I am fearfully coming to the conclusion that Jake may have been...partially...correct. You see, I have a friend named Jake, who has been my friend for a long time. A very long time. To give a time line, I would say...since I learned to tie my shoes.

And this is where the controversy comes in, because this certain life long pal, so lovingly insists that I never knew how to tie my shoes in elementary school. He said I would flop around the playground, tripping over my untied laces.

Well, since the second grade, I have sworn this off as a bold face, defamating lie. Until this month.

Last weekend, in front of Jake...of ALL people...the mocker of all things shoe lace tying...I tied my shoes together...not joking at all. I actually really seriously tied my shoes together in the back of his car. When I realized this, I let out a defeated moan..."NOooo" and he said..."you just tied your shoes together, didn't you?"

Well, we ALL had a real good laugh over how Anna never learned how to tie her shoes...blah blah...and I put my seriously senior moment behind me...until today.

I was pretending to be in shape, so I went out for a run. About a mile into this run...in broad daylight, I look down and realize...I have two different shoes on. Well that was quite a shock. Never done that before. Two completely different tennis shoes. I went to the trouble of getting left and right foot correct...but the fact that they were two COMPLETELY different colors was WAY too complected for me to conceive of when putting them on.

So next time you put on your tenny-runners to go out on the town...never take for granted that you know how to tie and match them...because obviously...some of us don't have it as easy as you do in that department.

Can you say, dark?

It's always last March...

WHAT really is my deal?

This week was officially difficult due to the fact that I am a chronic travel day dreamer. My affliction isn't aided by the fact that I have had so many head-in-the-clouds-worthy-escapades. Being that it has been a year since I've returned from the last escapade...I think it could be defined as withdrawals. If you wanted to be technical.

And on top of it all, I know I'm not deserving of any of the loveliness of elsewhere I have experienced...so it would be completely justified if I never got away again. That's dark...pretend I never said that. Moving on...

A lot of people don't crave the "away" like I do. Luckily I have a few hopeless cases in my life similar to me (Carlee, Linds, Shan...I'm sorry to bring you into this.) where if you catch us glazed over and incoherent, with a travel magazine sprawled at our feet...you'll know what's going on. Don't try to talk us out of it. There will probably be indiscernible babbling. Always about London, most likely Edinburgh will come up...probably a cameo from Latin America, and once we start on our top 5 next must goes, it's all over. We will need a drink. Fast.

So since I'm currently in the all too necessary scrimping and saving portion of the travel annals of my story, I will pour over the past. Care to join me? South America is currently the lust de jour on repeat in my one track mind.

sick sack.

Being sick is unfortunate.  

For me, it is because it defines who you are and how you feel for as long as it decides to.  I, as almost everyone who knows me could attest...am not the best sick person to be around.  I'm pretty sure I whine, but I don't know it.  Which is akward for me.  

So tonight. Friday night.  I am sick.  And I am alone.  Coincidence?  Probably not.

When I am a more whole version of this sick shell I'm in currently...I am passionatly into certain things.  Right now I find myself wanting to be altogether dark days...so I thought I'd share the things I am craving from by bathrobe...clutching my Kleenex with one hand and typing with the other.  

When I'm sick, I want to watch akwardly brilliant movies even more than usual.  Right now I am heavily into watching Annie Hall or Harold and Maude.  Too bad I'm living at my parents and they don't own a VCR or DVD player.  So that's out.  I think I'll whine about it.

Drinking the champagnes of Gingerales is obviously a must.  Vernors anyone?  It is so hard to find this stuff.  It's like everyone drinks it, but nobody wants to talk about it because the stores are always sold out.  I find that strange.  

Lastly, I want it to be pouring down rain.  I want not for the icky moon.  I want huge raindrops pounding on my window, snuggled up in a down blanket in front of a fire.  

Is this all too much to ask right now?  I figured as much.

identity crisis

I feel confused. I have spent 25 SOLID years of my life single. That is no exaggeration...blissfully single. I consider myself to be one of the few women I have met, who can say they are 95% fine with being single as long as it took for me to meet the " No Damn doubt about it, cut from the same cloth, peas in a you know what" guy of my dreams. The other 5% was purely vexation at the constant stream of disbelieving female eyes who assumed that claim was blatant denial or simply due to my ignorance brought on my inability to lock a warm body down.

