2012: Year in Review

So much for my triumphant return to blogging - right?

Ugh.

As it turns out, I don't really have the time at work or the mental wear withal to blog after-hours at home. With that said, though, getting back up on the ole' blogging horse is near the top of my list of resolutions for 2013 - yes, I'm one of those annoying people who makes New Year's Resolutions - blogging is just below "keep my purse neat" and above "exercise regularly." Great priorities, eh?

But, I digress.

Tomorrow is the first day of 2013 and I CANNOT believe it. It feels like it was just New Year's Eve 2011 leading into 2012 (around 11 p.m. when I was falling asleep ((NOT DRUNK)) on my best friend's living room floor. A note: I was not the only one.) This year flew by and so many wonderfully amazing things have happened. I can't even remember them all, so here's my "Best of 2012" list for your enjoyment.

(Forgive the spastic listing - I came up with it in traffic.)

Favorite TV Show of 2012: Breaking Bad - I love you dearly, Jesse Pinkman, and being able to follow you on Instagram now, my obsession with you and jealousy of your perfect blonde fiance have both grown exponentially. Walt, you got anotha' thing comin'.

Favorite TV Quote: "Yeah, bitch, MAGNETS!! OH!" -Jesse Pinkman, Breaking Bad, Season 5 - 'Nuff said.

Favorite Song: Pyramids by Frank Ocean, Channel Orange - Probably listened to it 8,000 times.

Favorite City Visited: St. Louis, Missouri - Pretty city, lots of great food.

Favorite Movie: Argo (Or Lincoln - but Ben Affleck pushes me over. Don't judge.) This potentially could change after I see Zero Dark Thirty/Django Unchained/Silver Linings Playbook.

Snack of Choice: Chips & salsa - The problem is once I start, I can't stop.

Favorite Wine: 2010 Runquist R Petite Sirah, Clarksburg, California at The Tasting Room in Reston, VA - Smooth, buttery, flavorful.

Favorite Beer: Flying Dog Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout - Such incredible flavor, I could drink it all night.

Favorite Gift Received: J Crew dress from David for our two-year anniversary or hand-painted His-Hers wineglasses from my sister Mariah!

Favorite Quote: "In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present." -Lao Tzu

Favorite Moment: Walking out of the NRA for the last time ever ever ever - The angels flapped their wings and sang loudly. Also file this one under "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me."

Funniest Moment: Any and all spent in/around the "Vangasm" in Nashville, Tennessee - Driven by none other than a Ron Jeremy look-alike and his Playboy bunny.

Favorite Outdoors-y Activity: Reaching the summit of Old Rag with my besties!

Favorite Nail Polish: OPI "Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not"



Most Hated Lifeguard: Mr. Cool from Lin's summer pool - I want to punch him this minute.


Favorite New Thang: Vinyasa yoga - OM.



Favorite Meal: Pork Belly and cocktails at Poste in Washington, DC. - I want it now.

Favorite Homemade Meal: BLT Pizza with Goat Cheese Sauce - Drool.

Favorite Book: Bloom by Kelle Hampton - By the time I die, bet I will have read this book 500,000 times.

Favorite Meme: Better put three rings on it.

Farthest Distance Traveled: 2,400 miles to Las Vegas, Nevada - Worst business trip ever!
 

Favorite Joke: What do you call a fake noodle? /// An impasta'   - ZING!

Favorite Reality Show: No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain - Wish he would adopt me.

Favorite Purchase: My red, new-to-me Toyota Yaris - Beep, beep.
 
---
 New Year's Resolutions:
-Keep my purse clean - I am a slob.
-Exercise more - join a gym!
-Blog more!
-Do a better job of keeping my house clean.
-More girl time!
-More traveling! - Would love a real vacay this year!
-Boundaries! - Always need improving.
-More of above - Say NO more - Mean it and stick to it.
-Volunteer more!
-Read at least a book a month - speed reader!
-Eat more toasted everything bagels with cream cheese, lox, tomato, capers, and red onion.
 -See more concerts.

Have fun tonight and be safe if you're venturing out. We're headed to a late beer pairing dinner with friends. Looking forward the fresh start of a New Year!

Party on, Wayne.


Best Hair Moments of 2012:

 

Minute Memory

Trying something different here, so bear with me. If it doesn't work, I owe you a beer.

