And The Award For Most Unnecessarily Complicated Craft Project Goes To

It should come as no surprise that I own a lot of books, and that being in grad school has resulted in the purchase of many more. You might be thinking that textbooks can be sold back to the bookstore at the end of the semester, but the problem is that now see each book as an important part of my future as an academic. What if someday I'm writing a journal article, or doing some kind of statistical voodoo, and suddenly I have a question about something I studied in grad school, but I can't look it up because I sold the book back to the bookstore? That is why I can't sell back my books.

As a result of my fear of disappointing Future Me, I have amassed quite a stack of textbooks. Up until a few weeks ago this stack was taking up a chunk of the already-limited floor space in my cluttered room. After 3 semesters of accumulating books, I started to fantasize about getting another bookcase so that I could house my books like a civilized member of society, rather than a (particularly well-educated) cave person.

On a related note, my pet gerbils both died last fall. But if there's anything I've learned from devout Christians and fans of mediocre romantic comedies, it's that "when God closes a door, he opens a window." In this case, he closed the door on my gerbils, and he opened the window on a new bookcase. The bookcase in question used to support the gerbils' habitat and house all of their gerbil accessories (food, bedding, tasty treats, back issues of Better Homes & Gardens). But once they died, I was free to fill it with textbooks.

Unfortunately, the bookcase was black, which I felt wouldn't fit with the design scheme of my bedroom. Also, I worried that adding a dark-colored piece of furniture to a room already bursting with furniture would be claustrophobic. So of course, the bookcase would need to be painted. Preferably a nice light, springy green. And because I have been cultivating supportive imaginary friends in my head, that idea was met with a resounding YES!

Everything that happened after I made the decision to paint the bookcase can basically be explained by the fact that the bookcase I was repainting was one of those $40 fiberboard some-assembly-required deals. With a fancy piece of cardboard nailed on the back.

The first step was to buy supplies. I went to Home Depot's paint department and selected a color on a paint swatch that I liked. Then, because I don't like looking confused, I wandered around the store purposefully for a little while. At one point, I accidentally made eye contact with the guy that worked in the paint area.

"Can I help you ma'am?" he said. "Uh, yeah... Can I just take get this paint off the shelf, or do you have to mix it for me?" "When you're ready, we'll mix it for you." "Oh, OK." I wandered off to the plumbing area.

I called my mom and had a quick discussion about types of paint, primer, and sandpaper. Finally, I sucked it up and walked back to the paint area, ready to order my paint in a clear, authoritative way. After finding the paint guy and staring expertly at some sandpaper for awhile, I was finally able to leave with paint, sandpaper, a tarp, and a paint brush. I hadn't even started painting yet, but I was already a home improvement champion.

The first thing I did was lay out my tarp on the living room floor and rip the cardboard backing off the bookcase. I had a vision, you'll recall, and part of the vision was that the bookcase would have no back. Then I removed the adjustable shelves and began painting. After the first coat dried, it became clear that this would require much more paint. Even lightly sanded, the plasticky coating on the bookcase didn't accept paint well, and even if it had, black is a hard color to cover. Sometime between coats 2 and 3, I got a phone call from my roommate (who had been out of town) saying she was on her way back. Not wanting her to come home to a mess, I moved the whole operation into my room, where I had considerably less space to engage in my artism. A few more days passed, during which I applied 3-4 coats of paint to my project, plus touch-ups.

I had noticed during the course of all this that the frame of the bookcase, without its shelves and backing, seemed suspiciously rickety. I mentioned this to my father, who pointed out (as nicely as possible) that it was kind of a cheap piece of junk, and the cardboard backing had provided it with much-needed stabilization. Back to Home Depot I went, this time to procure some wooden triangles with which to reinforce the bookcase. Those ALSO had to be painted, and hammered onto the back of the bookcase.

Finally, my bookcase was uniformly green and beautiful, and it was time to put in the shelves and get my books into their new home. I pressed the metal shelf supports into position, and lifted the first shelf into its space. As I pushed it in, I felt some resistance. Apparently the 4 coats of paint had made the shelf a tight fit. I pushed harder, and the shelf aggressively removed a chunk of paint. OH HELL NO. I did NOT just spend a week huddled in a corner of my room, hunched over a tarp and applying coat after coat after coat of paint just to end up with a shelf-less bookcase. Before I could do anything rash (like SET THE DAMN THING ON FIRE), I put the shelf down and walked away. Once I was calm enough to deal with it, I called my mom for advice. She came up with the ingenious solution of using a razor blade to take off a strip of paint just wide enough to slip the shelves in, and then touching up any black parts that showed once the shelves were in.

So I did that, and at long last I had my masterpiece!


(This is a horrible and offensive photo, I know, but I had to use the flash and then subsequently crop out some of my junk. What was I gonna do, get out my camera and take a better picture? Ha.) (Also, note the strip of black I left at the bottom, which marks the exact moment at which I said, "Ah fuck it, it's done.")

Anyway, if you'd like to do something similar, all you need is a quart of paint, a razor blade, 4 scrap pieces of plywood cut into triangles, 8 days to sporadically apply paint, and about $30. Seriously, though: just go buy a new bookcase.

Self-Doubt, Happy Ending, Blahdy Blah

As part of my recently declared effort to say YES! to my whims, I woke up at 7am on Saturday, got dressed in cold-weather running gear (it was TWENTY-NINE DEGREES outside, I live in the South for a REASON so get it together, North Carolina), and went to my local running store to go for a run with a group of strangers.

There are several reasons this decision was insane. For one, I am not a "morning person" or an "early riser." I do not particularly like cold weather. Meeting new people makes me anxious. I am not secure enough in my identity as a "runner" to just come out and claim to be one in public. I worried that I'd look a little too Rubenesque in my running tights. I fretted that I'd be the heaviest or slowest runner. I was concerned that when I talked to people they'd think I was weird (which... fair enough, I suppose).

Of course, we all know how it turned out. I sucked it up, I said YES!, I went. I met a lot of very lovely people. I wasn't the slowest or the heaviest or the goofiest. I ran with a really nice girl who seemed inordinately impressed with the fact that I had run a half marathon, so I spent much of the 3-mile run trying to lower her expectations of my skillz. Afterward most of us went to get brunch together. It was a lot of fun.

