behold, the Virgo-ness

I'm a list kind of girl. Before packing for any kind of trip, I make a list of every little thing I plan on shoving in a suitcase and cross them off the list as I pack. When I have several things to do at work and start to feel overwhelmed with them, I make a list and slash through them as they're accomplished. It's not the speed with which I complete the tasks on any given list, it's being able to see the confirmation of my accomplishments. And since I have a tendency to forget things like a senile old woman standing outside her house thinking, "where the hell do I live?", it just helps to know what I need to get done.

This is the first page of a two-page "to do" list I made...jesus, quite a few years ago. When reading through it, I found that I can cross off "go to Chinatown" without even having realized I accomplished that one, which is a delightful feeling. On page two, I found "become a rape crisis counselor," which I've been doing now for about a year and a half. Thankfully, there are a few more things crossed off on the second page than there are on this first page and there are things on this page I no longer care about. I couldn't care less about owning a pair of expensive shoes since I generally hate things on my feet and I certainly am never going to suffer the physical pain of wearing 3-inch heels for the sake of making my feet look prettier or my legs longer. Is owning a pair going to make me a better person? No. So not only would it be a waste of my money, it would be a waste of my energy. I also don't have much of a desire to learn the saxophone anymore but I think I may replace that one with "relearn playing the flute." I'll shuffle things around a bit as a few experiences (go camping and play hide 'n seek) are things I've already done but have enjoyed and would like to do again. It's always good to re-examine one's priorities. And of course, I'll add some newbies to the list.

For quite some time now, for a number of reasons I could list and a number of reasons I don't even realize, I've let the list fall by the wayside. It's been hanging on my refrigerator exactly as it is in this photo for over a year. That's a year of having a constant reminder of random little and not-so-little things I want to do in life taunting me from my tiny little kitchen.

Fuck that. Hell, not everything on the list even takes a great deal of effort on my part. How difficult is it to add a movie to my Netflix queue and spend two hours watching it once it gets here? Not very. Other things like traveling and the very few experiences that involve someone else (having sex with myself couldn't be nearly as enjoyable as shared public indecency) will take quite a bit more effort than those I can accomplish entirely on my own. But the point has never been to just do the things that are simple or take little effort. The point has been to do the things I want to do. To put in whatever amount of energy and effort it takes to just do them.

And I haven't. So to that, as I said a paragraph ago in my ever-so-classy way, fuck that.

finally, a chance to use the Buffy cookie dough analogy!

My father asked me once what I think are the best choices I've made for myself so far in life. It didn't take me a minute to answer him: 1. going to St. Bonaventure, 2. moving to Chicago, 3. my trip to Portland / Seattle.

Until this past weekend, I hadn't been back to Bonaventure since the day my parents and I packed up my little Ford Escort and their cars and moved me back to Penn Yan. I've always wanted to go back but not for an alumni function or anything, just...for me.

I haven't kept in touch with my college friends much until finding them all on Facebook. Even now, it's a Facebook type of friendship where we have a little interaction on there and that's it. But there are very few things about my four years there that I look back on with anything less than supreme fondness.

For a girl whose family has always meant the world to her, moving to school was a bitch for me. In a lot of ways, it was harder than moving 12 hours away and here to Chicago. Like a lot of people headed off to college, it was the first time I lived away from my family and my closest friends. My friend Catie and I had breakfast the morning before we were headed off and I remember standing at our cars afterward, hugging and crying and my telling her she was the one I really didn't want to leave.

It was the first time I lived up close and personal with complete strangers. I met people and we had a blast and we went to classes (for the most part) and we grew into the people most of us probably thought we'd never become. I remember little things about my time at school; the time we got into trouble for drinking in our dorm room the first night of our sophomore year, the time we took booze and my friend wore my green bathrobe to class for St. Patrick's Day, the time we almost started a fire in the lounge, the first time we got high with the Hot R.A. But when I think about the years spent there collectively, I remember the person I felt I was when I got there and the person I knew I was the morning I left. And I'm still amazed.

