It's No Red Ryder BB Gun

Well, it's that time again where Mark and I feel that as adults we have to somehow pool together our funds and procure simple, hopefully thoughtful gifts for our immediate families. Currently we're taking care of the West Coast family.
Sometimes we do a nice toy for just the kids but last time we did we saw the gift just tossed aside in a mess. It's not their fault, they're kids and quite honestly, in good ol' American fashion, they just have too many toys.
This year we're just getting a simple, personalized item for each family unit. Sure, it might also be tossed aside but at least we attempted to be tasteful and we just want to show we're thinking of them.

I was laughing the other day about how my tastes have changed as an adult and how if I were to make a 'list' what would be on it. I came up with three things:

a Tibetan singing bowl
an African rain stick
and a new pair of Uggs.

They're totally useless things but they are items I've always wanted. I won't bite the bullet and buy them because I don't really have expendable income to justify something like a singing bowl. But apparently if I had a chunky wallet my apartment would look like a Pier One Imports store and a Sam Ash.

Tress Stress

From the very minute I shaved my head about two years ago I've had dreams of long hair. But every time I have my hair near the length of my dreams I get the itch. Not the lice itch but the itch for something different. Especially since I don't really change anything else. I've always been a tshirt and jeans person. I like my glasses to stay the same shape. I work with young kids who live blocks from my house so I have no office to wear new clothes to. My hair is all I have to possibly change how I look.
I'm really jonesing on this one particular look. Like most girls I dare not go into bang territory. It's not that I don't think it will look good. Not that I think it will be either good or bad, I have no freaking idea. It's more the curl to my hair that concerns me. With length my curls become more wave and with cold weather I have perpetual hat hair. So if I cut my hair to bangs, will I end up with ridiculous curls springing on my face. To look like a toddler from the 80s? Nor do I want to wield heating & straightening tools daily. Ugh! Don't even get me started on finding someone who can actually cut hair!

Mid-whif-ery

Well- November has arrived and the passage of the time really only emphasizes how little I'm accomplishing. Not that I have any goal I'm reaching for. You know, other than financial security and a generally positive feeling of self-worth. Minor issues really.

I babysat for a woman who had graduated from Purchase College back in the 90s as a singing major. She said that after college she did the waiting tables thing and babysat for this opera singer who was divorcing her husband. She said the opera singer was an anxious mess because she was broke, with a kid, barely being able to afford living in the city which was a necessity for her work. The mom realized that she didn't want to be 40 and finding herself in that situation so she found this nursing program at Columbia University that was designed for people who already had a non-nursing degree and she became a midwife.

She told me that she thought I would be a great midwife, how I was nurturing, smart, blah, blah, blah. She admitted that it was pretty expensive but that in the end you'd be a nursing graduate from Columbia and that speaks volumes.

I won't deny that she was like a voice from the heavens. A nursing degree from Columbia! Already having a random degree is required! Be a midwife, so interesting and unexpected! I looked up the program online. I'd have a year of pre-requisites before I could even apply. My conservatory degree kicking me in the ass with the whole no science/math requirements. I'd have to take the GRE. This girl here, the person whose last math class was a remedial my senior year of high school. Suddenly it was daunting but I signed up for the Open House.

That was the nail in the coffin. Was the school great sounding? Sure, it was Columbia University. But it was also a bit more expensive from the 90s when the mom had attended. It's a two year, super intense program. The first year you're in class from 8am-8pm. At least. You don't work. As a matter of fact the director of the program said “Don't get married, don't move, don't have a kid, don't go on vacation.” The first year ALONE is about $100,000. And that's this year. What happens in two years when I'd actually be ready to attend? I'm a married, 30-yr-old. If I get in debt for almost $200,000 now it really makes the rest of our lives a living hell. Having money for a kid, buying a house or car, just moving out of a one-bedroom walk-up would all seem a lot more impossible.

The head of admissions was honest (another great thing about them) she said “We are Columbia University. We are expensive. But let's face it, you will be nurses. What does that mean? It means you are like teachers. You are not going to be paid what you should be getting paid. So you need to really examine if this is the right choice for you and your family.”

So. No, it's not the right choice for me. You've got to do the test. If someone asked me “Do you want to be a midwife?” I would not run up to a mountain top to scream at the top of my lungs 'YES! I DO!' Not for 200k. I mean midwifery is cool, kind of earth-mother, respectable. But it's an idea. It's not a calling.

Customer Service

Dear Dollar Store Employee;

It was raining and so I thought I'd check out the store. See if any of your poorly manufactured items caught my eye. When I reached my favorite aisle (drinkware and plates- oh how I love to stare at all the goblets) you where there desperately tipping your 'We Are Happy to Serve You' coffee cup dregs into your mouth. When I appeared in the corner of your vision I noticed how quickly you fled the aisle. Oh...so quickly. Guiltily.