Honestly, I ought to type up a template for these blog posts:
"Today, I was afraid to do [Thing X]. I was afraid because [Irrational Reasons 1, 2, and 3]. Eventually, I sucked it up and did [Thing X], and it turned out to be pretty fun. Shocking! [Self-deprecating joke.] [Non sequitur.] [Abrupt ending.]

Anyway, the run was fun, and was the first meeting of a formal group training program that will last 12 weeks. I had held off officially committing to the program because I wasn't sure if I could devote that much time to something non-school-related right now. But I think it would be an awesome way for me to hang out with people that aren't my classmates, and do something other than homework and worrying about homework. Also, it will hopefully keep me from giving up running during the colder months. So I think I'm going to sign up. Feel free to remind me of this optimistic post two months from now when I'm freaking out because I have some kind of leg injury and I'm behind in my schoolwork.

I Refuse to Resolve, and End Up Resolving not to Refuse

Not that anyone asked, but I'm not really making New Year's resolutions this year. I believe it was a year or two ago that I began to think about how making small goals throughout the year might be more productive than making one-time resolutions. For awhile I was doing monthly personal goals, and that was kind of fun, actually. I don't know if I'll commit to doing that again this year, just because I get so caught up in school and other responsibilities, but I do know that making big New Year's resolutions isn't really for me. From my experience it seems like it's just a lot simpler and more effective for me to set individual, concrete challenges and carry those out. For instance, I'm thinking mostly of the running goals I pursued this past year.

That being said, I realized today that if I were going to shoot for an overarching lifestyle change this year it would be to say yes to myself more often. This thought came to me partly from that video about embracing vulnerability that I posted earlier this week, and partly from the knowledge that I am constantly having great ideas... and then talking myself out of them. I'm not sure what it is, really, other than an extremely bad habit. Whatever the reason, I do it about 30 times a day.

Maybe I'll throw a potluck at my place! ... No, it's a lot of work, and it would be hard to find a good time for everyone to come, and what if nobody wanted to come?

I'd like to print out some pictures for my desk at work ... No, it will take forever to find good ones, and then I'll have to go the store, and then it'll cost money. Plus, what if my officemate thinks the pictures are silly?

I should call that friend from high school ... No, what if she's mad at me for forgetting to congratulate her after her wedding? What would I say to her? I'll just wait and see if she gets in touch with me first.

I'm going to join this running group! ... No, they're all probably faster than me and running in the cold weather is probably too hard. I'll just try to run on my own when it's warmer.

When I see it in print like that, it seems pretty clear that I talk myself out of things because I'm doubting myself. I suppose I could focus on "believing in me!", but that's a little too amorphous to be a good goal, I think. Plus, I don't want to think of myself as a downtrodden children's hockey team in need of a pep talk from Emilio Estevez. It's more uplifting to think of myself as an adventurous ringleader in simply needs followers. From now on, whenever I think of something that requires me to be spontaneous or adventurous or even... vulnerable?, instead of hearing a sad trombone in response, I hope to hear a spunky and unquestioning sidekick.

Take up scrapbooking? Yes!

Drive to the beach at the drop of a hat? I'll get the keys!

Start a cheetah rescue in my walk-in closet? Best idea you've ever had, boss! Here, put on this chain-mail cheetah-wranglin suit!

Me and my crew of enthusiastic yes-men (who I imagine as a cross between Dobby the house-elf and Victorian-era English street-children) will take the world by storm!

(By the way, speaking of "self-doubt" and "believing in myself," have you seen this commercial? It's my FAVORITE.)



(GEICO, I eagerly await my endorsement check.)

The Good News is I Now Make an Almost Perfect Pot of Coffee

Hello there, sweet internet! It's so good to see you again!

Let me tell you how the last few weeks have been for me. TERRIBLE, is how they have been. I mean, I guess they haven't been 100% terrible. There was the day I went to the farmer's market and ate bread and goat cheese in the sunshine, and the weekend my friend Kiki came down and let me show her around town. And the time I ate dinner out with my friend MB and we sat in the parking lot catching up until 3am. That was all pretty awesome. Nevertheless, I have to say that large chunks of the past few weeks have been pretty terrible. Mostly the chunks having to do with school. How to explain? Let's try a little comparison exercise. Last semester, in the Fall, I had the following commitments:

1) Four master's-level classes
2) One or two days a week at my field placement, and
3) A research assistantship that involved very little work.

And it was good. I survived and did quite well until the last two weeks of the semester, and let's be honest: that was pretty much all my fault for procrastinating and putting everything off until the last minute. So when it came time to plan for this semester (Spring semester, the one we are currently in), I decided to challenge myself a little bit, and so I took on the following commitments:

1) Three master's-level classes
2) Another master's-level, seminar-style half-a-class
3) My first doctoral class (That's 5 classes, for those following along at home)
4) One or two days a week at my field placement, and
5) My research assistantship.

(Those last two things are non-negotiable, required sorts of things.) Anyway, all of this sounded totally do-able in theory, but has turned out to be kind of miserable in practice for two reasons. For one, I grossly underestimated the amount of work that this doctoral class was going to require. Work like "read 10 chapters of this unintelligible book by next week" and "hey, what say we just randomly add a whole extra novel to the syllabus?". For two, sometime at the beginning of this semester, my boss apparently suddenly remembered that she had a research assistant. So even though my planning for this semester kind of hinged on maintaining the extremely low level of work she was giving me last semester, she apparently missed the memo and suddenly wanted me to start writing research proposals and building rocket ships and planning assassinations of foreign dignitaries*. All of that being said (because I know reading about someone else's schoolwork is boring as hell), I survived pretty well up through Spring Break, at which point I optimistically set some adorable goals for how I was going to be spending all of my free time for the month of March. Oh, what a fool I was.

*Note to the CIA: That was a JOKE.

What actually happened was that I laid around all of Spring Break, and as soon as it ended I became busier than I have ever been in recent memory. The week right after Spring Break I was doing psychotic things like throwing all-night paper-writing parties in 24-hour diners with free wifi. The next week, things got marginally better, but still pretty terrifying. And so on. So I did not finish my goals for March, not even a little bit. But I'm also not sitting in a corner right now rocking back and forth and weeping, so I'm going to go ahead and call it a draw.

