I bet you’re dying to know how I found this one out…

A couple days ago, my boyfriend and I were watching some realty TV show together on the couch (he doesn’t seem to mind my obsession with realty TV, which I love him for), and I was eating one of my new favorite TV snacks – 100-calorie packs of Smartfood White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn. Picture this: I’m leaning against him; he has his arm up on my knee; I’m mowing down on my white cheddar popcorn, but I keep dropping pieces and kernels that fall down on the couch; I continue to pick them up and swear to myself about how messy I’m being; I finish my popcorn bag and get up to throw it away; I come back to the couch and see there’s a little kernel left on the seat; I grab the kernel and put it into my mouth and start gagging – it is NOT popcorn.

Somewhere between me throwing away the bag in the kitchen and coming back, a little ball of my boyfriend’s deodorant fell on the couch, right where my white popcorn kernels previously were, and I ate it. That’s right. I ate a deodorant ball that had been heating up in his armpit. Is that seriously not the grossest thing you’ve ever heard? Or at least close.

Let me tell you, men’s deodorant, or any deodorant for that matter I’m sure, does.not.taste.good. It’s kinda like hot, chalky soap. That sticks to the inside of your mouth. Kinda like you just had your mouth washed out after saying naughty things.

I think I just inadvertently cured my obsession with his armpits.

Currently Feeling: Excited to check out Jimmy Johns’ sandwiches at lunch today with my coworkers.
Currently Anticipating: Bellingham tonight to stay with my old friend from college, and then Victoria, B.C. for a bachelorette party!
Currently Loving: Rilo Kiley on my fav Pandora station.

In limbo

The past two weekends, I’ve been out and about in a couple different bars in Seattle that I used to call my stomping grounds, but not so much anymore. Without being able to pinpoint when the exact transition happened, I found myself feeling a bit older than the crowds, a bit less likely to puke in the bathroom or knock over someone’s drink while stumbling by, a bit more likely to head home early so I can get up and jam out a workout or list of errands without feeling like death. I felt out of place in the singles scene – something I thrived in just a short year ago. I felt out of place in the 20-something scene – despite belonging to the club for another three years. In each bar, I looked around the room and thought to myself: getting old sucks.

I used to be the 22-year-old out with her group of stylish friends who made guys’ heads turn. I used to know bartenders, door guys and cocktail waitresses. I used to be able to post up at bars where I knew everyone and had all my drinks discounted. I felt like I owned the city – I could go out at a number of different bars in a number of different neighborhoods and see people I knew. I was a networking, friend-making, drinking and bar-scene machine.

But, that’s all tapered off. The thought of getting up in the morning to make it to work by 8 a.m. makes me want to stab my eyeballs out. Throw booze into that equation, and I’d be burning through my sick days faster than I could accumulate them. Read: I’m a sucker for going to sleep early on “school nights.” And, I feel like more often than not, I’m opting for one stay-in night and one party night on the weekends. When I go big both Friday and Saturday nights, I'm left feeling like I need a weekend from my weekend.

“I feel like just another face in the crowd,” I said to my boyfriend, after explaining all of this awkward “I’m not that girl anymore” stuff to him on our walk home from one of these said bars Saturday night. “You’re still cute. You stand out to me,” he responded.

Cute or not, I’m feeling a bit awkward these days. People say moving into your upper 20s, and eventually your 30s, is great. We’re supposed to be more financially stable, more sure of ourselves. I’ve been wondering when the pay-off happens because at 27, I’m feeling too old for some bars; okay with staying in, but depressed with the lull of life; financially semi-stable-but-a-lot-of-times-rocky; and generally a little unfulfilled.

I'm trying to find something else that fulfills me other than feeling like the center of attention in a bar – something a bit more healthy and sane. But the transition, the next “phase” of life, which most people my age are going through, is just another awkward room where I feel like I don’t belong. Marriage in my 20s is just not for me. Sometimes, I think back about all the ridiculous shenanigans and stories from my 20-something days of being out six or seven nights a week, and I feel like I was laughing and loving a whole lot more back then. Or at least saying to myself, "I LOOOOVE my life" a whole lot more.

I need to fall in love with my life again – the one where I’m staying in more often than I’m going out - I just don’t know how to do it.

Have you ever felt unready to transition to the next "phase" of life?

Currently Feeling: Like the parties I helped plan this weekend were a great success. I'm thinking I should just do that for a living.
Currently Anticipating: Roommate and possible neighborhood or house changes.
Currently Wishing: I had a laundry fairy. And a clean-my-room fairy. These have been on my to-do for three weeks now.

The Tale of Two Non-Virgins Who Can't Perform at the Pool

Last night I took a trip to the public pool. Or la piscine (piss-seen), as one would say in French, which I think is much more fitting than “swimming pool.” After all, a public pool is probably very a la piscine from all the kids. Cause really, as a kid, we all know we were warned and reprimanded 100x about peeing in the pool, but we did it anyway, holding our breath to see if the water really would change another color from the “special chemical.” And it didn’t. This therefore just warranted a cycle of peeing in the pool very discreetly instead of getting out of the water, freezing cold, for a trip to the bathroom. (I might or might not have just admitted that I used to pee in the pool).

This is what I think about now that I’m an adult and swim in common areas with children, such as lakes, docks and pools.

But, it still didn’t stop me from brushing those thoughts aside for a Monday-night trip to the pool and community center in my neighborhood. A little pee never hurt anyone! (Gross. I can’t believe I just typed that).

Baby Daddy and I threw the good ole suits on and paid our $4 fee, entering our respective locker rooms. I haven’t been to a community pool since I believe I was in 5th grade. As a child who took swim lessons and attended a number of pool dates with the neighbor kids, it was all very familiar to me – the lockers with keys that you pin to your suit, inevitably leaving a hole in your swimsuit; the cold cement floors with clumps of other people’s hair; the freezing cold shower you’re supposed to take before jumping in the pool; the sting as the smell of chlorine hits your nostrils; the scratchy pool lining that snags the bottom of your suit; the echo of little kids shouting and run-walking down the sides of the pool to the diving board; and the dum, dum thump of the diving board as one swimmer jumps off before the next one walks to the end.

