Strangers

There is this guy I work with that I'm always discovering new and interesting things about. A few weeks ago I found out he was doing his own research on how the relationship between nationality, age and gender plays on tip ratios. He's up to about 800 tables and is looking to stop at 1000.

On Christmas Eve I learned that he's been keeping a daily journal for the last 6 months. He wakes up early every morning while his family is asleep and writes 3 pages a day. He told me it took him 3 months before it became a habit and when another co-worker complimented his drive, he mentioned something about life only being worth it as long as you're trying to improve yourself.

It's something I've heard a thousand times over but every time its uttered it still catches me off guard.

What type of life are you leading if you're not going to try and continue to improve it?

That's what this blog was supposed to be. An improvement on myself (or at least a gesture). And I've failed myself and you three readers. Sorry about that.

But "HI! I'm back!" A little now maybe a little later.

Just gotta figure out how to get photos on here again.

Oh Baby Baby...

Lately I can't get away from my baby brain. It hovers like a cloudy haze over every single one of my thoughts.

Thought:
"My 28th birthday is coming up"
Future fetus thought:
"You're not getting any younger"

Thought:
"Our kids are going to be gangly and awkward and have horrible overbites and glasses"
Future fetus thought:
"Shut up. You know I'll be adorable."

Thought:
"We barely have enough money to buy groceries for ourselves, how will be able to feed another human?"
Future fetus thought:
"Hi, look down at YOUR BOOBS. Also I'm not opposed to sleeping in a dresser drawer if you can't afford a crib for a few months"

Thought:
"What if it's broken?"
Future fetus thought:
"Look in the mirror and go ask my grandma"

Thought:
"We're not ready"
Future fetus thought:
"You're never ready for anything and as previously mentioned, I'll be adorable"

Future fetus thought:
"Your body will ultimately win out over your mind!"

Even though it's right, future fetus just got strait up creepy there.

Anyway, in a period where we're (my current peers) all feeling a little stifled by the "Jones's" I thought I'd come up with some reasons why I should be happy I'm not yet harvesting a parasite.

Reason 1: There are very few things better in life then freshly made cookie dough. Which I'm eating right now. And sure two giant spoonfuls of raw egg will probably give me a stomachache later but for these next few moments life couldn't be better.

Reason 2: I may hate coffee, but I NEED caffeine. I've limited my intake to one pop a day but I seriously can't live without it. Seriously, it keeps the migraines at bay.

Reason 3: I hate vitamins and I hate breakfast. Vitamins taste like the fertilizer department of home depot and I'm just not into eating when I first wake up. I have nothing against actual breakfast food, it's just the idea of consuming food before 10am isn't worth it.

Reason 4: Last week for lunch I had a Slurpee and a Slim Jim. I threw it up after 3 bites but that's not the point.

Reason 5: I am married to a chef, which means most of my time is spent doing whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. Right now I don't have to give up me.

Reason 6: Even though I forget often, 27 is still young enough to have fun.

Reason 7: Since I'm currently between semesters and jobs, I can wake up at 1030 or stay up until 3am. I can nap in the middle of the afternoon. I can act exactly like a baby without actually having to be one!

Reason 8: Conversing and identifying with my friends is hard enough (since I'm married), lets not widen the gap.

Reason 9: I got my new passport in the mail today. I can travel to Europe without having to drag around a 9lb sack of potatoes that happens to eat/barf/pop in perpetual cycles.

WIN!!

(I'm sure I'd make a good mom though.) Shut up brain.

girls say what?

I have no idea why I find this so funny: http://hellogiggles.com/shit-girls-say?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shit-girls-say&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I love holiday seasons (1991)

Rockin the side ponytail. Jelly?

Remember when I used to blog? Oops.

Lists lists lists....

Growing up, I never had an answer to what everyone considered the most important question. I could never visualize concrete images of my future self. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" was only ever responded with a shrug or a slightly sarcastic "I dunno, happy?" After enough years and enough frustrated sighs from my parents I began to believe that NOT knowing what I wanted to do forever meant I didn't know how to want things. So when I was 18 and sitting in my first community college course, I wrote down all the things I wanted to do.

