Something about wishes being horses

Sometimes I wish life were a giant Etch-a-Sketch. I have positively no talent for either, but at least with the Etch-A-Sketch everything is fixed with a couple of shakes and then, poof. Nothing.

Well, ok, maybe I should say I wish my brain were an Etch-a-Sketch.

Or, you know, maybe I should just go to bed.

Stuck

One of the main motivators I've been using to try to find a new job was that I don't get paid enough at my current job. And, for what I do, I don't get paid enough. Unfortunately, my W2 came in the mail today and seeing just how much extra dough my overtime nets me was quite shocking. It put me in an entirely different pay bracket!

Needless to say, the chances of me finding a job in a new(ish) field that will pay me as much as I am making now (including overtime) AND offer me the same level of benefits and paid time off are pretty much slim to none. At least in this economy.

I hear your unasked question - Aren't you miserable there, though? Well, yes and no. The job itself has improved a lot over the past month or so. My personal problems with a few of my managers continues, but it balances out with the great friends I have there to vent and commiserate with. The ex working 50 feet from me isn't the best, but he and I are still friendly (closest description I could come up with) so even that isn't as horrible as it once was.

It isn't what I want to do with my life, but I am 24. Its paying my bills and keeping me healthy. I get to take time off to relax a bit and decompress. I have friends there. It could be a lot worse.

Sigh. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

I have a much longer post in the works

Meant to update the blog this weekend, but instead I slept for a total of 26 hours and spent the rest of my time prone on the living room couch half watching FRIENDS and half zoned out. I have no idea what's up with that, but hopefully it will be done with by morning. Zoning out at work tends to lead to very unhappy people in Argentina and Costa Rica.

What to expect in my forthcoming update of epicness:

1. Obama highlights
2. Navel Gazing
3. Some really vague wonderings about the future and what I might do with it

For now, though, I am going to bed. I really seem to like it there right now.

This may be the stupidest thing I have ever done

Nonetheless, my train for D.C. leaves in 15 hours. Unless I get frostbite or trampled by the throngs, I'll be back on Wednesday night.

Change is coming to America and I am going to be there to witness it. Maybe it is a stupid thing to do, this going to D.C., but it is also one of the coolest things I have ever done. So...there's that!

Whoo! Obama!

Delicious

Today was long and frigid. As I finally walked away from work at 5:30 (that's a 10 hour day for me, mind) I felt defeated and cold, spending both train rides home fighting exhausted tears. A nice reminder that the depression hasn't left me even thought I have felt a bit better.

Anyway, I put this song on when I got home. It's slow and moody, but so amazingly good. It lulled me into an okay place. I'm still sad and tired, but I'm sort of at peace with it.

A Record Year for Rainfall - The Decemberists



One more day of work and then the frenzy begins.

Aren't my internal allergies enough?

1. I have this weird bumpy rash thing on my inner forearms and I have NO idea what from. I just hope it isn't some weird side effect of...that. I mean, rationally I know it isn't, but. Erg. Go away, rash!

2. 4 days till D.C.!!

3. My uterus is trying to kill me.

4. Saturday night I have to go out to a Colombian restaurant with my work "team" and, for once, my stupid supervisor will be there so I can't even bitch about work! I sense a looooot of rum being imbibed.

5. I am still typing to STOP FROM SCRATCHING.

Still don't have an answer

Weird without You

tired
of your circle
around me

tired
of the wait

tear a slot
in my side

feed your
loose
change

though
i'd give you
all i've got
for free

- CAConrad

Proof that I am a HUGE nerd

These handbags make me salivate in ways no Kate Spade ever would.

Too bad they are only slightly less expensive than designer. Alas.

A hot complicated mess

"We are really just making this harder for ourselves, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"We just keep making it more complicated."

"Do you want me to stop? I will stand up and walk away right now if you ask me to. So, tell me, honestly...do you want to stop?"

"No."

The pain of distance

Tonight I really miss parts of my family.

My mom, for example. I haven't seen my mom since June and it aches. A few days with her and I start to feel a bit insane, of course, but she has always been one of my best friends and to be so far from her is a physical hurt I can't get rid of. I am thrilled that she is so happy on the west coast, but why oh why couldn't she have found that happiness here in the land where earthquakes and The Governator are just things in our imaginations?

