jokes are supposed to be funny, not hateful.

i'm going to do this thing again where i break from my standard format to approach a topic that i think deserves proper attention.  further rambling about girlfriends, life and the weather will have to wait until the next time i'm motivated to craft a post.  last week, it was discovered that the new mayor of Troy, Michigan posted on her facebook on June 25, 2011


"I think I am going to throw away my 'I Love New York' carry bag now that queers can get married there."


i know present my open letter to mayor janice daniels.


Mayor Daniels,


As a lifelong Michigan resident, I am always excited to see my home state make national headlines.  Except lately in which headlines about Michigan range from cutting off unemployment benefits to emergency financial managers taking over cities to coverage of a horrible first attempt at anti-bullying legislation.  Most recently, the spotlight has been on Michigan due to a comment from your facebook this past summer.


I understand that you proudly ran for Mayor as a member of the Tea Party.  Accordingly, I didn't have high expectations for what you would bring to Troy as its Mayor.  I know that ideologically we could never match up.  However, as a person, I thought you might have more tolerance than to use a hateful slur in a public forum.  As I would hope you were aware, whether or not you were in the public eye at the time, posting on facebook is roughly the equivalent of making a statement in a crowded room.  You're words have gravity and significance and in a moment, you projected your bigotry for the world to see.


I read your statement after this status came to light.  While I soundly disagree with your belief that marriage is between one man and one woman, I can respect this is your personal opinion.  My issue is simple, rather than keeping your opinion to yourself or tactfully express your dissatisfaction with New York's new law, you opted to be hateful.  


Since that time, you have apologized for what you said.  I am curious to know if this apology came as a result of knowing that people from around the metro area were coming to protest outside of city hall because of your hateful comment.  Mayor, please take the time to meet with these people and understand why so many people are so upset.  It is the obligation of elected officials to hold themselves to a higher standard and to be tolerant of the many that make up our country, state and your city.  If this isn't something you are capable of, you should have considered that soundly before starting your campaign.  I hope that you will take the time to consider what you said, talk to the people who are protesting outside of city hall even as I post this and learn from your mistake going forward.  


Sincerely,


a concerned, conscientious, Michigan resident.  


until next time...

have you even ever chunked a punkin?

it's not any surprise to anyone with access to the internet that detroit is probably a less than desirable place to be.  the media really isn't the friend of detroit.  i guess there is that section of the huffington post now where bougie white folks talk about what they are doing to make detroit a better place, their little corner of a city at a time or what it means to be from detroit or introducing detroit to itself.  i work in detroit and i certainly don't dislike it as much as i once did however, i would never opt to live down here.  i have friends who do; friends like me from the suburbs who have decided to move into the city as "urban pioneers."  this very notion pisses me off but whatever.  that's not actually the point.  in detroit, more so than most other places i've been, "detroit" can be interchanged with not just the city but the suburbs.  if i was in another state and someone asked where i was from, i would say detroit.  because it's roughly 833,892,389 times easier to say detroit than it is to explain where in the suburbs i live.  if i'm in somewhere else in the state, not near people familiar with the region, i'll say i'm from detroit.  if they seem to have a clue of where i'm talking about, i'll indicate that i'm from a suburb northwest of the city.  point is, the region, metro detroit, can be lumped into one descriptive area to people who don't know any better.  and yes, detroit has it's problems.  and yes, i'm not really into the city.  however...if people not from the area feel compelled to slam the city/region, it's on.  it's like a sibling.  i can pick on it.  i can complain about not feeling safe parking my car on the road or my frustration about getting gas on my way home from work.  i can complain that the snow is never fully removed from the road.  but you, nondescript person who doesn't live here/isn't from here, you aren't allowed to. if you do, i'll feel compelled to stick up for the city/region and probably make you look like a fool in the process.


that aside, there are some significant perks to living in the metro detroit area.  we have excellent concerts regularly and they are always well attended.  it's like what we do.  and i am particularly fond of our radio stations, especially one of the morning shows.  i listen to it every day.  actually, n and jeremy do too and we talk about it while we are each on our lengthy commutes.  this morning, one of the interns was talking about wanting to break up with one of her girl friends.  they were talking about the ways to end a friendship, which seem to be more difficult than ending a relationship.  think about it.  if you were in a relationship with someone, the mature thing to do is to have a conversation and explain that things aren't working out or you don't feel the way that you used to, etc, etc and then that's the end of that.  you could do it dramatically and horribly where you cheat and get caught.  but with friends...people who called into the radio and the other host of the show were talking about friends they had either dumped or been dumped by just stop talking to them.  so is that the way to handle this?  to just stop talking, avoiding phone calls, hide on facebook and dodge everything about this person?  what about mutual friends?  doesn't this get weird?  the times that i have dumped friends, i've done it like this.  and i'm not saying that this is right but whatever.  after i've already decided that the friendship is over (this means after many attempts of communication where it all falls flat and/or someone has become an intolerable douche bag) i refuse to initiate any form of communication and will limit my response. then just so that everyone is clear, i write letters.  not emails.  hand written letters explaining that i have given everything that i can and that i'm over it.  i have found that this is similarly not really that well received; i once experienced a back lash of an aforementioned letter where the former friend decided to announce to all our mutual friends about this letter and create drama.  however, we have since fixed things and are kind of friends again.  maybe it wasn't that bad.


that's the thing, i don't think that there really is a good way to stop being friends with someone.  it gets messy and someone gets hurt; just like any other break up.  when she was asked why she wanted to break up with her friend, the intern said "because she's just different."  the female host didn't say anything but both of the men hosts asked questions, mostly trying to clarify what that means.  i feel like i understood her.  sometimes your friends change, you can't qualify it but it's there.  "she's different" said everything to me when the intern said it.  she went on to explain that her friend had gotten to a point where every time they went out, she only wanted to pick up guys.  a caller called in to talk about a friend being different and that was to say that she had gotten boring.  i nodded along like a crazy woman when that call came through.  we all change; that's inevitable.  but why is that when someone changes well, differently, that it can mess up a whole relationship?  i regularly struggle with friends who i think have changed and become boring.  not often to the point where i want to end our friendship but it is something that uniquely gets under my skin.  and i think that i've lost friends because i've gotten boring.  we all change.  it's what it is.  it's just too bad that sometimes when you change, you lose people that you used to be close to because you didn't change together.  it sucks even more because there isn't even a good way to end these things.  maybe they will do a follow up segment to this mornings show where the intern will say how she broke up with her friend.  i find myself dying to know.


from the girl who is getting real bummed out that it's already getting dark out.




until next time...

hoping the weatherman is lying about impending snow.