I was hoping for a hot tub, but no such luck. There was a sauna that we spent 15 minutes in before I felt like my face was going to melt off while I simultaneously hyperventilated. (Am I the only one who things these are bearable, at best, and totally uncomfortable to sit in with other people?) So then we jumped into the pool for a bit, and I grabbed a noodle to float on. I figured I’d do a little kicking, doggy paddling and seeing how long I could stand on my hands under water, and count it as my work out for the day. Except just as we got in, a very official pool man started putting up signs that dictated speeds and others began rolling out the plastic floating lines. Dammit – lap swim.

Baby Daddy and I got out and sat on the bleachers and watched the swimmers crowd their chosen lanes.

Me: Well, crap. Do you want to do lap swim?
Him: I don’t care. Whatever you want; I’d be just okay with leaving.
Me: But, we’ve only been here for 20 minutes. I’d be a little embarrassed to walk out passed the lady we paid $4 to at the front desk. We could just get in a kick around a little bit.
Him: Yeah.
Me: I mean, look at that dude, he’s got a kickboard. We couldn’t look any stupider than that.
Him: I wouldn’t use a kickboard. No way. Look at that guy, he’d probably go somewhere a lot quicker if he weren’t slapping the water with every stroke.
Me: He’s old. Cut ‘em some slack. Besides, we don’t know that we’d look too much better. That’s the problem – I have no idea what I look like when I swim.
Him: Me either.
Me: Everyone’s got a cap on. I don’t want to wear a cap.
Him: And goggles.
Me: Crap. We’re total public-pool amateurs.
Him: Yeah. And now it’s probably too late to get in. We’ve sat here too long, staring at everyone.
Me: I can’t believe we just paid $4 to sit in a sauna for 15 minutes and watch people swim for 20.
Him: I'd be down if it weren't lap swim - there’s too much pressure to perform.
Me: Yeah, we’re pool shy.*

Ba boom, CCHHHINGG.**

*I was referring to definition #2.
** That's supposed to be my drum and symbol sound they always make after jokes.

Currently Feeling: In need of some serious workouts this week - the last three-week push until Mexico!
Currently Anticipating: Home sweet home. This daylight savings time transition is rough.
Currently Loving: Chocolate protein shakes with milk, NOT water.

Okay, it's about time I created a 'Dirty Hippies' label

I've been patiently waiting to update everyone with a few pictures from my weekend, but they're trapped on my best friend's camera, so you'll just have to read the text version for now. I'll spare you long-winded details, but I had some fun events this past weekend, and some even greater photographs. Friday night I went to The Polish House for Polish dinner, Polish beer and hanging out with some Poles. Not, I'm not Polish, in case you were wondering. But you can become Polish and hang out in their private club for $1! Now that is a steal during these hard times of THE.RECESSION.

Saturday I went to crazy friend Wen's birthday party (he who loves to have me as a back-up dancer in his videos)... as a hippie. What is it with hippies? I feel like I'm always talking about them. Maybe I'm a little bit more hippie than I like to admit. I was certainly a dirty hippie on Saturday. Why, oh why, you ask?

Saturday night I was SUPER rushed to get ready for the birthday party because my friend was picking me up at 7:30pm on the button. I arrived home, unshowered, with seven bags of groceries at 7pm. And, I didn't know what to wear. A really awesome trifecta, if you ask me. After throwing on approximately five different outfits, I settled on a grey tie-died sweater, skinny jeans and tall, brown-suede boots. I gave myself a once-over in the mirror and realized that the sweater was a bit off-the-shoulder, so you could see my bra straps. Eww. That is one Carrie Bradshaw fashion statement I do not agree with (right next to the duck feathers on the butt) - bra straps are tacky. So I did the trick us girls learn in junior high while changing in the girls' locker room for P.E. - a little slip and duck of the arms, and I threw my bra on top of storage drawers in my bathroom. "I'll just throw a strapless on while I'm finishing my make-up" I thought to myself. I continued to run around like a chicken with my head cut-off, and barely threw my groceries in the fridge with enough time to slip out the door and into my friend's car.

It wasn't until I had arrived at the party, hung my jacket, said my hellos and took my place in line at the bar that I realized I.HAD.NO.BRA.ON. OMG. I panicked and quickly tried to call my friend who was arriving at the party later, but she didn't have a bra in her car. Looks like the girls were standing alone on this one. Yep, I officially hung out at the bar all night, braless. And Bestie Amanda had a great time gently poking my braless boobs and snickering at me. Hussie.

Who has two thumbs and is officially a dirty hippie? Yep, this girl.

Stay tuned for my adventures in not shaving my armpits or legs!

Currently Feeling: In love with my recent lunchtime Maximum Sculpt classes. It feels so great to have my workout done so early in the day!
Currently Anticipating: Date night tonight with salmon teriyaki dinner.
Currently Wanting: Another slice of lemon cake that's sitting in the break room.

I did it, I said FART on my blog

I’ve recently been attending a yoga class at my gym on Monday nights. I’ve always wanted to do yoga, but have never found the time or money for it. This week I finally unwrapped the pink yoga mat I purchased approximately eight months ago that's been in my car, if that tells you anything. I think the increase in stress and anxiety in my life led me searching for someway to relieve it – and I’ve always heard yoga does the trick. So I signed myself up.

So far, it’s been really great. I love the special yoga room at my gym that has equipment to borrow, like blocks and straps, so I don’t have to buy them, and the giant windows gently let downtown Seattle twilight the room. I love that the yoga teacher plays relaxing music – but not just “ding, ding, ding” and babbling brooks – a couple weeks ago she busted out “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd. (A personal favorite).

