When you do what you love, the seemingly impossible becomes simply challenging, the laborious becomes purposeful resistance, the difficult loses its edge and is trampled by your progress. -Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)

On my way to work last Tuesday, I decided that I walk strangely. Of course, I can't tell for SURE because I can't see myself unless I watch my reflection in building windows. I try to refrain from doing this because I'm concerned that the people around me will think that I am checking myself out rather than worriedly attempting to diagnosis my mobility issues. But the flip side of that is that they already think I'm strange because I walk oddly.

My legs just feel like they don't want to cooperate in a smooth fashion when I move around. They seem to prefer a jerkier, slightly lopsided motion, potentially exacerbated by the fact that I walk about 3x faster than the normal person, as it is. This is something that I cannot help. When I try to slow down, I am faced with a sensation that feels like what trying to stop a very heavy wagon from rolling down a very steep hill feels like. I have to concentrate really really hard on moving my feet more slowly. Usually, I just give up and speed back up again. Because, actually, my walk gets even more awkward when I attempt to reign it in.

The other day when I was walking home from work, an older businessman with a briefcase in hand actually commented on it.

"Must be those Chuck Taylors making you walk so fast," is what I heard as I zoomed by him.

"Haha, could be! Or just the cold!" And, with a good-natured smile, I kept going. But seriously. I must look...irregular. I blame my New Yorker mother. As a small child, I had to move my little stubby legs at double-time to keep up with her purposeful stride, and, as I became accustomed to moving at that speed, proportionally, I continued to move that quickly when I got older. That is my thinking.

Things are far worse now that there is an irritating amount of snow on the ground. Now I wobble on top of moving strangely. On Friday I almost careened into the path of an oncoming vehicle. Such is my life.

Today, as I sat in John's car at the Bryn Mawr train station, I was struck by the thought that I really ought to make a concentrated effort at self-improvement. When I said this thought aloud, I was met with a look that made me think he was thinking that I was a lunatic. Which was nice, for all intents and purposes (assuming he wasn't thinking that I was so hopeless that working towards self-betterment was a fruitless endeavor), but which didn't change my mind.

I too easily give myself a lot of leeway when it comes to figuring my shit out. "I'm young." "There's time." "I've got a lot to get through first." Yeah, sure. Excuses. It's not like I am suddenly going to hit a place in my life where things are suddenly smooth sailing and I can kick back and hone whatever skills I think that I might have. If I keep giving into those excuses, letting them ultimately direct me, I'm going to wind-up as a very boring and very unaccomplished person. Just like most everything in life, self-direction and self-knowledge take effort and work. But I'm fairly certain that it is well worth it. In the end, I'll know exactly where I stand. I don't think I'd ever quite realized how exhausting leading an interesting and full life really is. As far as I can tell, society does a bang-up job of wearing us all down to little nubs of the people we are by telling us what we "should" be doing. To live to the fullest takes a kind of courage and a kind of independence that I hadn't really considered. Life is too short to stay safe and to put off exploration and development. I have to work to get where and what I want. And now is the time to nail down exactly what it is that I DO want. Period.

"420. Don’t be sorry for speaking your mind. It’s like you’re being sorry for being real." (Thanks, Leo)

 

This is a good thing to remember. We are so often frightened of getting a load off of our chests that we forget that evasion, avoidance, and misrepresentation are akin to saying, "My thoughts aren't good enough" or "My thoughts are wrong." It's too easy to fall into that trap. It makes you wonder how many thoughts worth hearing are lost in the shuffle because the thinker is too afraid or too ashamed to give them voice.

 

I'm in a funny mood today. Sad. A little. Pensive. A lot. I sat in front of my computer trying to come up with a post that would center around something light-hearted or funny, and I came up blank, so I decided to go with reality as opposed to vignette. I blame this state partially on the blog that I have been reading (click the link above) because never in my life has my little brain been flooded by so many beautifully simple pieces of wisdom in such a short period of time. I'm realizing that someone, somewhere, at one time or another, has created a quotation that encapsulates literally every moment of every life. The magnitude is frightening and awe-inspiring.

 

It also has me convinced that I have to read more.

 

The other part of the blame rests on this song:

Between the two of them, blog and music, I have been reduced to small, emotionally fraught, body. And let me just tell you, it blows popsicle sticks to feel like this and to have to pull together some semblance of productivity while I am work. Tongue depressors might be more on point than popsicle sticks, actually. Like the big kinds in the jar in the doctor's office that always used to be really scary because, as a kid, you never knew if the doctor was going to come at you with one of them and attempt to jam it down your throat.

 

I picked this particular quotation because I'm starting to get the feeling that it's going to be representative of the theme of my 2011. I have this sense that it'll be a year for journeying and growing. I also picked it because speaking my mind was something I was amazingly good at as a small child and something that I was equally as bad at once I got older. And let me tell you, being challenged in that particular area is anxiety-inducing. And also character-splitting. Two bad things that could get pathological if I keep it up until I'm old and grey. Which is not how I want to end up when I'm wizened and grumpy, zipping around in my little motorized chair. I'll probably already be running over people in grocery stores, I don't need to be fighting panic attacks and dual personalities while I'm doing it.

So here's to speaking my mind, being honest and upfront, confident and sincere, and here's to strengthening relationships through doing it.

 

 EDIT: Look! Images from my blog are showing-up on Google Image Search!