i have this habit of over-thinking things.  lately, i have found that it is fun to overthink my impending ten year high school reunion.  quite frankly, i can't understand why it's an exciting prospect at all.  in my mind, it's a reminder of how much time has gone by though i hardly feel like the kind of adult i would expect to feel like by the time i was ten years out of high school.  for others, i understand that this is some kind of exciting thing; to reconnect with old friends from the past.  if facebook has taught me anything, it's that a lot of people that were friends in high school are still friends or married to each other.  and there is facebook now.  why do i need to get dressed up to go play nice with people that i didn't like when i was in high school anyway?  the answer seems to be that i'm going to want to.  and i was kind of forced into promising n that i would go.  she said if i didn't go willingly then she would force me into going.  i'm not much for being drugged and taken anywhere against my will.  most of the over-thinking that i do stays right inside my head where it belongs but occasionally this stuff spills out of my mouth often times hits jeremy in the face.  the other day he told me that i should look forward to going to my high school reunion because i have "succeeded in doing what you are supposed to do after high school."  he went on to explain that he meant that i had finished college, i have a good job (with an organization that does good work that i'm proud to work for), i have made solid friends and i am involved in my community.  i was quick to be snappy and say that i was actually involved with his community more so than my own and then he reminded me about the whole library board gig.  he felt compelled to reiterate that i should feel proud of myself and that my former classmates will be impressed.  of course, all i could think about were the many former classmates who are now married, have children, are doctors, lawyers or in pursuit of some other higher education.  i conceded that unlike most of the people i went to high school with, i am involved with my community.  they were all busy getting married, having children or getting higher degrees.  at least i have a reputation to show for it. he is looking forward to his ten year reunion, two years after mine, which seems natural to me.  he has accomplished a great deal at 25 and he should be proud.  this got me to thinking about the different ways that men and women qualify success.  our successes have been different but similar enough and the shortcomings that i can spot are also similar.  neither of us have committed to anyone to settle down and while that causes both of us some personal angst, it doesn't bother him a societal mark of some kind of failure like it does with me.  and in my mind, i can't reconcile the feeling of not being a success against the people i used to easily compete for grades with ten years ago.  i do know that just because they are married, have kids, are a doctor, lawyer or some kind of ph d, that doesn't mean that they are happy.  and just because i wander aimlessly most of the time, it doesn't mean i'm not happy.  that should be the measure of success.  that's what i need to remind myself.


yesterday, n sent me an article about women in their 20s rushing into marriage.  i read it but i can't say that i was surprised even a little bit.   the article talked about women rushing into marriage because they were ready for the next logical step in their relationship, because it didn't matter who they married since they didn't have that first love they pined after still and a couple other reasons.  then the article talked about these same young women getting divorced.  it seems to make sense to me.  i don't understand why there is some rush to get married.  it's is a commitment that you are making for the rest of your life.  we are expected to live well into our 70s on average.  probably longer depending on your genes.  so even if i was to get married tomorrow and i die first at age 77, i'll still have been married for 50 years.  that's a long time to spend with one person. these are the kinds of decisions that need to be given a lot of thought and not jumped into because of some trivial reason that seemed brilliant in your early 20 something mind.


why rant about this?  because i think it actually connects to something else.  i have a friend who isn't very good at using the manners that parents spend lots of time teaching the toddlers.  please, thank yous, excuse me, etc.  everything is a demand and expected.  n was venting to me about this a bit yesterday and it got me to thinking.  this is a friend that i made in my 20s, unlike n who i've been friends with since i was in middle school (oh those early teen days...)  listening to n vent made me think of all the many things that are wrong with most of the friends i have made in my 20s.  don't get me wrong, i don't think i'm exempt from this.  i think we are all broken and would benefit seriously from some therapy.  but of course, if i were to suggest that, it would come off as offensive, as if there is something wrong with talking to someone about stuff you can't handle on your own.  please.  so why do i do deal with these kinds of friends?  because i'm settling.  i know that it's hard to make friends the older you get.  hell it's hard to meet people in general and to find people who don't suck?  forget it.  it seems to get harder and harder with each passing year.  so i put up with it and remain frustrated because i can't divorce them.  for political reasons, for practical reasons and for whatever other reasons there might be.  we've be woven together and so instead of cutting someone out of my life like i would in the old days, i grin and bear it and just keep my distance as much as possible.  but why should friendships be like this?  because somewhere along the line i said it was okay.  it was okay for me to deal with their nonsense and not vocalize my opinions when they should arise if it is for the betterment of that person or your relationship; it's my belief that's what friends should do.  like i could tell n she was being a pain in my ass, i could verbally bitch slap her for something.  sure, she wouldn't like it but at the end of the day, she knows that i'm not attacking her.  the same works both ways. 


the closest friends that i have, the friends that i choose the keep the closest, with the exception of jeremy, i have known for many, many years.  our friendships have been tried, tested and forged through many of a less than pleasant situation but i know that if i need to have a good cry about something, i can pick up the phone and call any of my ooows ladies and they are there for me.  maybe i didn't try as hard or was more accepting with these friends i've made in my 20s because i knew that no matter what, i already had my close friends and there really isn't room for anyone else.  i think these two concepts are similar.  in our 20s, we rush.  we rush to do what we think is right, to live where we think is right, to take the job opportunity we think is right, to marry the person we think is right.  we think too damn much.  we overthink everything.  and i'm as guilty as any of the rest of us but seriously, we might do better to stop for a minute, enjoy the moment we are in with the people we are with and go from there.  something to think about.


from the girl who just wants to succeed at everything.


until next time...

"well you can't put angry birds champ and work noise master" on your resume

i am not a secretary.  i'm not saying it's a bad thing.  executive assistants, office managers, paralegals...they are what make offices work really.  they are the ones who remember what needs to get done and keep things moving.  they are usually under appreciated especially given how much they truly do and how much they seem to know about what's going on in an office.  the component of my job that is this assistant part doesn't usually bother me.  what i'm talking about it is when i feel like i'm being treated like a secretary.  like a 1950s secretary.  objectified because i'm not smart enough to do something real but have need enough or don't have a husband and thus need to get out of the house and find a real job.  every time i draft an email for my boss, every time i am instructed to look something up that she could google herself, a small part of me dies.  it gets under my skin and chips away a little bit more at something inside me.  it makes me absolutely crazy.  mostly because it is completely unappreciated.  perhaps i overestimate her ability but i think that if you are working in an office in the 21st century, it's not an absurd expectation that you can work basic functions of computers.  by that i mean, print your own documents, basic understanding of microsoft excel and word and how to work google.  it's not rocket science.  in fact, screw needing these skills to work in an office, i don't know how you can live in the 21st century world with smart phones and genius children without knowing how to do these basic tasks.  unrelated tangent, there really is something that is annoying when i have to stop what i'm doing to google something for my boss.  it's like she thinks it's magic that i can find anything on the internet.  shakes my head.  if it is the magic she treats it as, at the very least, she could act as though she is impressed by my magical abilities.


that's not really my point, it almost never is, is it? i've been thinking a lot about gender inequity lately and feel like i should write something about it.  before i get started, allow me to say that i am a pretty terrible feminist.  i am one, don't get me wrong, i'm just not the best at it.  bras are expensive to burn and i'm not a man hater.  anyway let's get on with it then.


there was a movie out recently called "Missrepresentation" that was on the OWN network.  i didn't watch it because it disrupts my sensibilities to watch anything on that network.  i wasn't into Oprah when she just had a show, i'm for sure not getting on board now that she bought a network.  however, at least a dozen of my facebook friends posted the link to this trailer last week and finally curiosity got the best of me and i watched it. this movie talks about the way women are portrayed in the media and how that image still continues to foster the unequal footing that women stand on in this country and what are we going to do about it.  the trailer sites that women make up 51% of the US population but only make up 17% of the US Congress.  one of the women in the trailer also talks about how at age seven, girls and boys are equally as likely to say that they want to be the president of the united states.  when asked again at age fifteen, there is a greater disparity along gender lines.  


