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On Luck, Unluckily

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It has most certainly been a very eventful week. And not necessarily in a good way. It’s frustrating, because I subscribe to the “put good out into the world, get good back” philosophy. Usually, I seem to maintain a pretty level relationship with the rest of the universe.

Lately, that’s been a seemingly impossible task. This is odd – Mercury isn’t in retrograde; there isn’t a full moon; I’m not in any way overwhelmed by floods of strange hormones. It’s just like all of a sudden, my luck has run out.

Remember that Disney channel original movie, The Luck of the Irish? We got cable when my parents divorced, so I spent most of middle school totally obsessed with the Disney channel while trying to sneak views of MTV when no one knew I was looking – that was when TRL was cool and Eminem was upsetting middle-class parents across America. I can probably still spit most lines from a few of his albums. (Oh god, I didn’t just type that. Mostly, I wrote that because “rap” sounded crass and I believe I’m unqualified. But perhaps “spitting lines” implies a level of rap battle preparedness that I’ll never achieve? Because honestly, any amount of rap battle preparedness is more rap battle preparedness than I’ll ever have.)

I mean, maybe I’ve been looking at the situation all wrong: I do have elf-like features and I’m most likely at least part Irish, maybe I’m just a leprechaun. Perhaps this spell of bad luck is just because an evil Irish-dancing leprechaun has made off with my luck, and all I have to do to get it back is beat him in a basketball game (giving real meaning to “March Madness”). But in that case – losing – I’d probably have to spend the rest of my life without my luck (my jump shot is a tad rusty).

Just so we’re clear, I’m this guy:

 

and whatever force is currently harshing my buzz (on life) is this guy:

I mean, there are definitely some silver linings to some of the stuff that’s been going on in the form of compassionate souls, understanding, lessons learned, and general introspection, but on the whole, I am making a mess of everything I touch. Life in general is crumbling around me, all of a sudden. It’s like dominoes. It’s like straws on a camel’s back. It’s like floodgates. Pick your metaphor, whichever is the most disastrous. One thing fell, and everything is tumbling down.

So here I am, trying to weather the storm. (Hah, apparently I’m going for broke on the terrible metaphors today.) Here’s hoping that things calm down and go back to normal soon – I’m ready to go back to the stasis of optimism. This pessimistic peering at the bottom of things is really getting me down. Here’s to a swift return of my luck, of my hope, and of normal.

(Images stolen from the internet – they should link back to their original source.)

On Health, Grumpily

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My body has been trying to fight off a nasty bug for a couple of weeks now, but it finally caught up to me, and so I am spending today in bed with swollen lymph nodes (ew – for some reason those are the absolute worst) and an exhausted body.

I hope that it will be time well spent, because next week I’m headed to New York and I absolutely cannot be sick. Ugh. Here’s to burning sick days in January. (I guess better burning sick days than a burning fever. Fingers crossed.)

 

On the Future, Not Quite Resignedly

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When I was younger, I swore that no house I lived in would ever have white walls. I’ll never forget the textured white walls of each apartment or townhome we lived in. The apartment had that bumpy wall that looked like spray foam. The townhome had the softer walls, the ones that looked like someone had sponged thick white paint onto the wall unevenly.

We don’t have white walls here, except for our basement. It’s white. We’re working on covering the walls with art, posters, flags, lights. It won’t be white for long. Paint isn’t the point. It’s the walls. They’re not white. They are the fulfillment of a promise I made to myself years ago. They are proof that you will not lose all of your childhood ideals as you age away.

I often wonder how much of adulthood is like slow and painful adolescence, where no matter how mature you feel, you’ll look back in the coming years and cringe, shamed by your own misguided, subjective look at reality.

I meant to make a list then of all the things I swore I’d never do as an adult. I’d love to see it, even now, during the second adolescence that is young adulthood, the years sandwiched between your first taste of freedom and the hard reality that you are exactly what you said you’d never be.

I am achieving exactly what I thought I would, and yet, I have come to realize that I am nowhere near where I will end up. I am simultaneously so far forward and so completely lost.