But really, I have a dilemma with this whole yoga thing. I seriously only concentrate on not-farting the whole time I’m there. Yes, I know it. I just said FART on my blog. Gross. But, “girls give off just as much methane gas from farting as men” or something, which is what my boyfriend told me once to ease my embarrassment about farting myself awake while lying asleep in his lap on the couch. (Yes. He was awake; so mortifying). The problem with the girls farting vs. guys farting thing - even if we’re on level playing fields there - is that guys get away with it. They don’t care; they don’t give excuses, and they certainly don’t get embarrassed. But us girls, oh no – we’d rather die a slow and terrible death - or kill someone - than fart out loud in public or, for most of us, around a boyfriend. (I will never be okay with opening doing this with a boyfriend, and for those of you who think it’s a part of being comfortable with someone, I will argue you to the death).

So the whole 75 minute class, I'm thinking about how freaking.embarrassing it'd be to fart. But yoga forces you to bend and contort your body, often times holding and squeezing muscles with your butt high in the air. There’s times when it’s all I can do to prevent a slip. It’s stressing me out! I tell yeah, I join yoga to ease my mind from the stresses of life, and I spend the whole time stressing about farting. I need a stress-reliever from yoga. Or from farting.

Namaste.

Currently Feeling: Super relieved to have Mexico figured out.
Currently Anticipating: A crock pot dinner tonight with Bestie Amanda.
Currently Loving: Soy crisps with Laughing Cow cheese.

Portrait of a Seven-Year Gap

I’m sure most everyone is aware of the (what I deem annoying) 25-Things post that has been circulating around Facebook the last couple weeks. I have been tagged to do it countless times, but I rarely have the interest to read through all 25 details about someone or the time to do it myself. But last week, my sister tagged me in one she wrote, and since she’s my SISTER, I figured I’d better read it. This was number six:

I have a sister who is 6 1/2 years older than me, and we have different dads but somehow we’ve accomplished being the same person. I’ve always envied her for our similarities and even more so for our differences.

That, I tell yah, made my week.

My sister is fashionable, social, beautiful and athletic, yet she'd probably never list “writing” as her forte. But to me - the writer - I don’t think she could have written two sentences that would have touched me more.

See, while we are, in fact, six and one-half years apart, I’ve really rounded it to seven my whole life. Seven years is quite effectively a huge gap. While I was going through my awkward, self-conscious junior high days and learning about crushes, popularity, body image, feminine products and the good ole things D.A.R.E. always told you to keep away from, she was starting elementary and just learning how to read a book and count money. While I was in high school, worrying over homecoming, driving, first boyfriends, sex, Physics and college, she wasn’t even in junior high yet. She would come home with her friends – some with braces and awkward puberty weight – and I’d roll my eyes at their conversations. “Argh. SOOO annoooying,” I remember thinking, and probably saying to her face on more than one occasion. I made fun of her obsession with Spice Girls, and her love for all things Pokemon.

It seemed as if the scope of our adolescent issues couldn’t have been further apart – she was always my little sister and never someone I could confide in or considered a friend.

Then when I moved home from college, she’d borrow my clothes without asking and wake me up late when I had to get up at 4 a.m. for the opening shift at a coffee shop. I was annoyed that she didn’t have respect for anyone’s space or schedule. I spent more time ignoring her and yelling at her in those eight months than I had ever done our entire life.

When she did reach the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll phase, I was there to beg and plead her to dig her heels into the dirt. “I’ve been there! Don’t do it!” I felt like a mother – I felt awkward talking to her about sex; I didn’t want to imagine her getting in a car with someone who’d been drinking; I wanted to tell her how ridiculous smoking pot and getting the "munchies" was. I was the boring, prudish older sister. "No, but really, I'm cool, I just don't want you doing the same dumb stuff!" I wanted to shout.

It seemed that our lives were never going to be in the same chapter – I’d always be two jumps ahead of her, or we were just two different people.

But something happened the summer before she left for college last year. Because she was going to no longer be at home, we started spending more one-on-one time together. She’d come over to my apartment to spend the night, or we’d jog around my neighborhood together. Suddenly it was as if the gap that had been there for nearly 20 years of my life was closed within one summer. And I realized in the midst of all this time I hadn’t been paying much attention to her, we had turned into the same person. The same music, the same love for fashion, the same independent nature, the same relationship ups and downs, the same social proclivities, the same bad spending habits. While I always wanted an older sister to be friends with and confide in - to offer me her shoulder of wiser ways - I find myself being that person. I find myself calling her to catch up, being interested in what she's doing on a weekly basis, and even more so interested in hanging out with her - one-on-one - when she's home.

And while I’ll always be two jumps ahead of her in age and experience, we’re no longer two different people; we’re scary close to being the same. I’ve always understood our differences, and now, even more so our similarities.

Currently Feeling: Snacky. Snacky. South Beach Chocolate Cookies. Mmmm.
Currently Anticipating: Yoga tonight. I love working out in a dark room, closing my eyes, deep breathing and feeling STRONG.
Currently Reading: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” by Stieg Larsson.

Two Tickets to the Butt Show

Last night I went to the buttlet. I mean ballet.

A friend of mine called because she had two tickets to George Balanchine’s “Jewels” at McCaw Hall and wanted to invite me last minute. “Why not?” I thought. I’d never been to a ballet before (outside of The Nutcracker, which is more of a play with a lot of child dancers), and figured it be good to check it off my list. We hit up happy hour on Queen Anne, downed a couple glasses of wine and walked down to McCaw Hall, where we took our seats, only 16 rows back from the stage, right before the curtain rose. I quickly flipped through the program. “Jewels” is apparently a classic ballet and George Balanchine a famous composer, which I didn’t know. All I could focus on was that it was plotless (just dancing to classical music without a storyline) for nearly three hours. Uh, oh. What did I get myself into?

As the ballerinas tinkled out of the side curtains – so did the ballemen. Is that what they’re called? Well, either way – I was NOT prepared. No way, no how. Those guys are seriously not wearing more than what looks like white paint on their legs, buttocks and package. Imagine if I left the house this morning with nothing on but a top and sheer pantyhose. It is SO distracting. You can see every muscle and dimple in their butts, which are like Jenny from the Block size, as they turn and twist and prance across the stage. I’d compare it to soft porn.