Don't tell anybody, but I usually spend the first half hour of my workday screwing around on the internet and being unproductive; this is mostly because I am always the first person into the office every day and because mornings tend to be slow (probably because everyone else is screwing around on the internet, too). This morning, I got an email from my mom that included this: Crow and Cat

Unbelievable, right? It sort of throws a wrench into the nature vs. nurture debate, or at least adds another element to it. Anyway, I just wanted to share.

***

Have you ever been someone who was scared of everything that was, or could be construed, as even a little off-kilter? Like wearing plaid socks that might end-up being visible when you sat down? Or like having parents who implemented a 10pm curfew when you were a a senior in high school so you pretended that you just didn't actually WANT to be out late anyway? That's how I was. I also embarrassed really easily, which made me less than open about just about everything.

Like sex and anything related to it.

I was still scared of penises when I was a senior in high school, and I was utterly convinced that if anyone was going to be the victim of immaculate conception ever again (no offense intended), it was going to be me. I was equally convinced that the first time I had sex I would get pregnant and they'd put me on one of those trashy MTV shows about good kids who managed to somehow fuck up big time. Sometimes, when I was feeling especially masochistic, I would play out a scene where all my family's friends were gathered around, shaking their heads, and saying, "She had such a bright future...I just didn't see this coming. She was always such a smart girl..." I also figured I'd have to move far away and not talk to anybody I knew ever again. Looking back at my youth now, and seeing how many complexes I gave myself, I'm shocked that I'm even half as well-adjusted as I turned out (which is not extremely, but I do all right).

Most of them came from being frightened of everything but my shadow, and maybe even that at night if I were half asleep and trying to stumble into my bathroom. I made it worse by never actually owning up to being frightened of everything, and I'm fairly certain that that misstep is what gave me complexes. I used to work very hard to put up a facade of suave, untouchable, coolness. I tricked most people with it, because I was a control freak and kept myself in an iron-tight grip, but I was stressed-out all the time. It was a tough existence! I constantly had to anticipate and predict any bumps on the road that would force me into patch-up mode so that people didn't actually figure out that I was a huge, lame, weenie. This made me every girl's best friend in high school and an enormous bitch to just about every guy. Which somehow managed to work out for me, anyway...which still puzzles me enormously.

That is why, with the dawn of 2011, my biggest goal might just be to be open and up-front about myself with myself and with other people. (Can I get a "HELL yes")? So far, I'm doing pretty well.

Now that it's the new year, I'm going to kick into high gear with respect to studying for the LSAT. And I really mean it. The tumultuous romance between me and my study aids wore off about 3 weeks after I received them in the mail, but now it's time to settle into a comfortable relationship with them and learn them inside and out. I plan to do this in several ways, including but not limited to:

1) Make a schedule. Withhold things that I want from myself until I stick to said schedule. This means no tv show binging on my computer, no Starbucks, no friends, etc.

2) Reward myself when I succeed. Could occur simultaneously as studying (see number 3).

3) Bring the romance back. Study in public (like at Starbucks). Look studious. Attractive. Smart. This can be done by carrying more books than I actually need, plugging into my iPod so that people think I'm divorced from my surroundings (when I'm still probably people-watching), carefully choosing an outfit that looks effortless, yet good, and arranging my materials so that at least one book's title regarding the LSAT is visible to passersby.

4) Get my roommates to guilt-trip me if I don't seem to be studying enough. Rubbing in the fact that I might never be able to effectively handle idiot corporate bureaucracy like Park Towne's if I don't go to law school might be a good starting point.

I think there are probably more. Besides the LSAT, there are other things that I want to do in 2011 (I recently came to the abrupt realization that this is the first year of my life in which school is not a player at all. It scared me).

1) Come up with a backup plan if law school doesn't pan out; maybe just a plan for 2012 pre law school if it DOES pan out: move to Chile and do something that doesn't count as this, move out west and work on a goat farm, work on a cruise ship, team up with Mike and drive around a country - doesn't have to be the U.S. - in an RV.

2) Learn how to cook.

3) Stop only grocery shopping once a month because doing so means that I have at least a week where my diet consists solely of rice and beans and pasta with garlic and olive oil. And maybe some leftover frozen veggies if I'm lucky. Hello, scurvy.

4) Be more honest with myself. Own the person I am.

5) Write more frequently, both blog and otherwise.

6) Finish Shogun. Finish at least 10 other books over the course of the year. This means less brain-dissolving online tv watching. And normal tv watching. Also read the NY Times more regularly.

7) Make good use of my art museum membership. Go on more tours.

8) Be better at staying in-touch with my parents. We have a 5 minutes a day rule for a reason!

9) Don't forget how to think critically sans the help of school.

10) Live more. Make memories!

Have you ever grudgingly figured something out about yourself as you've gotten older?  Something that has been exactly the same, probably from the day you were born, your entire life?  Something that you have attempted to deny since the day you began to be cognizant of it?  Sometimes I think that one of the most rewarding things about being a parent must be knowing something about your child from day one and watching them come to realize it, after denying it vehemently, once they are older.

Story of my life.  

When I was a baby, I used to get my baths in the sink.  Because I was small.  And small creatures are often overwhelmed by things as big as bathtubs, therefore, I got washed in the kitchen sink, and then patted dry on a towel my parents laid out on the counter.  There was a whole song associated with it, but that's a story for another time.

Once I got a bit bigger, my parents felt that it was time for me to take the next step in development and start having my baths in the bathtub.  I was still a small creature, but not too small.  Unfortunately, for my parents (so many of my stories seem to have that statement built in…), I was not having it.  I happened to like the sink.  I was adjusted to the sink.  It was a known quantity.  And that was a BIG deal for me, because the unknown was terrifying and to be avoided at all costs.