Our visit last weekend affected me more than I had prepared myself for and I think it's because it was really time for me to go back. Until recently, I've felt like someone completely other than who I know myself to be and I was ready for a reminder of just how far I've come since I hugged my parents and they told me they're just a phone call and two hours away.

For me, college really was the beginning of figuring out who I am. It was the first time I realized I could truly make it on my own (as much as one is on their own when their parents are helping pay for school and helping pay for me to live while there). For maybe the first time, I felt like someone other than a daughter and a sister and a niece. After changing majors three times, it was the first time I realized all I really want to do is read and write good stuff. The first time I considered myself to be a feminist. The first time I really had to study and work hard in order to meet my own standards. I don't know at what moment but at some point in those four years, I knew I was going to eventually move away from New York.

A lot of people put a lot of stock into a college degree but I've got to say that I couldn't care less that I walked away with a piece of paper telling me I have a B.A. in English. I walked away from college having learned just what possibility means. And I walked away having started to truly grow up and into the person I hope to be. The one I'd like to be. The one I will be, really.



After having taken the last of my photos this past weekend, I laid back on the grass next to the "E" on the beautiful central New York afternoon it was and thought about my time there. And my time since then. And the time I haven't yet experienced. I wasn't then but as I write this (and having just mentioned it and its everlasting relevance in conversation), I'm reminded of one of my favourite Buffy moments.

"...I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I'm going to turn out to be. I make it through this and the next thing and the next thing and maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat me...or enjoy warm, delicious cookie-me, then that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done."

the kindness of strangers

At work, we usually steal a few extra moments for lunch but I rarely have 90 minutes to do whatever I want in the middle of the day. Hell, I often don’t know what to do with myself when I have the entire day to do whatever I want but as long as it’s not work, I’m okay with sitting in a big room with people from all walks of life just waiting to be pulled into a jury room.

When we were told we could escape for lunch, I headed across the street to Corner Bakery, completely forgetting that everyone and their sister goes to lunch at Noon. Luckily, there was a seat across from a woman sitting and enjoying her salad. She politely said, “sure you can” when I asked if I could sit with her and proceeded to tell me we could pretend we met to have lunch together. Why not!

We exchanged pleasantries (except our names, now that I think about) and she told me she’s a music editor for a small Catholic publication. Religion isn’t my thing but to each his / her own. She plays the keyboard and basically spends her days reading music, finding composition errors, and correcting them. It’s a small, laid back publishing house and she loves her job. I told her I think that sounds like a fantastic way to spend her days and when she asked what I do, I gave the obligatory “I’m an administrative assistant at a tax firm,” which I don’t really utter with a great deal of enthusiasm.

I went on to tell her that I’m a mixture, as I’m sure plenty of people are, of left-brained and right-brained. My general love of reading and writing and music and doing my part, however big or small, in creating them, reassures me I’m a creative person. But I’m also a lover of…order and direction and linear thinking. Want me to do something? Tell me what needs to be done, a general “how to go about it”, and I’m good to go. I often wonder if I could make a living off my creative side because I need to be held accountable. I need order and direction and structure in my life. The creative part of me has always been an outlet and not something I live and breathe every day that results in a paycheck. I often think how great it would be to be a writer and make a living with it but I often think that I don’t want my passion to be turned into…a means to an end. Sure, I’d love to be able to do something I love and make money but in a lot of ways, I just don’t want what I love to be what I rely on to live. I want it to be what I rely on…to grow and live better and happier. Something that’s just for me, when and how I want it to be.

We got to talking about writing and music and creative endeavors and despite the fact that music has always been a part of her life, something I think most people consider to be a very creative act, she’s not much for reading novels but is a great admirer of those who can write and she wishes she could.

I told her about National Novel Writing Month and that I’d decided to shoot for taking part in it this year. That is, until about a week or so ago when I was bored at work, my mind was wondering, and it wondered right into some ideas about what I could write about. So I told a complete stranger what I’ve, until now, only told one person. That I’ve started writing…something. Screw November. As much as I often believe “procrastination pays,” why the hell wait around eight months when I can very easily get started now? Where it will take me, I have no idea. But it’ll lead somewhere.

