Crazy and Love, Crazy In Love

*Shamelessly also posted on THIS IS NOT MY DAY JOB, so if you read there, skip here. For today ONLY. I'm still figuring out what fits on this blog and what fits on the other, so bear with me. :)

I just finished John Green's Looking for Alaska, and I love this excerpt:

How could the girl who told that joke three hours ago become a sobbing mess?


Still staring at me, she said, "I try not to be scared, you know. But I still ruin everything. I still fuck everything up."


"Okay." I told her. "It's okay." I didn't even know what she was talking about anymore. One vague notion after another.

"Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen bitch."


And there was something to that, truth be told.


First, can I just say that this book is amazing, that John Green so far seems to be consistently amazing? But I love this excerpt in particular, because it reminds me of why I love MJ so much.  We're on opposite sides of the country tonight - me in Colorado Springs, him in Virginia - which always makes me a little extra bit cognizant of how much I love him. Here's a story about why.



Before I met MJ, it used to seem like I was always apologizing to boys I liked for being a disaster of some sort or another.
"I'm sorry, I'm not ready, don't touch me, but you're very sweet and I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, I'm just emotional sometimes, I don't know why I'm so crazy."
"I'm sorry, I know you said not to get attached, but I feel the way I feel."


Blah blah blah. Just typing that makes me want to go back and hug my excessively earnest adolescent self.


I don't even know what set me off, but it was early in my relationship with MJ and I ended up sobbing in his arms as we laid on his bed. "I'm sorry, I'm just crazy."


"It's okay," he said, toying with my hair. "You're not crazy."


I twisted my head on his shoulder to look at him. He appeared to be serious, and in need of a shave. "I'm not crazy?" I repeated. It was the first time anyone had said such a thing to me, in the history of many admissions of insanity.


He shook his head. "No, anyone would be upset about that. I don't think you're crazy at all - I've met crazy, imbalanced girls, and you seem pretty normal."


Ah, that makes me laugh to type. But he said it, and I knew he was a keeper - because he thought I was normal, and that made it safe to just be me. No apologies required.

There was another moment, which cemented "I must love this man" for me, and that story involves Windex. But it will keep for another day.

So then she said, "Would it kill you to wear a blazer and some lipstick?"

Since I fly about 8,000,000 miles a year for work (at least, that's how it feels), and therefore airlines occasionally value my business, I had a complimentary upgrade to first class for my flight yesterday. Nice, right? You know what's less nice?

Having the lady guarding the check-in line for First Class snag me by the arm as I walked past her and, pointing to the other, busier lines, tell me, "You have to go down there."

I looked pointedly at her hand - wondering why people touch me - but said politely, "I'm going to Colorado Springs."

"That's Line Four," she said.

"And I'm going first class."

"Oh." Suddenly I no longer required physical restraint. The clunky older guys in suits waiting behind me were relieved that we were all moving forward again.  I noted none of them were summarily redirected.

I should really start wearing something nicer when I fly. I guess my Aeropostale jeans, flip-flops and no makeup aren't cutting it.

There's Nothing Wrong, But What If There Is?

I am a worrier by nature. In fact, when I was a little girl my grandmother gave me some worry dolls from her trip to Guatemala. I'm still not sure if that was just a souveneir or a nod to my early neuroses - I worried just as much, if not more, as a child-worrier than an adult one.

(Photo is from Wikipedia; click for more on worry dolls - they worry so you don't have to!)

At certain times in my life, I've had a lot to worry about. When my father was dying and I had no money to go to college and I was trying to get a scholarship and get into college - that was a time to worry. When I was gearing up for both my wedding and an imminent deployment to Iraq - that was a time to worry.

But right now? When MJ and I are both gainfully employed, healthy and in love and the world is going well for us? Well, I still have to wake up at night and worry about something --

• Whether the cats have enough dry food (When I wake MJ up at 2am in the morning by getting up and putting on my robe to go check, he tells me that even if the cats are out of food, they can wait until morning. This is why they love me more).
• If I have an 8am meeting at work no one told me about. My job is like the law - ignorance is no excuse.
• If my locker at the gym has expired without me receiving notice and someone has thrown out my flip-flops and Philosophy bath products.
• What bill I've forgotten to pay lately. This is usually a valid worry - not because we can't pay, but because we're terrible at dealing with the mail.  Of course, it could be resolved by setting everything up to autopay, but then I would just worry about whether the payments went through properly or if our account was accidentally deducted $3500 for water and sewer instead of $35. See? The worries just replace themselves.
• Whether we are ever going to manage to buy a second car. Actually, this is a valid worry as well, as MJ and I have been "car shopping" for four months and I just can't bring myself to swap all those hours and hours and months and months of hard work for a fine foreign-made automobile.