According to my parents, when they tried to put me in the bathtub I screamed blue green murder and stiffened up, splaying my small, chubby limbs outwards, like I thought I might be able to push my surroundings away from me.  I am not sure how many times I did this, for how long I stubbornly adhered to this course of action, but ultimately, I decided that I LOVED the tub.  Loved it.  Didn't want to get out of it.  Hollered when bathtime was over because I preferred pruney fingers and toes to chilly, post warm bathwater air.

My mother actually had to shock me out of taking baths and into taking showers as I got older, because I liked them so much.  She said, "Don't you know that when you take a bath you're sitting in your own dirt?"  I took showers everyday after that.  Recently, she mentioned to me that she felt horrible because she believed that she had single-handedly ruined my devotion to baths and the pure happiness which I derived from taking them.

She didn't.  I would have switched to showers anyway once I realized that no one else my age was still taking baths.  I was very prone to peer pressure in my younger days.

Anyway, I have finally come to realize that I don't know myself nearly as well as I think I do.  I've identified this as being the root of the issue.  I've had a misformed idea as to my identity ever since I realized in elementary school that there was a divide between the cool kids and the kids no one wanted to be friends with.

It's tricky, though, because as I've gotten older, I've figured out that it's something that I need get sorted out or face living a life that isn't actually mine!

The first real crush I had and, subsequently, my first real heartbreak, was on a boy I was convinced I despised.  Not just disliked, despised.   When our summer camp was over, I cried for days and literally stopped eating because I was so upset.  My parents didn't understand what was wrong with me.

I almost didn't even get out of the car to take a tour of Bryn Mawr because I was positive that I would never EVER go to a girls'  (women's…) school.  Later, I was making moves to apply early decision.

When I finished school and was looking for places to live in the Philadelphia area, I was initially certain that I didn't want to live in the city.  I live in the city.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

It's sort of incredible.

And somewhat worrisome.

I'm learning to listen.

The post is coming! I promise!

My family never puts up a Christmas tree before Christmas Eve day.  When I was little, I used to hate it.  I watched all of my friends and their families go Christmas tree shopping immediately after Thanksgiving, and I often had the sense that life was inherently unfair because it seemed like they all got Christmas for about twice as long as I did.

Whenever I complained, my mom always returned with anti-commercialism sentiment and the importance of sticking to principle, and, in this case, keeping Christmas happening at Christmas was the principle.  I didn't get it.  It irritated me.  It made me pissy and probably more than a handful of unpleasantness for my poor parents to handle.

I think the Christmas that took the cake, though, was the one where we literally picked up somebody else's discarded Christmas tree.  Actually, we wound-up with two.  We had spent Christmas proper in New York City - something else that I'd kicked up an enormous fuss over because it wouldn't be a "real" Christmas since I wouldn't be waking up at HOME on Christmas day - and had arrived home on December 27th.

Let me just tell you, walking into a cold and highly unfestive house was ridiculously depressing.  I was immediately saddened and probably, knowing me, enraged.  I probably stomped around, blazing, "This is the worst Christmas ever.  It doesn't even feel like Christmas!"  I was probably the perfect cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and one of the entitled, stuck-up little girls from "A Little Princess."  So my mom had the brilliant idea for my dad and me to drive around and pick-up a tree off the side of the road, and, once my dad listened to her, he was equally as enthusiastic about the idea.  I, however, was not.  I was mortified.

"You want us to do what?!" Every inch of my small body was trembling with indignation.  Not only had we had Christmas entirely the wrong way, as far as I was concerned, now my parents wanted to make it even more wrong by dumpster diving for ALREADY USED Christmas trees.  I would never get over the shame.  The humiliation.  No one, no one, did things like that.  It was unheard of.  And humiliating.

"Tons of people get rid of their trees the day after Christmas, and they're perfectly fine."

"That is NOT the point.  We can't just…take somebody's tree off the street!!!!"  I'm sure that at this point I was feeling frantic and helpless, which is not the best combination for me, because I get kind of like a cornered dog.

"Why not?"  My mom was infuriatingly calm, and was actually laughing at me a little bit, which was really like poking that cornered dog with a stick.

"It's just…stupid.  It's revolting."  I don't know if I actually used the word, "revolting," but if I'd had the presence of mind to have used it, I'm sure that I would have.

"Then I guess we just won't have a tree."  My dad sounded mad and smug all at once.  Clearly my abrasiveness was costing my parents their festive moods.

"WE HAVE TO HAVE A TREE."  I couldn't believe my family.  At this point, I felt that I was the most misunderstood child in the entire world.  My parents didn't understand anything.  They didn't understand me, they didn't understand the holidays, they didn't understand the natural way of things.

In the end I got in the car with my dad and we spent about half an hour driving around the neighborhood, scanning the curbs for trees.  I'm positive I spent most of the ride muttering unpleasant things under my breath.  (In retrospect, I really was not a very nice child when I was unhappy.  The older I get, the more I realize that my parents really must have loved me a lot to put up with me and not lock me in a closet somewhere).

My mood changed drastically when we found what was probably, to date, the nicest tree we've ever had.  It still had a little bit of tinsel on it and one small ornament clinging to an inner branch, as though it wasn't ready for it's time to be over.  It was also perfectly proportioned and enormously tall.  It was kind of like looking for a hobo to offer food and shelter to, and instead finding a hobo, we found a disguised prince, heartbreakingly handsome and willing to come take up residence in our house.  Honestly.  The tree was just that good.  It literally made me reassess my original opinion of the whole endeavor.  For the next couple of Christmases I was only half-joking when I suggested to my parents that we wait until a couple days after Christmas to find a tree.