Everything is at your fingertips, the future still looms in front of you, undecided, yours for the taking. It is the promise of a limitless supply of endless joy – available only to you. Beneath the excitement of possibility lurks the ever-present fear of failure. Chance is a terrifying game to play.

Think too much or too little? Failure. Conform too much or too little? Failure. It’s all about the search for balance – work, life, everything that goes along with those things. I’m coming to realize that at first, adulthood is like wearing your Easter dress every day instead of once a year. You’re itchy and uncomfortable, and you’re still trying to figure out why you can’t just wear your Ninja Turtles pajamas. (To be honest, I’m still tempted to put on yoga pants every morning instead of real pants. It’s funny how something as simple as pants can make you a professional.)

(That may have been a terrible metaphor, but I’m imagining little kids looking uncomfortable in their suits. And I’m imagining young college grads looks equally uncomfortable in equally ill-fitted suits. Some things don’t change.)

I got home last night, plagued by the storm of thoughts that comes with trying to rationalize existence and the correct path forward into the looming future, and looked around my house. My room, to someone who didn’t know me, would be appalling: clothes strewn everywhere, my dresser stacked with books, lotions, and jewelry not put away.

The same child who swore she’d have no white walls also imagined that she’d grow up to be the neatest, most organized person who ever lived. (She was very imaginative.) Instead, I find myself grown (but grown up? no) and no more tidy. Apparently, we can’t keep all of the promises we make to ourselves.

I should start making lists. Lists of things I imagine I’ll be some day, and lists of things that I am right now, because I don’t ever want that to slip away, even as I grow and change, the metamorphosis into middle-age happening more rapidly than I could ever imagine.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll start working on making and keeping promises to myself. I’ll try to morph into Monica Gellar, although I have a sneaking suspicion it’s just not going to happen.

Maybe I’ll just have to realign my perception of my future self: instead of being Monica, I’ll just have to get rich enough to be able to afford a cleaning service. They won’t even have to scrub (I can do that), they’ll just have to pick up the clutter I leave in my wake. See? The future looks brighter already.

On Stumbling, Stubbornly

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It happens less frequently now, most likely due to a conscious effort to subdue such thoughts, but every now and again I’m struck by a period of existential crisis which leads to panicky thoughts, hastily hatched life plans, and morose moments spent in soon-to-be tepid bath water, reading material thrown aside and all my focus directed on pink toes turning the taps.

Those toes breaking the surface of bath water form the basis of the physical memories of each experience, but it is the rapidly firing thoughts that mark the turn from “keep on keeping on” to “panic” in my existence. I spent a lot of time questioning everything as an adolescent (to wit, I had a “Question Authority” bumper sticker hanging in my room – right next to my Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker and an Anti-Flag album – oh adolescence). The questioning led me to beliefs that I still carry today, and to the realization that some questions are better left unanswered.

The goals of my early introspection were far grander than they are now. Then, I was determined to seek love and beauty in all things, in the naive belief that arriving at the correct answer would be as simple as stumbling in the right direction with enough stubborn determination.

Now that I am older, immersed in a world that is far more complicated than I could have ever imagined, I see that the root problem revolves around conviction. Convincing yourself of something can be difficult, although true growth requires conviction to move in a singular direction (or perhaps many singular directions simultaneously).

I spend time now mired in the “what if?”, and endless stretches of point and counter-point conversation with myself. I can convince myself of the correctness of both sides of any argument, and it’s that ability that holds me back. How can I move with conviction if I’m not convinced myself?

Which brings me to my current crisis, which has been simmering under the surface for longer than I’d like to admit. It’s terribly important, and yet it isn’t, if that makes any sense at all. It’s the ennui of the daily grind, I think, the realization that I’ve lost focus on the bigger grander scheme of things in favor of survival now. I’ve lost a part of me that is essential to me. I’ve let go of certain dreams in favor of the moment, and even though it is living the moment that keeps us alive, it is also important to chase dreams.