2002 (*completed)

- Dye my hair (blue/orange/purple) - Pink*
- Go to roller skating hall of fame
- Take road-trip to California and/or Maine
- Take an award winning photograph and sell it for big bucks
- Write a teen novel
- Meet a movie star
- Find a person to take me to a place in which I can wear beautiful gowns/dresses
- Go to or participate in a modeling shoot
- Let loose, dress like a "hoe" and go clubbing
- Have a fling
- Have a storybook romance
- Invent a way to get rid of stretch marks
- Travel and live in Europe for a summer
- Spend a month being a vegetarian
- Date an artist or musician for short time
- Make-out with R, M, D , A, J and T (though not at the same time)
- Become a doctor
- Own my own business
- Work as a waitress in some greasy diner
- Become a master chess player
- Learn to bartend
- Learn how to surf
- Be a fashion editor
- Work on a movie set
- Try out for Broadway
- Learn to drive stick-shift
- Learn to shoot (a gun/bow)
- Take another dance class
- Own the roof of an apartment building
- Become some sort of icon who is later put in history books
- Sky dive, scuba dive and learn to dive
- Make an amazing tree house for my future kids
- Travel out of state on a motorcycle
- Sunbath nude
- Learn to cook well
- Swim with dolphins
- Skinny dip
- Participate in a ball
- Look amazing at my class reunion
- Figure out which finger I'll put my wedding band on
- Go to/on SNL
- Have 3 or 4 kids
- Figure out which University I want to go to
- Make-out with someone I don't know
- Visit NY again

I've been caring it around in my wallet for almost 10 years. In 2007 (at the five year mark) I made a new one.

2007 (*completed)

- Live in CA/CO/the south/Europe (and own homes accordingly)
- Visit Canada and Iceland
- Learn Italian
- Get my own column
- Learn the rules of hockey
- Create (great) art
- Write grandma's story
- Learn more about my heritage
- Change someone's world
- Go hot air ballooning
- Get a perm
- Write a book
- Get married
- Make a movie/get involved with one
- Learn to play set again
- Surf again
- Have kids
- Read more
- Gain weight beautifully
- Urban Outfitter's an apartment
- Travel once a season
- Exploit someone's talent
- Own a motorcycle
- Be in a wedding party
- Save yourself
- Have a tire swing and hammock
- Test out different religions
- Go fishing more often
- Write more letters
- Go paint-balling
- Run a company

Now as were about to enter 2012 I feel like it's time for a new one. Something to remind me that feeling/or being lost doesn't mean you have to be depressed about it.

Stay tuned...

90s Kids

This makes me happy: http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/10-things-90s-kids-will-have-to-explain-to-their-children/

Foul Play

The Hubs impression of my sexy talk (all "mee mee's" are to be pronounced much like Beaker from the Muppets)

"Mee mee mee my family me me you're a nice boy me me your parents me me me your cat died!"

Hahaha. Poor guy.

Harshest Critic

I don’t have an audience yet and I think that’s why these entries are abrupt and strange and not really saying anything. I don’t know how to tell a story because I don’t know who I’m telling it to.

I’m writing to the three people I actually gave this address to.
I’m writing to strangers that might stumble upon it.
I’m writing to the people that I know ,that might read it one day.

How have I not gotten away from this yet?

Hi. I love you.

: So this kid that used to live down our street and graduated in my sister's class, was always kind of ... pudgy to say the least.

Anyway.

He's super effing hot now.

and i think I have to defriend him on facebook now.

: hahahahaha

: So that I can stop lusting

Am I the "queen of filth" ?

I now know that one of the most difficult aspects of marriage is that you don’t always like your partner. Love? Of course, always. But like? Some days it’s just not that easy. What complicates this for me is that my husband never seems to feel that way. Sure we’ve gotten in fights but he never actually says “go away, I don’t like you right now” or look at me like I’m a complete stranger or ever say anything he wishes he could take back.

And maybe this is because we’re so new at this game or perhaps he’s just better at concealing it then I am. Occasionally I wonder if it’s really because he doesn’t know me at all.

When we were first dating and he was working at the same restaurant as a mutual friend, he would always get asked why I said certain things or acted a certain way and every time he would just respond “she’s just like that” without a hint of distaste. Just 100% accepting. My husband ladies and gentlemen, a modern day “Westley”

Westley from the Princess Bride.