Our second tree was just a rather small, well-proportioned, sort of sparse kind of tree, and we took pity on it.  So we took it home, with the big one, and it wound-up leaning up against the side of our house in a bucket with popcorn garlands that I made wrapped around it. True to the theme of my life, which is that things I think I hate wind-up being the things I love the most, it was probably one of my most favorite Christmases to date.

I felt poetic at work this morning:

Hold me like I'll break
Two glasses on shifting planes
But do not touch me.

***

My office is hot
Heat rips winter asunder
I want to be naked!

I promise that I'll try to write something more entertaining and in my more usual vein tonight.  Perhaps, in light of the upcoming holidays, some anecdotes about the family dynamics in my house.

I was besieged for about half an hour last night as I sat in a chair in my apartment, reading the Honesty Thread on Bryn Mawr's ACB board.  The worry was clawing its way up my chest and into my throat, like invaders on their overly crowded, top-heavy ladders.  Except my defenses were down, no one was stopping them, and the ladders were staying upright, an open path into me.

I was completely consumed and frozen for that entire 30 minutes.  I sat huddled in my chair, struggling to breathe and feeling like a little ice cube of an island, wondering what the hell was wrong with me because I was sure that it was not normal.

Then I remembered that I am me and that this is normal.  I am one of the biggest closet neurotics I know.  I blame it on thinking.  Actually, I blame it on a series of things:

1) I think a lot.

2) I am imaginative.

3) I like to be in control at all times.

4) I like to know what is going to happen.

Those four things make living life a little tricky:

1) There is always too much to think about.

2) Similarly, imagination is boundless.

3) Life is often not controllable.  It's what makes life, life.

4) Similarly, life is unpredictable.  It is also what makes life, life.

People are my kryptonite.  With people, each of the four areas combines with each of the other four areas and makes the perfect storm.  I start to feel like I'm going to implode.  Or explode.  I'm not exactly sure which it is.  I get internally frantic, and have to work really hard to chill the fuck out.  I breathe into a metaphorical paper bag.

I've gotten marginally better at controlling myself.  Now I just funnel my OCDs and compulsions into making sure my shampoo and conditioner bottles contain exactly the same amount of liquid at any given time.

I need a crash course in being brave in the area of human emotion.

Best Thing Ever: Clicking around on Amazon.com and looking at the "Customers who bought this item also bought…" section of the page.  It's like walking into a closet full of stereotypes, just dangling from the hangers, begging to be picked out and worn.  Amazon practically holds your hand and guides you to everything you need to put on the persona you desire.  For example:

The Longchamp Le Pliage Large Folding Tote. 

Here's what else those buyers bought (I'll let you draw your own conclusions):

It's brilliant.  It's mainstream distilled into a pure essence.  It could be a new game called "How Original Are You?"  Suffice it to say that, Amazon, you have made my evening (I'm not sure what that says about my choice of activities or about how boring a person I am, but stumbling across this revelation was like stumbling across the Christmas presents my mom had stuffed into various corners in order to hide them from me before Christmas.  Just sayin').

The state of this country leaves something to be desired.  I have a hard time writing about political issues because, until very recently, the immediacy of politics did not exist for me.  I lived in a bubble ruled by academics and my social life, my well-being was completely determined by my parents, who I knew would look out for me.  It isn't until very recently that I have begun to learn that my independence over the four years of college was really only "independence," a manufactured sense of autonomy and control.  It was autonomy and control without any real responsibility, which, as anyone who has eventually assumed responsibility knows, is not true autonomy and control.  It is the kind of autonomy and control that a puppet might have within the context of a puppet show.  The puppet's character gets to take action within the context of its play, however, there is a puppet master who is pulling the strings, making sure that the scenery is correct, and ready to do any necessary damage control before the puppets are ever affected.  

Moving out on my own and taking more steps in the direction of handling my own affairs brought certain realities into stark relief.  Politics, for instance.  Suddenly I found myself very involved, and concerned about, the political state of affairs in the U.S.  For me, the hook was healthcare, because I am currently dependent on my parents' coverage as my job does not provide insurance.  As a young person, one might imagine that allowing coverage to lapse, being sans insurance for a little while, wouldn't be much of a big deal.  However, due to a kidney condition that I have had since birth, allowing my coverage to lapse would bring with it the risk of never being able to get covered again - because the truth is, insurance companies don't actually want broken people.  They don't want people who might actually need to cash in on their coverage.  For all intents and purposes, I am a broken person.

Anyway, health insurance and the Republicans' almost rabid intent to dismantle Obama's healthcare bill put my feet firmly on the surface of the planet.  It's become crystal clear to me that remaining uninvolved is akin to lying down in the middle of a highway during rush hour and hoping that, by some miracle, every car will swerve to avoid my prone body.  It's a positively absurd expectation.  But, oddly, it seems to be the very expectation that a huge percentage of this country.  The apathy is frightening, and I'm beginning to think that the apathy is less actual apathy and more a lack of realization that cause and effect exists in politics as much as it does in gravity.  Drop a rock off a building, and it will hit the ground.  Every time.  Ignore an election, or vote ignorantly, and the state of the country will suffer.  Every time.  We don't understand.  And, at this point, we're afraid to understand because things have developed into some horrifying mimicry of the twilight zone, and to look too closely into what's going on, is to stare into the face of a nightmare.