We got to talking about how, thanks to luck and randomly meeting someone in the field, she got into the publishing side of things and the fact that I’ve always wanted to get into publishing. She then told me, “keep cultivating those writing skills. I love music but as soon as you play a note, it’s gone. The written word…it’s out there. It’s permanent. It takes talent and skill to be able to create that and I envy those who can.”

Helping decide someone’s legal fate wasn’t in the cards for me today and I’m now comfy and cozy at home. But I consider it an all-around productive, enlightening, quite delightful day.

I may start making a list

Because there is a great deal of Golden Girls awesomeness that I would like in my possession.

Last year, Santa didn't bring me the bag I wanted. But perhaps this year, he'll realize just what a good girl I am and reward me with this little beauty right here. Or maybe I'll just shell out the $6.95 and reward myself.

If you look closely, you'll notice the pendant is made from a Scrabble tile. I want my girls on the front and the letter G, which is worth 2 points, on the back, please.

Golden. Girls. G squared!

I've. Gotta. Get.

EDIT: Well, fuck me right on their wicker furniture. It sold out today.

fear: big overture, little show

In an attempt to drown out and ignore what I can of my work environment, I've been watching Buffy. Well, minimizing the screen and listening, really. One of my all-time favourite episodes is in one of my all-time least favourite seasons.

In Fear, Itself, it's Halloween in Sunnydale and the scoobies are headed to a frat party horror house, where they find themselves facing their own fears. Willow's afraid she'll be unsuccessful stepping up her magic abilities. Xander, the only member without superpowers (Buffy - slayer, Willow - witch, Oz - werewolf, Anya - former vengeance demon), fears he doesn't fit in with the rest of the gang now that they're all in college and he isn't. Oz, who keeps himself caged three nights out of the month, is afraid of going all wolfy and hurting his friends. Buffy, after having slept with a college guy who wasn't looking for a relationship but just to get into her pants, has growing fears about serious relationships and letting people into her life. And Anya...well, Anya is seriously afraid of bunnies. 'Cause c'mon, they got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!

At the frat house, a fear demon is inadvertently released and in different ways, their fears manifest and scare the bejeesus out of them. When the demon finally rises, he winds up being only a few inches tall. After he tries for a minute to be creepy and scary, Buffy laughs, squashes him with her shoe, and they all go home and eat candy.

Forty-some minutes of Whedon-witty entertainment and one simple little message: fear, itself is actually really small. You spot it, you squash it, you go home and eat candy.

At one point in the episode, my least favourite character tells Buffy he thinks she seems like the kind of person who makes things hard on herself. Yeah. Um. Hi. Right here. When it comes to squashing fear in its tracks, my natural response is usually easier said than done.

But that's a piss poor attitude. It doesn't have to be the case and it often shouldn't be as difficult as I make it. Some of the best things that have ever happened to me weren't things I had planned. They're things that just happened. And if I don't allow for change, I don't allow for the possibility of...well, any and everything. I think it certainly takes work to overcome certain fears but the things I seem to be afraid of these days aren't really of that variety.

I fear change. And it's been sucking the life out of me because even though I've felt it before and I'll feel it again, it's never quite been to this degree. I think maybe I've let some things get so out of control that I've been overcompensating when trying to get back to a comfortable balance. But the simple truth is that the things I have no control over...I can't make them how I need them to be. Because how I need them to be is really just how I want them to be. I can fight and scream and take it out on people at work or my family or most often, myself, and I can watch that accomplish absolutely nothing. Or I can focus on the things I can control and simply accept and deal with the things I can't.

Hell, I left everything and everyone I know and love, moved to Chicago with $62 to my name, and feel pretty satisfied with and proud about that decision. That's not someone who fears change. That's someone who can't fucking wait for it.