aside from this movie, i've been noticing an increased amount of things in the news about gender inequality.  dave and i were sharing articles a couple weeks ago basically about the end of men.  apparently now women are succeeding more, we are finishing college at a greater rate than men and this has, not surprisingly, caused some conflicting opinions.  we read an article about the end of men and how awful it is, how basically men need to stop playing video games, get to work and get women back where they belong then another article that was basically yeah, women are taking over, we don't even need men.   


so all of this has been floating around in my head and has made me fairly frustrated.  is it horrible that the media consistently displays women in a light that holds us to a high level of scrutiny that is unrealistic?  absolutely.  but we are the ones who have decided to take that message seriously.  we are the majority of the population.  why is it that we let them dictate what we should think about ourselves?  there will always be women that exist who are like barbie or snooki, vapid, foolish and will never amount to anything.  but the majority of women will do something because of their intelligence.  the majority of women aren't in the entertainment industry.  


there is a tool greater than the media and it's hardly revolutionary.  ready for it?  it's human interaction.  children, both genders, need role models.  they need someone to look up to.  when i was a little girl, my pediatrician was a woman.  i had family friends that were women and engineers and lawyers.  to me, setting my sites on any of those careers weren't ruled out because of my gender and i think that is what kids need to see.  we should be encouraging little girls to think they can be members of congress or their state legislature or their county commission.  we should tell little girls they can be governors, senators and presidents.  we should tell them they can be doctors, lawyers and engineers.  we should tell them they can be anything they work hard enough to be.  because they can.  on the other hand, we should be encouraging little boys to get into traditionally female dominated fields because why should we only send girls into an other wise man's world if we aren't going to let boys in?  we should tell little boys they can be teachers or nurses and that by entering either field it's not emasculating or something like that.  children need role models and people who believe in them.  if that happens, the media loses its strangle hold on telling everyone else what's right and what's wrong.


of course, the media is going to keep telling us women aren't pretty enough, that we aren't smart enough, that we need to lose 10 pounds, get botox in our foreheads and replace our wardrobe every season.  it's going to tell men that if you aren't the marbollo man then you aren't a real man, you need to butch up, watch football and drink beer or you aren't a real man.  the media can be a dangerous monster but it's really up to us.  let it just be noise, i say.  i know that it's not that easy.  it would be outstanding if it was.  but if people wake up and start to consider they don't have to think about something just because that's the way society or the media says to think about it, things can really change.  just putting it out there.


i could go on and on because yeah there is a lot to say but i'm done for today.  time to get back to some work and this delicious tea that i made two hours ago that is now cold.  


from the girl who wanted to be a figure skater at seven years old (and now works an office job).


until next time...

it's 75 degrees and sunny and i'm stuck inside working...

so i almost never put myself together to go to work.  it takes far too long for me to dry my hair in the morning so i shower at night and dry my hair then which leaves for various states of hair appearance in the morning.  most of the week it's back in a ponytail.  it is without fail, if i actually do something to my hair, half of my colleagues will say something.  most notably my boss which i find to be vaguely annoying.  i did my hair, i didn't invite you to come in my office and have a conversation with me (my boss, not my colleagues.  with them, it's usually a passing compliment.)


the other day, my dear friend jen posted a link on my facebook wall.  she posted it on katie's wall and n's wall too.  it was a list of bff rights and responsibilities that mindy kaling came up with and read through, which was what helped her and her best friends stay best friends through many years and undesirable living arrangements.  she talks about how, as the best friend, it is her responsibility to be honest but gentle about your appearance.  instead of saying "your ass looks fat in that skirt", default to saying something like "i'm not crazy about how that looks on you."  she also says that when your best friend is sick, it's your job to make a run to cvs and in addition to grabbing everything over the counter for said ailment, also grab a fashion (or tabloid) magazine and favorite candy.  this is an equally important part of the recovery process.  i listened to her rattle through her rights and responsibilities and found myself nodding along easily.  girlfriends have this kind of bond.  mindy also opened this up to be a contest, the winner of the best additional rules and responsibilities would win a copy of her book.  they were listed below her post on her blog and some of my favorites included:


- If you can have adventures, go have fun, and also sit on the couch and eat ice cream while watching tv, that’s your best friend.


- She tells you your newborn baby is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, when let’s face it, he looks like an old man alien.


- You never need the backstory. Because you already know all my business. If you happen to not know a detail (“wait, you made out with WHO?”) I can give you a sixy-second rundown of the situation and you’re all caught up.


- Attends the midnight premiere of Harry Potter with you. Every year.


- It should never come as a surprise when either one of us is asked to participate in an impromptu car concert. No matter our singing abilities, I will need you to pump up your volume, when I crank up the stereo system. I will double your excitement upon hearing “Bye Bye Bye,” by including hand motions while singing the chorus. We should both share a “let’s do this” attitude when the situation arises.


- BFFs have running tabs, but no one ever really knows how much you actually owe one another. “You can get me next time,” means I’ll pick up this sushi bill and this weekend, you’ll get me a round of drinks while we’re jamming unapologetically to Justin Bieber at the bar. Whoever dies first leaves $50 in their will to their BFF – surely this will cover any outstanding debt.


with this in mind, i clearly whipped up a quick email to my ladies to discuss this wonderful link that jen shared and suggested that we create our own additional rules and responsibilities.  in my experience with having and being a best friend, this is what i feel should be included:


- when you are having a meltdown about turning 27, your best friends are right there with you and take it one step further.  it obviously isn't our own fault but rather an outside condition that we have been afflicted with.  accordingly we will create a psychological disorder that the DSM should recognize and create a society based around our problems that can only be cured by bitching, whining, ice cream, boy bands and love.


- no matter how much you have to complain about your siblings, your boss, your job or dissertation, the best friend is there to listen and agree with the injustice in the world.  


- best friends hate the same things and will unapologetically mock the same things.  this business is best done as a team.


- sometimes when you are having a meltdown or epiphany you need to talk to your best friend.  it doesn't matter if you are at work, if the baby is screaming its face off like it's melting or the world is ending.  this could be because something life alteringly bad happened, or something minor (but not really that minor) like a really bad hair cut.  or something tragic like hearing vanilla ice on the oldies station or nirvana on the classic rock station. or it could be something awesome like hearing nkotb or tommy two tone come on the radio.


- i might make fun of your for the various stupid things that you say or do (two way street friend.  you do it to me too) but if anyone else gets involved with that, i will eviscerate them with my words and make them very sad that they were born to encounter our ongoing awesomeness.


- i understand our codes and the language only we share.  for instance, if you say you need help fixing the dishwasher, i know that means come over with a box of fudgsicles and medical tape.


- sporadic inside joke text messages instantly make any day better.  i promise to send them whenever i can remember.  also, i'll send you texts that i find to be funny even if they are super elaborate and out of the blue.  