And then there is my sister. Well, stepsister really, but for all purposes she is my sister. She was always so cool (still is) even though I only saw her when I was in Staten Island (and you know how I feel about THAT). She was talented and popular and gorgeous and even though her accent made me cringe, I thought she was a goddess. When she moved away for jobs I lost my niche in NY. I lost a confidant and friend. Moving away has, like it did for my mother, helped her tons. She found herself and along the way she found her wife. They are the craziest, most wonderful insaniacs you could ever know and I miss them to pieces. I only see them every couple of years, but when I do it's always wonderful fun. I am extremely proud to tell people that my lesbian sister sings in a stage act in a theme park in Tennessee because she is one of the most content people I know and for that she will always be a role model to me.

I don't know why I miss them so much tonight, but I do. I have a family here in Philly - better frends then I could ever deserve or hope for. Sometimes, though, nothing can replace your mother's laugh or the feel of her always-slightly-too-long fingernails against your scalp as she strokes your hair in the same way she has since before you can remember.

I used to be afraid of my boobs

Note: This entire entry is TMI. You have been warned.

On January 8th of the year 2000, I began dating a boy. It had taken him almost four months of nightly phone calls and daily group lunches for him to screw up the courage to "ask me out" and it was the most awkward conversation of my life. Earlier that day I had admitted to our joint friend that I liked him too and she couldn't hang up fast enough to go dish with him. And then, then...the phone call. Let's relive it, shall we? -

Scene: My bedroom. I am wearing nothing but a towel, my wet hair dripping down my back and I am running late for my friend's birthday dinner. My mom enters and hands me the phone.

We: *exchange the heys and what's ups of most teenage conversations*
Him: So, Friend F called me earlier and told me...
Me, interrupting: Yeah, uh, I know, she told me she was going to call you...
Him: So, I mean, would you...do you...
Me, interrupting: Oh, I know what you are going to ask. Um, look, I'm running late for Friend S's dinner thing, I think I...can I tell you my answer tomorrow?
Him: Oh, um, yeah, sure, if you need.
Me: Great, bye!

And then we dated for almost 6 years. He was my first love, my first heartbreak and my first...well, you know. It took us over three months to make out, almost a year for me to let him get to second base and I believe I gave him an impassioned speech on afternoon about why I thought oral sex was a horridly disgusting idea and should never be attempted (never say I don't admit when I'm wrong!). It was two years before we slept together. I thought it was scandalous that we fooled around in his car on my weekends home from college. I liked it all, don't get me wrong, but there was always a feeling of, "maybe I'm a skank! Should I not be doing this with him?"

The point of this post? Today I sat down and seriously plotted out a scheme to start booty calling my most recent ex. Who is this woman I've become, scheming for one night stands with mentally unavailable men? And, more importantly, why don't I care? Why am I still so glad to be rid of the 15 year old girl who thought she would get in trouble for kissing her boyfriend with tongue outside of her high school? Thinking devious thoughts about seducing guys shouldn't make me feel empowered, should it?

Food for thought while I talk myself out of texting my ex and telling him how much I want to do all the things to him that my teenage self fled from in terrified disgust. I really just want to take her by the hand and tell her, "There, there. Try it...you'll like it."

Martha Stewart, eat your heart out...or give me a call. Either way.

Today I am attempting to cook an entire holiday dinner for my friends. Turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, and crescent rolls. Oh, and pie and ice cream, but those were store bought. Now, I admit, much of that is coming from boxes, but the turkey might be, to quote the immortal Joey Tribiani, "my Everest."

I have never cooked a turkey. For last year's Fake Christmas, Amanda handled most of the food and even she almost set our oven on fire cooking the turkey. I have read the instructions about eight times, gotten up three times to make sure the gobbler was defrosting correctly, and I have everything lined up and ready to go. Let's just hope life throws me no curve balls, shall we? And, hey, worst comes to worse - we have pie and ice cream. How can that be bad? Right?

And then he bought me a milkshake

Well. As expected, last night was...interesting.

Waking up with my ex-boyfriend wrapped around me may not have been the plan, but I can't say it was unwelcome. Stupid? Sure. Complicated? Absolutely. But damn was it good. So, whatever. I am deciding to just let it be what it was for the moment. In the future, maybe it will mean something. Probably will, actually. But for now, it's something that happened, something I enjoyed way much more than I should have. And I am okay with that.

I am not okay with having gone to bed at 7:30am and waking up at 3:45pm hungover with the spins. Cuddling can only help that so much. Time to hydrate and call it an early night.

Welcome, 2009. It's going to be quite a year.