Here’s my night at the ballet in a nutshell:

Act I: Emeralds

Pretty green ballerinas dance out, following by ballemen in white pants and poofy sleeves. Oh look at how they sway their butts arms. Tinkle, tinkle. Sway, sway. LOOK AT HIS ASS. Tip-toe, twirl. HOLY SHIT; IT’S HUGE. Curtain.

Intermission: We guzzle a glass of white wine.

Act II: Rubies

Ooh. Red and gold. Out come the ballemen again in white pants and puffy sleeves. Sassy jazz music. I like this butt dance better. OH MY GOD HE JUST BENT OVER. Tip-toe, arabesque, dance, swish-sway, big smile. Wow. The primo ballerina is amazing. I SAW A DIMPLE! I SAW A DIMPLE! Curtain.

Intermission: We guzzle a glass of white wine.

Act III: Diamonds

Sparkles bedazzled everywhere and pretty tulle tutus – and here they come again in white pants and puffy sleeves. Oh, five ballemen at once. I don’t know what to do with myself. FIVE BUTTS, FIVE BUTTS, CENSORY OVERLOAD. Ooh they’re so strong and big. Yeah baby. LOOK AT THEIR EYES, LOOK AT THEIR EYES. Butt. Curtain.

All in all, baby got back. Er, I mean I’d definitely go back.

Currently Feeling: So sleepy. I want to take a nap like right meow.
Currently Anticipating: Seeing my BF tomorrow when he flies home from Montucky!
Currently Loving: SparkPeople.com

Lions and tigers and hairs, oh my!

Something has been bothering me for quite some time now… and while it might be a little too crass for some of you, I just have to bring it up.

It has to do with bushes. No, not George, although he’s bothered me for quite some time also. The bushes I’m talking about are approximately half a foot south of your bellybutton.

What I’d like to know is when it went from being socially acceptable to have a big, hairy bush to NOT being socially acceptable. Because I’m pretty sure the latter is much more the case now.

I think about this all the time when I’m at the gym. I try really, really hard to not pay attention, but most the time, the sizes of bushes in the locker room freak the shit out of me. Bestie Amanda and I were recently talking about this – there are women at the gym, sometimes even in as early as their 30s, with an embarrassingly amount of pubic hair, and I just.don’t.get.it. Are 20-somethings the only generation who are concerned with this? Do you become unconcerned as you get older? These ladies walk around, proud as hell, boobs flapping and four inches of puff. (One time, I caught a naked lady in front of the bathroom mirror, leaning over and washing her armpits. So not only was she showing her bush to all, but her boobs were flapping back and forth from the scrubbing momentum. It was slightly disturbing – end tangent.) I’m not all about the nakedness in the gym locker room. I tend to be a little bit more discreet. But if I did prance around naked, I wouldn’t be sporting a bush the size of the Tongass National Forest.

I can’t exactly place my finger on when I learned that trimming was expected; I just knew. Clearly, however, it wasn’t this way a short time ago. When, exactly, did society’s norm transition and how the hec did something like that come about? I mean, I’m sure you’ve all seen 80s porn movies, a big bush was popular back then! Is this similar to the fad of shrinking women? Like how in the 1800s it was popular to be all rotund and squishy, and now being bony and poky is popular? Are little girls going to start needing Brazilians at age 12?! (Or age 10, whatever it is now with all the hormones in meat).

The whole thing kinda grosses me out – and conversely, if you’re a guy. The same thing is expected. Let me let you in on a little secret – I’ve had countless conversations with women who were appalled that the new guy they were dating didn’t manscape. That’s right manscape.
Whatever planet you came from that taught you it was necessary for women to trim, but not men, is the same planet George Bush came from, and that era is OVER.

Bush IS out.

An open-ended letter to an important part of my future

Dear Marriage and Babies,

You give me hives.

I wish I was being facetious. I’m not. Lately, I increasingly feel anxious – like I’m going to have a god damn panic attack and be admitted to the loony bin –when I hear about a friend getting engaged, or how you, Marriage, are “a lot of hard work” or even worse, divorce. And I'm teetering on stark-raving crazy, Babies, when I hear about how hard it is to have you, the whole pregnancy gig, postpartum depression, etc. I start to feel a bit short of breath, and this big ole uncomfortable, nervous lump forms – like a butterfly in my chest.

Yesterday I read Dooce’s post/discussion about what’s more difficult, Babies or Marriage. She wrote about how she *literally* checked herself into a mental hospital six months after experiencing you for the first time, Babies, and how she’s been through countless hours of counseling on her own and with her husband, to improve you, Marriage. Well, it all just gave me that constricted, hives feeling again. And I want to shout, “Don’t Make Me Do It, Captain!”

I bet you anything, if asked, Dooce would say it was ALL worth it. Everyone would. But, I don't buy it. I mean, I’ve heard speeches from people who have lost limbs, been addicted to painkillers, or been through cancer, and they all say they wouldn’t change anything because “it makes them who they are today.” Great. Congratulations. That still doesn’t mean that I want to experience what they did. And right now, I’m not sure that I want to experience you, Marriage or Babies, anytime in the next decade.

I want to live in my carefree 20s forever, and never cross the bridge into your unchartered adult waters. I never feel old enough for either of you. When I hear about people in high school who are married with babies, I screech, “But we’re only TWENTY-SIX!” And this year it’ll be, “But we’re only TWENTY-SEVEN!” And I’m sure I’ll be singing the same tune at 28 and 29 too.