Maybe I should go looking for those worry dolls... Isn't it funny how our personality traits can be independent of our circumstances?  People have a happiness baseline that's more or less independent of their circumstances - all other factors being equal, some people will be happier than others in the same situation.  I'm pretty happy by nature, but I'm also a compulsive worrier - and I will find something to worry about. Especially at 2 a.m.

One more thing I couldn't do without my iPhone: Lose It!

I didn't want an iPhone. When they came out, despite being a Mac fan, there was a certain amount of scoffing on my part. I had been excited when I bought my Razr when those were the hot new thing, and would supposedly be able to check email and get directions on my phone.  That. Never. Worked.

So I said of the iPhone, and I quote, "I will never buy another phone that supposedly does more than place calls again." (This kind of forward thinking is why I'm not making money in the stock market). 

But then I came home from overseas, and my T-mobile contract was up, and MJ talked me into an iPhone anyway, because he's good like that.  And because I have little to no self control, which brings me to the eightieth thing I now NEED my iPhone for, besides e-mail and directions and reading e-books and checking Facebook and Lemondrop and web-surfing:

Dieting.

I have long gone back and forth on the subject of dieting. I generally feel pretty good about my body (except for those third Tuesdays where I sit at my desk in the office and genuinely believe I can feel my butt squishing beneath me and spreading outwards).  But... I was 122 pounds when I graduated high school. I was 122 pounds when I graduated college. It is hard for me to believe that, five short years later, there's a reason why I need to be 144 pounds.  I was actually fine in my 130's, but then I made the mistake of stepping on a scale, and there was a panic attack about that number 144.  Not because 144 is inherently bad, but because I was picturing the panic attack that would come later if I kept doing whatever it is I've been doing.

Enter the iPhone Lose It! app.  I hear the calorie counters at The Daily Plate and SparkPeople are awesome, but, well, I always have my iPhone.  I enter my exercise for the day (a la my heart rate monitor, another essential gadget in my world) and my calories.  In order to lose a pound a week, I'm trying to stay at 1500 calories net for each day.  So far (i.e., the last week and a half), that's been quite easy to do.

The screen for it on my phone looks like this:

And I derive a childish (or perhaps OCD) pleasure from searching through each category and adding my foods and exercise.  Because honestly? If I'm getting no amusement from it, I'm probably not going to manage this whole "weight loss" thing.

Now I need another piece of high tech gear: a scale. That's one thing I think the iPhone can't do for me.

How to Get a Girlfriend

No, the title isn't advice for pubescent boys. It's the subject of a Lemondrop article I just read, about how difficult it is for adult women to find new gal pals when they move or their life circumstances change.  The lady who wrote the article even has a blog devoted to finding her new best friend - MWF Seeking BFF. If you've ever been in that situation - or, like me, you're in it now - you might want to check out her funny-but-oh-so-true writings on the subject.

I've been living in the DC suburbs for about a year, so I've made some friends, but I don't have the kind of bestie I've usually relied on. In college, I was almost always with one of my three girl BFF's (or with MJ, a different kind of BFF). Whether I was picking up my dry cleaning, studying in the library, or hitting up a frat party, one (or more) of them was always with me. After I graduated, my BGF (Best Guy Friend) and I used to carpool to work together, run 4-6 miles and hit the gym during our lunch break, then eat lunch together, than carpool home together before meeting up with our significant others for dinner and hot-tubbing or happy hour... it was a lot of togetherness. And that's before you add in long runs for marathon training and computer classes on the weekends.

I miss having the kind of deep friendships that are so comfortable you can hang out without needing to talk, where you always have a date for the latest cheesy movie, pedicure or gym trip, or just to watch Jersey Shore on TV and laugh at other people while you eat cookies.  Husbands are fantastic and I adore mine - he is, of course, my closest friend. But to me, a husband and a BFF are different things, and they're both important.

So far, my efforts have included making a work friend into a real friend. We went swimming together yesterday and I may - questionable as I find it - go watch SATC 2 with her. However, she refuses to go see Eclipse with me because she "isn't into vampires".  Yes, the fact that no one will go see Eclipse with me tells me that I need to work harder on developing new friendships (although I could go by myself, having discovered that a) attending the movies solo is strangely liberating and b) no one will eat all your Sno-Caps on you).