So low and behold, I found him...the pea to my pod...and I think this is absolutely tops. That being said...here enters the aforementioned "Identity Crisis." Reason being, from my past standpoint...feet firmly planted in the soil of Singletown, USA...there was nothing more confusing and frightening than the woman (we're speaking simply stereotype here, which is how I roll)...so eagerly searching for, finding, and pursuing...a wedding. I'm not talking marriage here, this is purely broaching the phenomenon of the "Big Day." Everything after this day can be left to another blog and another episode of Dr. Phil. What I wish to discuss is the mass hysteria leading up to this one day that is supposed to define me(?)

Well, I'm self-aware enough to know that there isn't enough dysfunctional minutes in a day to take on that task. But still, all of a sudden (or so it seems) I am a single girl who just so happened to find a single boy who makes her really really happy 70% of the time, and the other time is heavily overcompensated for by my lust and love for both my friends and whiskey. That, in Anna's book of definitions, is BY definition a good enough reason to spend the rest of your life together. Now, directly being birthed from the loins of this fact...is this DAY..this DAY I have never dreamed about, or stashed white things in an old trunk for, or made my Barbie's act out time and time again. I am by definition (my definitions again) NOT PREPARED.

At this juncture, I can hear you thinking the obvious, "Stop this moaning and get to the courthouse already!" Well, to that I would say, "thank you for your cynicism, and I already thought of that." There are a couple reason I just can't do it.

Reason 1) My obsession with making something out of nothing (which has singlehandedly driven me to the Goodwill Outlet, clutching to the last 8 dollars in my bank account and my irrational dreams of walking out of there 2 hours later looking like SJP.)

Reason 2) The strong desire to have the kind of party that makes my friends look back on and sigh with blissful, intoxicated memories.

So does it seem rational that a fabulously frugal female could pull something photo album worthy out of her dusty, forgotten, piggy bank? No. The answer to that question is no. There is no possible way under the heavens one can have a "Goodwill Outlet" "charge by the pound" budget wedding, disguised as even as humble as a Target or Nordstrom rack wedding. Not happening.

The reason for this is simple. Everything under the title of "wedding" in this country and I suspect all of the second and third world...on the internet, on the magazine cover, on the Hills...is the direct result of a bunch of brilliantly evil people getting together and collectively agreeing to rob happy, or at least well intentioned couples of their debt free futures. Because THEY CAN. Because almost everyone wants a wedding, whether their reasoning is as simpleton as mine, or as romantic as Spencer and Heidi....why not shame and bully these desperate young people into starting out their lives together in 30,000 dollars of debt so that they could have the privilege of one day (literally"one day") getting that chocolate fountain at that one Quality Inn banquet hall. How could you EVER refuse such an offer?

It's not the money that gets me...I'm essentially just jealous that I didn't get in on the scam first. What really gets me is the crazy women (keep in mind, these crazy women exist mostly in my head and are fabrications of the things I read in the Knot and see on "Platinum Weddings") that keep telling me that this day is about 1000 things, none of which are the pure contentment I feel at the thought of waking up to this one man for the rest of my life. I get that pushing hope and love and butterflies doesn't make the bucks, but for me THAT is the reason I want to celebrate...and everything else mostly feels like my head got stuck in blender when all I wanted was the Margarita inside. I don't want to celebrate because my dress is Monique Luillier (which it's not and I wouldn't mind) or because I have all the flowers flown in from Martha Stewart's backyard (because why wouldn't you?) or because I am going to have a small dog with a diamond studded, color coordinating collar carry the ring down the aisle in a satin pouch (which is obviously my dream). Those might be nice to look forward to , but I would so much rather look back on a life spent together with someone I swear I never "needed" but who made marriage worth believing in.

Calling Unemployment from cruiseship bathroom.

random and unedited blatherings on employement and lack thereof.

Unemployment is a funny beast, to be sure. It’s all you yearn for when you are working. Sitting around…watching horrible television (excluding Ellen of course)…talking to your pets…wait, just me?

Anyway, I have worked a fair share of strange jobs in this little life o mine, and it is always so easy to forget in those moments of 5 am alarms, unflattering and unwashed uniforms and forced interactions that it is somehow a fair trade off. That purpose…must be an acute part of our identity as humans, because as much as it seems illogical that I could have such a distaste for unemployment as I do, being that I have a strong and overwhelming distaste for employment (especially the kind of employment I’ve experienced).