Things are pretty calm right now, but there's another maelstrom of schoolwork coming up fast, so I should really be spending this time getting ahead, rather than reading the entire internet, as I sometimes do. Which is to say, as I have done, more or less all weekend. I'm relieved to find that at this point, the end is so close that I'm hardly even stressed out anymore. I'll live to see May, one way or another, even if I leave a trail of shoddy papers and half-hearted group presentations in my wake.

Oh! And don't think I've let my failures in March discourage me from setting any new goals. I've already set a goal for April: to get back on the running train (now that the weather is so beautiful!) and start following this training plan again. You may remember it as the one I was using to train for the imaginary 10k last summer, which I dropped like a hot potato once I moved and started school. But now I'm back! Like seasonal allergies! And I'm currently finishing up Week 2. So look out world, the Slow Motion Runner's Club** is coming to a flat, shady, relatively unchallenging road near you!

** I just made this up just now, so currently the Slow Motion Runner's Club (SMRC) consists of only me. But if you want to join, holler at me. I'll make us t-shirts! Or... hats? Maybe we'll just stick with buttons for now.

Lifestyles of a Young Recluse

I know it's already March 9th, but I have finally settled on a goal for this month, and now I shall share it with you. This week is actually my Spring Break, and I'm celebrating by lots of sleeping and homework. Also, playing The Sims, because I live the kind of glamorous life that most other 20-somethings only dream of. It's all this extra free time and the excessive Sims-playing that has inspired this month's goals, which are as follows:

GOALS!: By the end of the month, I'd like to finish reading at least one book for pleasure and at least one crochet project.

I'm making this goal as a way to push myself to spend my free time a little more constructively. I have all these fun things I'd like to do, like reading books, or crocheting things, or building that biplane I keep talking about, but I always put them off until I have "more free time." But the fact is that I have a fair amount of free time as it is (or, I make free time for myself, even if it's not the best idea), and I usually end up spending it screwing around on the computer or watching TV. And really, if I'm going to waste my valuable paper-writing time, I might as well waste it in a more active way rather than just passively soaking up pop culture. So! Time to get at least one of those unread books off my bedside table!

Make no mistake, these goals are really no more glamorous than what I've been doing with my time, but at least they'll help me build valuable skills which will someday make me a much better housewife, or something. Plus, maybe now if I waste a whole day without doing any homework, I can at least say that I accomplished something other than helping my Sim get a promotion. Not that I've ever considered that a major accomplishment, I mean... that would just be sad.

Pulling Ourselves Up By Stepping On Others

At the beginning of the month of February, I set a goal for myself: to stop vocally criticizing other people. Then I spent the rest of the month trying to figure out why it was so hard to follow through on that goal. Obviously I knew from the beginning that I had a 'problem' with criticizing people, otherwise I wouldn't have made it a goal to stop doing it. I just wasn't prepared for how often the issue would come up day to day. I kept finding myself about to criticize someone, then stopping myself, then deciding to go ahead and say it anyway because 'this one doesn't count.'

That sounds like I was just rationalizing bad behavior, I know, but hear me out. Does it count if I'm commiserating with classmates about how I've been disappointed by a professor's teaching style? Does it count if I'm telling a friend about what a difficult time another friend has been giving me lately? What, exactly, had I meant when I made such a broad goal?

I wanted to come back here and post about how hard it was, but I couldn't because I couldn't even put my finger on what the problem was. I felt like I instinctively understood the difference between 'ok' criticism and 'bad' criticism, but I couldn't put the distinction into words.

Then, sometime last week, I happened upon a blog post called Why Being Good Sucks at obeymyblog.com* and suddenly everything made sense. You can go read the whole post if you like, but the part that's really relevant is this passage:

"If you consider yourself a “good” person, then that means other people must be “bad.” Not you. Never.

In an effort to prop yourself up as “good,” you will attempt to call out and crucify others who you believe contain the very “bad” qualities you deny in yourself. You will create enemies, point fingers, blame others and get mad. If along the way, other people join you, you can all call yourselves good and others bad – solidified in self-righteousness and in your total denial of ever doing anything bad or wrong."

When I first read it, I thought, "Yeah, that!" That's the problem! That's the reason I'm sometimes filled with guilt after I get done with a particularly satisfying rant about someone else's faults. It's not necessarily the nature or the accuracy of what I'm saying, it's my motivation in saying it. Because I've noticed that a lot of the people I most vehemently criticize are people that... how do I say this? *DEEP BREATH*

...They're people I'm scared of. They're people that intimidate me, or that I envy, or that I believe think they're better than me, which we all know is probably just The Crazy projecting itself onto others. When I find faults in those people, I shout it from the rooftops, and then I feel better about myself. Ha, I think, who's the better person NOW? But of course the joy of establishing myself as superior is immediately followed by overwhelming shame. "Good" people don't spend their time tearing other people down behind their backs. I know this. And if I have to disparage other people to make myself feel better, I'm not a good person at all. I'm just a dirty bully.

I don't want to paint myself as a monster here. I spend plenty of time doing things other than pointing out other people's faults. I have hobbies! I read books! But I think any time spent engaged in petty criticism is too much time. I'm not convinced that I did a great job meeting my personal goal for February, but I have gained some insight into why I keep doing something that invariably makes me feel like dirt. I'm hoping that in the future I can take this information and use it constructively. If I feel compelled to take someone down a notch, maybe instead I'll take a minute to ask myself: Why do I find this person so threatening in the first place? Isn't there something more productive I can do to address my own issues, instead of distracting myself by acting like a character in Mean Girls? I'd like to think so, at least. I'll let you know how it goes.

*I think I found the link to this post on twitter, through Zen Habits, which I sometimes read. With regard to Obey My Blog, I've only read the one post, so I can't yet vouch for the quality of the rest of the blog one way or another.

P.S. I know I need to come up with a goal for March, but I haven't decided on it yet, so I'll have to get back to you in the next couple of days. If you stop by and you have any suggestions, holler!

February! The Month of Love and Black History!

As you may recall, last month I made a few goals for myself in the spirit of... January. But now, January is over! The time for reckoning has come!