When it comes to fear, we are children.  Nobody outgrows the need for reassurance.  Nobody outgrows the desperate wish for comfort, for someone to tell them that everything will be okay and here's why.  Becoming an adult means that most of the time, you learn to exist without that external comfort and that you learn to give it to the younger generations, but no longer needing it?  Pure myth.  You grow up, but you still get scared.  You just get to be exposed to the nasty truth that the world doesn't get less scary, you just have to deal with it on your own.  We are a broken and frightened country right now, and what we have going on is the result of no one being, well, results oriented.  We keep being told what's busted, but no one is doing much to walk us through what's happening and what needs to happen.  It's terribly unhelpful.  And more unhelpful still is the existence of political parties that operate in a vacuum in which reality is suspended.  John Stewart and Stephen Colbert had a rally to restore sanity.  Could we please also have one to restore reality?

I was just looking at the labels that I have used thus far on my blog, and I am really not sure what they say about me…  Take a look - it's a long list.

adulthood

Almost Recess

anger management

appendicitis

art

asphyxiation

attraction

aviators

bandaid

binging

blogging

bosses

boys

budgeting

buttons

candles

cartoons

cell phones

cereal

childhood

cleaning

clumsiness

confusion

contradiction

death

depression

dreams

elevators

emails

embarrassment

emoticons

English

environmentalism

exercise

fire

food

George

Harry Potter

Hermione

hospital

hot men

humor

hurricanes

hypochondria

hypocrisy

Igor

illness

immaturity

infants

internet service

iPods

jeeps

landlords

lawnmowers

maturity

mold

money

monsters

old women

orthodonture

paranoia

parrots

pick-up lines

procrastination

ray bans

retro

Rooney

saloon

shower pans

smoking

social étiquette

solitude

South America

spelling

Starbucks

storm preparation

Superman

teachers

The 1900 Storm

tire swing

toilet paper

Trader Joe's 

trampolines

Twizzlers

weather

wheezing

workplace goofs

My blog is a complete cluster fuck.  However, going through the list, I realized that that makes it a fairly accurate representation my life.  I write about nothing and everything.  And my life is full of daily events that confuse the hell out of me - I'm often not very quick.  It is also painfully obvious that I am completely clueless about the Ways of Things.  The list reads like a frantic collection of possible answers to all of the situations and events that I don't understand - just put a couple of question marks after each word or phrase.  There is also a lot of discomfort and conflict.  I am so glad that at 22 I still don't seem to have a very good handle on things…   

However, at least I am learning how to be flexible.  My mother commented on this today as I was wandering around Philadelphia in flip-flops, in the rain.  Park Towne's internet was failing to work again this morning, so it was impossible for me to give sustenance to my email/facebook addiction, which left me in-need of finding a different location at which to get my fix.  Seems like the universe was pretty set against my getting it, though.  My first stop was the Starbucks right next to the Whole Foods that is a couple of blocks east of where I live.  I could tell from a distance that it wasn't going to be very promising - there were too many visible heads in the windows - but I thought I'd pop my head in anyway in case I wasn't seeing some secret little secluded table in a corner somewhere.

Nope.

It looked like the whole neighborhood was crowded into the place.  The whole neighborhood and its friends and family from out of town.  I left and made a beeline down the parkway, getting completely caught in the Puerto Rican parade that was making its way down the parkway to the sound of drums, reggaeton, and salsa music.  My mom, who was on the other end of the phone, was very excited by all the commotion, and thrilled that she could hear it all in the background.  I was surprised she could hear me at all, since I was also hollering over pretzel vendors and festive parade-goers who were chanting in Spanish.

I made it out of the fracas only to discover that Starbucks #2 was closed due to a planned power outage (wtf?).  This was very depressing because their little white sign directed me to their location on 16th and Arch, which I always forget about even though I pass it EVERY TIME I walk down the Parkway.  I didn't want to go all the way back, so the only thing to do was keep moving forward.  There was only one stop left - the Starbucks on the corner of 16th and Walnut, right next to where I work.

Normally, I do not like sitting close to people when I go to public places.  Maybe it's a function of being American (they say that Americans need about 3 times the amount of personal bubble space than do people in pretty much any other part of the world), or maybe it's just another awkward me thing, but either way, I don't like being squished up next to people I don't know.  However, being at my wits' end, I was all about squashing and squeezing.  Which is good.  Because when I got inside, it turned out that squashing and squeezing was pretty much my only option.

Apparently on rainy days all of Philadelphia turns out to go sit in the closest Starbucks.  Starbucks must love days with crummy weather.

So I am currently sitting at the little bar that runs along the window that faces 16th street, between one girl who, from my surreptitious side-long glances, seems to be working on some kind of lesson plan, and another girl who is trying to eat a fruit and cheese plate while simultaneously reading and highlighting in a  space that is far too small for that activity.  There is a dude on the end in a backwards hat who looks mad annoyed that his space has been so encroached upon.

Sorry, dude, it wasn't my first choice, either.

But anyway, I am proud of myself.  I am sucking up discomfort and tight spaces after a forty minute walk.  Here's to being confused but flexible!

I am getting very worried that I am soon to fall back into my habit of abandoning my blog for months at a time.  I really think it will be far easier when we actually have the internet IN OUR APARTMENT.  Hopefully that will be in the next  couple of weeks or so.  We were supposed to have had it this past Tuesday, but it turns out that there is something wrong with our phone jack, meaning: Park Towne doesn't have active phone lines.  So we can't use the provider we thought we could use.  Back to the drawing board we go.