- i know that when you get really drunk you will want to tell me over and over again how much you love me.  i might pretend like i don't like it but i do.  it's the hauling around a drunk who's not listening i'm not really loving but even that is pretty good.


this is an ongoing list that i'm waiting for more feedback to continue crafting my list but i think it's a pretty good start.  seriously, listen to that blurb on the link.  it made me smile and everyone should have a smile every once and a while.


from the girl who is very happy to share this link with all (both) of you.


until next time...

it definitely gets better.

here's the deal.  normally, i would start rambling on about something that's on my mind, like using a consistent font as if it were my online/computer handwriting or how grateful i am that this week of work has been particularly chill after a couple of really tense weeks.  that's what would usually go on.  but not today.  today i'm going to get serious for a minute because i've got something on my mind and i want to say it.  and this is my little corner of the internet so if you don't like it, then you don't need to read it.  i'm sure i'll be back to complaining about fairly average, mundane trivialities soon enough.

today i'm writing about jamey rodemeyer, the young man in new york who killed himself as a result of being bullied.  i read the news of his suicide and like the many other teens who have killed themselves because they were bullied, it broke my heart.  i'm not a very emotional person and i don't always commit emotions to others since i tend to have a difficult enough time doing that for myself.  but this story crushed me.  in a rare way, i felt my heart ache and i wanted to cry for him, for his family and for his friends.  i wish i could have been there for him, to wrap my arms around him and to tell him that things do get better and that once you are done with high school you never have to see those ignorant asses who spent their time belittling you again.  that those bullies only bully because they have nothing else going for them and they are the kind that peak in high school.  i would have told him to take comfort in knowing that in the adult world, being different is what gives  you personality and what makes people like you.  i would have told him you're so close.  you can make it.  it really does get better.

i'm not a very touchy feely person.  i never have been.  but for some reason, there is a soft spot in my heart for glbt issues, all of them, and for those in the glbt community.  when i was in college, this was my chief cause and while it would make more sense for me to be an out and loud feminist or something but it's never struck me the same way.  i could argue any part of the right wing anti gay rhetoric and i have in a lot of instances.  it is what i will always care most about.  lady gaga said in an interview once that she doesn't know where she would be without her gay male friends.  i've never agreed with her more.  even in my post college life, this is my issue.  this is my cause.  this is where my heart goes out.  so my heart seems to only be open to the injustices that the glbt community is faced with and my brain is located squarely in politics.  this can be a wonderful thing but lately (like with the official repeal of don't ask, don't tell), particularly in my mitten, it's not.  

back to the story at hand, the kids that bullied jamey went so far as to continue to pick on him after his death, when his sister (who jamey was particularly close to) was at her high school homecoming.  when jeremy heard this on the today show yesterday, he told me "they already killed him.  what more could these bullies want?"  he was outraged.  i was too.  it turns out with that open bleeding heart also comes extreme outrage when things are mishandled or i am directly faced with wild injustice.  i said to jeremy "the bullies' behavior is deplorable but what i want to know is where are the adults?  where are the teachers, the chaperons, the administrators, the parents who should know better than to let these kids harass this kid?"  where were they?  where are the laws to prevent this from happening?  and what are the consequences going to be for these bullies?  from where i'm sitting, they are at least guilty of man slaughter.  it was their behavior that killed jamey.  they should be responsible.  

legislators around the country should hear this story and the other stories before jamey and spring into action.  anti-bullying legislation shouldn't be a bargaining issue and it certainly shouldn't be put off.  this is obviously necessary.  in my beloved mitten, legislators won't consider anti-bullying legislation that includes language to protect sexual orientation (let's not even get into gender identity or expression.)  the gop strangle-hold on michigan politics has our legislative body voting on preventing domestic partner benefits to state employees, banning the already illegal so called partial birth abortion ban and attacking other issues that face the glbt community and women.  the legislators in my state capitol have made it their business to move backwards.  how can they do this when this is happening in our country?  

our lack of legislative action is a silence that is painful and deadly.  it's showing that this isn't something we take seriously.  we weep for the families and loved ones who lose their children because of bullying and take no lead in stopping this horrible epidemic. i call it an epidemic because while i'm sure many can attest to being bullied in their childhood, there is something worse about this.  maybe (read: probably) i grew up in a bubble but in my high school, it seemed to me that no one gave a damn about any one else's issues.  i can't recall anyone being teased or harassed and i was friends with "the gay kid" in high school (like i wouldn't be.)  other friends have shared similar stories about their high school experience, that they never felt bullied or witnessed any bullying happening.  

high school kids, get it together.  just because you say it on facebook or twitter or whatever else instead of in person doesn't mean it hurts less.  if you are a jerk who is harassing and bullying kids in school, in person, shame on you.  i hope that there is some adult who will stand up and say something to you.  adults need to get it together too.  i think teachers should say something if they overhear a kid getting called a name in the hallway.  that time someone got called a "fag" in the hallway could have been the time that broke the camels back.  but saying something to the bully let's the other kid know they aren't alone.  that's critical.  also adults, you vote.  theoretically anyway.  step one, make sure you vote. and vote for candidates that don't suck.  step two, contact your legislators, the local and the federal ones and let them know this is an important issue to you and they need to consider it and act.  final, elected leaders, you represent the people.  and when kids are killing themselves, it's bad for all of us.  you can stop that.  let kids know that you care.  maybe jamey would have grown up to be a congressman.  we'll never know that now because no one stuck up for him, no one intervened with the bullies at school and he felt like there was only one way out.  

some seriously heavy thoughts to consider but they are thoughts that need to be considered. action needs to happen and kids need to stop killing themselves because of this intolerable bigotry.   

from the girl who is so sad about this totally avoidable loss.

until next time...

this time baby, i'll be recession proof.

every time i eat middle eastern food, i think about how i only want to eat that whipped garlic sauce for the rest of time.  seriously.  why is that so delicious? but more importantly, i'm half middle eastern.  why isn't this a food that my family had on hand for holidays and other such gatherings for my entire upbringing?  i'm going to go ahead and blame my grandma for that one; she did the cooking in my dad's family's house when they were growing up.  it should have been on her to bring the tasty garlic so that no one can come near you for hours after the fact.  seriously, cigarette breath is less potent.  yet, here i am eating it with bread with not a care in the world for how i'm not going to be able to breathe near anyone for a while.


so i've mentioned before that i obsessively read news articles about how f-ed the millennial generation is.  i read an article today titled generation limbo: waiting it out which i must admit is a clever title.  the article talked about how recent college graduates are taking longer to start their actual careers, not surprising considering the state of the economy and the relatively non-existent job creation.  with the job market looking as sick as it does, with too many people out of work or underemployed, young folks aren't getting the start they need for their careers after graduating college.  i also recently read an article about how student loan debt is getting outrageous.  the thing with both of these articles, while fascinating, i don't understand how it can possibly be news. then again, i suppose it's not everyone who is living this first hand.  there are people who read the paper who have jobs, who came of age in the 80s or 90s when things were booming and having a college degree meant you were going to have a good paying job.


then there are me and my peers.  i was recently discussing this with my friend dave.  it was our grandparents generation that came of age during the great depression and everyone has heard stories of rationing sugar.  our parents and the generation between us and them, the gen x-ers i can't help but slightly begrudge, had it better than the generation that came before them.  and then there is us, the millennials.  coming of age during "the worst recession since the great depression" (i heard that last night and it just made me mad.  shouldn't we just call it a depression then?  it's not like "recession" has a better implication when it means the same damn thing.)  we are pretty handy at finding things for cheap.  we use craig's list and ebay, perhaps taking to heart that one man's junk is another man's treasure adage.  there is this whole business about living social and groupon that it seems that everyone and their unemployed friend are into.  the oatmeal said it best with this comic.  i can't help but wonder how this is going to impact us when we are legitimate adults.  i hope it's funny.  perhaps i'll start storing money in various hidden places since i don't trust banks anyway.  yes, eccentricity is calling my name.