So, how did I do on my goals? The answer is: AWESOME. Goal #1 was to exercise 3 times a week. Technically, I did not adhere to this goal perfectly, because last week everything sort of fell apart and I only exercised once. But I think that exercising 3 times a week for 3 weeks and then once on the fourth week is just fine, thankyouverymuch, and also a big improvement over exercising none times per week for like, 25 weeks.

Goal #2 was to do homework for at least 30 minutes every weekday. I didn't keep track of this goal as well as the exercising one, but I'm pretty sure my follow-through was good, because I'm not behind in anything yet. I don't know if I mentioned, but the reason I had to make this goal in the first place is because mid-way through last semester, this became my nightly routine:

Hmmm, do I have anything due tomorrow?

If No, then: Hours upon hours of internet time-wasting!
If Yes, then: Panicpanicpanicpanic, workworkwork, til 4 am!

...I got good grades in all my classes, but I have a feeling it wasn't good for my mental health.

Now that I think about it, that goal started to fall apart sometime last week, too, and I think the reason for last week's total failure at productivity happened because North Carolina got it's once-yearly snow and I was snowed in all weekend watching TV and taking naps instead of exercising or doing homework. So as long as there isn't ever any um... weather, in the future, then I should have no problem eventually taking over the world!

Anyway, now that February is here, it's time to make additional goals. Since January's goals went so well, I'm going to unofficially carry those over for this month. In addition, my official goal for February is... (drum roll please)...

Not to criticize myself or other people. (Unless it's to their face. Or it will somehow accomplish something.)

The impetus behind this goal is that I've noticed that a large percentage of the words that come out of my mouth are devoted to either a) criticizing myself or b) bitching about other people. I have no doubt that both of these things can serve their purpose from time to time, but I don't like the fact that I spend so much time spouting negativity just for its own sake. Surely I have more important things to say, no? It's time to give those other thoughts an opportunity to breathe. Besides, I talk too much anyway.

Also, whenever I say something negative about someone, the next time I see them I am CONVINCED that they know and they hate me, and then I feel really anxious and kind of like I should apologize for something that there's no way they could know about. And I figure that in the long run it'll be easier to just change my behavior than try to untangle that mess of Crazy-Logic.

It's only 3 days into February, and this goal is already a little more difficult than I expected. Who knew I was so devoted to shit-talking? Nevertheless, I shall persevere, and by the end of the month I won't even be capable of thinking negative things!

.... Or at least, I'll learn to say them only in tinfoil-lined rooms, so that the satellites can't hear me and rat me out.

Happy 5th of January!

Because my talent for procrastination knows no bounds, I have managed to postpone my New Year's post until January 5th. Let's all just take a moment to appreciate that.

Ok, moving on. I have recently been reading through all of the archives at Sundry Mourning, and I highly recommend that you do the same. Linda, who writes at Sundry, is an excellent writer who has just the right mix of sincerity and sarcasm that speaks to the heart of my own hateful, idealistic soul. I say all this not just for the sake of kissing the ass of a blogger I've never met, but because I plan to rip off Linda's long-running New Year's tradition of filling out a survey about the details of the previous year. Because that's what this blog has come to now. Surveys. Are you ready? Here we go!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

I started graduate school, and started thinking seriously about what I want my adult life to look like. I met and befriended the next generation of rock star social workers. I proved to myself that I can set personal boundaries and stick with them, even when its unbelievably hard. I did my first client interview as a social worker-in-training, and did it well, if I do say so myself. I also started training for a(n imaginary) 10k, and even though I only made it through 4 of the 8 weeks of training, it's not because I couldn't do it, but because I got derailed by graduate school.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My resolution for 2009 was not to make anymore grand, year-long resolutions, and instead stick with small, short-term, measurable monthly goals. I did pretty well with that, I think, until I started grad school and my goal became to simply survive. That mindset pretty much persisted from August through December. So I guess my goal for 2010 is to get back into the habit of making goals. I learned some valuable lessons about grad school survival during my first semester, so now rather than just trying to stay afloat, I can start swimming toward a specific destination. That being said, my goals for the month of January are as follows:
a. get some form of exercise at least 3 times per week, and
b. work on some school work for at least 30 min each weekday.
They're not very exciting goals, I know, but they're my goals, dammit.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I'm not particularly close to them, but two of my classmates had babies this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

A close friend of my dad's died, but I'm not sure if that was in 2008 or 2009. Other than that, no.

5. What countries did you visit?

I didn't leave the country in 2009, but I did visit 2 new states: Texas and California!

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

I'd like to have more confidence in myself and my abilities, and to question myself less. I'd like to be better at accepting life the way it is instead of struggling against it when things don't go exactly the way I'd like. I'd also like to treat my loved ones with love, even when I want to kill them, and I guess in order to do that I'll need some more patience. Also, a big bag of money.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched on your memory, and why?

I think I'll always remember... the first few days of graduate school, the days I spent in Houston and San Francisco, the day Lee and I broke up, and the first day I saw him again after that.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Although I hate to sound like a broken record, I think my biggest achievement was probably getting into (and committing to) graduate school. And not having a nervous breakdown. Yet. Also, continually working on being a happier and more loving person.

9. What was your biggest failure?

All of the times when I gave in to frustration or fear or insecurity or anger and let myself get bogged down into an unhappy altercation with a loved one.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, thank goodness!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I'm going to have to say my new laptop. It was necessary for learning, but has also brought me many hours of non-academic entertainment as well.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

I was really blown away this year by all of the people that care about me and the sweet things they did to support me when I was having hard times. I have a lot of really great, talented, loving friends in my life, and I can never thank them enough.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I am continually appalled by the many narrow-minded people who treat the spread of hate as a cherished hobby, in spite of the fact that they are largely uninformed about the topics that are apparently so important to them.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Tuition and fees, school books, and food. I can't seem to turn down a dinner invitation.

15. What did you get really excited about?

Starting school, traveling, and making new friends! It's also pretty exhilarating to feel like I'm on the path to fulfilling my dreams.

16. What song will always remind you 2009?

Sadly, I think it's going to be "Forever" by Chris Brown, because my roommate showed me the wedding dance video shortly after we moved in, and then The Office wedding episode, which parodied it, came at just the right time in my life to make me cry like a stupid baby.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you...