Alan, skeptical of my comparison.


When people ask me about him, I always say exactly who he is that day. Annoying? Sure. An asshole? Some days. Adorable? Always.

Am I a bad wife? Worse a bad person because I’m the first to expose this? Or am I just being a typical woman?

Puppies!

Just because...

Here's a video of puppies!

http://teddyhilton.com/2011-11-19-a-video-of-labrador-puppies-in-slow-motion-is-probably-the-best-thing-ever/?from=PH

"There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon..."

It snowed for the first time a few days ago, the kind that falls like stars at hyper speed. I was driving to an old bar I used to frequent for one of my oldest friends birthday party (more on that later) when this song came on “One and Only - Teitur“ followed by this song “Wedding Dress - Matt Nathanson“ (coincidentally off a mix said friend had made me as a wedding present). And just like that, cue movie montage of my romantic history in picture perfect winter settings.

Suddenly I was standing in a parking lot with my hands jammed in my pockets watching him shiver as I worked up the courage to finally tell him how I felt. I was leaving light footprints leading up to his and watching his face light up as we stood there under the lights of that dingy theater listening to the snow fall. I was breathless and warm in the front seat of his truck after seeing each other for the first time in a year. I was gripping tightly to the edge of a hot tub not caring that my hands burned from the cold as he pulled me closer. I was listening to him laugh as I’d tried to pass him the puck on that frozen lake. I was screaming and laughing when he tackled me during a game of “Power Ball.” I was brushing snow off my pants as he put out his cigarette. I was burying my head in my coat as we sat in the parking lot waiting for his car to warm up. I was holding his hand inside my pocket and resting my head on his shoulder as we stood there looking at ice sculptures.

In reality, I was sitting at a stop light on Crooks and none of those memories were with the same person. I like winter, but I love snow. It makes my life romantic and my feelings pure and real. It makes me remember first crushes and falling in love. It layers the dark death of fall with a light blanket of silence. Unlike summer that is full of impulse and lust and recklessness (which I’m also quite fond of), moments in the snow give me something so much deeper.

Considering I only talk to one of those guys now, it’s been a long time since I’d thought of some of those memories and it felt good to go back even just for a few minutes.

“You could never publish my love”

Today’s entry is about inspiration or lack there of as it seems. I promised someone that I’d update every Monday/Wednesday/Friday and I dropped the ball this week and only updated Monday.

Once upon a time I actually called myself a writer, back when I actually wrote. Here’s photographic proof:



It seems like a lifetime ago. I don’t know how I had so much to say back then and why I don’t seem to have anything to say now. I’ve often just chalked up to my assimilation into a boring life. To maturity. But the other day she told me something that makes a lot more sense.

“Your writing has changed, you’re afraid now.”

She’s right. I am and I said I would try not to be when I started this blog, but here I am still finding it impossible. Everything I’ve written that I’ve been proud of has been of thoughts/feeling that are incredibly close to my heart and inevitably hurtful to others. Which of course is not my intention. I’m not a malicious person. Though I'm sure malicious people don't exactly walk around introducing themselves as such either, so you're just going to have to believe me with that one.

I am however very very careful with my own emotions. Feelings are fleeting and irrelevant to solving issues. That doesn’t mean I don’t have them, I’m just less inclined to project them on other people. On more then 4 occasions I’ve had different men in my life say “I didn’t know you got like this?” when I’ve burst into tears over whatever in the middle of a winter night reflecting on my life. People don’t except outward emotions from me. They except condescending humor or shyness or facial expressions that tell the exact opposite of what I’m feeling or polite smiles.

Thus putting my actual feelings into words on a blogpage is too real, too permanent, too hurtful.

People only want to read about how amazing they are, how they‘re affecting other people. Nobody wants to read about their flaws, but you find some in the details.

Unfortunately that’s what I see. The details.

I want to write about my marriage but will he or you read it and think I’m going to leave him. That somehow the truth will make me love him less?

I want to write about my family but will it crack our relationships?