It’s funny how quickly survival now can turn into tunnel vision. It’s not just “now” in the immediate sense, but also now in the same way we used now in Africa – now can be immediate, or it can be later. It could be at any point from now into the future. Survival now for me has become an endlessly repetitive schedule of work, work some more, maybe see some people, date, pay bills, don’t think about anything but this week or next.

But what I’ve lost, or misplaced, is perspective. Perhaps not perspective exactly, but the ability to remove myself – whether it’s objective introspection or a wild fantasy world. It’s the thoughts, the curiosity, the wonder that used to keep me feeling alive. It’s the drive to know everything about everything. I’ve somehow managed to separate me from my future self, and in doing so, I’ve somehow disconnected the forward progress, I think. But maybe that’s overstating it.

I think that I’ve gotten so bogged down with everyday stress and responsibility that I’ve lost the wonder that used to fill me. I often write about wishing that I had time to be bored, and yet, when confronted with time unfilled with obligations, I find myself so overwhelmed by the possibility that I fill it up as quickly as possible.

I was shocked when I read this article in The Atlantic about online dating, because it struck a chord with me. Not necessarily all of it, but the idea that there’s always something else waiting made me start to think about how I approach much of my life. They discuss “perceived alternatives” as one of the three factors that affect satisfaction in a relationship, and it got me thinking, both about dating but also about my own perceptions of alternatives.

I imagine my future self as being entirely different from the person I am today, which is silly, because as I age, I grow increasingly aware of the fact that I am and always will be myself (this is an overwhelmingly positive thing as I’m only growing more and more happy with who I am). Yet, if this is the case and I’ve got my mind constantly focused on the intangible elsewhere that is the “perceived alternatives”, how is it that I’m supposed to start building the foundation for the rest of my life? It’s not something that can be done subconsciously – arguably yes, but is that the sort of foundation you want?

I know that my disconnect is not uncommon. I know that approaching something looming ahead of you as large as the rest of your life is not something to approach all at once. It must be resolved in small chunks. Baby steps, if you will. (You will.)

I think the restlessness might be growing pains, the terror of assuming responsibility for everything you are and the desire to have the fullest life possible. I spent most of last year working on my own perception of myself, and I think that beautifully positive pseudo-metamorphosis is causing me to reach for more and question the path I’ve found myself on for some time now – the path of immediacy, the path of stability, the path of desperate independence. I have achieved my short-term goals: stable employment, home ownership, savings and a retirement account, and of course, my sense of self has been strengthened and renewed. Now, I want more.

I am looking for more knowledge. For more passion. For more wonderment. For new experiences. I am looking to continue the growth period and extend it – ultimately fusing the ideal of my future self into the absolute reality that is current me. I have spent the last decade learning how to live, how to be alive (here I pause to say that living and being alive are two different things, mostly), how to fully embrace myself as a human being and I think it may be time to return to my origins as a know-it-all fascinated by all things in the world around me.

It hadn’t occurred to me that it was intellectual curiosity that was missing until I sat next to a guy on a date and watched as he explained a theorem to me. I realized that I was absolutely fascinated, and even as I yawned against him, exhausted, I was desperate for more. My brain, it seems, has not forgotten what it feels like to learn. It is as though the connections that used to fire so rapidly, the very same connections I long ago set aside in favor of experience, yearn to fire again, to make sense of things, to connect.

I think this time it may be as simple as starting off in search of knowledge that will lead me where I ultimately need to go. I have built the foundation that I needed, created the security that I sought, and now I can push forward, confident in my own abilities. Perhaps I was not wrong about stumbling stubbornly in the right direction all those years ago.

On Nostalgia, Forwardly

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I’m in the middle of a project – and by that I mean I’ve begun something but I have no idea where it’s going to take me – and I thought I’d share a little bit with you:

I spend a lot of time discussing the importance of family, but I don’t spend all that much time talking about my childhood. I wonder if we all lose memories as time goes on. The way we remember is unique, of course, and memories are different for each of us.

For me, memories are a glimpse, like a single photograph stored that will stand in for an entire afternoon. That stagnant picture is often directly correlated to the most emotionally charged moment, be it placid contentment or raucous shouting. Those pictures in my head bring emotions to the surface, but any really tangible details are often swept away, long gone.