---
It happened easily enough. Too early in the morning, too early to function let alone answer emails, I sat behind the wheel, steering myself to work. Simon and Garfunkel were singing about wanting to go home. I could relate. God, I love this song, I thought. It faded a minute or so later, the cover of the album sliding off of my screen. A new one appeared just as quickly and immediately, I recognized it. Doubt I’d ever really listened to the whole track before, doubt I’d heard it since hearing it for the first time six years ago, but instantly, it all came back to me.

---
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full.
I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

---
The ship was long and sparkling white. I stood before it on the dock, feeling like Rose Dewitt Buckater, or some equally important person, also with three names but without the fashionable hat or look of dread. I was eager in a borrowed baseball cap.

Anxious to get away from the shoreline, to flee my life after a first year of college that brought other firsts, confusion, pain, growth. To establish myself outside of the boundaries that had been drawn for me and to rest there on my own two feet. I was ready to be reassured that I had made the right choice in my relationship. Ready to get to know the man my sister called her boyfriend. Ready to re-learn my sister, to catch up on all of our lost time. To slip back into the role of little sister, to be protected and spoiled, and to be the one who makes a few mistakes for a change.

When I leapt from the edge of the platform into the interior of the ship, I felt that I had been granted long-awaited access to “the big kids’ club.”

There were four of us—my sister and her boyfriend, me and mine. We settled into our rooms, and learned where we would sleep and eat, where adults would probably not want to go, where families with children were not allowed go, what to do if this ship went down, too. It was all far too much like Titanic. Like a dream, just the same.

---
Regrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

---
We ate stately dinners in the stately dining room. We toasted with wine, three of us, only my companion passed on the alcohol. It makes me laugh to look back now and see how he, this 20-year-old college student, turned down free alcohol for five whole days. An anomaly, for sure.

We walked the length of the ship late at night, peering overboard into the water rushing below, black and glassy. Thinking What if I just jumped? What if I slipped? We felt so powerful aboard the ship, but as the waves beat against the sides and the wind whipped hair across our faces, we tried to ignore how the water would ravage us, leaving nothing behind.

Deep inside our staterooms, without even the smallest thread of light shining from under the bathroom door, we felt the eternal darkness of death. Of invisibility. We acted accordingly—as if those were our final hours, breaths on earth. We fell heavily into sleep, the four of us emerging into the  piercing sunlight sometimes as late as noon the next day. Cursing ourselves for sleeping in on our one, glorious vacation, but just the same quietly satisfied. How deliciously adult we looked and felt—lounging by the pool on the top deck with hangover headaches, sipping beers and people watching.

---
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.
I've had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

---
After dinner, we found seats at the back of a small theatre for karaoke night. My sister bought me drinks, enough to make up for lost time, to make us feel some manufactured sense of connection we would eventually grow into. Before long, I felt the warm burning of alcohol in my cheeks. The elevated silliness of a drink I only knew about from Carrie Bradshaw. With Cosmopolitan rolling down my throat, then my arms and legs and neck as liquid slipped over the edge of my glass, I felt just like her. So grown in the black halter dress that still hangs in my closet.

Ship guests traipsed on and off the stage, suffering (themselves and us, too) through renditions of songs by Aretha Franklin, The Village People, Cher. It was all a little cloudy, but sharply came to attention when a short, slim older gentleman sauntered onstage. Under a mess of white hair, he told us it was his 80^th birthday. I cooed how cute he was. He wore a suit and called out to the crowd that he was sorry for the “old geyser” song, but he thought he’d sing us his favorite. The music began and he started slowly, eventually catching on to the flow of the lyrics, letting his voice deepen at the end of the each line, solidifying “I DID it my WAY.” Pleading with us to understand years of bad decisions, other women, missteps, loss, misplaced anger. “I did IT MY way.” He played around with the inflections as each verse came and went, and I believed him. He had done it his way.

By the end of it, tears were rolling down my cheeks. Lightweight, somebody joked.

---
To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
"No, oh no not me,
I did it my way."

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!*

---

While the memory is as vibrant in my mind as it could be, it would be silly to suggest one sweet senior at karaoke night changed me forever. That sitting there, newly 19, with a cocktail buzz or more, curls in my hair, a man’s triumphant song of a life well—or at least defiantly enough—lived crawled inside my brain and started shaking things up. Pushing and pulling levers in my subconscious with the recklessness and randomness of youth.