I don’t even know why I care so much. Why I'm over thinking this whole thing. Why can’t I just create a tumbler or have a blog with inspirational quotes? I want to get better and promot my admiration for the people in my life but I also don’t want to be afraid of pointing out how they make me feel at times.

People keep telling me to write a book and I always ask “about what?” because what makes me so special? What makes my life book worthy?

Answer: Everyone else in my life. They make me better and I hope if they ever read anything that might make them doubt it, they’ll remember that.

Luck be a lady

I'm a huge age-ist. I'll admit it. Barely a day goes by that I don't commit some form of age-ism in my head or more accurately with a look of total distaste wiped across my face. What is age-ism you ask? A fun word I made up (I'm too lazy to check urban dictionary right now to see if its already been done) and only hyphenated so you could see what I was trying to say. It depicts the act of judging people based on a specific expectation I've assigned for each age. Whether it be through emotional control or accomplishments or gestures toward the future. I am hardest on myself.

I'm comfortable with this because I know you do it too. Without fail at every birthday starting at the age of 20, people seem to relish in the idea of wistfully talking about what they've yet to accomplish or thought they accomplish by now or all the time they have left. EVERY single birthday.

That being said, this is all complicated by the strong idealism I have tied into the 1950s/60s/70s working woman.

When I was younger I always imagined I'd have some sort of magical transformation where I'd be pose and dignified and have beautiful shiny hair. I would wear heels and pencil skirts and drink martinis and generally appear mature to passers by. I would no longer be aimlessly wandering through life trying to figure out what I wanted to be "when I grew up" because I'd already be it. I also imagined it would happen somewhere around 25-30.

So far, no such luck.

Attempting to get into the Master's program for Education is making it more and more apparent. Last Saturday at 7am, I showed up to one of my many required standardize tests. I showed up in my pjs and with a pencil in my hair. I stood outside in the freezing cold with people 7 and 10 years younger then me. Then after listening to announcements inside a middle school social studies classroom about the proper way to fill out scan-tron bubbles, I fell asleep at my desk. It was as if being inside a middle school again pulled me back 15 years. Ugg boots and sleeve marks on my face is not exactly the woman I envisioned myself to be.

What I wonder is, does this woman even exist now? In a current society where we're holding out for selfishness or to live under our parents safety nets longer then necessary, where we're entirely too afraid to make all the choices we're so privileged to have, have we lost sight of our responsibility to act like actual adults? More importantly have I?

What's stopping me from buying fancier clothes, from donning aprons in the kitchen, for getting rid of my sweatshirts and finding the perfect balance between classy working woman and feminine fatale (did I mention I also imagined myself being a badass)? Hell, for having simple pride in myself and the image I project? Have I ever had it in any kind of materialistic shallow way? There's no arguing that plenty of photographic evidence proving I haven't exists, so how do I get there? How do I uphold the expectations that I hold onto so tightly for others as they age, with myself?

Aging and maturity doesn't mean you have to turn off the cartoons (seriously, have you seen Phineas and Ferb?) or give up sprinkles on your ice cream but maybe it should mean you stop wearing your pajamas in public. At least for me at least.

Ode to Chipotle

I could eat Chipotle every other day for the rest of my life if I had too.
I could eat it in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse, here and there. ANYWHERE.

Which is very strange considering the following:

Everyone in my family has very specific and peculiar eat habits. My brother for example won’t eat cheese, mash potatoes or butter. He mainly lives on a diet of bagel bites, can ravioli, Slurpee’s and slim jims. Then again he is 19. My father won’t eat anything with raw eggs in it or anything deemably (how is that not a word?) healthy really. Though he does love raw fruit and veggies. He just prefers most things covered in gravy. My sister won’t eat anything off a bone and we all consider seafood the end of a joke (as in “You like seafood?” “See FOOD” -mouth open) instead of an actual editable substance. My mother is the only one that will eat anything put in front of her. She is the last of six children, being picky wasn’t an option. Why and how she’s catered to all of our bazaar choices, I’ll never know. Honestly, my mom is a great cook and we have done nothing but ruin her.