My most beloved childhood memories are usually moments of solitude: climbing the apple tree in the backyard to read a book, coloring while listening to a book on tape, digging in the garden.

It’s interesting to see these pictures, and now I understand why photographs are so very important to people. Photographs are the memories we neglected to make, or have lost, or can’t find. Photographs bring us back, jolting us into a moment that our brain may not be able to recall.

When my brother was about 17 – I was in college – he had our favorite picture made into a giant canvas. It now hangs above the mantel in my mother’s family room.

It’s this one:

My favorite thing about my baby pictures is the faces that I make. I’m always moving, or laughing, or making a silly face.

My love of books and distaste for pants is not a new thing.

On Home Ownership, Sulkily

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[We hosted our first sleepover for our little cousins on Friday night. They were so excited to be over at our house, and we were excited to have them. We made cookies (oh god, so much cookie dough) and watched Home Alone 3, which is always a hit. (I laughed.) Also, it’s very hard to explain to an eleven-year old why Macaully Culkin looks the way he does now without mentioning his probable intravenous drug use.

The sleepover was so much fun and I hope we can have them back soon.]

The cards we got when we moved in were adorned with flowers and kind sentiments, probably to build us up before the inevitable letdown that comes with “maintenance” and “ownership” and “responsibility.” I am still beyond thrilled to own land, but as time passes (mind you, the time that has passed thus far is shortly over a month), I am becoming aware of the reasons for that endless list of things to do in and around the house.

The first problem is hilarious. It really is. Our front door won’t open. It’s always been difficult, but a little bit of body-slamming (for me, gentle push in for Mike), plus a swift pull used to make it open. Now, that process no longer works. The door remains shut. We had a party on Saturday night, and people who came to the front door were quickly alerted by the guests in the living room that they had to go to the side door. (Thank goodness for the side door, right?) A friend of mine who came to the house ended up going in the side door and then straight down the stairs into the basement – where I most certainly was not – because he didn’t see the kitchen entryway.

Anyway, we will dismantle the lock and replace it and then we will have a working front door. And on the plus side, no one will be able to burgle us through the front door unless they’ve got serious B&E skills (I mean, if your chosen profession is burglar, hopefully you have better sense than to rob us – you’ll end up with some lawn chairs, IKEA tupperware, and romance novels – not exactly the haul of a legend).

The second problem is less than hilarious. The garbage disposal has ceased to function. (It was already sort of limping through the food mangling process, so this wasn’t unexpected.) Mike took it apart, and then neglected to inform me that the dishwasher drains through the garbage disposal (you learn something new every day), so I ran it and then there was a slight flood. I put the drain pipe into a bucket, so the dishwasher could continue and our floors would be saved. I made him put the garbage disposal back on at least until we can get a new one so that flood situations can be avoided.

Last night, Mike put in a new garbage disposal. It was quite the involved process, but I’m glad to have a brother who’s patient enough to read the directions and determined enough to get it done. Thus, we began the project list.

(Note: I’m not actually complaining about being a homeowner. I mean, I am, but I still like it. But I like complaining just as much, if not more.)

On Being Adopted, Quite Happily

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Sometimes people ask me what it’s like to be adopted, but honestly, I have no idea what it’s like to not be adopted, so I’m never sure how to answer that question.

I never not known that I was adopted.To their credit, my parents did a great job about normalizing the adoption experience. (They adopted my brother and I at birth, so we’ve never known any other family structure.) Both my brother and I were lucky enough to know who our birth mothers are, instead of having to wonder. We’ve always known – there was no awkward conversation when we realized that we look nothing alike.

(My brother is two years younger than me – but he’s been bigger than me since I was about seven. He’s now 8 inches taller.)

(Easter 2011)

My boss, whose four children are all adopted, always says that adopted kids always want to know two things: why was I given up for adoption? and who are my parents? I can answer 75% of that question. I know why I was given up. I know who my birth mother is, but my father will always remain a mystery. Instead of finding myself less curious as I age, I find that my curiosity grows. Not that I’d like to know the man. I have no desire to have any sort of relationship with him.

