Dear Twin sister

You are losing me.  Remember that time , the first time, that I started doing something you could not understand. We were in college, I fell for this older man, he was Jewish and it made no sense to you so you WENT FREAKING CRAZY?!!!

Yes, your sentiments had truth to them, yes, you had reasons to be concern and voice disapproval but you were almost broken by it.  The fact that something was happening you could not control, change, or understand made you more than a little bit crazy and a lot rude.  We could not even talk about other things, be in the same room, you lived and breathed your disapproval, you wore it and were covered in it, it consumed you entirely.

Well that is long over yet your inability to support someone through something you don't understand lives on.

It is such a shame that you choose to be close to your judgements instead of me.  That you would rather spend time with indignation and condescension than knowing what is going on in my life.

Maybe this is what was meant to happen. We were meant to grow up and get married and have different lives.

It feels strange, all the space.

I miss being close, I miss our bunk beds, I miss getting ready together. I miss getting each other without talking about things.

boys ruin everything. :/

F the GRE

I am supposed to be studying for the GRE but every time I try to take a practice test I get a couple questions in and I stop caring and my mind wanders and I start hating the test makers who came up with such a stupid, archaic, irrelevant test.  It is counterproductive but it happens every time.  Then this cycle of self loathing begins and I wonder why I am not disciplined enough to study just a little bit every day, why it is so difficult to challenge myself all of a sudden, how it is I used to be accomplished and study and take tests and ever got into college much less graduated in the first place.

Then I eat some chocolate.

Then I mess with my face.

Then I sit on the couch next to my boyfriend and see what he is doing.

Then I look through instagram.

Then I start studying again and the cycle continues.

I mean could any test be less relevant to higher education....it is basically every formula that was once used in high school math classes that I have since never used again.  News flash GRE gods, I do not need to know how to find the area of a circle, the perimeter of a parallelogram, or the ratio of yellow marbles to blue marbles - I cant even remember the last time I saw a marble much less gave a shit about which color I grabbed out of a bag.  What is this fucking Hook - RIP Robin Williams-  Not to mention that the fact I have to memorize those useless formulas is whack - we got cheat sheets in honors Algebra II - I believe we should get them during the GRE.  Plus if someone is going to be successful in Grad School they will know how to fucking Google.

The verbal section is just as ridiculous.  It is like they purposefully choose sentences and little paragraphs that will bore you out of your mind so that nothing is retained.  Why not ask me about relevant things like when your boss in the real world micro manages every thing you do but she also gives you an annual review every year that determines your fate/salary and every one around you kisses her ass, what do you do!??

 Or when every one you know starts getting married in the same year and you have to fly to 13 weddings, bachelorettes, and wedding showers, with a salary of X amount how much can each present, lingerie item, and new dress cost?

 Or if you are 27 with a fast metabolism but things are starting to slow down how many minutes a day should you be working out vs how much cheese and bread can still be eaten?

If your boyfriend and you have been dating for almost 2 years how do you know if you are being complacent or if he is the ONE ?!

I dont even know if I want to go to grad school, I just know that I want to learn new things, challenge myself, and feel inspired....and I don't have the money to travel the world so this seems like the next best option.  Maybe I should just pick up a new hobby like sewing, or gardening, or I could train to be a helper at those horse therapy places.  What I really want to do is work at a bakery and learn how to make bread.  That seems like a skill that will really come in handy during the apocalypse....AND what is better than fresh baked bread?! NOTHING but cheese with that bread.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The book club met last night. We read "Big Little Lies" by Liane Moriarty.  Not the most literary novel ever but a definite page turner.  She really nails the inner monologue that woman constantly have going.  I also appreciated the insight into domestic abuse and what some women go through, the shame and how easy it is to miss from those around the victims.  The book also highlights women's sort of constant obsession/struggle with beauty and how that influences much of women's interactions with each other, men, and themselves.  One of the best issue it deals with, as the title reveals, is the issue with lies, even little ones and secrets. How they can change, shape, alter, and ruin lives.