But six months later, I walked away from the comfort of doing it one way—a good way, but not my way. I woke up in a panic, placed my feet on the floor and made a decision, my own, for the first in years. I scribbled out the plans that had been set for me; I gripped the pencil more tightly with my fingers and drew my own course. I will let others down, I told myself, accepting it. I will disappoint you to make myself happy. Scratching everything that came before, the roles I had stumbled into and stayed too long, and starting over. Refusing, like Rose, to hang on to something that had already been sunk—slowly drifting away at first, then more quickly, more steadily, slipping below the surface, down and down, further and darker, until it reached its final resting place on the ocean floor.

The screen changed again; another song came on. Alone in the car, I awoke to the sound of Leonard Cohen’s voice.

*Frank Sinatra “My Way,”1969

 

 

Back in the Saddle

End radio silence.

I'm back, snitches.

By my count, it's been at least 8 months since I last wrote an entry. SURPRISE! I'm 8 months pregnant right now and about to pop any minute! We're naming him David Junior. Just kidding. But, hey, it could be true and that's how sad my blog abandonment has been. Side note: I don't have the stomach for juniors, seniors, teen-years, etc.

Here is a list of things that could be to blame for not writing:
-Pregnancy (see above) Also, an aside--I apologize for all of this pregnancy talk. I promise you I'm not pregnant, nor am I ready to be, but--YES--everyone else and their mother (BUT NOT MY MOTHER) is, in fact, pregnant. Lawd.
-Broken bones
-World traveling
-Loss of fingers
-Writing a NYTimes Best-Seller
-Too tired
-New life in my brownstone in NYC
-Amnesia, forgot how to type
-Aliens landed and zapped all computers
-Mid-life crisis

Look, it's all somewhat true. Somewhat. But in reality it's the same as everyone else says: I've been busayy. 

On the wings of angels with trumpeters trumpeting and cherubs slapping their roll-y thighs with glee, I departed the NRA for the very last time in early April, and changed gears with a new position as Managing Editor for an association publisher in Alexandria, Va. 

I wish I could tell you it's been wonderful.

But, really, it's been FABULOUS. It feels so refreshing to be challenged again, to be pushed beyond my skill set, to be told "figure it out, and let me know how it goes." I feel I've grown more professionally in the last few months than ever before. I feel energized to be working with a close-knit team and to be already receiving positive feedback from clients. I'm thankful, so thankful.

The rest of it was pretty much a quiet, home-bound summer. Pups that get crazier by the day. Wedding planning and celebration with a dear friend. Date nights. A new car. Family time. Yoga. Beers. Lots of take out. David grew a beard. I turned a quarter-century old.  Simple and sweet.

Also, David gained some major weight. Just kidding. #iwish

The new job kept us at home a lot this summer, and the lack of vacation after a long year and lots of long days was hard but good for us. We were able to take a step back and realize just how lucky we were to be able to take trips and travel, get a little break, in the past, and we look forward to future trips now more than ever. Ideally, we will get to do some traveling in early spring (Spring Break '13, anyone?!?!) but we will just have to wait and see.

Cabin fever, much?!

October is National Down Syndrome Awareness month, and Breast Cancer Awareness month, and hubby's birth month, and my dear friend's wedding month. It will be busy, busy but I'm looking forward to this last breath of the year, before the craziness of the holidays washes in over us and consumes every waking hour. I'm hoping to steal away for a few hours to help support and raise awareness for these two causes that are very near and dear to my heart. Oh and that little thing about the election being one month away. A few things to do about that too.

If you made it this far, I want you to know I'm glad to be back here again. I hope you are too. Who know's where we'll go from here, but I'm thinking, as always, it'll be a wild, wild ride.

Stay tuned.

xoxo

All Things Good & Holy

I don't have much to say these days, all I can do is show you things I love. That's where I'm at, folks. Sorry for the radio silence.


This is hautemamasfaves on tumblr. Love the name, love the mama, love the sensuality, colors, vibrance. Love it all and want it all. (Beware: Sometimes boobies make an appearance. Breathe, my fellow Americans, just breathe.)

Essentially hautemama just posts everything she loves in long streams, and I, in response, die.

And this SONG. You haven't heard it until you've heard it from Bonnie. Keep playing it over and over and over again.