I’m fascinated by the aesthetics of it all – I look very little like my mother. I do have her double-jointed limbs. I do have the paw print in my eye (which will always remain my favorite part of myself). But I am more elf-like. Where did my nose come from? (She has a very German nose, while I ended up looking like a resident of Rivendell.) I am longer, and pointier. (I have ridiculously sharp ears.) My coloring is different. We are very similar emotionally, spiritually, and share similar energies, but outwardly, we share little, except shapes of our chins and eyes.

My mom used to tell me that when I was little, I would be talking, and she’d turn around expecting my birth mother to be standing there, because my tone and what’d I’d just said sounded exactly like her.

Granted, it’s not always such a rosy, happy love fest. When I go the doctor, and they ask me about my family history, I shrug. And it makes for some complicated emotional stuff. As much as I’ve been loved, I’ve also had to deal with an immense amount of family turmoil.

I love that we have such a connection. I am glad for it, but at the same time, I’ve never felt the immensity of the mother-daughter relationship. (This isn’t something that I’ve ever necessarily wanted or assumed or expected.) I hope that makes sense. I felt a wave of jealousy rise through me when my brother got to be with his birth mother and birth father for lunch earlier this year. It surged through me, really. Mike’s birth mother is active in my life – she likes my posts on Facebook, we’ve been playing a word game together on our phones, she sends positive loving comments my way all the time. I’m so glad I got to keep her, too.

At the end of the day, I’m glad for the extra mothers in my life. I’m glad for my birth mom, I’m glad for Mike’s birth mom, and I’m glad that I get to have both my mom and Mike to keep forever, even if they are the worst guys. I’m glad for the love, and for the magnitude of support and acceptance from my family. I’ve never felt like the odd one out at family gatherings. Mike and I always had a hard time in middle school pulling the “you’re adopted” joke on each other, because if he’d say, “Oh yeah? Well you’re adopted!”, I’d respond with, “So are you!”

Mike is fascinated by the nature vs. nurture question, as am I. The two of us grew up in the same household, yet we are nearly complete and polar opposites. We love comparing personality traits with our birth mothers and our mom. We laugh because when I’m mad at Mike, I use the “mom voice” exactly like our mom does. That’s definitely a nurtured behavior.

My birth mother gave me a book, “Guess How Much I Love You,” when I was in third grade.  A part of me will always be the Little Nutbrown Hare reaching up into the sky, trying to find more ways to show his love. I read that book to the kids I babysit sometimes, and I always tear up. Being loved so much that I got to have this life is overwhelming.

I got to see her this weekend. (I’ve seen her twice this year! That’s the most in any year ever!) It was wonderful. It was so wonderful. This is the woman who gave me life, who nourished me and took care of me when I was a tiny cluster of cells. She loved me, even though she’d never met me. She held me after I was born. She chose my parents, my future family. She set me off running in the direction that my life would take. I will forever be grateful.

I love that I was adopted. I hate the unknowns, but I love the wild speculation. And should I ever meet anyone who looks like me, I will be thrilled. I love that I have a spiritual connection with my birth mother that no one will ever take away. It’s the paw print. It’s the protection. It’s not something anyone else will ever understand.

I’m not sure how I’ll look when I’m 80, or whether or not I’m genetically pre-disposed to anything (except breast cancer), but I do know that I’ve got a good head on my shoulders and that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be and that I am loved. And that’s enough for me.

On Statistics, Criminally

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Yesterday’s Harvard Business Review Daily Stat (article abstract here) irked me, and I’m not sure why.

Car-wash attendants who cleaned the interiors of automobiles stole loose change 30% of the time, but the rate doubled if the driver had left a beer can and a racy magazine in the car, say Ronald Burns, Patrick Kinkade, and Michael Bachmann of Texas Christian University. The experiment suggests that you’re more likely to become a victim of petty crime if would-be criminals see you as more socially “deviant,” the researchers say.

 

 

 

 

 

I think it has to do with the fact that I disagree (at least, I think I do – this is a dumb statistic that lacks significant real-world application, even though they’d like you to believe that it’s totally applicable to all crime).