 I like Liane's books - I read the "Husbands Secret" too.  To be honest, the Goldfinch taught me less about life than this book did.  So the Goldfinch is like the GRE - pretentious and bloated and basically so boring you want to gauge your eyes out - sorry im not sorry Pulitzer Prize Committee.  And this book is like real life - a page turner with WTF moments that are sometimes predictable and other times completely jarring.

(ALSO strange that the most beautiful character in the book is supposed to be a redhead and that was my biggest WTF moment.  Not the hitting or the rape or any of the twists, nope, the hardest thing for me to swallow was the ginger was a hottie.  Nothing against red heads but I was picturing her blonde and a quick poll of the book club found most all of them were too.  I think this is really interesting.  Why is it that 20 women read about a fictional character being "amazingly beautiful" and almost all of us picture her blonde?! I think it is because red heads are under represented in movies and television.  I mean Jessica Chastain is a hot red head but I don't think she is naturally that color.  Amy Adams is cute but I dont think of her as like super sexy.  Maybe American Hustle Amy Adams, definitely not Superman Amy Adams - although her hair was dyed for that.  )

So some take aways:
-If the GRE represents how useful Grad School will be pertinent to real life than I might as well cut my losses now.
-I am and always will be a procrastinator
-My boss really does micro manage and it drives me crazy and I will never tell her and always always kiss her ass so that I will get good reviews and make more money and get out of there as soon as possible.
-cubicles are dangerous for ones sanity and waistline
-I think about quitting my job every day but the healthcare and rent money prevent me from bold choices
-I have already spent close to $3,000 on weddings this year and it is only April.
-I just tried to do 20 push ups and it is the hardest thing I have done all day
-It is definitely time for more chocolate
-Every day faithfulness to God is something I have been thinking a lot about. It worries me because I am terrible with routine and discipline.
-Yoga pants make me feel pretty but having zits at 27 does not.

Going to watch more Outlander on Starz and pretend that Jaime Frasier is a REAL MAN.

a choice.

He doesn't think he makes me happy
That I can do better with someone else
Is that true?
I dont think it is.  I think it was just a fight and we said things we did not mean.
But I don't know how to really know.

It is a choice right? Love is a choice.

At least that is what people say.

I do love him.
I want him.
I choose him.
That is what I say.



Also I have been thoroughly disappointed by red carpet dresses lately. I mean step it up ladies. why is it so difficult.

Girl Crushes

I LOVE THIS ARTICLE about kick ass women in history. Few things get me as fired up as reading about some amazing, awe inspiring, ladies who history remembers and for sure make me want to stop complaining about occasionally having to wear tights to work.

Basically I have no real complaints bc these women for sure had it tougher than I do.  ALSO politics are and always will be a mess.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."*-John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902)

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/princess-michael-of-kent/inpirational-historical-women_b_6477802.html

Favorite from the post:

"Yolande D'Aragon

Daughter of the King of Aragon (later Spain) who became known as The Queen of Four Kingdoms -- Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem, Cyprus -- titles she inherited although she never visited one of these places. It was her wisdom and intuition that saved France from the English in the first half of 15th century. She found Joan of Arc and told her what to do; and lent Joan her own army to succeed in the relief of Orlèans. With an uncanny instinct for promotion, and an eye and mind to recognise talent, she chose and trained many of the courtiers who helped to make Charles VII of France into "The Victorious" King.

*women have a chance to dodge this.

Forever 15

It is funny that in all aspects of my life I am getting older and my decisions and actions reflect that.

I have a full time job.  I pay my own car insurance.  I contribute to my retirement account (which does still not make perfect sense to me but I do it). I make real grown up meals know how to travel internationally. I can put an outfit together, have meetings with older real grown ups without embarrassing myself and even use expensive "your skin is changing" face cremes.

 However for some reason when I return to my parents house I magically turn into a 15 year old again.  All I want to do is stay up late, sleep in, and pretty much be cooked for, cleaned up after, and spoiled. I do not understand why my functioning adult self can not seem to live under the same roof as those that birthed me.  I get irritated about the dumbest things and my social schedule becomes suddenly more important than about anything else that is happening.  The funny thing is when I was 15 I was probably more mature than my flashback teen self.   At least then I had goals, was on the honor roll, and though that reading romance novels was better than dumb high school boys.