Prepare yourselves for me to have these glasses (and another pair, too): (But not this orange, I don't believe in this orange)

If you're sick of hearing me talk about Anthony Bourdain, please go away. I love him too much to appropriately convey with words. I want to watch his show in bed forever. Here he is eating a 'dog. I want to be eating a 'dog with him. He has made me a more aware and more adventurous eater. He's pushed me out of the same old, routine foods I always order, and enlightened my whole approach to food. Also, hello, we are both obsessed with pork. SO, if you asked me today what my dying wish would be, I think it would have to be sharing a meal somewhere exotic with D and Anthony Bourdain. Then, I could surely die a happy, happy gal.








This photo. I can't stop looking at it. It says so much in such a sweet, quiet way. Quiet intimacy. So breathtaking.

Breaking Bad en ce moment: Jesse is sober and I am loving it. Favorite character, for sure. Sober looks good on you—hubba, hubba, little man. <3

This hair. I need it now. Chop chop, shorter on top. 

Funk Investigation, also on tumblr. I am so taken with the visual-only approach to social reporting right now. The style of here is what's "right now." I have always loved the power of a photograph, and it seems more and more they are being used on the Web in a flash-bang style to make you feel something as soon as you look at it—a chill up the spine, a tightening of the stomach, a deep swoon at the very core of you. This is all very new to me and I grow more and more obsessed with it everyday. This is the coffee table book of my generation, with pictures that rotate off the page as quickly as they roll on. (Beware the F-bomb)




Lastly, here's another song you need to listen to immediately. Adele covering Bonnie Rait's "I Can't Make You Love Me." Dammit it, Adele. Dammit. 

An Airing of the Grievances

The time has come for an airing of the grievances, and answers to the questions that keep flowing in.


Q: Are you guys really thinking of moving?
Q: Why am I just finding out about this?
Q: If not here, where?
Q: Do you know there are, like, NO jobs anywhere else?
Q: Why?


A: Yes
A: Because it just sort of happened
A: We don't know—if David has any say it will be south, south, south
A: Yes–likeohmygod
A: Because NoVa just doesn't feel like home—it's too busy, impersonal, congested, plain, busy


We don't want to move because we're lonely or don't have anyone to talk to—in reality we have a number of really great friends who live nearby and who are very dear to us. We go to dinner parties with them, we see movies with them, we go to karaoke and out for drinks and ice skating and afternoon shopping trips with them. We watch football with them, when there's football to watch. We even have a small group that we see and have dinner with once a week. We have a church that we attend regularly. We have some family less than an hour away. We are surrounded by love, plans circled on the calendar, things to do, people to talk to. So that's not the problem.


We don't want to move because we think we can find better jobs somewhere else. The truth is there probably isn't a better place in the country right now to find and obtain a job. This place is teeming with them, in many different fields. We are confident that we could find other positions in this area—whether or not they would be exactly what we want to be doing—but it's just that we're not sure that we want them. We know that. We know we can't, theoretically, make as much money somewhere else, or be as career-driven, or as busy. And we don't want those things, we've realized. We don't need to be living in a gated community or driving luxury cars. We want to earn enough to provide for our little family.


We don't want to move because we think it's impossible for us to be happy here. That's silly. What makes us happy is being together, bottom line. No we don't live in an ideal area, or an ideal house, or have the most earth shatteringly exciting jobs right now, but none of that is it. The busyness, the congestion, the weather, the isolation of NoVa is just what we've come to find about it. It is nice to have every store imaginable nearby. It is nice to live 5 minutes from the airport. It is nice to be able to "do city" one day and "do mountains" the next. I know. Plenty of people are happy here. Even we are happy here in our own little way, because at night we snuggle up on our couch and go places—in board games, in conversations, in movies, in our favorite shows, in documentaries. We travel together, and talk along the way, we talk falling into bed at night, we talk in our sleep. We talk, nose-to-nose, when we wake up in the morning. We're happy, we're just not sure we want to be here right now.


That's it. We think we want something different for a while. A change.


Last week my mother told me: Geographical cures rarely work...


I know that. I thought. Don't you think I know that?


The problem is ... there is no problem. Doesn't a cure require an ailment of some sort that needs fixing?


No, it's not fixing, mending, that we need. It's adventure.


You told me we needed that, too, mama. Do you remember?


Not why. Why not? We don't have children or plans to have children for at least a few more years. We have three dogs—they are our biggest handicap. We don't own a house—we would be happy to leave our cute little dumpy townhouse. We are in a position where we can save up money over the next few months. We have work experience. Plus, we're young'ns. At every possible opportunity, someone reminds us of how young we are, how much life we have left to live, how little we really understand of what's really going on. And we know you're right, we're not offended by that.