See, I know I want both of you, SOME DAY. It’s just that that some day is always in the future, even as the years go by. When will I feel PRESENT about you? I try to talk to my girl friends about how uncomfortable or not ready I am for either of you, but half of them give me the countdown speech:

Well, we need to have Babies in our 30s because if you have one in your 40s, then YOU’LL.JUST.DIE, and you want your first kid at 30, 32 at the latest, and you want a few years with your husband before having kids, which is 28 or 29 – and you probably want to be engaged for at least a year or more before Marriage so that’s 26 or 27, and you, ideally, want to date your potential husband for a couple years before getting engaged, so you should have met him, like, yesterday.

And this is supposed to make me feel better? My anxiety just increased 10 fold.

Everyone wants to know these days if I can picture myself with my significant other and you, Marriage. “Are you guys going to get MAHWIED?” is all I hear. The eff if I know. It’s not that I can’t see myself with him, necessarily, it’s just that I. don’t. think. about. it. I know some hopeless romantics are reading this right now and saying the quintessential Polly Prissy Pants line, “Well that just means he’s not THE ONE for you.” Riiight. And they know this because…they read it in their crystal ball?

Really, all I can think about is keeping my sanity. And my bank account. Cause it’s damaged enough as it is. And by sexy suede boots, expensive makeup, luxurious lingerie and more earrings than you could count. NOT by 14-tiered mascarpone cakes, house payments, diaper service, nannies or sippy cups. And the latter list is SO much less appealing than the first, so I’d rather not trade. Thankyouverymuch, Marriage and Babies.

So please, please, can I drag out these “single” 20s for as long as possible? And can my friends stop giving me the countdown speech, or can you cover my ears every time there’s any dose of “reality,” along the lines of cracked nipples or losing the *spark* in the bedroom, coming my way? Cause really, what about that gives me something to look forward to? I’d like to live in my little 20-something bubble, without either of you, for as long as humanly possible.

I’ll get back to you when I change my mind.

Thanks,
20-Something

Hanky Panky

A personal - and extremely important - mantra I've tried to follow through my life is: Never run out of underwear or socks.

Because I only do laundry about once a month, sometimes even longer, this has led to a ridiculous amount of socks and underwear. Except, I just keep buying and buying, never purging through the outdated or worn-out ones. Which, in turn, has just allowed me to go even longer without doing laundry. It's a vicious cycle, I tell yah.

Because I mostly wear heels, my socks tend to be in fair-to-good condition. But, some time this year, I realized that I have some SKANKY underwear that are just. not. appropriate. What if I were to fall down a flight a stairs, land in a sticker bush, and they had to snip off my pants to free me? OR here's an applicable one - what if I woke up, in a nightie and skanky underwear, to a room full of firemen who just busted my apartment door down?

No bueno. One must be prepared, at a moment's notice, to flash a cute pair of undies.

So, I started an Underwear Overhaul mission--I buy 20 pairs, I throw 20 pairs away, in shifts, until my entire SKANKY underwear collection is replaced with Come And Get Me Tiger underwear.

Except, I failed my mission in a major way. First off, I started and never finished. Secondly, I started to feel so CLEANSED from my anti-SKANKY underwear mission that I just kept throwing away and throwing away. Because of this, I'm short of underwear during my lengthy periods of not doing laundry, and recently I've been on a majah underwear shortage.

I don't even know who I am anymore.

This week, it's got real bad. I failed to do laundry last weeked since lying on the couch, nursing my wine headache, seemed like a far better option. During the week I'm too lazy to do laundry after work, and even I were forced to in these desperate times, I don't have quarters. So, for the first time in eight years, maybe NINE, I have to resort to my granny panties.*

And it's been awful, just awful. All week, I've turned to the side on the escalator, scurried quickly ahead of someone in the hall and tugged on the back of my jacket, thinking that everyone behind me is staring at me because there's a HUGE red neon sign on my back, blinking:

"PANTY LINES."

"PANTY LINES."

"PANTY LINES."

I tell yah, I don't know how women lived in the years before the thong was invented.

So tomorrow is payday, and I'm heading out to buy lots o' new silky drawers. Cause that makes SO much more sense than doing laundry, natch.

*By granny, I don't mean white or flowered. I just mean "full butt." I am strictly a thong wearer. If you've seen my bubble butt in person, you understand why, in now way, am I interested in adding another layer of fabric under my pants. I stuck by my thong guns even when an ex kept begging and pleading for me to wear full butt underwear instead of thongs. Now THAT contradicted everything I was taught about boys up to age 18.

Currently Feeling: Like I'd rather just not face reality.
Currently Anticipating: The yearly pre-Turkey Day drunken festivities tomorrow.
Currently Loving: eRewards. I've earned $16 that I can redeem in Borders Bucks by just filling out the occasional, annoying survey!

Man-in-Uniform Syndrome

Last night I walked to one of my neighborhood's most spectacular Thai restaurants with my new roommate. What better way to get to know each other than over plates of Phad Thai, curry and peanut sauce? Cold fall days spent inside with good food is the perfect recipe for conversation.

Inevitably, the topic of men came up. I asked about her most recent relationship and if she'd ever been in love. She rattled off a short list of guys who hadn't worked out, but went into a little more detail about a doctor she dated while training as a nurse. Whooo... total Grey's Anatomy style. Now this is getting good. Apparently they had kept it quiet from the people they worked with at the hospital (hello, Meredith and Derek?!), and suddenly he broke it off one day without an explanation. Two months later he came sulking back to "clear his conscious" and explained that he'd been cheating on her and had gotten another girl pregnant. When she finally came clean to some of her coworkers, their response was, "Ew. Why did you date him? He dates a lot of nurses." (Just like McSteamy?)

She vowed to me that she'd never be so stupid and naive. And admitted that part of her thought that just because he was a doctor and a professional, she didn't think he was capable of such childish and thoughtless behavior.

Man-in-uniform syndrome.

I thought about this on my way into work this morning. Nearly every day (unbeknown to my boyfriend), I drool over all the men in their pressed business suits, coordinating ties and shiny shoes. A certain best friend of mine drools over guys in a construction uniform, but my weakness is definitely for a man in a business suit. "Oh, if only my boyfriend came over every night, and I had to loosen up his tie a little bit," I often think to myself.