I’d also be curious to see what a study would say about how criminal car-wash attendants would react to my car. Chances are I wouldn’t even notice if anything got stolen, or that no car-wash attendant would go so far as to even disturb the clutter out of fear for their life. (This is why I rarely get car washes – I don’t want anyone random to see my clutter. It’s just like that scene in 50/50 all over again. When I got a flat tire last summer, the attendants at Discount Tire assured me they’d seen much worse, but I think they were lying because whenever I say that to someone, I’m lying through my teeth to preserve what dignity they have left. It’s just like, “It happens all the time.”)

But seriously, are criminals more likely to target criminals? What if it’s just that people who leave beer cans and porn in their car are more likely to have spare change lying around? I mean, that’s obviously not a clean car to begin with. And someone who forgets porn is probably more likely to forget their spare change. (Ew, but at that point, would you want to touch the spare change?)

It is true that you’re more likely to have crime happen to you if you’re involved in crime. If you’re a drug dealer, you’re more prone to being robbed or shot. As someone who probably has shady characters in and around your house at all hours of the night, you’re essentially welcoming an element of society that’s more prone to crime against you since they’re already involved in crime.

But as a criminal, does this prove that you have some semblance of a conscience, as shown by your choice of victims? Are you more discerning? Do nicer cars have better spare change?

I feel like this study begs more questions than it provides answers. Do nicer cars have less change because of the propensity to charge purchases? What does the amount of change in a car say about the driver’s spending habits? Will car-wash attendant theft decrease as we move away from being a cash-based society? Can we quantify criminal behavior just by looking at car-wash attendants? (Of course not, that was a dumb question.)

On Being Boring, Reluctantly

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I saw an article about being boring on Facebook about a month ago, so I clicked on it. Sure enough, I am boring. It’s official.

I crave me-time. The single-Katie that lives inside of me is thrilled by the prospect of nights spent with a hot bath and a good book, or visits to the library to wander through the stacks, filling my arms with more books than I can possibly read in three weeks. I’m also thrilled by thought of having endless amounts of time. Time to do what? I don’t know. Peruse the thrift stores, organize things (pssh, that’ll never happen), paint my toenails more than bi-monthly.

I haven’t jumped naked into a body of water other than my bathtub since 2010, and even the bathtub can’t count as jumping – it’s more a careful stepping to avoid slippage and broken bones. (All I can see in my head right now is that commercial where the elderly people have the bathtub that has doors on it. Is that next?!)

I don’t drink like I used to. (Note to all people: this isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a departure from my typical habit of a responsibly enjoying a gin and tonic or four with my friends and then going dancing on a semi-regular basis.) Weeks are going to turn into months and then pretty soon I’ll be sipping non-alcoholic beer in a Chili’s wondering what happened to my life. Alternately, I imagine that I’ll have two martinis at a corporate event and be so overcome by the reintroduction to alcohol that I take off my pants and/or throw up in the punch bowl.

(That scenario is entirely unrealistic. The worst drunk me ever does is jump into bodies of water – Lake Michigan, I’m coming back for you, I swear – or get belligerent and lecture strangers about anything from feminism to sexual health to politics to sports. South Boston, I’m sorry for the things I said about Belichick, even though I was not wrong.)

I make excuses about doing laundry (Jacob calls me out on this all the time) so I can go home and run a hot bath and relax. I work too many jobs to ever be hung over. There’s no room for naps or excuses or anything else. I got excited to print out IRS forms last week. I signed my very own homeowner’s insurance policy. But wait, it gets better! It’s bundled with my brand new auto insurance policy. Oh, bundling was exciting!

Ready for the worst part? I’ve been listening to oldies. At least, I was until Kool 105.1 started playing holiday music. Since I’m holiday-averse, I immediately plugged another radio station into my #5 preset in my car. Once the new year begins and the nightmare that is ever-present Christmas music ends, I will reset #5 to Kool 105 and I will revel in the disco-tastic awesomeness that it is.