And I met a bunch of girls through my church, the problem being that I only see them once in a blue moon thanks to the fact that I seem to travel for work every other week. Part of a friendship is really just proximity and time in the early stages, IMO - you need to build the trust and the in-jokes and the memories of that friendly bond.

The Lemondrop article points to two resources for finding a new BFF on the interwebs: Girlfriend Circle, and Girlfriend Social. Both resemble dating sites to a rather eery degree (although they are quick to state that these are for women only, and for platonic friendships).  Girlfriend Circle is a pay site, although if there's no circle in your area yet, you can join for free.  Girlfriend Social is all free. You sign up, build a profile, and then begin looking for new friends that might make a good fit.

I have no qualms about turning to the internet to make friends. MJ and I have used Meetup in the past, when we moved to California, to make new couple friends. We had a couple of not so successful events we attended (80's party, I'm looking at you). But we also went kayaking, to a BBQ and played volleyball, which caused us to meet a small core group of people that became new friends. 

It's funny, though - I never needed internet dating. When you meet your husband in college, where boys are everywhere, internet dating just seems sort of unnecessary. But friends?  I'm hoping that my junior high BFF moves back to DC when she finishes her law degree, that my college BFF's and BGF and I stay close, and that I can turn work & church friends into anytime friends.

But if making new friends in real life doesn't quite pan out, I also just might hit the internet.

"Is that you?"

I stopped in a salon for a trim, and just because I have no faith, I brought along a photo of what my hair was supposed to look like. Not that it mattered. I offered the photo to the stylist, who didn't seem very interested.

"Is that you?" she asked, glancing at it but not taking it from me.

Well, now I know you're not paying attention.

"No, that's Mandy Moore. I wish."

Needless to say, it was not the best haircut of my life. It wasn't terrible, though.  If I don't end up staring at myself in the mirror the next day and feeling violated, then I think it's a good enough haircut.

Why I Haven't Had a Nose Job

Every once in a while, I think to myself, why don't I just get a nose job?

Why not, indeed? This is one of those recurring thoughts, along with:

• Can I call myself funny if, at least once a week, I'm the only one doubled over laughing and everyone else is just sort of smiling faintly and perhaps feeling awkward?
• Will I ever be able to find a pair of skinny jeans that fit over my ginormous runner's calves?
• How many calories are in a caramel frappucino?
• Did I forget to lock my car, or is someone stealing my Eminem and Glee CD's right now?

These are big concerns, people. 

But we were talking about my nose. Because, while these things always pop into my mind, the truth is, I know the answers (No, probably not, 380 for a Grande with whip as if I'd ever order a frapp without it, yes but no one wants my CDs).

And, while I'd never say never, I don't see a nose job in my future. Because I hate the idea of surgery. Because I want my future kids to have a frame of reference when they inherit a beaked nose themselves. Because to some extent, this is my feminist statement - I know I'm not conventionally beautiful, and it doesn't matter.

But the truth is? I might not make a feminist statement if I genuinely disliked the way I looked, and when it comes to future hypothetical kids, well - I don't even remember to take my pre-natal vitamins "just in case", so it's probably not about them.  I have likely suffered worse facial pain than plastic surgery thanks to my short-lived collegiate diving career (more on that another day).

I believe in the french concept of jolie laide, which translates rather awfully to "Pretty-ugly", but which means the appeal of a woman who isn't conventionally beautiful, but is nonetheless attractive.  It's a term that I only heard recently, but that I internalized long before that. Most days, I've made peace with a nose (and a chin, for that matter) that would never make it in show business and - gasp - love the way I look. Other days, of course, I get on the "I could be prettier if..." highway, leading to that wonderful question I opened with. But part of being a woman today seems to involve the occasional bout of, if not crippling, at least a bad-sprain level of insecurity. I usually hand my ego an ice pack and tell it to stop being a baby. I like my looks upwards of 90% of the time, and that's better than many pretty girls I know!

Finding the term jolie laide just gave me a bit more justification for not getting a nose job in a society that often appears to value a homogenouus female perfection. Sirens mag introduced me to the term, and the New York Times' article on The Unfairest Of Them All taught me more about the concept.

But I already knew all about jolie laide, even if I didn't have a phrase for it. I'd already fallen in love with being not pretty, but sort of - just a little - gorgeous.

Oh, Women's Health, how you amuse me.