Another case of man-in-uniform syndrome.

Just because these men are "business professionals," tied up in shiny business suits like my own personal walking Christmas gifts 365-days a year, doesn't mean they're incapable of cheating, lying, thieving and all other general sinning. But somehow, their suits make them seem so.

So, I'll take my man for now, who I know is good on the inside, even if he is suit-less on the outside.

Currently Feeling: In need of a weekend at home.
Currently Anticipating: Girls' night tonight with Becca, Amanda, and the Dolphins.
Currently Wondering: Why did the dragon have to show up?

The First OG Gangsta to Go

One of my Dolphin Sisters got engaged over the weekend.

Because of this, I’m a little sentimental today.

You spend your whole life, growing and changing with friends. Or, at least I’ve been very lucky to have a select number of girl friends who’ve been by my side since junior high. They’ve walked next to me during days I was too embarrassed to go to school, too heartbroken to get out of bed, too young to make the right decision, too in love to see straight, too sassy for my own good, too stubborn to say sorry, too self conscious to be myself in a crowd…

My point being—you spend 10 plus years with childhood friends, dreaming of college, boyfriends, careers and families. College came and went. Boys have come and gone. Careers are there and growing. But the day a best friend meets the very right person and commits to a lifetime is always a little surreal. It’s like the 13 single years you’ve spent together—when you’re number one to each other and no one else—flash before your eyes.

And do you know how many memories 13 years hold?

The very foundation of my being—years that formed my personality—are years spent with Larisa. We met in 7th grade. I was a lost girl who knew two people in a sea of converging elementary schools. When popularity and “being cool” start to count, two people don’t get you very far. But eventually familiar faces and the possibility of friendship begin to emerge from a crowd. And there was Larisa.

We played softball together every day after school during softball season; I snuck home illegally on her bus to rollerblade the Burke Gilman in the sunshine; we went every winter to Snoqualmie, where we learned how to snowboard while listening to “Tool,” eventually teaching classes together. We shared the exact same sense of humor and disregard for rules that got us in trouble. A lot. (Voted Biggest Rebel 2000 ) Ha ha. We have so many inside jokes, I couldn’t even being to explain or list them.

In high school, we went to countless dances together. We’d skip school to gamble and get cinnamon bread from Great Harvest Bread Company during second period break. We started our careers at McDonalds, where eventually we were banned from working together cause we got in trouble for having a fight with all-purpose cleaner water bottles in the lobby. We went to Korn concerts (weird), Limp Bizkit (funny), Pearl Jam, The Gorge, Dave Mathews and countless more shows. We'd play Doctor Mario after school for no less than four hours, an unhealthy amount of days in a row. We drove around in my 1973 Volkswagen Beetle that was painted to look like a root beer float, yelling, “PERVERT!” to people walking out of Taboo Video every time we drove by, and stopped to smoke raspberry ciggies on the docks in Kenmore. I lived in her room for a month during senior year, where we’d share clothes and sneak out to bowl at Kenmore Lanes.

Come college, we went to separate schools, but I’d come home to spend the night in her sorority, and we backpacked through Europe. I’d bring her pineapple and tomato pizzas the summer I came home to deliver pizzas for Papa Johns, and she lived in a fraternity at the U.W. We’ve been to Mexico together, twice, drinking far too much tequila and dancing in our Mexican sundresses. We've been Captain Hook and Smee, his first mate--and Jem and Pizazz, one of The Holograms.

We’ve had terrible arguments, circumstances or relationships that have sometimes put distance between us, but we’ve always come back eventually, always rollerblading together every summer just like the days we were 13.

And then, she became my Dolphin Sister. After drinking a little too much one night, she sent me an e-mail that she didn’t remember until I called her the next day. Something about how she’s glad we’ve been friends for so long, and made it through all our ups and downs. “I think we must have been sisters in our past lives?! I kinda think I was a dolphin, so maybe we were dolphin sisters?,” she wrote. It has been a joke forever since. We buy each other cheap dolphin trinkets and wear dolphin rings on our fingers. (Both on our ring fingers because it’s the only one it fits). As cheesy and silly as it might be, I believe it is our way of reiterating how important our friendship is to one another, and that we really do love each other as a sister.


So, yesterday her Dolphin Sister ring was replaced with a platinum diamond.

But it’s not a replacement for our friendship.

You get to pick your friends. And you get to pick ONE person, to spend the rest of your life with, who becomes a part of the life you’ve shared with all your friends.

I picked Larisa, and she chose me.


And Larisa picked Dave, and he chose her.


And that makes Dave, my Dolphin Brother to-be.

I couldn’t be happier for them. And I can’t wait for another 13 years of friendship with Larisa—AND Dave.

Congratulations!


Currently Feeling: Mucho happy it’s supposed to be in the 70s all week.
Currently Anticipating: Picnicking and rollerblading in Alki tonight with the BF.
Currently Loving: Work dresses! I can’t buy enough!

Say No to Hippies

Saturday morning Baby Daddy and I went to breakfast at the The Hi-Life in Ballard and then decided to take a mini walking and shopping trip through Ballard and Fremont. My goal—a tea strainer and some teas for my mom’s birthday gift. His goal—new sneakers. But not running shoes, and they can’t be black, brown or tan. They have to be GREY. (I’m dating a bit of a metrosexual. But tits okay. I enjoy a man with style.)

Ballard has a well-known teashop that we stopped into. Teashops are quite overwhelming. I had NO idea there was such a subculture in tea. You could buy all sorts of imported teas from Asian with names like “Oriental Beauty” and “Green Goddess.” Now really. I have no idea what “Oriental Beauty” tastes like and prefer tea canisters that give it to you straight. “Peppermint,” “Orange Blossom,” or “Vanilla.” Those I can handle. But there wasn’t just tea, the shop was filled with fancy tea sets, even sets to-go with zippable cases and handles, antique tea tables, and all sorts of contraptions and devices for drinking, preparing and serving tea that I never knew even existed. I didn’t find a basic tea strainer, which is what my mom was wanting. So, the owners kindly directed us to a “natural and herbal” store on the opposite side of the building.