where was i going?  oh right, a generation in waiting.  i accidentally just said that a couple sentences ago.  "when we are legitimate adults."  i graduated college in 2006 and i have been waiting since then.  i might have been slightly more realistic than some of my friends and peers upon my college graduation but i think you can only call it realistic because i abandoned my major when i came to the quick realization that if i went to grad school, i was going to have to inflict pain on something.  i accepted that i was going to graduate college and stumble around until i found something i was good at, liked doing and paid me money.  i know that i am very lucky.  i managed to do that and not only that, but i did it and got to stay in the mitten.  i have friends all over the country now, in various kinds of grad school or working, sometimes in the field they choose in college, because they couldn't get work here.  yes, it's a bummer.  and even though i have a job that i enjoy and feel as though i have found a niche with something i'm good at, i am still wondering when am i going to become a real adult?  when is it that i'm going to make that transition, feel financially stable (because right now it still stresses me out to pay my car payment every month on top of my other bills.  i make it just fine but i feel like real adults don't get annoyed with such a payment) and start considering that it is time to grow up and settle down?  perhaps i've got the wrong impression of what a "real adult" is.  maybe as some people fantasize about what love is, i fantasize about what being a "real adult" is.  let's call that an epiphany for now.


i've read before that a person changes their career on average 5-8 times in their lifetime.  that's a crap load of times.  i wonder if you can count being a student in as a career change.  especially for these folks who have gone back to school, hoping that this will amp up their resume and suddenly jobs will appear and their plans will be back on.  i anticipate in a couple years there will be articles written about how people are way over educated for jobs that are available and are struggling to pay back massive debt created by becoming further educated.  wait, that already happened?  ok, well then more articles that talk about that.  


anyway, i felt like i should say something about that. it's been on my mind for a while so whether it made sense or not, it's now out of my head and i feel quite satisfied with that.  it's time for me to head home from work which hopefully won't take two hours.  it's only 40 miles but something has happened with the rain and kids going back to school, i think everyone has lost their damn minds and are taking it out on their driving abilities.  another rant for another time.


from the girl who is going to start hiding money in walls.


until next time...

it's the end of the day, right?

i've been listening to pandora pretty much all afternoon at work. the station is filled with artists like adele, kate nash, regina spektor, lily allen and the like. in the past 20 minutes, every song has been a cover. this leads me to think that based on my limited karaoke abilities, i could probably succeed at being a singer. i mean, actual talent is a very small part of what gives someone the ability to be a musical sensation (see britney spears, katy perry and ashlee simpson for examples.) no, instead what you need is a loyal gay following and something that gets them to spend their money. for britney, it used to be her sexy, glam appeal followed by her bitch has gone crazy stint followed by the recovery or whatever that was. she keeps it interesting and no matter how bad she gets, people stay loyal to that. good for her. i probably wouldn't be the kind that dances around the stage with crazy, wild sets, just a little dancing, probably some pretty back up folks who can sing and dance and play instruments since i don't play an instrument and i don't want you to listen too close. yes, that's how i would do it. and i would be a flash-in-the-pan sensation. ten years from the peak of my success, a single will play on a soft rock radio station at 2:30am and people will think, "whatever happened to her? i remember liking this song that time." ah to dream. the silly nonsense in my mind keeps me quite amused.

aside from daydreaming, a bad thing has happened to/in america. standard and poors has dropped our credit rating from AAA to AA. now, i have no idea who frank conniff is but huffington post created a collection of the best tweets about our credit rating dropping and i felt i would share: "standard & poor downgraded economy from "train wreck" to "shit storm." once markets open it could drop to "clusterfuck." (for the other 23 best tweets go here: funniest economic downgrade tweets so far) i'm not going to lie about it, i was pretty worn out by all the media coverage the debt ceiling nonsense got over the past few weeks. it was a circus without a ringleader. chaos everywhere. at the last minute, they caved and made a deal, like i knew they would. it's exactly what they did with the budget earlier this year. here's the thing, i am so tired of listening to people talk about how congress is useless. does it seem like an awful lot of messing around with not a lot of output? definitely. but i think that paul krugman of the new york times got it right in his editorial today when he said: "No, what makes America look unreliable isn't buget math, it's politics. And please, let's not have the usual declarations that both sides are at fault. Our problems are almost entirely one-sided --specifically, they're caused by the rise of an extremist right that is prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands." congress, and their productivity, has been stopped in its already slow moving tracks by a bunch of right wing wackos that have only one agenda in mind: make sure obama doesn't get re-elected. this mentality of doing whatever is necessary to make the president look bad is what is messing up our nation, downgrading our credit rating and creating even more uncertain for a country that needs some serious bi-partisan work to rebuild our economy and get people back to work. i'm just sayin.

instead, we get people like michelle bachmann running for president. i find her to be nearly, if not entirely, intolerable as a person, as a woman and as an elected official. she is an embarrassment and i'm not entirely convinced that she's not actually insane. some of the statements she makes or the declarations of fact that end up being complete bastardizations of american history...:shudder::. i hope that she goes away quietly, finds that her time is better spent in reality tv. dear people at tlc, i feel like michelle bachmann needs her own show. can you make it happen soon so she doesn't actually get into the presidential race? kthnxbye. i can't imagine that there are actually enough morons in the country for her to make it through the gop primary and even if she does, i don't think there are enough people to put her over the top to beat obama in 2012 but the thought alone scares me. i've always liked being an american but i don't know if i could stay if there was a bachmann white house.

now the point i'm making here, in case it isn't abundantly clear, is that it is the fault of the tea party that our country is getting f-ed in the a. it is our obligation as citizens to realize that and vote accordingly next year. for real people. don't forget or make any other ridiculous excuses, just do it. the tea party's strangle hold on congress was evident even when the gop speaker of the house couldn't get these extreme right wing folks to toe the republican line and that is the gop's greatest strength. their unfailing, blind unity. i'm tired of the protests, the misspelled, ignorant, racist signs, the people presenting nonsense as fact and most importantly, i'm tired of the tea party playing russian roulette with america. please go back to whatever backwater hole you came from and leave the rest of us alone. ok, i'm done preaching now.

from the girl who's birthday tomorrow puts her one step closer to thirty.

until next time...

it is getting mighty dark out side. i'm half expecting we are about to get tossed into oz.

i had a rant earlier this year about my distaste for hipsters and last night i found myself in a bar that suddenly became swarming with hipsters. this lead me to think a few things. first i clearly need to limit the amount of time i spend in ferndale, which isn't that much to begin with but this was a disproportionate amount of hipsters given that the bar we were at is usually empty. i fear that the hipsters have found this to be ironic and now plan on showing up to pollute the otherwise fun karaoke with their renditions of songs they don't know the words to. second, i wish there were hipster free zones. i would probably pay a little bit more, like a cover or something, to get into a bar that i knew would be free of such distracting nonsense. in the same way that i would pay extra to fly on a plane with no children. it really is the small things in life that make me smile. and finally, i think i found another primary issue that i have with hipsters in general. when it comes to the bar scene, hipsters have a lot in common with bachelorette parties. they are weirdly dressed with random accessories (veils and sashes are pretty much equal to bowler hats and suspenders to me), in a place they usually aren't for some kind of rare entertainment value and everything they do is to get attention from the other bar patrons. for example, bachelorette parties can't help but scream in a pitch that shouldn't be made by any human "omgggggggggggggg you're getting married. woooooo!!!!!" which of course, gets the attention of everyone else in the bar. bleeding ears have a way of doing that. at least there is something to say for hipsters; they don't say it out loud. rather they dance by flailing their arms about, shimmying around and jumping up and down. they actually look like someone with parkinson's disease having an attack. their motions are obscure and look particularly painful, what with the tight teal blue jeans, suspenders and ill-fitting tshirt.