I'm going to reintroduce her.

suck this

I'm a bit conflicted about this OB tampon ad, which was created by an all-male creative team in Switzerland. (clickety click)

On one hand, I'm a member of the "vampires are hot" camp. Biting. Fear. Pain. Yes please. I also like that the ad is an acknowledgement that once a month, blood comes out of a vagina. I have a very low tolerance for ads relating to menstruation that have nothing to do with the purpose of the product they're selling. In the case of tampons, it's to absorb blood. I don't want to see women frolicking around doing gymnastics or watch a woman swimming. Just give me the facts about what the product is going to do. Much like birth control pills. Sure, they often help with one's complexion and for those who get uncharacteristically emotional in the days right before their periods, it can help make you feel like you're in a bit more control of your feelings. And sure, there are plenty of women who take the pill for regulating their periods and / or any other number of female health concerns that don't have to do with preventing pregnancy. But for the most part, the purpose of birth control pills is to prevent yourself from getting knocked up. Yet very few commercials or advertisements for birth control actually say anything that even vaguely sounds like, "if you take this pill every day, you can fuck without reproductive consequences." And I think they should.

I also don't believe the act of going down on a woman who has her period is icky and gross. I understand it may not be everybody's cuppa tea and that's fine...to each his / her own. But I don't believe there's a week out of every month where certain sex acts are off the table. Hell, survey a group of women who are all days away from their period and quite a number of them are going to tell you their overtime-working hormones are partly responsible for desperately wanting to throw their legs up behind their heads and engage in any and all sex acts. So I love the fact that a bunch of men came up with this ad and I'm sure, at some point in their brainstorming session, realized it may evoke thoughts or images of oral sex while a girl is having her period.

On the other hand, vamp teeth made of tampons? Please. Those things aren't going to pierce anything and everyone knows a vampire isn't just gonna dive in and start sucking. He's going to bite, get an artery and go to town. So the whole "tampon as teeth" thing is just silly. And just makes me giggle.

Which, I suppose, may have been the intention. And if that's the case, then the advertising fellas have succeeded. Where they haven't succeeded is in giving me even one reason, if I were a purchaser of tampons, to buy OB's brand instead of any of the other brands.

And isn't that pretty much the main objective of the advertising world?

mine always took the time

A PSA from the White House's fatherhood initiative



I love this.

I've always been a daddy's girl. My parents still tell the story of the day I was born and how my father kept telling my mother, "Hon, I just gotta go see here again" as he ran off every few minutes to go look at me hanging out with the other adorable newborns.

I'm sure there are plenty of biological and / or psychological reasons for the closeness a lot of fathers and daughters share but for me, I've simply always felt a closer bond with my father. When I was young, I couldn't explain it beyond, "I like Dad better" (not that I ever said that aloud. And not that our father/daughter relationship can be that simplified nor my relationship with my mother that minimized). But as I got older, I grew to realize that I have more in common with my father than I do with my mother. I have a lot of his more desirable traits and more of her less than desirable ones. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, I think I distanced myself from my mother because I saw in her the things I'd hoped I wouldn't see in myself as I grew up. In my father, I saw all the things I'd hoped I would be when I grew up.

They both were perfectly good parents and they played an active role in my brother's and my life. But my father drove my giddy friends and I from house to house. He dropped us off at the Debbie Gibson concert, picked us up when it was over and put up with our incessant talking and giggling in the car. He was the one to come out to the living room and without scolding, reminded us that our sleepovers needed to involve not only talking and laughing and television but also a little bit of sleeping. He did those little things everyday.

I love that this ad doesn't scream, "look how silly a man looks playing dress up, even if it is with his daughter!" And it's not an ad depicting a father tossing the football around or playing catch with his equally as "manly" son. It simply looks like the father is having a genuinely good time hanging out with his daughter doing something she enjoys.

I wasn't a cheerleader kind of young girl. But had I been, I have no doubt in the world my father would have been out there helping me practice. And I have no doubt we would have been equally as adorable as the father and daughter in this PSA.