My instincts were awakened. Having lived for the past five years with a male I recognized the glint of fear in your eyes. But alas, I pressed onward. Two or three steps into the aisle I was stopped by a wall of noxious fumes that had- seconds before- passed through your rectum and out of your ass cheeks. Oh how horrid these fumes where! How disgusted I was! How angry I was that you had ruined what was to be my bliss. Part of me believed, believes still, that you should have owned up to your actions. Waved me away. Warned me 'Don't Enter, Move away!' But no- instead you ran.

I left the aisle. I walked down the significantly less exciting gift bag, non-sticky saran wrap, tissue-thin aluminum foil aisle. I vowed that somehow I would let you know that I knew your crime. You hadn't fooled me with your running away. As I returned to the front of the store, having no choice but to walk through the residual ass cloud you had surely trailed you appeared at my left exiting your brief hiding spot. You looked up. We caught each other's stares. I squinted and raised my eyebrows oh-so-slightly. You seemed embarrassed and looked away. I felt better. Spent $2.53 and went on with my day.

And then...?

Have you read The Piano Teacher? It's one of those books that is obviously created for women. You know, pretty woman, sad posture, romantic, tortured, all splayed on the cover. Anyway, while I can revel in the fact that I didn't purchase the book myself I cannot deny the fact that I was happy my Mother-in-law (I have a mother-in-law!) passed it forward. I find it funny and frightening that we have pretty much the same taste in books (except crime/mystery, I cannot abide by those).

So I read it. It's not a complicated book but there is still a vagueness to some of the story that drives me mad! MAD! I can't figure it out. Am I suppose to figure it out or is there supposed to be the question mark? Well, I don't like that. I'm not as bright as people like to think so I like my stories to resolve neatly. I mean, not like "the bad guy gets his due" or "they lived happily ever after" but more like "Oh, I know where everyone stands at the end". I think. Unless I'm contradicting myself then I don't know how else to explain.

Instead I get: Victor has Will drive up the hill and they exchange some cryptic sentences and then Victor, in a bit of a panic, says he's changed his mind. He doesn't have to go wherever it is they are going. Take me back home! And for some reason they never discuss it again and Will starts getting paid double for no reason. The End. What is this?! What does it mean! Where were they going? What was going to happen?

I'm embarrassed that I don't know. I am. But I'm shouting it across the rooftops in the hopes that someone out there will give me their thoughts. A book club moment if you will.

Don't Call it a Comeback

I disappeared. I shut down. People use blogs to discuss things that are happening with them. The only thing that was happening to me was the planning and celebrating of a wedding. I didn't want to talk about it on a blog. Many people seize the opportunity and then it miraculously turns into a money maker for them and they live happily ever after. That shit doesn't happen to me.
Honestly, I didn't want to discuss it over guilt that I wasn't inviting everyone I'd ever met and so I didn't want to dangle all these stories and thoughts in front of everyone and then be like "It was fun! You didn't get to enjoy it!" Even though, in a small way, I'm doing that now.

Basically it was crazy stressful and the last thing I wanted to do was blog.

Mark and I like to think we're low key so we went for low-keyish with some traditionalism in there. We're not giant ballroom, tacky chandelier, printed carpet to hide vomit stains, servers in fake butler-wear type people. We wanted a place that allowed us to do whatever we wanted and not some cookie cutter package. I think we did well. The weather, while hot, was rainless. The caterer (after a very dreadful and painful search) was great. We have guests who are still telling us the food was awesome & her servers were crazy nice and hard working. The florist totally wowed me since my directions were pretty vague. I loved my dress and I am so depressed that I can't wear it over and over again.

In an attempt to get my blogging legs back (if I ever had them) I'll probably get a little nostalgic and add a post here and there about how it all came to be. But I'm going to try my best to be better. Now I have free time on weekends again! I hope you'll check in.

Much Love,
Me

Double the C, Double the S

The stuff I usually think would be good to write is just too risky. So I've been silent for what has turned into months. Basically my days are spent pretending I don't hear parents arguing. The dad who was dropping the F bomb more than there were regular words in his phone conversation only to realize he was talking to his wife. The wife who disagrees with her husband only to have him stop her and say "really? can I just finish telling her so we can go?" (enjoy that date night); the kid who listens to my "funny" story about how I gouged Mark's car door back in Tahoe and when she asks me if Mark was angry with me she says "When he's angry does he not go to sleep with you in your bed that night?" Hmmmm....

Anyway. That's my great f'ing life. I gotta say all those years when mommy told me I was so smart and daddy said I'd be something great I bet you they didn't foresee an almost 30-yr-old with a useless Bachelors, no job aspirations, and no hidden talents to make me worth hiring (unless it's to take care of other, more successful people's children).

So now it's super hot-as-hell here and I get to pretend like I enjoy the small children I see on a daily basis. So it's just that much harder.

The good news is I finally got new glasses and I dig the different color and slightly different shape. I didn't get Transitions lenses this time so after 5 years it's a bit rough getting use to sun glare again. But alas, these rust colored spectacles look great against my finally-reaching-my-shoulders hair. Yippee!