this tangent about hipsters wasn't really what i was looking to talk about today. but i had that opportunity from last night and it felt good to write that rant down. earlier this weekend, i think a bit of my heart unfroze. i went to walk in a parade on saturday morning for my friend sam's boss and her coworker was there with both of his children. he has two boys age 2 and seven months. i'm not usually known to be hanging around kids though i do like them generally, like when they aren't being little shits who have never been disciplined by their parents a day in their lives. that's something to be said for sam's coworker, he is a good dad. these kids were so well behaved and they were actually fun to play with. those are the kinds of kids i need to spend time with. not the kinds that stick cell phones in their mouths, throw things on the floor and whine all through out meals. saturday evening, i was out with some friends and one who was quite drunk stumbled into a conversation asking if we thought we might be able to deal with children right now if we had to do it. in her brilliant drunk moment, she said that she thinks she would be able to do it but she didn't want to before she has kids next year; she doesn't want to be fat for her wedding. this was also the same woman that lost her fiance at the end of the evening and lead us wandering around looking for her so we could all go home. it's probably best that she doesn't have a child to have to consider caring for at this point.

so this got me thinking, if i had to have a kid right now, like i got stuck with a kid right now for some reason, would i be able to do it? i asked my friend jayme what she thought she would be like and she said that she would probably freak out at first then she would probably fare pretty well. i said to her that i would probably freak out in the beginning too, if by "in the beginning" she meant the first two years of the kid's life. the thing is, i know i'm more responsible than i give myself credit for. i'm the one who has always made sure everyone else was taken care of and have been told on multiple occasions that i am the most responsible person at making bad decisions that people know. i assume it's because when i was a teenager i was looking to do the stupid things that teenagers do but i didn't want to get caught and feel the wrath of my mother. it made me a very creative thinker, thanks mom. i doubt that's what she thought would come from her strictness in my childhood but here we are.

could i do it if i had to? i think i probably could, i just wouldn't like having to do it. not now. i'm definitely still too selfish for children. i like going out on wednesday nights and singing karaoke til 2am then struggling to make it to work on time thursday mornings. i like wearing a tiara on my birthday (which for the record is different than a sash, veil, stupid hat or any hipster accessories. you only turn an age once so it should be celebrated. you could theoretically be a bachelorette more than once.) i like spending lazy sunday mornings sleeping in til noon then leisurely doing whatever strikes my fancy. i like spending my money on dresses and other things that amuse me. i don't like the idea of spending money on diapers, saving for braces, college and all those other costs that come with babies. i like vacation too much for that. i like my freedom too much for that. though those little kid outfits are so cute, like the little onesies that declare an infant's support of michigan state university. that kind of stuff i understand.

maybe in a few years i'll be in a place where i want kids but honestly, i've always been of the mindset that i wouldn't have kids until i was in my 30s anyway. just to be as stable as i can possibly be before bringing someone else into this world to mess up their chances. it's time to wrap up my day here and do some thinking about a phone call i just got. nothing like messing up a day by thinking too much about nonsense.

from the girl who got super excited about finding the west wing online just now.

until next time...

a headache for days...seems fair to blame the weather.

there are some definite perks to my job. one of which is that someone baked a cake and brought it in to share and that is what i just finished having for breakfast. also our coffee here is very strong and bitter. the contrast was lovely. in addition to my very grown up breakfast, i've been sitting in my office listening to the enema of the state cd from blink 182 which came out the summer i took driver's ed. so i've been having flashbacks to my first time driving, parallel parking and hitting garbage cans this gloomy friday morning. yes, it's still raining in the mitten. apparently we are trying to become seattle. yesterday was some of the weirdest weather i can remember ever having. it was cold (for summer anyway) barely getting to the high 60s but there was something like 85% humidity so it was cold, but sticky and balmy and it was raining on and off all day.

anyway, i've been thinking about blogging a lot lately which usually doesn't translate into much, especially when there are so many other distractions during my little breaks between projects at work. jen is home for the summer which for some many reasons has me very happy. a lot of times she seems like my only girlfriend who is on the same page as me, which is refreshing. we had a chat the other day while walking around the mall parsing through a comment that two separate people have made to us. we apparently have both been told that perhaps we are the second wife type. which to both of us, came off as an insult (which seems obvious to me.) fortunately i was told this a while ago and have had time to wrap my mind around it and discuss it through with jeremy, as he was the one who told me this and insisted it wasn't an insult. i'm actually really curious how many people might react like jen and i did, even knowing that the people who were saying that would never say anything to intentionally hurt our feelings. that's not really here or there so it doesn't much matter.

during our walk around the mall, jen told me that n had shared that she thinks her boyfriend is "the one." i've always had a difficult time with this notion of "the one" because it seems mighty limiting to me and leaves you with a lot of opportunity to fail, an activity i have never been fond of. but as previously stated, n is a romantic who has developed her view of relationships and love mostly from the caricature of it in movies, tv and novels. jen asked n to explain what this felt like, as she explained that she doesn't believe she has ever felt that. it surprised me because i would have thought at least with her college boyfriend who she was with for nearly seven years, she would have felt that he was "the one" but apparently not. this got me thinking about this whole idea. i thought i found "the one" before and i like to think that i must have been wrong because otherwise we would still be together right? it's easy on a good day to think that's true. but the days when i'm in a funk and convinced i'm going to end up like dr. house... it's just dark and lonely.

so this concept is confusing to me. how can you ever be sure that you have found "the one?" is there just one person out there just for you? what happens if something horrible happens to them, like they drive their porche off a cliff going 140 mph and it bursts into flames and they die? is that it? are you out of chances after that? or is "the one" what you call someone when you want them to be the one? does it just mean that they are the one that you are with, ideally forever but in the event of unforeseen circumstances, you aren't left alone to become the cat lady? or, in an even more cynical light, is "the one" the title that you give to the person you want to convince yourself you should spend the rest of your life with?

when jen and i were talking about our friends and our singleness, we talked about what we thought needed to happen for both of us before we found our "one" (if there is such a thing.) whether there is a "one" or not, i think that this whole business, finding someone to be in a relationship with and have intelligent children and hang out with until you die can only be done properly if you know who you are. because it's not fair to ask someone to love you if you don't know who you are, right? i think that's why so many people get divorced; people are in a rush to get married and forget this important step of self-discovery. or perhaps fail to realize that self-discovery isn't actually selfish but rather necessary. i could go on but it seems unnecessary and it's time to get some things done to wrap up the day.

from the girl who is really looking forward to the weekend.

until next time...

women of a certain age.

i'm starting to become convinced that mother nature is menopausal. we had an extreme winter that lingered well into spring and the last few days have been scorching hot. and when there isn't extreme cold or extreme hot, there is a lot of rain. and not just showers. ridiculous storms that take down power. i know in the mitten we have been pretty lucky. we've missed all of the wild storms, like the tornadoes that struck the south and massachusetts and the wildfires, like the one ripping across arizona. considering that this is the state of our weather lately, i'm pretty sure my conclusion is reasonable. or that al gore and science are right; global warming is real. mother nature going through "the change" is a more amusing thought for me though.