We just see it as an "If, Then" conditional concept.


IF we are so young, with so much life left to live, with so much time to screw up and put it all back together and figure it all out, THEN why not go? Why not move to a city, a state where neither of us has ever lived before? Why not meet new neighbors, walk the streets completely blind to what is the norm, what is expected of us? Why not live somewhere that has a climate we enjoy—no snow, warm temps, sunshine. A place that has its own culture, not just lots of diversity in place of an actual culture. A place where people are kind and welcoming. Where we know the names of the people who live next to us. Where there is a sense of community that is greater than just knowing where the local community center is. What is it—what is it exactly that we want? Why not just go and find out? Free, for once, of the burden of knowing everything. Free to get lost. It sounds so good, doesn't it?


It's not a complicated thing, I get that. It's just most people only talk about it and never do it. We think we want to do it. We are talking about doing it. Whatever happens after that is all up to the man upstairs.


Stay tuned.

Thankful?

I'm noticing a trend. The older I get the harder it is to ease into things—life changes...weather changes...my old jeans... and especially the holiday season. When I was in college everything was organized into class periods, semesters and breaks. Everything was easier. Back then, the end of the fall semester meant it was Holiday time! I could easily shift into preparation for Christmas music, home-cooked meals, wrapping, shopping, family time. By the time I pulled my rusty old Volvo onto Treys Drive in early December, I was ready for it.


Everything is different now.


I am unprepared for the sights, sounds, moods of the season. I sprinted through summer, was jolted by a lovely Florida vacation at the end of it, then got slammed by fall's indecision—warm days blended with cold, windy, rainy ones—never knowing what I'd get on any given day. All the while I was buried—whether it was during weekly work hours or on weekend time—mentally stuck under the stack of articles waiting on my desk, the never-ending to do list that got new additions by the hour.


Now we are four days out from Thanksgiving. And I'm not ready. Not ready to tie up loose ends at work as best as I can and let it all go for a four-day weekend. Not ready to pack up my bags and head over the mountain. Not ready to cook and scramble for hours, to trek over to my Great Uncle's and see 50+ family members waiting to hug and catch up. I'm not ready.


I'm not in the mood. I want to hibernate until winter is over. Hide under pillows and blankets dark and heavy enough to keep all of the light out—at least for a while.


It's not the holidays themselves—I love them. I love the cheerfulness, the togetherness, the decorations, the traditions. It's not my family—I'm obsessed with them, and I miss them dearly. It's not even money or lack there of—because it's not about that.


It's that I don't feel thankful. 


I feel tired, overwhelmed, annoyed, unbalanced, unavailable, preoccupied. I know I am beyond blessed, but I am stuck in this I'm-not-ready-yet mindset. I just need some more time. I wish I could make time slow down—give me some of my weekend back, give me some of my morning back, and maybe I'll be fine. Give me back a month until Thanksgiving, two months until Christmas, and that just might do the trick.


I don't want to phone in another holiday. It's not worth it. It's not fair. But with the ability to adjust, adapt, I've lost the ability to psyche myself up at a moment's notice. There is no pep to be found in my step, there is no silver lining to spot with vision so foggy. So I go back to basics, the way I was raised. I go back to pen to paper, to pushing until some magic happens, to laying in the dark counting my blessings to bring on sleep.


***
I'm thankful for my amazing husband who is also my best friend. I'm thankful for a supportive and loving family. I'm thankful for my sweet dogs. I'm thankful for my job because even though it brings me down, it still puts food on my table and provides for my family. I'm thankful for my friends who listen to me and encourage me, and make me laugh. I'm thankful for my church and all of the ways it lifts me up. I'm thankful for Diet Cokes and corny jokes that help get me through the day. I'm thankful for my country—even when it lets me down so much that I ache inside. I'm thankful for people who believe in something so much that they're willing to stand out in the cold in protest for it. I'm thankful for warm socks that don't have holes in the toes. I'm thankful for unexpected shopping trips with my mom. I'm thankful for picture messages of my beautiful younger siblings. I'm thankful for an iron and an ironing board reviving the homemaker in me. I'm thankful for basic human compassion. I'm thankful for women who wear the pants. I'm thankful that books are back "in." I'm thankful for good health. I'm thankful for women and men who have the courage to serve in the armed forces that protect our country. I'm thankful for caller ID. I'm thankful for free coffee. I'm thankful for the amazing bloggers who give me a sneek peek into their lives and provide so much inspiration. I'm thankful for people who take a stand for the health of their families and maintain healthy diets and active lifestyles. I'm thankful for our humble abode. I'm thankful for soft tissues. I'm thankful for anything edible that involves pumpkin or sweet potato. I'm thankful for honesty, even when it hurts. I'm thankful for nervous/excited butterflies. I'm thankful for comfortable heels. I'm thankful for my faith. I'm thankful for photographs and how they sometimes capture memories better than a person can. I'm thankful Colin Firth was born. I'm thankful for unexpected kindness. I'm thankful for the ever-present hope inside me that keeps me from ever totally giving up, from believing the worst, that I'm not worth more, because it keeps me going with the promise that there is something bigger out there. Something better.