Recently I was propositioned in the elevator at work, which got me to thinking about elevator etiquette and how elevators present a kind of social difficulty because you're essentially trapped in a small enclosed space with a bunch of strangers.  Sometimes I wonder what elevator rides were like before the invention of cell phones and iPods.  Because if you're ever in an elevator, pretty much everyone around you is completely engrossed in either tapping away on a phone or clicking around on an iPod.  Did people just used to look at each other awkwardly?  Or stare at opposite walls equally as awkwardly?  Or did people actually know how to handle themselves and hold short, polite conversations about the weather for the duration of the ride, at the culmination of which they would wish each other a good day?

(By the way, if I'm any accurate representation of the elevator-riding population, which I may not be because I doubt my ability to accurately represent any sort of normal population, then at least one person in every elevator is actually faking being engrossed in whatever it is they look like they're wholly absorbed by).

But back to my story.  I totally got talked-up in the elevator.  By a rather large, short fellow with a poor sense of style and braces.  He got on on the floor where there is a dentist.  

When the doors opened, I immediately turned my focus to my bag and rummaged around in it purposefully, even though I wasn't actually looking for anything.  This is because I am occasionally flustered in social situations and prefer to play the avoidance card whenever I can.  Braces got on.

Me: *rummage rummage rustle*

Braces: "You're pretty."

Me: *slight pause while I decided how to respond* "Thank you."  I went with politely distant and stared up at the numbers, wondering why, since the elevators in my building usually hurtle their way down the shafts at alarming rates, this particular elevator seemed to be taking its sweet time.

Braces: *still staring determinedly at me*  "Do you have a boyfriend?"  He started grinning at me after this and I started fervently wishing that someone else would just please get onto the elevator thank you.

Me: *another pause because I hate this question and don't know how to answer it* "Yes."  It's not entirely true, but for all intents and purposes it was the correct answer in this particular situation.

Braces: *still grinning* "Do you want another one?"

Me: "Not…really?"  At this point I was almost feeling bad for him, his game was so feeble.

Braces: You sure?

Me: "Yes.  I mean, thanks…I'm flattered…but no thank you."  For some reason when I am confronted with unfamiliar situations I revert into this hyper-polite and formal mode of interaction.  It's weird.  It also happens when I am confused or uncomfortable.

We had to ride down a couple more floors together in silence.  I spent the whole time watching the numbers light up above the doors and thinking "let me get out, let me get out, let me get out."

When I came back with my lunch, he was standing outside the front door to my building talking to the doorman.  I tried to conceal myself behind a woman who was talking loudly on her phone as she entered the building.  I don't know if it worked or not, but I got in and back up to the 17th floor without being hassled further.

I find that elevator interaction is rife with disjointed social interplay.  Think about it:

1) How long do you hold the door?

2) If you hit the "close doors" button, are you an asshole?  What about if you do it not realizing that you shut the doors in someone else's face?

3) When you get on first and hit your floor, are you supposed to ask everyone else which floor they are going to or let them take care of it?

4) Similarly, if someone else gets on before you and hits their floor, are you supposed to awkwardly stick out an arm into their personal space and punch your floor or wait until they ask where you are going?

5) Everyone judges everyone depending on the floor s/he gets out on, also, by what s/he is wearing since there is nothing else to do in an elevator besides scrutinize the company while you pretend to be disinterested and removed.

6) Eye contact.  It happens.  And when it does, you can't walk away.  You just have to stay there.  Next to each other.

Ok.

Ok, ok, ok, OKAY.

I haven't abandoned the blog.

Even though that is what it might seem like.

At this point.

Really, it is only because we don't have internet.

And I have become so lazy that walking down to the lounge is too much for me.

Pathetic.

BUT!

I have a post. 

It will be posted TONIGHT.

(Because I will walk down to the lounge to post it).

Ok, bye.

I totally have a thing for guys who drive jeeps.

This is hard for me to admit because I also totally have a thing against most SUVs.  They're huge, they waste resources, they pollute, they're impossible to see around, they're slow, etc.  I can't help it, though.  I have a thing for guys who drive jeeps.  My stomach twitches a little whenever I see one being driven by even a passably attractive guy.  The more rugged the jeep, the better.  If the guy is wearing ray bans, he gets extra points and my stomach twitches a little more.

I became consciously aware of this today as I was walking home from work.  Usually when I walk to and from work, I tend to attempt to impart an aloof attitude.  This is as much because I want to look cool as it is because I also don't know what facial expressions to make if I happen to accidentally make eye contact with someone on the street (coming soon: the perils of walking around in public, also, elevator etiquette).  In some ways, I'm just hopelessly awkward. This feigned aloofness is also probably why I trip on curbs, actually.  I put my chin in the air and forget to watch where I'm walking.  Anyway, none of this is the point.

My POINT is that while I normally play aloof and "ignore" the people and things around me, this all sort of goes out the window when I catch sight of a jeep out of the corner of my eye.  The temptation of the possibility of an attractive man behind the wheel proves to be more than my self-control can withstand, and I crack.  My head will actually do the slow motion twist so that I can keep my eyes on the prize.   I once had a really good day where I high-fived a random dude partaking in happy hour at a restaurant that I passed (incidentally, that made me feel really good about myself and like I was taking life by the horns and being spontaneous), and at the same time, a more than passably attractive guy in a jeep happened to be rolling by.  I like to think that he saw me give my random hand slap and thought to himself, "Now that is one cool girl" as he rolled on by.

I do not know what it is.  Supposedly men have physical reactions to hot cars that are on par with their physical reactions to hot women (to a point, anyway.  You all follow).  Despite being female, I think I fit that profile, too.  I see a car I like and I feel pretty much the same way as I do when I see a man that I like.  I kind of want to jump on it, but I control myself.