Happier or sadder? Definitely happier.
Thinner or fatter? A smidge fatter, because I haven't been going to the gym since I started school, and I think I've done nothing but eat since winter break started.
Richer or poorer? Poorer, since I no longer have a real job and I have to pay for school.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

I wish I'd spend more time enjoying the moment.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Obsessing about the future.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Opening presents and enjoying a meal with my parents and brother.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

You could say that. There are a lot of great people in my life, and I'm constantly finding new depths to my love for them.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Community! Don't make me tell you again.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Well, there are a few people at school that are not my favorite, but hate's such a strong word, you know?

24. What was the best book you read?

I can't remember everything I read this year, so I'm just going to go with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Somehow the addition of zombies took a book I had no interest in reading and made it meaningful to my life.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

I didn't really buy a lot of music this year. I did buy the new Kings of Leon album, and The Ting Tings, which wasn't new but was new to me, and a lot of fun to run to.

26. What did you want and get?

To go back to school, to find a good apartment and and a great roommate, and to learn lots of new and exciting things.

27. What did you want and not get?

Easy answers to tough life questions, and for everyone to just do what I tell them to do.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Definitely the new Star Trek. When I left that movie, I had that feeling you get when you've just gotten off a great roller coaster and you just want to run around the building and ride it again immediately. Good times.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 24, and I spent the weekend at the beach catching up with old friends.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I think if I'd spent less time stressing out about worst case scenarios, I would have gotten more out of all the great things happening around me.

31. How would describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

In a word: Target.

32. What kept you sane?

Strangely, I think cleaning kept me sane. There were several instances in 2009 when I thought I was going to lose my mind, but the crisis was averted by a flurry of focused cleaning. Also, driving.

33. Which celebrity / public figure did you have a crush on?

Robert Downey, Jr. I have a feeling that he would be both a good conversationalist and attentive to my needs.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Health care reform. And I'll leave it at that lest this turn into a rant.

35. Who do you miss?

All the friends that I'm not the best at keeping in touch with.

36. Who was the best new person that you met?

I can't narrow it down to just one. All my new friends at school have probably saved my life several times already.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Here's another variation on the theme: If you don't focus on enjoying and making the most of what you have, you cheat yourself and run the risk of creating regrets rather than memories.

If You’d Like to Imagine Me as the Female Rocky, I Won’t Stop You*

*Note: I have never actually seen Rocky.

I apologize for being completely absent from the internet for the past couple of weeks. It’s just that I’ve only got LESS THAN ONE WEEK left at my job, and then after that only ONE WEEK to pack up all my things and move and start my new life as a grad student. And also, did I mention that I’m trying to write a rough draft of an academic paper before I leave, and I have no idea what I’m doing? I’m kind of freaking out, and my whole life is a shambles, and that leaves very little time for having fun on the internet. But enough about that!

In addition to being extremely anxious and useless for the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a new goal, intended to increase the awesomeness of my life by 125%. Now that I’ve gotten through about 2 weeks of it and I’m confident that I can, in fact, complete it, I feel safe telling the world about it.

Internet, I am training for an imaginary 10k.

For those of you that aren’t into the metric system, 10k = a little over 6 miles. Now, don’t misunderstand, the training I am doing is totally real. But the 10k race that usually happens at the end of such a training regimen is totally imaginary. I mean, I imagine I’ll run 10k on the day that my training schedule tells me to, but I won’t be racing against anything but the wind. I didn’t want to sign up for an actual race because I’ve never run one before, and I was afraid that I would end up in the hospital with a flare-up of my chronically debilitating Slow And Lazy (SAL, a devastating disease that I’ve battled my entire life, poor pitiful me). All in all, I thought it was best to play it safe and run an imaginary race, instead. Here, just to convince you of the wisdom of my decision, let me give you an impromptu list of reasons an imaginary race is better than a real one:

1)You can fit it into your schedule whenever you like
2)You can choose the flattest, most shadiest route available
3)You’re guaranteed to be the fastest runner in the race
4)When no one will give you money to run because they don’t have any confidence in your questionable athletic skills, you can just remind yourself that you’re not actually doing this for charity, and you don’t have to feel like you’re personally disappointing children with cancer

Anyway, I decided to do this because I was getting pretty sick of my gym and had kind of stopped going, and on top of that, when I move away, I won’t be able to afford a fancy gym membership and I’ll need to find other ways to motivate myself. This method is pretty easy, because you can find training schedules all over the internet, designed for people with varying degrees of badassitude. (My badassitude rating = 3.4. I am not telling you how high the scale goes.) Here’s the training plan that I’m using. As you can see, it is 8 weeks long, and involves running all of the damn time. It’s nice though, because it just tells you what to do, so it appeals to the side of me that just wants to mindlessly follow someone else’s instructions. Also, you can print it out and put a little check by each day's run when you complete it, which appeals to the side of me that likes to check things off lists. I just say all of this in order to put an end to any concerns you may have had that now that I’m a hardcore athlete I’m no longer an incredibly huge nerd. I will ALWAYS be an incredibly huge nerd.

What I don’t really understand about this whole endeavor, though, is how unbelievably slowly I run. Somehow, I’ve unknowingly devised a way to run that actually takes LONGER than it would to just walk to wherever you’re going. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I SLEEP faster than I run. I’ll go out and run my 2 miles, feeling like I’m running at a fairly respectable speed, and then I get done and find out that it’s taken me roughly 3 days to run around my neighborhood. I can only assume that I am some sort of undiscovered superhero, and my superpower is warping the space-time continuum with the force of my painfully slow running.
Here is an excerpt from an actual conversation that I overheard yesterday, between a father and son as they watched me run by:

“She’s obviously running hard, look how red her face is!”
“I know son, but how is that we’ve been standing here for 3 hours and she’s only traveled 20 feet?”
“My God, Dad, what’s happening to you?!?”
“AAUUUGHH! My hair is turning gray and my face is wrinkling as we speak! THE HORROR!”