at work, we recently had a new crop of interns start with us. this takes the usually pretty empty first floor and fills it up with a bunch of law students from the end of may til the mid august. i usually enjoy having them down here. except now i can't just yell from my office to paul's without fear of disrupting their work and i sometimes worry that my 90s pandora stations might be so loud that they are actually distracting so i spend a lot of time with my door shut these days. my coworker maggie and i have been discussing their fashion choices for the last week and decided this afternoon to fill them in on this game we've been playing by telling one of the interns that he wins "best dressed intern of the day" award. now we just have to figure out how to make it seem more official. they are super competitive so they are already taking this a little seriously. i'm thinking that this should add a little fun to their work place experience and a little wacky. i think every work place needs some of that.

for the first time in a long time (two years) all of the girls are going to be together next week. jen, katie, n, d and i will all be in the same place at the same time. the last time this happened was june of 2009 when we threw katie a baby shower. it was great to be together but we didn't get to do anything super exciting, mostly because katie was pregnant. i'm very excited that everyone is going to be around at one time. the problem is, because katie is never home, she doesn't have much time to hang around. and she's bringing her whole family with her so her husband and two kids doesn't leave much time for girlfriending. it seems to be a plight of my age again. while n and d are talking about wanting to get married and have houses to decorate and babies, katie is ahead of the curve. she's already gotten herself a husband, a step daughter and had a son. i'm still trying to figure out what we are going to do with her kids so that we can have a dinner without them. i'm certainly not the type of person you want influencing your eight year old. and it's supposed to be a girlfriend night, everything i've ever seen on tv and movies says to me that means no children.

my point today wasn't actually to complain about katie having her whole family here while she's visiting. it certainly isn't what i would call ideal but it is something. what i was going to talk about was nkotbsb coming to the palace of auburn hills next week and how very exciting that is. i got a new coworker this week and she is also going to the concert. this got me thinking that everyone in my peer group gets equally as geeked about nkotbsb and i hope that this is something that will stick with us for a while. it is definitely something that brings us all together; no matter what kind of adult you have grown up to be.

alright, that's all i have for today. i'm becoming increasingly groggy at work and coffee seems to be letting me down.

from the girl who is kind of really addicted to angry birds.

until next time...

blame it on the rain.

i'm sitting at my desk listening to a john mayer playlist on grooveshark that reminds me of my freshman year of college. i don't recall that it rained that much when i was a freshman but i just had major deja vu with the blinds down in my office, the rain falling outside and the general darkness of the room while john mayer's voice serenades me. it's a particularly dreary wednesday. perhaps this is why my mind has decided to wander off into deja vu.

unrelated, when i woke up this morning, my whole body ached. so many things are confusing about this morning. last night i went to sleep early for me and still managed to wake up ten minutes late for work. for most people, i don't think ten minutes off of their morning routine really throws off too much. it's my understanding that real adults leave some margin for error/eating breakfast/putting on make up, into their routine but as previously established, i am not a real adult. to this end, i give myself exactly 14 minutes to get from my bed to driving. this is a difficult task but it can be done. i do it most days of the week but today, i failed. i try to wake up earlier to give myself time to do other things, like my hair or makeup, but unless there is a really good motivator, i can't get myself to do anything before i know i absolutely have to. so besides being late, i had this whole body aching thing to deal with. it hurt to get dressed, brush my teeth and pet my dog. that seems excessive. it made me wonder if perhaps i was actually in some kind of fight club last night instead of happily tucked into my bed for eight hours of glorious sleep. things are less intensely sore now but still. i wonder what happened.

lately i've been reconnecting with people i formerly was friends with but went through a period of wanting nothing to do with. this isn't usually something i do. i'm notorious for not giving people a second chance, by people who have known me for a long time anyway. i just figure that if i have decided against you, why bother revisiting the topic ever again? then it occurred to me that people change sometimes. not a lot, but sometimes even that small amount of change is what is necessary to bring people back together, right? besides that, i think that it's a good thing for me to try and defrost my otherwise icy heart and i figure that the way to do that is to do things that other people find to be appropriate and stop being such a bitch all the time. this, of course, means that i need to accept some of the blame for whatever went wrong years ago, rather than just sitting around waiting for an apology. it's been hard but i like to think better in the long run. either i'll learn that it's smart for me to let people in and give a second chance when it's merited or that i should have never tried this experiment. either way i'm right and as jeremy would point out, i'll take being right, even when it's being right about being wrong.

i am a best friend kind of person. i've talked about this before. i like having one friend that knows me better than anyone else and that i'm closer to than my other friends. my college best friend and i had a falling out last year which after seven years of being friends i thought would be over something more major. i wrote at him via this blog back in december. we haven't talked much/at all/of any substance, which was particularly difficult considering this is someone that i used to confide everything in. but i made a decision. he wanted to make poor life decisions, i didn't need to sit around and wait for him. he randomly called me last night. well rather, not randomly. the detroit electronic music festival is happening this memorial day weekend, like it does every year. we used to go together, even with him having lived in california for the last five years. and a friend let me know that he had recently decided that he was going to come back for the weekend. i felt a minor twang of guilt when i ignored his call last night, opting to continue with my plans instead but i couldn't figure out how i would say "no" if he was to ask if he could stay with me during his visit. instead we texted and it was moderately awkward.

this got me thinking. debating in my mind to call him back or to text instead or what i would say when/if i called (and by in my head i also mean with jeremy's guidance as my conscience) why do i feel so much more about this than other relationships that have fallen apart? i know that i don't want to talk to him, much less see him, but i'm still entertaining the idea of having dinner with him while he's in town. part of the stupidity i think is that i think that some day in the future we might be friends again and i wouldn't want him to complain to me in ten years about the time that i wouldn't meet up with him for dinner. but then again, if we were to meet up again in ten years, it would probably be because we both realized that this whole period in time has been stupid and we need to get beyond it. i am sufficiently over thinking something that is actually an easy decision. i literally found myself thinking at one point last night "well i go to a lot of dinners and things i don't want to go to. why should this be different?" i know, it's stupid. i feel stupid even admitting it.

when my ex and i broke up, i was better at not talking to him or wanting to talk to him than i am with this former best friend. but i think that was different. we were still in love when we broke up and i knew if i didn't keep my distance, i would do something stupid. and i hate looking/being stupid. and besides that, i wanted him to be happy. we were going to make each other crazy if we stayed together or stayed friends. and i did a really good job of breaking his heart (so he told me) so he didn't want to be around me anyway. a couple of idiotic phone calls and bad choices later, i learned my lesson and decided to stay away. in this case, i keep trying to remind myself that after spending a year being upset and hurt by this former best friend, i would be stupid to subject myself to spending time with him. that's what i keep trying to reinforce, trying to get it to sink through my head. that this isn't the friend i used to live with. the friend that i used to spend a lot of my time with, traveling around, staying up all night, whatever. this is some guy that replaced him. and that guy is a douche bag who hasn't earned my friendship. it's a little harsh but i'm pretty sure it's right on.

from the girl who needs to get back to focusing on work.

until next time...

reconciliation is a dirty word.