All l I have to do is stop comparing, dwelling, obsessing, complaining all the time, and just live for today, and then tomorrow, next month, at the start of the new year—go find it.

Life Is Too Short

Oh, hey. Where have you guys been? I've just been waiting here to post something but no one showed up so I just went and did some other things, like dishes, and... OK. You caught me. I've gone and done it again; I've been cheating on this blog with a sly fox of a fellow called "real life." A portrait of our love looks like this:

But I had enough. I told him to bugger off and leave me to my little world of cheese and cuteness.


****
I have been preoccupied with thangs. Work thangs. Cute husband thangs. Dogs up all night thangs. Friends being happy thangs. Other thangs. I'm done saying thangs now.

And, yes, if you were wondering I AM forcing myself to blog today.

This morning I hopped my hiney out of bed at 6 a.m. as my alarm told me it was time to get up to work out before work. Before—did you hear me? Do I get a medal for that or something? Probably not, because the rest of the story is: I stumbled to my phone, slapped the snooze button on the screen and yelled—to no one in particular— "Life is too short!" as I threw myself back into bed and cuddled up to D. "Life is too short!" I yelled, excusing myself from working out today, something that will likely keep me healthy and kicking for a lot longer? Something is not right in my head.

I've been of the dog-tired sort lately. As most people expected, work spiraled out of control with the loss of two staff members, and I disappeared into all of it for a while. Into the mess of way too much to do and not enough time, enough man power, enough sense to do it all. I took on 3 jobs, welcomed a promotion in October, kept chugging along—stressing out, forgetting to take deep breaths, getting pimples—and juggled and juggled. A replacement for one of the positions started on Monday, so I've been enjoying the pace of a just-two-job day. I have time to come up for air, etc. I have time to peruse wedding sites, which is great timing because my perfectly wonderful dear old friends Emily & Jake just got engaged last Friday!!!!

Aren't they adorbs? After 6 plus years together they are tying the not! Wahoo! Party time! (And that's not even ALL, the day after they got engaged Emily ran her first half-marathon—making her a bride-to-be and a champ!)

Other than taking deep breaths, and cheering for my friends, I'm not quite sure where I am right now. I think I am just standing (sitting) here breathing for the time being. I am gearing up to start over again—to commence the job search, the excitement, rejection, exhaustion, interviews (hopefully) all over again and hope that this time I'll be one of the lucky ones. I've watched a few dear friends leave this place over the past year and while I have been so happy for them, it's been hard to be the one left standing, breathless. Walking empty quiet halls, keeping my head down until 5 p.m., missing the jokes, the joy I used to have here that made the work day a little easier to bear. 

I still have the feeling that I am on the verge of something amazing. A new chapter. A fresh start. And whether that is just another chapter of our lives, or a new career chapter, I am hopeful about what it will bring, the peace that will come with it. I feel like I've been emotionally running on empty for far too long, and a new set o' wheels might be just what I need. 

Life is too short, and so is the window of opportunity I had to compose this post. The phone is buzzing, the new guy is hovering in my doorway, the Inbox counter on my email is flashing a new number in my face every few seconds. All of it calling me back into the world of work, and I don't want to go, but I will—for now. Getting through today for the promise of something else tomorrow. Sticking around here so I can get there—eventually.

That's enough for now.

My Punch Line

Of the strong suits that evolved as I grew from a young girl into a woman, self-confidence was just never one of them. I am a walking, talking "What do you think she really meant by that?"—self-doubting and self-loathing punch line. I have made myself the punchline of the joke of my life. That's not to say that my life is a joke, but that if my life were to be represented by one joke, I would be the punch line of my own joke of my own life.