My point is, if anyone wants to get together sometime and help me come up with a superhero name (Señorita Slo-Mo, perhaps?), maybe sew up a nice cape-and-mask combo, I’d really appreciate the support. I’m also in need of a wise old mentor (like a Morgan-Freeman-in-Batman-Begins type) to help me learn how to control my powers and wield them for good, rather than for evil. It’s tough out there for a new superhuman just learning the ropes.

Oh, By The Way

I don't know if anyone was wondering about it, but I've decided to give the blog a break from the goal-setting this month. I've still set myself a couple of goals for May, but they're not really blog-able, exactly, and plus I'm worn out from all the gratitude posts last month.

And just so you know, that goal I had of getting up at 7:30 every day and trying to change my lazy ways? Yeah. Not so successful. I mean, I'm kind of getting up earlier? But not really. And not at 7:30, necessarily. Sigh.

But hey, I totally knocked that gratitude thing out of the park, huh?

Gratitude, Days 29 & 30: Anytime Happy Fun-Time Magic

Tonight I'll be staying with Lee in order to be closer to the airport, so that tomorrow morning I can get up bright and early and pick up Kellie before we embark on our 9-hour drive to FLORIDA, BITCHES. (Pity me not for the 9-hour car drive, rather be jealous of the 4 days in Florida.) This means that tonight and tomorrow I'll be very busy and probably unable to internet some gratitude in your general direction. Thus, in order to close out this month of gratitude, I wanted to do something a little different. Since I've generally been writing about things for which I'm grateful that are sort of time-specific (for example, what I ate that day, the nap I took, a conversation I had, what I ate that day), I'm going to mix it up for the final post and make a list of 10 things I can do on any day that never fail to make me feel grateful for and happy about life. You know, like Chicken Soup for the Soul, but with less stories about children with cancer. So, here we go...

Ten Things That Generally Make Me Less Likely to Kick Someone
1) Running / exercising. Makes me feel like a champion.
2) Cleaning. It's soothing in its mindlessness, and at the end of it you get a sparkly apartment.
3) Crocheting. Similar to cleaning in mindlessness, except the end result is usually more like a coaster, or a hat that doesn't quite fit your giant head.
4) Blogging. Come up with stupid joke. Laugh at your own stupid joke. Repeat.
5) Walking around outside. Drink in the wonder of the natural world, feel at one with all living beings, and remember what sunshine feels like.
6) Journaling. Word-vomiting all of your insane neuroses into a private place sort of calls attention to how insignificant most of that stuff is. It's true what they say, that sometimes all it takes is just getting things off your chest, even if you can't fix any of it. Who knew?
7) Meditating. The act of focusing on clearing my mind and slowing myself down often emphasizes how scattered and amped up I usually am. Also, 'practicing' that calm feeling makes it a little bit easier to call it up whenever you need it.
8) Cooking a recipe I've never tried before. Sometimes I narrate it in my head as if I'm on Food Network.
9) Doing something creative. I guess some of the other things on this list fall into this category, too, but I just mean to say that a lot of relatively silly 'creative' activities can make me feel good. Such as: painting (even by numbers), making a collage from magazine photos (why? I don't know), and taking artistic photos of the gerbils (which sounds sort of dirty, but isn't really). No, I don't get out much. Why do you ask? Speaking of which...
10) Going out with friends. Sometimes I get anxious about hanging out with large groups of people, and it seems easier to just not do it, but I'm always glad that I did. For one thing, it's reassuring to be proven wrong when you think something isn't going to go well. And for another thing, it's a reminder that there are plenty of awesome people in the world, so you're never really alone in your rage and/or despondency.

What's interesting about a lot of these things is that most of the time when I contemplate them they sound suspiciously like 'work.' But I've hardly ever done them and not felt good afterward. I figure that starting grad school in the Fall is going to mean a large increase in the number of causes of compulsive fretting, so this list may come in handy as a reminder of simple (non-alcoholic!) things I can do to evaporate some of my Storm Cloud of Nervous Energy and Doom.

... And thus concludes Sharing Time Station's Month of Gratitude and Happy Thoughts to Help You Fly Like Peter Pan. Thanks again to Schmutzie for having a great idea that I could totally rip off and use for my own blog. We here at Sharing Time Station hope that you've enjoyed this exercise as much as we have, and that it hasn't been too terribly saccharine-sweet for the cynics out there. As a part-time hateful old codger myself, I understand how retch-inducing it can be to have someone else's unadulterated joy pushed on you like those Jesus pamphlets that guerilla Christians leave in public places.*

But that's not all! Today's blog has a surprise price of admission! It's sort of like a free stay at a timeshare that sounds like a lot of fun but then involves a lot of painful surprise high-pressure sales pitches. Since you willingly read this blog entry, you are now contractually obligated** to leave a comment telling me a) something you're grateful for today, b) some secret trick you have that always lifts your spirits, or, if you're feeling saucy, c) something that never fails to PISS YOU RIGHT OFF. And don't think you can just sneak away without leaving a comment. I can check the stats, I WILL KNOW.

*If anyone reading this has lived for any length of time in a U.S. state outside of the Bible Belt, do you know if people do this elsewhere? I have a feeling that people in New Jersey, for example, aren't always being accosted in the bathroom of their local Subway Sandwich Shop with literature about the fate of their eternal soul.
**I'll have to check this with my resident law student, but for now, just assume that it's true.

Gratitude, Day 28

Alright kids, are we feeling grateful today? If you're happy and you know it, leave a comment! As for me...

1) I recently discovered a new vegetarian sammich at Panera, which I'm pretty excited about. (the 'Mediterranean Veggie,' for those interested.) As you may have heard me mention from time to time, I'm a bit of a half-assed vegetarian (*brushes shoulder off*), so it's always nice to find food that is a) technically meat free, b) healthy, and c) tasty. Examples of things that don't quite fit all 3 of those requirements include french fries, ice cream, tofu, things made entirely from beans, and shoe leather.

2) I'd like to take a moment to directly address Reese's mini peanut butter cups: Hi guys, I'm so happy you're in my life.

3) I just remembered this scene from the other day:

*Boss's phone rings*
Boss: Hello? .... Ok, well I'm running a little late so you're going to have to hold tight for a little while... Yeah, I'm on the interstate right now but I'm stuck in traffic so I'm running behind... Yeah, like I said, I'm on my way but I see some traffic up ahead so it's going to take me a little longer than expected... Alright, I'll see you in a little while.