My eating habits have always come in waves mostly having to do with textual distaste. I’ve gone through phases where I’d ask for McDonald’s hamburgers without meat, then six months later only eat the meat and discard the bun. I was 5. I used to hate peanut butter, now I eat them with a layer of potato chips. I spent 3rd-5th grade eating bologna and mustard sandwiches everyday. 6th grade I had chocolate milkshakes (with vanilla ice cream of course) every day after school for a year because my grandma thought I was under weight. I used to melt cheese in a bowl and eat it as a snack. I spent 7th grade having warm pretzels for breakfast and ketchup and mustard sandwiches, nestle crunch bars, string cheese and a can of pepsi for lunch. Everything else I just gave to my friends. I generally hate milk. By high school I stopped eating breakfast all together and had mash potatoes and French fries for lunch. I had Wendy’s three times a week for 6 months during drumline (Hi I’m awesome!) season junior and senior year. My only real consistently healthy balanced meal has always been dinner when my mom cooked.

Things that have always remain:
-I hate fruit. I’ve watched people eat fruit my whole life and craved to be able to grab an apple, a handful of grapes or peel an orange and enjoy the deliciousness they seem to get from it. I just can’t do it. Bananas, oranges, strawberries, etc, they all make me gag. Every single time. So I eat applesauce and orange juice without pulp and am perfectly content.
-Discounting my love affair with chocolate milkshakes (with vanilla ice cream of course) I would be perfectly fine if dessert didn’t exist. I don’t crave it ever. Waiters will walk by with their giant tray of desserts and every other person at my table will about fall out of their chair to get to it. I will make chocolate chip cookie dough and brownies so I can have the batter. Whatever cookies actually make it to the oven, I give away. I only eat two types of candy. Three types of ice cream. One of kind cake. I’m a sorry excuse for a woman.
-I am weirdly OCD about meal times. I can only eat breakfast before noon or half drunk at 2am. Otherwise I just as soon not have it. I think I’ve just always enjoyed lunch/dinner types food so much more and knew I’d get in trouble or risk diabetes if I had pop at 10am.

I could go on but I’ll spare you the rest of my won'ts.

After I moved to NYC everything changed. Overtime you’ll come to think that I romanticize my time there, but I’m here to tell you that I’m not. Not even a little. NYC and the K family saved my life, rather showed me I could have one without feeling bad. It was one of the best relationships I’ve even been in and I will feel nostalgic for that stupid city forever. Anyway, Courtney & Chris were the first people to show me you actually have a relationship with what you eat and that it can be awesome. They showed me that there was more then one type of bread and cheese and that iceburg isn’t lettuce. That hamburgers can be made with turkey. That you don’t need tomatoes, a nestle crunch bar, pickle slices, a milk shake, chips and a can of Pepsi to accompany your grill cheese. Chris taught me how to sharpen a knife on a back of a bowl. They made me feed their baby tofu and dill. They taught me about olive oil. And an in effort to please these people that were so amazing to me, my pallet opened up little by little every day. They taught me to open up to the world and generally stop talking advantage of my mother who used to buy me boxes of full size Nestle Crunch bars from Gordon Foods because at least I was eating something.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good batch of popcorn for dinner from time to time…ok more then I’d like to admit. I still have awful eating habits, I’ve just learned to be less stubborn about it and more pretentious instead. Yay!

The humorous part is that after such a sorted history with food, I married a chef. An adorable “I’ll eat anything once” guy. Though to be fair, he wasn’t a chef when we met. When we were fresh and new and inappropriate he would call at midnight to tell me he was outside my apartment and we’d drive 30mins out of the way to a Thai restaurant where I would get whatever variation of beef, brown gravy, peppers and white rice I could find and he’d pick the most bazaar thing on the menu.

Fried pig intestines for example:


And he loves desserts. He would eat sugar at every meal if I let him.

Here he is eating a spoonful of wedding cake frosting with M&Ms stuck in it.



We are opposite in so many ways. More on that another time though.

I am one giant digression.

What I’ve been trying to say is that one spring afternoon in midtown, Courtney and I went to visit Chris at the AP office and they pulled me into this Mexican joint and I panicked in line about what to order because I’ve never really cared for Mexican food and didn't want to disappoint them. So I got the same thing that Courtney did and thus began my love affair with the one and only Chipotle Mexican Grill.