When we pushed open the shop’s door with a tingle from the hanging bell, an overwhelming smell rushed out of incense and Patchouli oil. “Uh Oh…. HIPPIES!” I whispered to Baby Daddy. But, the first table I saw was covered in teapots and mugs, which included strainers for loose teas. Perfect. I picked one up in cornflower blue (my mom’s favorite) and walked through the store to check out their other items and perhaps find a tea to accompany the mug. There were small bags of loose tea, but each looked like a bag of dried weeds and listed ingredients like honeysuckle and catnip. “CATNIP?!” I exclaimed out loud.

“I hope you don’t have a furry friend to compete with at home,” the shop owner said.

Yes. I do. And so does my mom. I’m most certainly not gifting my mom tea with weeds and catnip, or other weird, natural hippie ingredients. “Here mom! I picked up a handful of lawn clippings and mulch from the yard recycle bin, you can drink them as tea, and you can even smoke them!”

I decided against buying tea and wandered over to where Baby Daddy was looking at some incense and soaps. In a display shelf next to where he was standing, there was a sign and a basket of little colorful cloth squares with snaps, in all sorts of fun fabrics. “Hmm. What are these?” I thought, and picked one up, turning it over in my hand. I slowly leaned over to read the description hanging on the shelf.

"All Natural, Re-Usable and Washable Menstrual Pads"

HUHHHHHHHH.

In case that doesn’t translate, it’s supposed to be a sucking in of the breath, shocked and disgusted sort of a sound.

Hippies are dirtier than I ever thought.

Currently Feeling: Slightly better, but still pretty anxious.
Currently Anticipating: My day off for Good Friday tomorrow.
Currently Loving: The patience and understanding that resides in my boyfriend.

Third Year's a Charm

Lately I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with a bunch of tricks up my sleeve. Hopefully I can share with the crowd soon. But, in the madness as of late, I missed my second Jeanniversary. This blog—my baby, my journal, my release and the keeper of all my memories—started two years ago, on March 1st, 2006. My posts have changed a bit, but I feel that I’m still the same ole’ me. Maybe just a little less crazy now that I don’t go out six days a week, but we all have to mature sometime, eh?

The site has grown somewhat. The numbers are still quite small, but I’ve managed to nearly triple my readership since the beginning. I really appreciate all of you who have read since the start, and a big welcome to all the new readers. I’ve noticed visitors from all over the worldwide Internet and nation, so please feel free to comment once in awhile. Don’t be skerred. That means you—Colorado, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, some Army base in Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Oregon—Bend, Portland, Hubbard and St. Paul—Bothell, Whidbey Island and all Seattle locations: The Zip Connection, Covad Communications, The Seattle Times, Eschelon Telecommunications, Seanet Corporation, Children’s Hospital, Microsoft, Washington Mutual—and even you, Austria, Peru and South Africa (strange).

Amazing what site stats can provide, eh? The purpose of listing all these is not to scare anyone away, but maybe to get you to introduce yourselves. How did you stumble here? What blog did you link from? What keeps you coming back?

In the meantime, here are my favorite posts from the last year:

March 6, 2007: Accident-Prone, or Unlucky in Life? (20-Something finds herself in yet another drunken, household predicament)

April 27, 2007: When I Grow Up (Little old ladies are the best)

May 4, 2007: Yet Another Reason Not to Pick Someone Up in a Bar (Fun with boys and Peso's)

May 18, 2007: Lock This Single Up Tight and Throw Away the Key! (One of the crazy dating adventures 20-Something embarked on in 2007)

May 31, 2007: MIA Roommate Drama (Bad habits that are oh-so-nice when the roommate is gone)

July 9, 2007: Neighborhood Battle (20-Something challenges her neighbors to an F-Off)

July 26, 2007: But this. I remember this. I want this. (Squishy, romantic thoughts that get ya)

August 16, 2007: Thoughts on the Three of Them (Reminiscing about three relationships)

August 23, 2007: Dubliner Man Crush gets his haircut: Love blossoms (The oh-so-famous Dubliner Man Crush story)

October 5, 2007: The Body of a 25-Year-Old with a 15-Year-Old's Crush (20-Something snags the Incredibly Sexy Man in Great Jeans)

October 10, 2007: Bring on the Men! (Dating kicks up speed for Sextober)

October 11, 2007: From Leavenworth to an Impromptu Date (Oktoberfest in Leavenworth leads to a new date for 20-Something)

November 12, 2007: It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This (Best date ever with Interested Reader)

November 18, 2007: 26 x 365: Mike (Now) (Along comes Baby Daddy)

November 26, 2007: Conundrum, Conundrum, CONUNDRUM (20-Something finds herself juggling two guys)

December 5, 2007: Invasion of the Baby Screamers (Oh joy! Oh fun! Screaming baby moves in)

December 12, 2007: Obstructing the Law in the Name of Christmas (20-Something changes her luck around)

January 2, 2008: I did it...2007 was a Year of Me (How 20-Something declared 2007 a Year of Me)

January 7, 2008: Breaking down my barrier, letting someone in (Letting a super single lifestyle go)

January 10, 2008: Baby Daddy Girlfriend (20-Something gets an official boyfriend for the first time in four years)

January 17, 2008: Late Afternoon, At the Coffee Counter (Boys. Ewww. Gross.)

January 28, 2008: An Open-Ended Letter to Cigarettes (20-Something quits smoking)

February 11, 2008: A Slow but Steady Decline (20-Something finds a dimple in her butt cheek)

Here's to another year of laughter, love, friends and spilling my life stories on the Internet!

Currently Feeling: Thrilled and anxious.
Currently Anticipating: My first meeting with my Taproot team tomorrow night.
Currently Hating: Now I might have to decide between two?! How'd that happen?