This is my favorite part about walking to and from work.  That and seeing men in suits on their way to and from their offices.  Men should pretty much always wear suits as far as I am concerned.  Maybe I'll try to write about that some day, too.

….

Oddly enough, though, put an attractive man in a suit behind the wheel of a jeep and I'm not into it.  I just thought of that.  Hmm.

This was a short post.  I am sorry.  I will try to get back into writing longer posts soon.

New post is in the works...I'm being lame and taking too long.  Have this picture for now; I think it's true:

Any time that someone tells me to calm down, I want to hit them.  99% of the time it is totally their fault that I'm pissed.

I recently realized that the bulk of my posts seems to be about relatively unpleasant topics of conversation.  I determined this one day when I happened to be reading over the labels that I assigned to each of my posts.  They say things like: mold, paranoia, hypochondria, cleaning, illness…  I don't know.  Together it all makes for a somewhat odd picture.  Especially when you then include things like: superman, toilet paper, and tire swing.

I'm not sure what it means.

Does it mean I have black humor?  That I'm a miserable person?  That I have problems?  Theoretically speaking, this would make sense if only because I used to be a huge complainer when I was a child.  It was probably the thing that I did best.  Who knows why I got so good at it - I might have been born that way.  I was sort of a pissy infant (understatement of the year).

Anyway, as  a child, when I was bored, I amused myself by complaining.  It was a twisted way to have fun.  I could literally complain about something about everything.  It was quite a talent.  And was probably a real bitch to deal with.  Sunny out?  Too hot to go play.  Cloudy or rainy?  Too wet, too gross.  I was supposed to make my own bed?  Were my parents kidding?  It was MY room, what did they care?  Food was a specialty of mine, which is actually kind of funny, because now I will eat anything and everything, and large quantities of it.  Dinnertime was the equivalent of the climb to the peak of Mount Everest.  First I complained about whatever we were eating.  Loudly.  I also usually shoved the food around on my plate to make a point.  Just in case, you know, my mom wasn't already feeling bad.  Then it took me about 5 times longer than a normal person to actually eat everything.  Eventually, my parents would just abandon me at the table because I was taking such an absurd amount of time.

Looking back now, I am overcome with embarrassment.  I'm impressed by my parents' resilience.  I'm not sure that I could do as well as them were I in their place.

My point with all of this is that as I grew older and marginally more mature, my penchant for complaining seemed to evolve into writing with irony.  Not always particularly good irony, but it was a redirection of my mean edge.  I think that this explains my posting labels.  Of course, the point of labeling posts is to help people to find my blog when they search for certain things on the internet's variety of search engines.  With my labels, the only people I'm likely to get are angry ones, depressed ones (depression is totally going to be a label on this post), and people who are expecting information about serious topics and instead are confronted with the ravings of a girl who's often trying to be funny about things that might not necessarily be funny.

How nice!

Some people are blessed with height, or strength, or beauty.  I'm blessed with klutziness.  Most people have the occasional run-in with the corner of the kitchen cabinet, or misjudgment of where the curb stops.  Every once in a while they might walk into a water fountain that they didn't realize was there.  I, I do those things on a daily basis.

I started my freshman year of high school off by tripping over a bush and face-planting.  As far as face-plants go, it was fairly spectacular.  And my extreme clumsiness waited until 90% of the student body had left before it showed itself, which was kind of considerate, I guess.

I've gotten so used to being clumsy, that I've actually begun to perfect the art of being graceful in my clumsiness.  My sophomore year, I missed a step on the flight of stairs leading to the main building, while wearing a short skirt.  Following the fall, I was congratulated.  Somehow, in the couple of seconds between missing the step and landing on the ground, I had the presence of mind to moderate my tumble.  Funny how once I've DONE something klutzy, the 2% of gracefulness that adds to my makeup, rushes in to make a feeble attempt to salvage the situation.  But, that 2% did allow me to land neatly, with my feet tucked beneath me, and my skirt delicately swirled around me.

When I was younger, I used to think that I was going to outgrow it and I used to dream of a day when I would glide through my days effortlessly and be bruise and embarrassment free.  Thing is, I'm 22 now and my days are not effortless, and I tend to be bruised fairly frequently.  The embarrassment, though, I have gotten under control.  I no longer care when people see me catch my toe on the crack in the sidewalk and launch forward for a few steps.  This is because I now mostly wander around listening to my iPod, so I can pretend that I'm in my own little world.  And in that little world, no one notices when I commit a movement faux pas.  And no, my iPod is not why I trip on sidewalks (aha! I know you were thinking it).

Here are a few things that I can think of that are evidence of my klutziness:

1) When I tripped over a bush stump and face-planted.

2) When I missed a stair and fell down.

3) When I fell UP the stairs and landed on my hands and knees.

4) When I closed my thumb in the door to my dorm room (the nail then turned purple).

5) Every time I get tripped up by sidewalks and misjudge curb height.

6) When I was at John's and walked into the coffee table.

7) When I was at my apartment and almost walked into a bookcase as I was trying to get into our pantry.

8) When John and I were at Starbucks and I tried to put my coffee cup down but missed the table and dropped the cup on my lap.

9) When I was at the gym and my headband flew backwards off my head and landed on the floor and I had to stop the treadmill to go pick it up.

10) A couple of mornings ago when I was trying to eat cereal and illustrate this post at the same time and my hand forgot what it was doing and tilted my bowl and dumped milk and cheerios on my leg and on the floor.

I think that perhaps I just have a very poor kinesthetic sense.

This is just how it is.