That’s what this blog was supposed to be about. (Opps. In a few months I’m sure I’ll be short and boring.)

After that afternoon I started mapping out all the subway stops closest to any Chipotle location. I went there A LOT. Two years later when I moved back to MI, I thought it was fate that the chain went national and that they had decided to put a location not far from my parents place. With all of my quirky eating habits I can still eat there every single day and not notice and be just as in love with it as I was the first time. When I’m not that hungry, I have tacos. When I’m starving I have a burrito. Lately I’ve been on a bowl kick. Occasionally there are chips involved. I have probably spent $1000+ there now over the course of 6 years, but I can’t stop.

And I don't care.

See yeah, it feels bad now but it's gonna get better...

We had unprotected sex last night. We do it a lot that way. I used to be a huge fan of condoms. Scoff at the idea of never using them and was always increasingly cautious of what type of diseases I could acquire without one. Then I met the man I married and everything went downhill. On a particularly emotional day after a funeral, I got reckless and stupid and gave into everything I knew I shouldn’t. After that there was no looking back. Suddenly I couldn’t stand the sight of them, the smell, the fact that they came in flavors. I was repulsed. So I got on the pill and then another and then after four long years of feeling like I’d lost my mind I finally got off them. We tried condoms again but they still didn’t work for us. I thought about an IUD but have heard enough horror stories and know my own body enough to be confident I’d be traumatized for life. Plus I just wanted my body to get back to it’s original state, to even remember that it had one. So now we’re on the “sometimes pull out, but mostly use the calendar/cross your fingers and pray to God I didn’t miscount” method. We’ve been on it for over a year and I haven’t had a single scare. I neurotically pee on pregnancy tests all the time just to be sure. Sometimes I worry one of us is sterile, other times I’m so convinced I’m pregnant I break out in hives. So far neither of those thoughts have proven true. I really don’t risk it that much. I know my body and I have a long cycle. One of my best friends is every 22 days exactly. Every month right on schedule. If she even breathes near semen she’ll end up pregnant. I’m more of an anywhere between 32-38 day kinda girl. There’s a lot of leeway.

Anyway.

We had unprotected sex last night and I didn’t care. I didn’t care what day it was on my chart. I didn’t care if I got pregnant. I just didn’t care about anything other then being close to him. We’ve been fighting on an off for the last three days and I want to rip my hair out. Though everyone else in my life will argue the contrary, I loath arguing. It’s petty and stupid and usually both people are saying the same exact thing just in two different languages. And yet, everyone consistently tells me that I have to be right about everything. I often try to explain this away because it infuriates me. Telling me I always have to be right is a pansy ass way to back out of an argument. I just have a very particular way that I do things, it is not a matter of being right about doing or deciding on anything. I have always tried really hard to listen to what people have to say, to let them defend their reasoning and to be brave enough to tell me when I’m being an asshole. I am stubborn and I know this. If you can’t give me a logical or an emotional enough reasoning to provoke empathy or change, I’m going to continue to do things the way that I want. After all you do things that you want all the time, why can’t I?

While stubborn, I am also extremely sensitive to peoples reactions. I try to brace every decision off of what I think they might feel or think before I say or do it. You can stop laughing now. I really do this. That doesn’t mean I’m not careless or impulsive with my words on occasion. I am and will always be. I can’t help it. I’m socially retarded. I will hurt your feelings in a sharp swift manor that will leave you breathless and angry. I will offend your very core because I will tell you the truth. I’ll barely register that I’ve done anything wrong and you’ll be so shocked you’ll stop speaking to me all together. And it is 100% my fault. My fault for surrounding myself with the emotional, my fault for assuming you have any sense of self awareness, my fault for not expecting you to take me so seriously, my fault for thinking you actually believe in your convictions, my fault for thinking you understand anything about me, my fault for misinterpreting the definition of maturity. My fault for all of it. BUT if you can’t defend yourself then what the fuck am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to change for the betterment of your psyche? If you’re calling me 6 months after the fact and telling me you’re upset about something I did, if you’re calling my parents long after I’ve moved out, if you’re flat out yelling at my father while I’m sitting oblivious 3000 miles away…well I’m sorry, but you’re an asshole.