Hehe. This is great for two reasons. The first reason is that obviously, my boss was in his office for this entire conversation. The second reason is that he's generally a very honest, hard-working, upstanding guy, the kind of guy that makes me feel incredibly guilty for not utilizing every minute of every day to its fullest potential. For this second reason, it was very uplifting when I realized that even my boss, the Upright Citizen, has his dastardly moments.

4) Today I had a long, enjoyable conversation with Future Roommate. I think I've made a good choice by deciding to live with her, and having a good living situation can make all the difference between a miserable existence and good times. So hell yeah.

5) After Fringe is over, I'm going to bake cookies from scratch! Wish me luck!

Gratitude, Days 26 & 27

Well hello there, reader! How was your Monday? I know, I know - Mondays suck. But no matter! Monday is nearly over and soon we'll move on to Tuesday, which is... marginally better. Here's some things I feel good about today:

1) I bought this exfoliating "invigorating" face scrub that has menthol in it, and it makes my face feel all tingly, it feels so good. Indeed, I feel invigorated.

2) I'm leaving for Florida on Thursday, which means I only have to work 3 days this week. Oh hell yes.

3) Today I turned on the air conditioning for the first time this year. This is great news, since I like to keep it warm, so air conditioning is a lot cheaper than heat.

4) Saturday when I was talking about the warm weather, I forgot to mention another one of my favorite things, which is this: when it's hot outside, no one can judge you for taking your pants off as soon as you get home. It's a law.

5) I think I've managed to convince Future Roommate that we should to move into one of the apartment buildings I checked out on Saturday. I AM SO EXCITED.

6) I went shopping yesterday and bought some short sleeve shirts to wear to work now that it's warming up. Also, some tank tops, which are not work appropriate, but who cares? Mmm tank tops.

7) In tonight's episode of House, House threw a bachelor party for Chase, and Wilson took a tequila shot off a stripper, salt and lime and all. Wilson can [COMMENT REDACTED FOR ADULT CONTENT] me anytime.

8) Also, I like tequila. I'm grateful for tequila.

9) Last night I played Fallout 3 on Lee's computer for the first time in awhile, and now I'm addicted all over again.

10) I thought I was going to have to cook dinner when I got home tonight, but then I found leftover pizza! It was a close call, but I shall live to fight another day.

Gratitude, Days 24 and 25: Warm Weather Edition

Once again I've missed a day, so you know what that means: Double-Up Gratitude Extravaganza! Are you ready? Brace yourself!

1) First off I would like to be thankful for the fact that I finally buckled down and got some work done yesterday. I would also like to be thankful for the realization that even though I spent several days gnashing my teeth and wailing about how I didn't want to do that work, once I got down to doing it, it really only took me a couple of hours. Sheesh.

2) After work yesterday I went to my parents' house for dinner. Getting to my parents' house from my place involves a long stretch of rural highway, and I drove the whole way with the top down on my car, basking in the setting sun and writing a poem in my head about how I'd like to make love to Spring and Summer. (Preferably in some kind of all-girl three-way. Because I'm pretty sure they're girls.) While driving along in my car with the top down, I smelled some smells that made my heart sing. Among them were:

3) A charcoal grill.

4) Freshly mowed (mown?) grass.

5) Honeysuckle! Mother-effing honeysuckle! If someone would please compile and submit to me a list of places where honeysuckle doesn't grow, I would really appreciate it, as I don't ever intend to live in any of those places.

6) The gorgeous weather continued today, so I wore a tank top, skirt, and flip flops. I'm all for any weather that allows me to perform my day-to-day activities wearing as little clothing as possible.

7) While half-naked, I looked at some apartments. I managed to find a really nice place that Future Roommate and I can actually afford, so now if I can get her approval, we can submit an application and I can move on to worrying about something new.

8) Let's take a quick one-item break from all this talk about the nice weather. I am also thankful for the fact that even when I'm in the midst of explaining to Lee how I am completely right and he is hopelessly wrong, we can still make each other laugh.

9) Back to the good weather! This evening, as the sun was setting, I went for a run. Call me unimaginative, but I really can't think of many things more soul-soothing than listening to some chill music and setting out for a run at dusk on a warm day.

10) Once I finished my run, I sat down in the grass to stretch in the dark, and the song below came on my ipod, and I was one with the world, and it was good.

Gratitude, Day 23

Today was another, how shall we say... uneventful? day for me. I keep thinking of really great non-gratitude-related posts I could write and then instead of writing them, I take a nap. My productivity is astounding, if I do say so myself. Now here, enjoy some happy thoughts:

1) I am less than a week away from spending 4 days in Florida with Kiki! Wooooo!

2) I've been feeling a little bad about how incredibly unproductive I am, but I decided that my current state (excited about the future, a little bored with the tasks before me, fantasizing about the beach) is akin to "senior-itis," if you will. And if I got through my senior year of college OK, as useless as I was, I will get through the last 3 months of my First Real Job, by God.

3) My boss wasn't around today, so I was able to leave a little early and just take some stuff home to work on in the comfort of my own apartment. Sometimes it's nice to break free of the constraints of fancy work pants and terrible flourescent lighting.

4) I took another nap this evening. I'm not sure if I should be proud of this fact or ashamed, but it was mostly an enjoyable experience, so I think we're going to put it in the 'win' column.

5) The grad school website posted information about orientation today and I got SO PUMPED. I just want everyone to know that relatively soon, I will be buying textbooks. Man, I love buying textbooks. I think that fact alone may say more about me than the rest of the information on this website combined.

PS. The reason you haven't heard much more about my attempts to get up at 7:30 everyday is because they are still... not going well. BUT! I am getting up earlier? So, Baby Steps, or whatever.

Gratitude, Day 22

Today was uneventful, but I'll see what I can come up with, because I love you.

1) I gave blood today, which made me feel like a responsible member of society.

2) I'm also 80% sure that I was being hit on by the guy that got my blood started a-flowing.

3) I also also got a cookie for my troubles - an oatmeal cream cookie with chocolate chips. Congratulations, you gave blood, now you may dramatically spike the sugar level of the blood that remains.