I was just reading the June edition of Women's Health, and this made me laugh (from p. 45 on keeping your feet from pre-mature aging):

Choi advises doing one foot treatment a day. "I tell my client to hydrate their cuticles on Monday, smoth calluses on Tuesday, exfoliate on Wednesday, and then repeat for the rest of the week," she says.

Maybe I'm just not as impressed as I should be by the perils of aging feet. Maybe I'll find out the hard way, someday, when MJ leaves me for chronically failing to maintain my pedicure and having calluses big enough that I could use my heels to sand down a small table and instead, begins smooching the toes of a sandal model.

But I'm more likely to find a cure for cancer in my free time than I am to follow a three-day repeating beauty regimen for my feet. Hydrating cuticles? Who is that big a perfectionist about their physical appearance?

(If you are, by the way, that article also has a helpful recipe for a bleaching agent for your toenails)

June 06 - Cafes, Museums, and a Little Red Cardigan

I'm in Augusta, GA, for business for the whole month of June. I'm not going to lie and say I'm 100% thrilled with this - I miss MJ and my kitties (Buffy, and my two adorable foster cats, Buster and Bonzai). But still, there's fun to be had, exploring a new city solo.

Today I started off at the New Moon Cafe for breakfast. While I admit to a fairly serious Starbucks addiction, my preference is indie coffee shops and I always look for them when I travel.  The New Moon Cafe is in Augusta's not-quite-convincing downtown. Still, there was tons of parking outside, and the New Moon Cafe had tasty croissants, the best white hot chocolate I've had since my SoCal coffee shop closed down (Sad face) and free wi-fi. I will definitely be heading back there during this month (the fact that I wrote 5,000 more words of my novel there didn't hurt my impression, either).

Then I headed over to the Morris Museum of Art.  It's on the Riverwalk, which is very scenic - it was too hot to walk much (96 degrees) when I was exploring, but I might go back for an early morning run next weekend. Look how pretty it is:

 Loved the museum, which is quite small but lovely nonetheless. One of the docents told me all about some of my favorite pieces in the museum, which was a fun conversation. Unfortunately, most of my photos came out grainy, but here's one portrait that I think turned out decently. The portraits are always my favorites - I love seeing the faces from the past, and the way the artistic styles change dependent on culture and the standard of beauty for that time period.

Yep, I'm a sucker for anything with a cat.

After I finished at the museum, I headed over to the local movie theater. I've never been to a movie by myself before, and the idea was faintly uncomfortable, so I had to. I saw Letters to Juliet. It was a pretty predictable romantic movie, but I enjoyed it. I'm also going to have to see Easy A when it comes out; that's one of the few trailers for an allegedly funny movie that's ever actually gotten an audible laugh from me.


Also, as part of my "Let's pretend we have a style... or style at all... and maybe we will!" campaign, I took a photo of today's outfit.

Red cardigan from New York and Company, Black Dot Lace Cami from White House Black Market, cropped off-brand jeans, and red flip-flops from White House Black Market (doesn't it seem like they're cheating?)  I don't like wearing a 3/4 sleeve cardigan with cropped pants, but there's only so much I can pack/shop on one trip.  Outfits will only be showcased on days off from work, as on weekdays I pretty much am in my work uniform or pajamas only.

So that... was my day today. Now I'm off to run on the treadmill, swim in the hotel pool, and try to do some yoga (I'm not patient enough for yoga).

Shoes!

I wore these shoes today. Love them.

They're the black lace pump from White House, Black Market. Only I picked mine up at T.J. Maxx. In college, my girl friends and I would head to T.J. Maxx in our very dingy local mall to pick through for fun clothes and accessories, and I'm still addicted to the bargain-hunting. I dragged M.J. there recently - they also sometimes have La Creuset at a discount, which is another addiction of mine and something even he's willing to root through T.J. for - and this was the happy result. Alas, there was no La Creuset this time. I imagine we'll have to head back soon.

Of course, at the end of a long hard day (of shopping, mostly), I was glad to slip these old friends back on:

I'm trying to be more stylish lately, I really am.  I can't wear jeans, a t-shirt and flip-flops all the time.

But since I'm trying, why can't Style try and be a bit more friendly to one's feet?

Back!

I stopped this blog, shortly after opening it, to focus on my writing blog, This Is Not My Day Job. I've found lately, though, there are lots of other things I'd like to blog about - recipes, home decor, fashion, money, pets (Ok, I'm blogging about the kitties everywhere, let's not delude ourselves). I don't want to dilute my writing blog with *too* many unrelated posts.

So I'm back. :)