I'm worried.

During my second day of work I wrote a hurried email to a guy who's in charge of a tour company.  Up until now, there has only been one email for the entirety of the company: robert@cityfoodtours.com.  This means that when any other employee (namely the Private Events Manager - me) responds to an email, s/he has to sign the email with Robert's name.  Otherwise, it just looks odd.  And would probably lead to the people on the receiving end of the emails getting confused and wondering about the legitimacy of things.  Of course, I put the legitimacy of things into question in my own way.

I totally misspelled Robert's last name.

Turns out that "Weinberg" is NOT spelled "W-E-I-N-B-U-R-G."

I'm not sure what I was thinking.  Or what my fingers were thinking.  I didn't even realize that I'd done it until a couple of days later when I was going back through emails to make sure that I'd sent messages to everyone to whom I needed to send messages.

Now I'm paranoid every time I log into the email because I am concerned that there is going to be an email from the tour company guy being like, "Hi, Robert, I'd like to give you a call to discuss an email I received from your address.  When is a good time for you?"  And then I will be so busted and Robert will probably be all, "Wtf."  And he might actually say, "What the fuck."

I don't actually know how I did it.  I KNOW that "Weinberg" is not spelled with a "u."  Perhaps my brain switches to phonetic mode when it is tired.  If you operate off of that understanding, then the "u" almost makes sense.  It might have also been right around lunchtime.

When it is around lunchtime, I generally get brain dead and make silly mistakes.

P.S. I am on a bad posting run - this one hardly counts and I keep missing days.  I'm trying really hard not to, so I hope to improve SOON.  SORRY!

This is George.  He comes out when there is something to frown about.  In this case, my negligence regarding posting.

I should warn you, this is kind of a nothing post.  I've had a pretty busy weekend and the creative juices haven't been flowing so much.  I'm thinking about maybe taking weekends off from posting, but I haven't decided.  Anyway…this one is sort of a space filler.  Hopefully next week will bring better things!

Recently I backed-up and then edited my blog.  This means that I deleted each and every post that I found to be incriminating in some way or another.  I went from something like 416 posts to 13.  Now, to be fair, those 416 post were from over a period of 7 years, and since I've recently decided that being an attention whore is the way to go, I came to feel that it was marginally inappropriate to include the personal and sometimes overly revealing ramblings of a much younger me.  I wrote things like this post from August 31, 2003:

"SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2003

I drew a picture of Rooney today. It came out very well. Of course, I drew it b/c I promised Rachel I'd draw her one, and now I think I'm going to have to make a duplicate for me b/c I like it so much. lol. I love Rooney. They are awesome. Today was a pretty boring day. I did most of my homework, but I still have to write my rough draft for english. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to that, especially b/c Mr. Myer seems to take points off for silly things. Like the last essay for instance, which was a summary, he took points off b/c I didn't use the writer's name at all on the second page. It's a summary!!! Does one normally state the writer's name on every page? I mean, if it's not in what you're summarizing, why would you put it in? Argh. I don't get it, but w/e. I'm so glad that we have tomorrow off. I needed this three day weekend desperately. We should have a three day weekend every other week or something. That would be so awesome! Ok, well I don't think there's anything else to write. So cya laterz!"

It just goes to show you how far I've come.  I went from worrying about English teachers with petty issues to fighting management offices about mold and holes in my walls.  I was also still attempting to affect what I clearly thought was the "cool" way to talk.  I also wrote this a few days prior:

"Anyway, I am totally in love with an a cappella group called Almost Recess. They are AMAZING!! I never thought I'd be into a cappella, but it's great. They performed in one of the showcases and I was sitting there in awe with this really big, stupid grin on my face. lol. AND I got a free CD of theirs. hehe. It only has 5 songs, but it's the only one they have out, so I'm cool with that. lol. I know you're probably sitting there reading this and thinking, what a dork, but it seriously is REALLY cool. REALLY REALLY cool. No joke. God they are so talented. And they're pretty young too. WOW. That's it, just WOW. I also saw some other performances. One South American group named Solazo performed and they were really good too. And then there was one guy who did really cool stuff with hand shadows and another really cool thing with folded paper. Quite quite nifty. heehee."

…You see why I've taken the liberty of removing some of this from the public sphere?  I am STILL sitting here and thinking "what a dork."  I think I had just discovered "lol" at this point in my newly begun high school career.  I also think that I wasn't completely sure how I was supposed to use it, and so employed it as a way of trying to diffuse my self-consciousness at saying what I was saying, while also looking hip.  "They performed in one of the showcases and I was sitting there in awe with this really big, stupid grin on my face. lol."  I was overly-enthusiastic and was smiling until my cheeks were about to fall off and probably looked silly but, haha, it's ok, you can laugh.  "It only has 5 songs, but it's the only one they have out, so I'm cool with that. lol."  I'm trying to act like I'm discerning, but I'm really not and I know it and you probably know it, so haha.  I think I was kind of into enthusiastic caps locking as well… 

Anyway, when I started writing again, I went through a learning period where I wasn't really sure how much to say.  I felt sort of like a little kid learning social etiquette.  You do not tell a stranger that you just picked a wedgie.  You may, however, tell a stranger that your favorite color is green.  I got my friend to read the early stages of the blog and he was like "I was kind of surprised by how personal you get…"  That's when I started editing and reading what I'd written from a third-party perspective.  He was right.  Now I am fairly certain that I have removed any wedgie-announcement equivalents from these pages.  If you see one, though, and it makes you uncomfortable, let me know.  Also, bear with me.  I'm still learning!