4) I took a nap this evening. I'm not really sure why I waited until 7:30 to do this, or that I'm happy about the fact that now it's 10pm and my body isn't sure whether to be sleepy or wide awake, but - eh. It was a nap, naps are good things, it goes on the list.

5) The weather was gorgeous today! And it's my understanding that there's more of this stuff on the way.

Gratitude, Day 21

1) Great news! I got more work done today than I've gotten done in most days recently. This makes me feel good, like I haven't totally lost my mojo. I may succeed in grad school after all.

2) I'd like to spend some quality time with Walter from Fringe. We could hang out and sing show tunes and do crazy experiments with farm animals and mind-reading equipment. It would be brilliant.

3) Found a great new blog today! I'm working my way through the archives right now, where the author talks about her struggles with infertility. Her name is Alexa and her blog is flotsamblog.com.

4) I might get to go look at apartments in my future town this weekend! I like planning my future - it's exciting and it makes me feel like I'm in charge.

5) Because my bouquet from the wedding was made of artificial flowers, I can leave it sitting on top of my TV and be reminded of the good times as long as I want!

Gratitude, Day 20

Happy Monday! Let's talk good times!

1) There are several semi-feral cats that live around my apartment complex, and last night I went out to go get Second Dinner and ran into a really pretty long-haired orange one just hanging out on the sidewalk outside of my door. I didn't try to touch him or anything because RABIES! but I could tell he wanted to hang out and be my BFF. It was pretty exhilarating.

2) I went with a coworker to Panera for lunch today, and the weather was so nice that we sat outside. My arms even turned a little pink from the sun, which is not totally a good thing, but it's nice to know that it's almost warm enough for me to lay out and get a sunburn if I wanted to.

3) On a related note, when I got home from work today it was so nice outside that I cracked a window and sat around letting the stale air from the past 6 months clear out. I'm really hoping that the apartment I move in to this Fall will have a balcony or a patio so that I can spend more time being outdoorsy. Or, you know, my version of 'outdoorsy,' which consists mostly of sitting around outside looking at birds and reading and writing and pretending I'm Henry David Thoreau.

4) I'm watching TBS, and I just saw a commercial for My Name Is Earl where Earl's brother Randy says, "You know I get angry when I'm hungry. Like The Hulk, only I don't get all green and muscley, I just get dizzy and snap at people that don't deserve it." This is funny to me, because I often forget to eat and occasionally snap at people that don't deserve it.

5) Tracey of Sweetney started following me on twitter today and I felt like I touched a celebrity! It's only a matter of time until someone pays me to write a book about what it's like to be charming and brilliant and emotionally unstable. I'll keep you posted!

Gratitude, Days 18 & 19: Wedding Edition!

Hey everybody! I forgot to post my gratitude again yesterday, but you know how it is when you're in a wedding: everyone gets drunk and there's an orgy and then there's no time for writing on your blog. Anyway, it may be a good thing that I didn't do it yesterday, because I'm feeling a little melancholy today and it might help me out to list 10 things that make me happy. So here we go:

1) The wedding yesterday was beautiful. The weather was the best it possibly could have been for an outdoor wedding - sunny and clear and 75 degrees.

2) The groom was so solemn and sweet and sincere when he recited his vows that I almost cried. It's comforting to know that my friend married someone that loves her so much.

3) I love meeting the friends of my friends. I always get nervous about it for some reason, but then I'm pleasantly surprised to realize that my friends have great taste in people. I had a similar experience with this whole wedding thing, meeting people's significant others and the groom's friends, and pretty much all of them were great.

4) Yesterday was the first time I've ever had my hair and makeup professionally done, and let me tell you, it's enjoyable. It's nice having someone that isn't you rub brushes all over your face and make your hair all stiff and curly and adorable. I've decided to have it done every day forever and ever. Prepare to be blown away by my constant up-do.

5) At the reception, there was crab dip and chocolate cake!

6) At one point, the DJ played several love songs in a row until I was overcome with joy and forced to go out on the dance floor to sway and turn in a circle with my friend and Maid of Honor Shelly. It was basically just as beautiful and meaningful as if we'd been dancing with boys. (The boys were there, of course, they were just hanging out at the table and watching the hot girl-on-girl action.)

7) This evening I went to a work party and Future Roommate and I got gifts to celebrate the fact that we got into school and we're going to get educated. We also got cards that every one signed. It's nice to feel loved.

8) I also got to sit and have a nice conversation with my boss about things other than work, so that was cool. I like my boss.

9) I'm watching the series premiere of Fox's new semi-animated show "Sit Down, Shut Up," and one character just said this: "I'm idealistic. I believe in doing things that are unrealistic, or have no effect. That's just who I am!" It made me laugh because just today I had a long conversation with a social worker about how we've always wanted to "help people," even though sometimes it's really frustrating working with people that need help.

10) I love being half-asleep and cuddling with a handsome young man who is also half-asleep.

Hey, I feel much better already! Happy Sunday!

Gratitude, Days 16 & 17

Ok y'all, gotta be quick tonight because there's still a fair amount of stuff I need to do in order to be prepped for the wedding tomorrow. Here are the things I'm feeling grateful for tonight (10, because I'm making up for yesterday)...

1) I get to go to a wedding tomorrow!

2) I get to have my hair and makeup professionally done!

3) My boyfriend was kind enough to get the day off so he could come with me.

4) The groomsman I'm walking with is not creepy at all, in fact he's very nice and he's hopefully gonna help me with my serious and solemn "game day face."

5) I had chocolate mousse tonight and it was delicious.

6) I was doing rehearsal dinner things this evening from 4 until about 9 pm, and I'm pretty sure I was laughing and joking and giggling almost the entire 5 hours. I'm so lucky to have such adorable and hilarious people in my life.

7) Lee is doing my dishes for me, and all I have to do in return is give him the last Star Crunch cookie.

8) Wine! I'm having some!

9) I got a very pretty silver and pink necklace as a bridesmaid gift. It's sexy, and it solves my problem of not knowing what jewelry to wear tomorrow.

10) It was 65 degrees today and it's going to be at least 70 tomorrow! Hooray Springtime!

Alright, that's it. Sass Pizzazz out!