i've always considered myself a city person, even though i have lived in the suburbs my whole life. and by "city person" i mean i enjoy cities and with the exception of like detroit and flint, i would live in one. there just aren't any major cities in michigan that i would consider living in. but real cities, like new york, chicago and dc always feel like home to me. i like the bustle. i like the culture (but not the hipster nonsense). i like the easy access to a starbucks. i am also, generally speaking, completely useless when it comes to survival skills. i've only ever camped once and it was literally for 24 hours and most of those hours were pretty bad, especially when i found the need for a bathroom that didn't exist. with this knowledge in mind, the knowledge that i overpack for even something as simple as a weekend away and i don't leave my house overnight without bringing my flat iron wtih me, i wouldn't make it in the outdoors for very long. i have a coworker who is almost entirely exactly my opposite in this respect. she frequently tells me stories about a small town that she used to live in out in utah and every time she tells me a story about her small town, i think, how charming would it be to live there and like that for a little while. but then she says something like "i lived in a trailer with nothing for cooking but a hot plate for a while" and "there would be no place to plug in a blow dryer." it becomes clear. this is something i will only ever enjoy by anecdote. leaving my hair to dry natural for an unforeseen amount of time? forget it. i'll stay here in my suburb with bars where the bartenders know my name and a convenient starbucks during multiple portions of my commute.

the other night, i had another boring dinner. it has been a couple weeks and once d asked if i wanted to go to dinner, i couldn't turn her down. she will be starting her residency soon and who knows how often i'll see here then. and it had been a little while since i had seen n so once again it seemed like it was my duty to go to this dinner. i need jen to move home; i need a fun buffer for these types of events. on my way to dinner, my car battery died which i seem to think was a sign. by the time jeremy and i found jumper cables and actually jumped my car (in the rain) i was late. i also stopped to have my battery tested on my way to dinner and it tested as fine. curious right? i walked in to find them already discussing d's vacation she just went on with her boyfriend. apparently, while she was gone on vacation, three of her friends got engaged. n was quick to make a comment that d's boyfriend should have popped the question when they were at their resort in mexico. i called it a cop out. to me, proposing on vacation is almost as lame as proposing on a holiday. it should be spontaneous and its own day. like a rainy tuesday with nothing else going on. like most of the days have been in the mitten lately.

so n is doing weight watchers because apparently it's not just for middle aged women anymore. it seems to be a part of the quarter life crisis that she and another friend are smack dab in the middle of. good for them really. i am proud of them for wanting to get healthy but weight watchers really freaks me out. it seems a little cult like to me and i don't know about approaching food as though it is an addiction. the meetings seem a little bit like AA to me. anyway, n updated us on her weight watchers adventure this week, but i was a little confused. her meetings are in the middle of the day on tuesday and she has recently started a temporary job out of town. she explained that she was upset with herself for gaining a pound this week. personally, i don't see that there is much good that can come from watching your weights so compulsively. it's kind of like weight watchers teaches overweight people the same kind of tricks that anorexics are supposed to stop doing (writing down everything you eat, tracking your weight at the same time every day, etc).

anyway, during her frustration about gaining a single pound, n said "i don't want to look fat in engagement pictures." that got mine and d's attention. we both asked if there was something perhaps she had neglected to mention since the last time we were together. she casually said "no, but i want to be engaged soon and i don't want to be fat in my pictures so i need to lose weight now." then yesterday, she said that she is concerned about how heavy she will get "when she gets knocked up." she has always talked about children as a "if" prospect but more importantly, she doesn't like kids.

so i was thinking about this today because i've noticed lately that there are a lot of things that seem to segue in the mid to late 20s. i've been curious when people made the switch from vodka to whiskey. it seems that a lot of my friends have suddenly taken to drinking this vile substance. and people who used to think about children as screaming, annoying, little people now think of them longingly. it's kind of amazing to me. perhaps it's a part of the settling into life after the quarter life crisis ends. the end of that quarter life crisis can come any time now, though i hardly think i'm going to abandon vodka.

from the girl who would do almost anything to see the sun for more than one day in every ten.

until next time...

laziness has lead to a severely curly hair day.

i notice a lot of the time that i don't actually seem to have a lot in common with most of my friends. there are a lot of suggestions that people make and when i think about doing them, all i can do is think about how much i would rather do anything else. for an example, please refer to the post about the world's most boring dinner. that took an activity i quite enjoy (dinner out with friends) and turned it awful. or text messaging, another activity i like which is frequently taken over by people texting me about how annoying their coworker is, random nonsense that i can't understand and vague ideas to try to get me to ask a question that when i do, i don't get a real answer because you "don't want to talk about it." i think a big part of this is because i fail a lot at being entertained by what seems to be considered regular activity. or maybe we just don't seem to have the same idea for what is fun. my friend n told me recently that she is "over going out every saturday night, drinking, partying, whatever and waking up hung over on sunday." i told her that was a hilarious thought because she spends maybe 5 saturdays like that a year, even in the hay day of college. she's never been a party-er but she felt the need to bring to my attention that she is over it. i wasn't entirely sure if it i was a dig against me or not. i've always been the go out saturday night and have a good time with my friends, sleep in on sunday type (though i've never been hung over) and i don't feel like i need to change that. i'll stop doing that when i'm ready to stop doing that. but as i have said before, she is obsessed with "doing what you are supposed to do" and thus at 27, she clearly shouldn't be living it up on saturday nights. thank god, it gives her more time to sit in boredom with her fascinating boyfriend. don't get me wrong, it is lovely to spend time in local downtown areas, in coffee shops or local breweries, but every weekend? this is for sure one of those times when i realize my lack of common interest with my friends.

i found out this morning that my cousin got engaged yesterday. that was a pleasant surprise to find on facebook upon arriving for yet another day of monotony work. she lives in hawaii, where right now, they are 6 hours behind us. it seems that i should have been more upset that i found this news out on facebook. this is my only cousin that is my age but she and i aren't particularly close. in fact, we have only met once in our adult life and that was last year. we have a lot in common and we get along just fine it's just we aren't that close which for some reason is a difficult concept for me to adequately express. i made the mistake of telling n that my cousin was engaged. she sent me a text message back with way too many exclamation points, which for the record is more than two ever. and while that is exciting and everything, this was too much. she said she was so excited because "they are in love and want to spend a lifetime together. it's a very happy thing." i instantly thought, hmm..is it a happy thing? i suppose it is but quite frankly, i'm ambivalent to the whole deal. maybe if it was someone who was closer to me or something. i don't know. i understand that it is a happy occasion for them but it doesn't have any bearing on my life so...i guess i just don't feel the need to appropriate emotions to it. also it seems important for me to point out that i am a cynical person. like deeply, very cynical. to me, marriage doesn't mean forever anymore. it seems to mean, as long as things are good.

more importantly i think that the beatles are wrong. you need more than love to make a relationship work forever. i'll be the first to tell you that i have no idea how to make a relationship work forever. but i managed to make one work for almost five years so that's something right? i know that love is important but that alone is not enough to keep a relationship together. if that's all you have, i think that what gets you to a point, 10 years down the road when you wake up with one kid, another one on the way and think "i'm going to have to smother my significant other with a pillow before he wakes up." so the whole business of getting excited about people getting married because they love each other...yawn. i can't be bothered to think about that as if it counts for something forever.

this lead me to the realization that n and i exist on exact opposite ends of a spectrum. she is a hopeless romantic and i am a dark cynic. life might be better if we could meet somewhere closer to the middle then her text messages would probably get on my nerves less.

from the girl who can't get enough of the show happy endings.

until next time...