Are you with me?

I don't think I ever asked for this, don't think I wrote in scribbled crayon letters, right below requests for light up tennis shoes and pillow pets, "Dear Santa, Please make me a punch line." Perhaps, in the comments section, my mom can even back me up on this. But none the less, it happened. Whether from mixed-up relationships, anti-social tendencies, negativity, geographical location or air pressure, I became a cutter of emotional proportions. To set the record straight, I am a tall, smiley 24-year-old who is married, gainfully employed and somewhere in the middle weight-wise when it comes to big girls. I have three loving dogs, a massive and loving family (and family-in-law), supportive friends, a good sense of humor. I'd like to think I'm kind to others—though David may dispute that ;)— but it's kindness, compassion to myself that I struggle with. I am not in denial about who I am or where I am, I acknowledge these things hourly, as the minutes pass me by, and I accept that I am not a failure, a flunky, floozy or a fatty. (Sorry, that just felt right.) I am also not in denial about the way I treat myself internally, and how true it is that I need to change. Because for too long, I have taken that self-consciousness and turned it all into a joke—Oh, it's no big deal, it's fine, I don't care—when it is a big deal, it's not fine, and I do care, a lot. I can't call the other person on this or that issue, so I will just make a joke of myself.

No need to feel inferior: I am a frumpy, oversized 24-year-old with a boring life, 100 bucks to her name and a dead-end job. I might as well be 50! Ha!

Whatever you have accomplished is far more important than what I've done: Everyday I go into a job I'm not crazy about and let those cowboys walk all over me! Ha!

You look great in that new outfit, I love your shoes: Here comes disheveled Lia, holes in the elbows of her sweaters, holes in her shoes, stains on her shirt. Ha!

Your opinions are probably more informed and significant than mine: I'm just here, taking orders, doing what's expected of me, staying in line. Go ahead, I'm listening! Ha!

It's not funny anymore.

Self-consciousness, on a surface level, could seem like the most opposite of self-involved or selfish, but lately I can't help but feel they are more similar than you might imagine. You think of the self-conscious girl—knobby-kneed, wearing glasses, big teeth, awkward—and then the self-involved girl—impossibly thin, white teeth, good hair, graceful—and that might be an accurate depiction in most cases, but that doesn't mean the thin graceful one is any more selfish than the other. You see, all these years I have been acknowledging my self-consciousness and rejecting the idea that I could also be selfish. The two are on opposite sides, right?

Not so fast. How can I honestly say that being self-conscious—everything you own makes you look frumpy, why can't you be a better sister, your hair sucks, why can't your stomach be more toned, you don't get what you deserve because you won't stand up for yourself (because you suck)—is not just all about me. It's not about struggling to achieve world peace, or shuttling orphans from war zones, it's about how I feel about me. How other people respond to me, how that, in turn, makes me feel about what they might feel about me. It's the "me" show. I take things too personally, because, well, my self is the number one concern on my mind. I can't make a big change, because my own oversized body is sitting on my potential.

Am I making any sense?

Can a gal be her own major problem and the solution, too? I know I need to make a change, to the find confidence, self-worth and pride that is inside of me, and let it all flourish. But first I have to get out of my own way. I promise I don't suffer from multiple personalities, I understand that this is not a me-myself-and-I situation, but it sort of is. Because it's no one's fault but mine, and the person it is hurting most is me.

I'm ready to stop feeling sorry for myself all of the time, like all of the eyes in a room are on me— scrutinizing everything I do, that each of my coworkers is slumping down into his chair and sighing at my ineptitude. I need to stand up taller, maintain eye contact, be proud of my accomplishments, my wit, even my figure. Embrace all of it, embrace myself.

I am worthy, I am no punch line. A girl with a few jokes, yes, but a walking punch line? No, not ever.

Stream of Consciousness Post

-Vacations should be done away with. I really mean it. For working people, that is. There should just be two groups of humans: the workers and the vacationers. The workers would never have to come back to work after a blissful vacay, and the vacationers would never have to deal with work stress. It'd be perfect...as long as I'm a vacationer.

-In lieu of employee departure #2 this summer, I have been given (among other, many other, things) the task of posting to our Facebook & Twitter pages. The extreme levels at which my fake enthusiasm comes across in posts is scary. I mean, SCARY. "Check out this cool new gun! You can surely kill something with it, I bet, if you wanted!"