I thought he was different. I thought we understood each other on a basic level. He never used to hold things in or give up or end arguments with “fine great you’re right and I’m wrong once again” or let his insecurities get between us.

Ok. That last one is a lie.

So here we are. At an impasse and now I’m wondering how we’re supposed to continue because I thought we were over it. I thought maybe if my words couldn’t sway him then intimacy might. And afterward I laid in a state of coked out bliss thinking we were perfect again but he ruined it all by calling me a “crazy baby lady” as if I thought getting pregnant could save us from this stagnate state. The next day we fought again. This new apartment was supposed to lift me from the doldrums of the last place but now I’m not so sure. The brighter the space the easier it is to see the cracks in both of us. Is that too dramatic?

I hate fighting.
I hate it even more when you start an argument and puss out in the middle and make me feel like an asshole for having character. As if I’m not allowed.
So I’m sorry for not being sorry.
You want to fight with me, then fight with me and if you can’t win then do the gracious thing. Please.

Sigh.

He and I have always been two people on to different roads trying to get to the same place. The different “road” was what amused and attracted me to him in the first place and that “same place” was always why I knew we’d be fine through whatever we wanted. He has always made me stable and I would do anything for him but now his view of me is so full of resentment I can’t picture the dust settling. In an effort to turn it all around I suggested he come with a few reasons why the two of us were married at all. He fell asleep not answering.

It’s ok. I know he is exhausted and hopeless and depressed and sick and forever insecure about his life. I know this is normal. I know we will be fine.

It's November?

Year 2 Marriage Goals (in no particular order)
1. learn to make coffee (CHECK)
2. learn to make a MANhattan
3. attain a house
4. get into grad school for me (Lauren)
5. puppy (after house)
6. once a month recipe cook off (CHECK *for September/October/November)
7. new comforter and sheets (new mattress after house)
8. raise/promotion/new job for Alan. (CHECK)
9. take actual vacation
10. do another race together

I no longer remember the html codes for putting a strike through words. Alas.

I wanted this to be my second entry because it promoted change and hope, but I lost the list and most of the motivation for this piece is gone now. I made a promise though to myself, to her and to him. So here I am. My apologizes if it all comes out wrong.

(learn to make coffee)

1. Coffee has always been Alan's thing. Something he can fall back on, something he can enjoy, something that is all his own. I didn't grow up in a house of coffee. My father was the only one I knew that drank it and he got his at the nearest 7-11. The only familiarity of the coffee brewing process I had was old Folger's commercials (and then much later whatever process the restaurants I worked in used). Alan is not that guy. He doesn't drink coffee from a can or plastic packet and very rarelly if ever drinks coffee from 7-11. He treats his coffee beans like wine. Sniffing them, weighing them, judging them solely on where they're grown. He created his own grinder out of an old popcorn machine. When we first started dating I found his whole process overwhelming, exhausting and completely unnecessary. I would never open a can of Folger's Coffee on a Sunday to find coffee bliss and then wake up the rest of the house with its intoxicating smell. It is his thing and I respect that. He loves coffee, it doesn't have to have anything to do with me. So it slighting shocked me to discover that one of his marriage goals was to get me to make him some.

Three days ago, I did it. I made him shout out all the directions from bed and stared at him as he drank it to make sure it didn't taste like piss. It was fine and he was happy. ONE MARRIAGE GOAL COMPLETE.

Unfortunately for him, I don't plan on doing it often. I like that he has something that I'm not apart of. Something that he can be neurotic and obsessive about that I don't get an opinion on.

(learn to make a manhattan)

2. See most of the explaination of 1. I don't drink. Rather I'm an awful drunk and don't see the point of it at all other to get drunk. So sitting around the house with a "beverage" seems like a waste of time and money. I will of course still learn the ingredients and surprise him with one some day soon.

(attain a house)

3. I have moved 12-13 times in the last 27 years. I have lived in NYC, in CA, in cars, in a single bedroom, in a hotel, in a basement, in a loft, in a ranch, in a mic-mansion, in a rental home. I have loved just about every second of it, including the nomadic nature it's conditioned me in to. I settled with the hubs. And please don't jump to conclusions. I merely mean that in that I am settling my life with this person, not with a negative connotation but with a sense of intamacy and partnership. Even though I am 27, I still feel this heavy weight on my shoulders from thought of buying a house with him. I see it as a permanence of OH MY GOD THE REST OF MY LIFE LOCATION! It probably sounds completely crazy but I don't know where I want to end up yet. I love MI, but I also love warmer weather and mountains and beaches and the opportunity to experience a new me in a whole new place from time to time.