8 Signs You Are Becoming Boring

NOV. 8, 2012

Disclaimer: I write this list in full recognition of the fact that I am a freshly-minted Boring Person myself. This is a space of no judgment, only facts.

1. You see students out having fun and are exasperated.

It starts with the high school kids. You see them out at the mall, scowling at things, drinking their energy drinks and just generally being assholes in front of the Pacsun or the Hot Topic. You think, “God, what irritating little warts. Good thing I was never 15,” and then carry on your boring way to go get a loofah at Bed Bath and Beyond or whatever you are there to do. Then you see college kids, getting rowdy in a bar, potentially using terrible fake IDs but still getting away with it because the bartender is cool and they want the money. Despite the fact that you, too, used a fake ID just a few short years ago, you are filled with righteous indignation. “Wait your turn, you brats,” you long to say, “Go drink 4 Loko in your bedrooms until you turn 21, like God intended. The bar is for people with jobs.”

2. Your idea of fun has become staying home with some blankets and your computer.

There is just something so profoundly beautiful about having a whole night ahead of you with nothing planned but Netflix, perhaps some tea or wine, and chilling out in your jammies under your covers. It is a state of such deep relaxation, it can occasionally reach near-orgasmic levels of joy. Add a little take-out Thai food to be eaten while still firmly in bed into the mix, and you have the makings for a night that would beat a club opening hosted by a nude Ryan Gosling and a snowblower full of free money.

3. The only thing keeping you from being obese is being lazy.

There are so many times when you are overwhelmed with the desire to go a few blocks over to get a big bag of McDonald’s or a Frappucino made out of what appears to be vegetable shortening, or simply a king size candy bar (king size, of course, because if you made the trek out there you’re not going to just get a regular-sized Snickers like a peasant). But then you think, meh, that would require leaving the apartment and turning off this episode of Dexter and putting on something other than a Snuggie, and then it’s just like fuck it, I’ll eat these carrot sticks I have in my refrigerator. Who knows how many potentially-clogged arteries were spared out of sheer will to remain a hermit.

4. Staying within budget is not a problem.

There was once a time during which you were truly concerned about spending too much money on things like extravagant nights at the bar or too many dinners/lunches at restaurants, even moderately-priced ones. It seemed like the most efficient way to burn a sizable hole in your checking account and find yourself unable to comfortably make rent at the end of the month. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that actually extracting yourself from the comfort of your apartment every once in a while and finding something worth spending said money on may actually be the more pressing issue, as you are quickly adhering to your pajamas and learning through real-time evolution how to blend your skin in with your patterned bedspread.

5. You are excited when people cancel plans.

I think we’ve all had a moment or two where you are sitting there, not at all pumped to go to this social outing that you agreed to (it’s not that you don’t like the person, you just don’t like having to go outside right now), when all of a sudden they call you with the thrilling news that they are unable to make it! It’s as though the heavens themselves have parted and shone a light down on your lazy, boring ass personally to sing to you with the voice of a thousand golden angels “Fear not, for you have a few more hours of dicking around on Tumblr ahead of ye.”

6. You prefer to go to the same restaurants, ordering the same foods.

One minute, we’re these adventurous little sprites of youth and excitement, ready to go anywhere and try anything at the drop of a hat. The next, all we have to do is call our local Chinese takeout and, through only seeing our number on the caller ID, they are downstairs in five minutes with the exactly what we want, right down to the extra soy sauces. When I was a barista, there were many customers for whom we could prepare their drink only seeing them walk through the door. I used to think that they were silly, that they should try to expand their horizons. Now I resent the fact that no one knows me well enough to make my extra-hot grande soy latte when I walk in the door.

7. Literally any plans the following day make going out a hassle.

How is it that you used to be able to stay up until 6 in the morning doing crystal meth and running naked through a forest of pine needles and still be fresh as a spring flower for class the next day, and now you have to really weigh your options about going out for dinner if you know that you have to be up by 10 the next morning to go pick something up at the dry cleaners? How is that possible?