-For people who are plagued with a sweet tooth (as I am), that whole mouth/throat/stomach/body ache that occurs after drinking a Diet Coke and munching on a few SweetTarts should be outlawed in all 50 states. I cannot help that I have no self control. The self, in fact, has no part of it! It is that rolly polly voice in my head.

-Bug bites should never take place while in bed, because when they do, the bitten has no choice but to quietly freak out, rub Cortizone cream on every 20 minutes and believe she has indeed come in contact with bed bugs. And somehow, because of her rotten luck, will end up the first human bed bug-related death. (The bitten has not really come in contact with bed bugs, she is sure of it. She thinks.)

-Glitter nail polish is great because when it chips, it is busy enough that no one (except your OCD self) can really notice.

-H&M clothing was not made for anyone with boobs, hips or long and pointy limbs.

-I finished two books while on vacation. "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler and "Gone Tomorrow" by P.F. Kluge. Both were good, "Gone Tomorrow" was really good, made me think a lot about teaching and writing as a whole. I have had the itch (bed bugs, bed bugs, bed bugs) to start writing seriously again ever since I put the book down.

-Can we all just agree that, if you don't have something of worth to say, you shouldn't say anything at all?

-In the past week or so I've had the strongest desire to move somewhere new and fun and exciting. Not sure if this place really exists. I told Dave I think we should do it while we still can, before we have kids, and jobs that we are too in love with to leave. We agreed that if we're not in a better place (house-wise, job-wise) by next June we will seriously consider just picking up and moving. But where?!

-I'm reading "Water for Elephants" now, it's kind of sort of keeping my attention, but barely. I see the writer on every page, in each conversation—she needed to pull back, way back. I wish I had been her editor. ;)

-I keep hearing this voice in my head (a normal thing for me) that asks: What are you waiting for? I don't know what the answer is yet. I know I want David by my side, I know I want to be editing and writing, but what else? What am I waiting for? I'm scared hard work will dissolve into years that I waited too long, and sat around thinking something would fall out of the sky. My biggest fear is regret—that I could have had what I deserved but didn't do enough—that one more thing—to achieve it.

-But I really mean it about the sweet tooth thing.

September 4th by David

*Guest Post by David Dangelico

On September 4th, 2010, I married my best friend. Now, almost a year later, I can’t believe how much we have grown. How could I have made the leap then without knowing what I know now? Love gives you a confidence that is unparalleled. When talking to my dad about marrying Lia, he told me never to forget that love is not one person giving 50 percent and the other giving 50 percent, it’s both of you giving 100 percent. Now that I look back on our first year, I realize that he was absolutely right, and that the only person who I would be able to do that with was indeed Lia.

Marriage is a bizarre thing. So many books, movies and songs deal with the subject matter, though nothing can really prepare you for it. No self-help book can teach you how to be a good husband or wife. No movie can unlock the secrets of a man’s mind. No song can teach what is in a woman’s heart. These things are learned from experience and experience alone. Everyone is different in his or her own strange and beautiful way. On September 4th, 2010, I had no idea what I was getting into. All that I knew was that I wanted to get into it with Lia.

As a kid growning up in Wilmington, NC, I always tried to picture who my wife would be. Some famous person I assumed (because, of course I would be famous as well). We would live in New York or LA, I would be making movies, and she would either be acting in them or working on her singing career. Life would be awesome because we would be loaded rich doing crazy things. I would have an enormous swimming pool in the backyard and have a convertible parked in the driveway. It would be perfect, the life of my dreams.

But I got something better. I got Lia, the most real, honest, funny, and smartest person I have ever met. We are not famous; we get to eat our humble dinners by ourselves without being bothered. We don’t have an enormous house in which we would get lost and hardly see each other, we have a modest townhouse with one couch that is just slightly too small for both of us to lie down on (even though we do anyway). I don’t have a lavish car in the driveway, I have a car that is just slightly unreliable, thus forcing us to share a car at least once a month and carpool to work. My life is not the life of my boyhood dreams, but it is most certainly perfect, and I would not choose any other.

They say that the first year of marriage is the hardest, which excites me to no end. Sure our first year had its fair share of disagreements, maybe even a fight or two. But overall, it has been the best year of my life. And they say it is just going to get better? Well then I’m gonna say something that will most certainly make Lia roll her eyes:

Hell yeah!