We left our old apartment for a smaller one bedroom in an attempt to save money for a house by July. I'm in love with it and could see myself living there for a long time. I wouldn't even mind if we had a baby there. Seriously that's how much I like it. When I picture a house, I try to imagine building a garden in the backyard and painting walls and buying more furniture and attempting to make my own art/photo room. But then I think about how big it will feel when I'm alone. All the sounds it might make and weird neighbors that might live next door. I think about buying a house in an area I'm comfortable in only to discover a brand new why haven't I driven up this road location that will make me depressed.

I guess for now the important part is that we are saving and planning together. It is one thing we are relatively on the same page with.

(get into grad school)

4. The deadline for OU is in April and while I've been enjoying these first few classes I still doubt myself every day on the decision to go back to school and what I'm choosing to go back to school for.

(puppy *after house)

5. I want a golden Labrador. Alan wants a golden Retriever. They are not at all the same dog and we'll probably just end up with a Husky.

(once a month recipe cook off)

6. The hubs is a professional chef and a selfish chump who waits on me hand and foot. No joke. I am a lucky lady. It goes against who I am though and makes me feel lazy and horrible so I wrote down that I wanted us to share this passion together by exploring new recipes or at the very least take pictures. So far so good.

(new comforter and sheets)

7. Our bed is covered with the ugliest man blankets ever. After I moved in with him, I didn't want to instill too much of my womanhood into his bachelor pad so I let a lot of things go. One of them were these hideous depressing brown blankets he's in love with. I seriously cant' wait to be rid of them.

(raise/promotion/new job for Alan)

8. My husband works hard. Harder then most people I know (discounting my father who has such a fear of failure I don't know how he functions in the world). The flip-side is that he is also obsessed with his job and there are a lot of detrimental aspects to that. This isn't the time for those stories though. For the purpose of this marriage goal, I wanted him to stand up for what he deserves and take some pride in himself and stop letting everyone take advantage of him at work. A few months ago, he finally though tentatively did. And it worked! And he got a raise! And I'm so proud of him!

(take actual vacation)

9. I just want a vacation you guys. Like a real lets not worry about how much money this is going to cost and sit on the beach and not fight vacation. Is that so much to ask? Chicago for the weekend? DC? Boston? NYC? Florida? Etc. I don't care. Take me anywhere.

(do another race together)

10. The hubs and I used to be in great shape or at the very least less shapely as we are now. He used to run and bike and train for triathlons and I used to try to impress him by being the last person to cross the 5k line. Oh the good old days. I offered this marriage goal in an effort to rekindle emotions from our past and to you know get in shape again. We shall see.

So there it is. Long winded goals for our partnership.

"ahem...testing testing...is this thing on?"

The truth is I miss writing.

A lot lately.

I miss writing in the way you miss autumn and New York City.

In movement and purpose.

I miss rereading everything I've written and ignoring the misspellings and lost words and just soaking up previous inspiration.

I'd like to say I stopped because I got boring, because I got busy, because I tried to become saturated by life instead of just observing it. All of these things are true but none of them are the deep down truth. The reason I can't seem to habitually bring pen to paper/keystroke to blogpost is based on fear. I'm so afraid of unintentionally hurting someone's feelings, of sounding pretentious or stupid and becoming way more introverted.

I'm afraid of the unknown.

I still have ideas though. I dream of quirky blog posts about my adorable loudmouth genius cat or tumblers full of my photographs or of written love letters and stories that move people or what it's really like being married to a chef. Instead they're just goals on a list that seems impossible to start let alone finish.

"It all seems impossible until it is done" -unknown

So I made an effort to start and we'll see how it goes because as I sit here outside on this gentle September evening writing on our balcony with my husband grilling up dinner...I know without a doubt that I've found my bliss again. Lets hope it sticks this time.