8. People are no longer surprised when you don’t do things.

In your transition from “chill person who is down for pretty much whatever” to “boring-ass hermit who has a minor panic attack every time the bar they’re in gets too loud and full of amorous college students,” you will notice a time frame in which people still hold out hope that you will prove to be the social butterfly you once were. They will try in vain to extract you from your home-pod, thoroughly disappointed when you don’t accept. Now, of course, they don’t expect you to come out to their various parties and gatherings — they know that you, like any society diva who is so in demand on her own futon, have a lot of potential nights to choose from, and it may just end up being ice cream and The Price Is Right reruns. TC mark

Read more at http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/8-signs-you-are-becoming-boring/#GGSColeKRzqPdQbB.99

On Socks, Mostly

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I’ve had a draft about my new word for 2013 all put together and nearly ready to go since late last week, but I’m just not feeling it 100% – and I’m thinking about whether or not I really want to embody that word for a whole year – so instead, you’re just going to have to deal with a random collection of thoughts for the evening.

I’ve been watching Monday Night Football with Mike tonight as I help him with his homework. Up until recently (a year or so ago), I was convinced that the Washington Redskins were from Washington. Like, Washington the state in the Northwest. Like Oregon, but not. I was shocked to find out that they’re from DC. Who knew that DC had any real sports team? Mike says the Nationals and the Wizards, and now I’m shocked again. I mean, that Nationals are of course going to be from DC. But the Wizards? I’ve always imagined Michael Jordan sitting in a Seattle coffee shop. I’m going to have to change that mental image, I guess.

Huh. I also think of RG3 as the guy with the Superman socks who speaks so highly of his mother. My mom and brother really liked him when he was in college, and that’s all I took away from watching interviews with him. Socks and respect for his mother. I mean, those aren’t bad things in any way, but it’s too bad I couldn’t have walked away with some solid statistical knowledge.

Next, nail polish. I’ve been trying to embrace nail polish. I always have some on my toes (but once it’s on, I wear the same color until it’s chipped off), but I’ve been hesitant to keep my fingers polished. Why? It takes for-ev-er. I’m really great at twitching and painting the entire top of my finger as well as just the nail, and then getting fidgety and scratching the nail polish before it’s dry. It’s frustrating and it makes me feel silly and incapable. So why keep trying?

Well, when the internet gives you a sweet deal on fun colors, you take the fun colors. I just googled them now and found out that the fun colors I got a few weeks ago are vegan. This is sort of awesome. My LVX colors arrived in the mail just before we closed on the house, so I quickly painted my nails a color called “greige,” and then ran to the closing. Of course, later that night and over the course of the coming weekend, I’d dip my hands into paint that was blue, green, gray, and black, so by the end of it, it was less greige and more multi-colored. But tonight, I tried again, this time with a soft gray-green called Avireo. I’ll report back to let you know how successful this endeavor turns out to be.

I went to the library tonight! Using my newly rediscovered library card (still no fines! adulthood and responsibility are awesome!), I ran up to the library to grab a book. The internet lied to me – something that’s never happened before, ever – and the book that I wanted wasn’t on the shelf, but I found another by the same author and then picked up two more. We’ll see. One of my goals now that I’m a bit more settled is to spend more time reading. So I figure that frequent trips to the library will keep me engaged and excited, or at least not bored.

Mike has finals this week, and had to write a current events paper. So, as usual, he defaulted to South Africa and I got to flex my underused journalist regurgitation muscle (not as gross as it sounds) and reconstruct the saga of the South African platinum miners who were massacred by the South African police in August.

I love that Mike has the opportunity to reuse his South African experiences for his classes. It’s one of those things that’s always applicable to studies, whether they’re political, social, economic, etc. Instead, I’m that weird girl at the bar who’s like, “This one time….in South Africa….” It’s disheartening to see that the country seems to be backsliding into chaos, both politically, socially, and mostly, economically. But oh man, I miss it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of something South African.  I so badly want to go back. I want to take everyone with me. I want to have tea with my host mom and hear her laugh and her threats to hit me with the wooden spoon if I don’t wear socks in the house.

(For the record, the new house is wonderful, but has a very cold basement. How cold? I’m wearing socks.)