It’s that money thing…darn that money thing. Can’t quite escape it. Consciously I don’t really care for the stuff…having had the naïve epiphanies that come with being in my twenties. You know, those realizations that enlighten you to the importance of relationships and challenging experiences and other valuable nuggets of truth that are, what I’d define as…good.

And while I still cling to the knowledge that those things are ultimately the most important, and I’m not in enough of a middle class anglosaxon induced haze to know that money matters. If one wants to live a non Jeramiah Johnson lifestyle (I envision myself in a loincloth, bow and arrow in tow, accidentally shooting my foot while trying to shoot a Bison…it just would happen, I know it). That sounds cool and all, but I really appreciate (O-ppreciate as Cory would say) such things as eating in general (& usually excessively), power locks and windows in my Ford Focus (Jealous?), premium denim and Mac oil free foundation. All of these things can fit nicely into my desirous life of building relationships with all sorts of fine folks, acknowledging people (Lindsay?) and being glamouosly haggard (Mary-Kate Olsen?).

This brings me back to the beginning. Unemployment is generally lame. You always feel guilty about not finding a job that day…everything you do that brings the smallest amount of joy (watching the lady on Maury who has a phobia of chickens) is followed directly by…I could have just been on Craigslist finding that ONE perfect job that doesn’t exist before the hoards of fellow unemployed, more qualified people snatch it up. Truth be told, I’ve never heard of a job that sounds perfect. I don’t think that is the purpose of an occupation…to be enjoyed. But something in my coddled rearing has led me to believe that I can have it…alas…DESERVE it all. “All” including: Job which utilizes the skills I possess and want to cultivate. This is made more complicated by the fact that I seem to be skilled at some fairly unluctritive things, i.e. clearing tables at the mall (my mothers suggestion), fitting elderly females for bras (not the biggest tippers), and drawing perty pictures. Wow.

So for now, I am broke. Still happy…totally sure it will ALL be fine…but still, nonetheless, broke. I guess it is good to have a bit of a reminder that working is a worthwhile endeavor after all.

Princess Sparkel

Once I went to the zoo and saw a monkey.

I have seen monkeys before. When I went to Gibraltar I saw big scary monkeys who stole my lunch (crackers and beer) and tore my jeans (True Religions. Not cool).

But this monkey was different. She was a pygmy Marmoset, and she was the smallest monkey I have ever seen. I imagined her sitting in the palm of my hand and eating the smallest banana. I thought she looked like a princess, not like those rank monkeys I saw in Spain. I called her Princess Sparkel...almost like Sparkle, but more fabulous.

When I saw P Sparks for the first time, she was in the smallest cage. Alone. I didn't know how long she had been in there by herself, but I couldn't fathom how she remained so premier without a friend or fancy cage like the Komodo Dragons next door. It made my heart hurt seeing that just because she is physically small, she has been defined as insignificant enough to justify that dank cage and those lonesome nights, with no other Pygmy Marmosets to love her.


I feel a little like Princess Sparkel right now. Caged. I don't think that is my natural habitat, either. Just like that claustrophobic cage isn't hers. I prefer to run wild like a wildebeest (my animal association)...to have the presence of mind to breathe deep and have simply a smile... to have that sparkle in my heart where I can catch that glimpse of the infinite and am deeply and essentially: fine.

Short story long...I think I am meant to sparkel. I don't think actually...I know this. When I am around people who understand this depth of existence; in a place that understands being still and silent and ok, I feel it. I feel the static electric spark in my heart which drives me to creativity, day dreaming, prayer, obsurdity. It is a ridiculous place of the divine. Full of my God.

Right now, I am losing track of that spark. I feel it smoldering deep within my skin, but I can't trace it's heat.

As I have put this bookmark in the pages of my life where I roamed and cared not for conventional wisdom, but longed for the loveliness of life. In exchange, I work at an insurance agency in suburban hell. Rational, I know.

But good news! There is redemption in this story!...praise God.

Alas! My Lindsay went to the zoo but only one week ago, and who did she report was surrounded by a gaggle of new Marmoset friends?!

You guessed it...none other than Princess Sparkel.

The zoo brought her life mates and her cage was much more crowded...but crowded with monkey love! And so will God answer my prayers for that spark that I so yearn for. For that light that breaks through the clouds and you can sigh, and know you will be alright.