The One After You

……………………………………

In bed, Neil asked me if I’d ever been close to getting married.
I told him a little about Chris: He’d grow up in Manhattan, gone to Brown, and worked as an advocate for homeless people. I said that we’d been engaged for three weeks when I decided not to go through with it.
“Why?”
“I saw that getting married wasn’t going to change anything,” I said. “It would just be more of the same.”
“Which was…?”
I said, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
He said, “So, you don’t regret it?”
“He died,” I said. “In a car wreck.”
“Jesus,” he said. “When?”
“About a year later.”
“That’s so sad,” Neil said, holding on to me.
He fell asleep, and for a long time I lay there. Then I got dressed and went downstairs. I poured myself a glass of wine and took it outside to the little porch.
There was a nice moon, not full but fat, and it lit up the apple trees and the petals underneath.
I smoked a cigarette.
What I didn’t tell Neil was that I always thought I’d wind up with Chris, even after we’d broken up, even after he’d died.

Adam had gone with me to the funeral. It was crowded, as a young person’s funeral almost always is. We sat in the back, where it was hard to see and hard to hear.
I was looking at all the women. I could only see them from behind, but I studied each one, their hair and backs. Their necks and shoulders. Their arms. I found myself thinking, You? Did he sleep with you? Here I was at his funeral, overwhelmed not by grief but jealousy.
Reading my mind, Adam told me that whoever these women were they hadn’t meant anything to Chris. “They were just keeping your seat warm,” he said.
As a procession, we walked to Central Park, past the carousel to the field where Chris had played softball on Sundays. There was a metal can of his ashes, and Adam and I each took some and scattered them on the mound. As a joke, I said, as I had a thousand times, “Tell me the truth: You don’t think Chris and I will ever get back together, do you?”
Adam laughed, and so did I; he hugged me, and then I think he knew I was about to cry because he said, “Oh shoot, I think I got Chris on you,” and dusted off my coat.
Adam and I were walking to the Boathouse when a woman stopped us. “You don’t know me,” she said. “I’m Myla. I was the one after you.”
Once she’d gone, Adam said, “See?”
It didn’t make any difference.
The part of my brain that made no sense at all didn’t believe Chris was dead. He’d switched hospital ID bracelets or charts with another patient. He’d tied sheets together and lowered himself out the window. I looked for him, like he was a fugitive in hiding. A hank of blond hair, a jean jacket, and I’d think, Chris.

I’d always thought of him as the one who got away, but right then it stopped being true. I knew that if Chris walked across the moony grass and up to this porch and proposed again I would say no again.
I wondered if he was here—that is, everywhere. I imagined that he was. I imagined him saying, Who’s the guy inside?
As though he had, I made my voice as kind as I could: “He’s the one after you.”

……………………………………

Pg. 275-276, “The Wonder Spot,” Melissa Banks.

A Slow But Steady Decline

Today I’m wearing light-colored work pants, and while primping and admiring myself in the bathroom mirror, I noticed that the small dimple that has formed in my left butt cheek is visible through my pants. SICK. Is there anything grosser than those old ladies whose legs and butt are noticeably lumpy? I’ve walked around all day, tugging at my camisole in the hopes of covering my imperfection. My days of wearing white pants might be coming to an end if I don’t do something about trying to get rid of this little dent! Running?! Increased exercise? Magical, miracle cellulite cream?! Butt lifts at the gym?! I’ve heard that cellulite is hereditary, and I’m lucky to have escaped most perils of the cellulite world. I’m thankfully, for the most part, curvy but muscular. But, since I was not graced with big beautiful breastesses, I MUST PRESERVE MY BUTT. It’s the only man magnet I got!

This little dimple on my left cheek has formed some time between college and now. It could have something to do with sitting on my butt for eight or more hours, Monday through Friday. I’d be sour too if someone squished me into a pancake, numbing all sense of feeling, for that long each day. I think my butt has boycotted this office job by puckering.

This whole dimple thing really stresses me out. Mostly because it’s all downhill from here…

Don't you love the visual I created for you?! I just happened to have this photo lying around that someone took last summer. God bless Photoshop! LOL.

UPDATE: I'm feeling very vocal about my work day today...When you have nothing in your lunch bag besides squash soup, a small dollop of cottage cheese, a small dollop of tuna fish and a small dollop of Rosemary Chicken Salad from Trader Joe's, you really wish it was 5th grade again and you were sitting next to someone who might want to trade lunches with you.

Currently Feeling: Disappointed that both passes were closed this weekend, and we missed out on our Leavenworth cabin trip for Larisa’s birthday. I was really feeling the need to get away for a weekend.
Currently Anticipating: Starting this new walking aerobics class at work.
Currently Wanting: The new Vampire Weekend CD.

Manners please! Aisle Four!

Last night I reluctantly stopped at the grocery store on my way home even though I was in a DayQuil fog, and it hurt to hold my body upright. (Damn you mid-winter cold!) I was walking down the dairy aisle on my way to pick up yogurt when, “EXCUSE ME!” was shouted at me, in a ridiculously loud voice. I quite literally jumped and made a slight yelp. It scared the shit out of me. A hunched over, very old man pushed past me in his tweed newsboy cap and tweed sports coat and waddled his way in front of me.

I was immediately annoyed. It was quite rude. Not only could he have passed me on the right or left (I’m not so wide that I take up an entire aisle), but it could have been requested in a quieter and much more polite tone—one that didn’t make me jump six feet in the air. To make matters worse, we were heading toward the same goal, and he really only arrived five seconds prior to me. So, why the rush? Apparently he was there to pick up cottage cheese with fruit, which I overheard while the grocery store employee was assisting him.

I really hope that when I’m an old lady, the only thing lighting a fire under my butt and causing a big excitement in my day won’t be cottage cheese with pineapple.

Currently Feeling: Tired of not having any sick days.
Currently Anticipating: Getting this long, meeting-filled day over with.
Currently Wondering: How things are going on that little boat in the middle of the Bering Sea.