SO on my way back to my house - a short drive down the Interstate from my parents - my selfish throwback teenage self wore away and closer to real life and my former adulthoodness returned.

So I am driving and crying listening to Anna Kendricks cups song - unrelated other than the fact that I love her and that song is low enough for me to sing on key part of the time.  And I realize how dang selfish I have become and how I am committed to treating my parents as friends - not in the unhealthy they buy booze for me kind of way that "those kids" in high school people whispered about but in the I actual contribute and clean and occasionaly pay for dinners when we are out together.  

My mom does a freaking ton for me and always answers recipe questions 24/7, helps me run errands, prays for me constantly, and is all around kick ass.  Yes, she irritates me sometimes and the parts of me most like her scream at me to take a different path - however - I could give a lot more grace - as I am sure she did when she changed, burped, paid for, and all around kept me from death, disease, and blessed me with the privileges of the upper middle class. 

Thanks mom, I am going to do better and try to introduce you to the adult you raised and not the teenager who keeps haunting your home.*

*As long as you keep the fridge stocked with that home made pimento cheese and those gluten free crackers that i like :)

Poetry for today

This was read to me by a friend recently and has been inspiring me ever since. I do not read or listen to poetry often bc I am drawn to stories and often poetry confuses me but this one made it through. 

Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful   than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon   and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone-- and how it slides again   out of the blackness, every morning, on the other side of the world, like a red flower   streaming upward on its heavenly oils, say, on a morning in early summer, at its perfect imperial distance-- and have you ever felt for anything such wild love-- do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure   that fills you, as the sun reaches out, as it warms you   as you stand there, empty-handed-- or have you too turned from this world--   or have you too gone crazy for power, for things?
Mary Oliver The Sun

...............

Once Upon a time there was a girl who liked to read and imagine beautiful stories.  She was told that she could do anything as long as she could dream it.  She was told that she was special.  WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT.

We live in an age of technology yet businesses are still modeled for memos and in house phone calls.  No one needs a desk anymore.  There should be shared spaces and collaborating and no walls and conversation. There should be remote access and free wifi and meals on site and late hours and no dress code and a meeting place that actually accomplishes something.

We should take all the retirees and old people in nursing homes and give them desk jobs bc they would be perfect for it.  No interaction, very little expected of them.  A job title that keeps them pacified with benefits they can use and investments they can pass on to their children. Old people like to sit, they like to be on email all day and read about the news and make comments about it to each other.  They dont need a lot of exercise or new or change. Or they have accepted that this is enough.

Everything is so backwards. You are young, you have dreams and goals and energy. Then you start working. You learn how to conquer a xerox machine, how to format excel, how to look interested in meetings, how to wear the right things that are comfortable to sit in for long days and very cold buildings, you learn what elevators are the fastest, what co workers are the most interesting to sit next to during lunches, how to find the fun pens and sticky notes, how to not jump out the window when you realize this is what you have been working towards.  Yes, all the school, and writing, and homework, and late night chats with college friends, and traveling, and vocational bullshit.  All to lead you here. A little cog in the great machine. And for what?  For healthcare that I need when I am old. For money I need when I am old.  For the promise of security and normalcy and boredom.  Don't live out of the box. Work in the role we want you in - in the job description that is on that Word Document lest anyone colors outside of those lines. Worship mediocrity.  Rules that dont matter.  Lest we all remember that we are dying here.  That we were made for more. That we have forgotten how to think, how to try, how to be challenged, how to solve problems, how to make things better. Actually to contribute.  

We do what is asked, no more no less bc the system is crushing.  But yes, stay for 30 years. We will give you a name plate and special buttons and then you can sit in the meetings with the important bald men who also waited it out.  How neat.

I sit and I sit and I sit.  My thoughts and dreams are drying up. I cant remember what I really care about anymore.  I cant remember what it is like to put effort into things.  I cant remember...

But good thing I have on a collared shirt and my resume matches and I get my work done.  Good thing. I act like I don't have a choice.  I do.

I am so stuck.