days of our lives - day 03

Your parents

I just wrote a lengthy post describing how awesome my parents are and as I re-read it, I realized it revolved solely around their role as parents. My parents are, first and foremost, individuals. So, I'm going to skirt around this one a bit and rather than writing something new, I'm going to use something I've already written.

Every year for Christmas, I make a gift for my family. My parents, my brother, his girlfriend, my aunt, uncle, and two cousins all get the same gift but personalized. Last year, when they each opened their box, the first thing they saw was a piece of paper that read:

After I had been on Facebook for awhile, a friend emailed me and suggested I finally get a profile picture. She sent me the Greater Than symbol with the simple explanation, "because you are." On those days when I feel "less than," it's a small but giant reminder...that I'm not.

Underneath that was a small painting of the Greater Than symbol done in either their favourite colours or colours that reminded me of them.

Finally, under the painting was another piece of paper that read:

And for the days when you need a reminder that is just a little bit bigger.

That piece of paper was taped to a picture frame, in which I had a list of "Why So and So Is Awesome." These are the ones I gave my parents:

Reasons Why Helen Is Awesome
...Because despite the fact we weren't terribly close while I was growing up, I never feel like that has hindered our relationship as adults. And the one we've worked so hard to develop as the best of friends.
...Because when we moved me to Chicago and a fellow driver was driving like an idiot, you blurted out, "cocksucker!"
...Because even though I'm 31 years old (edited: now, I'm 32!), on my birthday, you almost always wind up telling me the story of the morning I was born
...Because you took me to San Francisco (even if I had a lousy view!) (edited again: my father used to travel as an auditor and when my mother was eight months pregnant with me, she flew out to spend a week with him, hauling me around those crookedy streets and hills of The City by the Bay.)
...Because you're the only other person in the world who understands how much I miss Grandma Marion each and every day
...Because you don't treat Dad like a husband but as a partner and a friend
...Because even though we're adults and can take care of ourselves, you help Andy and I out whenever you can; in so many ways
...Because every year, other than spending it with the entire family, what I look forward to the most at Christmas is shopping and wrapping gifts and listening to Barry Manilow's Christmas CD (shhh, don't tell anyone about that last part)
...Because you stuck around
...Because of a ton of other reasons and some I've yet to discover

Reasons Why Al Is Awesome
...Because I trust you. And that doesn't come easy. Not easy at all.
...Because every time I think about the fact you named me Janelle Lynn so that it would sound "beautiful and French," it makes me smile
...Because you carted my girlfriends and I everywhere when we were younger and I'm sure, ridiculously giddy and obnoxious
...Because even though I know how much you wanted to, you couldn't bring yourself to take me to Chicago (edited: my mother and aunt drove with me out to Chicago when I moved because my dad had told me that even though he wanted to, "I just can't leave you there.")
...Because you brought me my pillow at college! (edited: I went to school two hours from where I grew up. At some point, I had left my pillow at my parents' house and NEEDED it. So, my father and I met half-way simply so I could have my pillow with me at school.)
...Because you passed on to me your bleeding heart liberalism
...Because you don't treat Mom like a wife but as a partner and a friend
...Because even though we're adults and can take care of ourselves, you help Andy and I out whenever you can; in so many ways
...Because I have no idea when it was or in what context it was but I remember you telling me, "you and your brother, and whomever you choose to bring with you, will always be welcome in this house. Always."
...Because of a ton of other reasons and some I've yet to discover

So, to sum up...my parents are friggin' awesome, mmmkay?

days of our lives - day 02

Your first love

From simple introductions to talk of a first love. Yowza. This one is a smidge tricky.

My first love was Stephen Capperell. My "late bloomer" status dictated that the majority of intimate / serious / long-term / whatever moments in my life happened...well, later. I met Steve when I was living in Rochester, after having graduated from college. But for the life of me, I can't remember if I was living with my cousin or if it was after Shawner and I had decided to roommate it up. Anyhoo...I don't remember exactly where but we met...wait for it...online and I remember talking for a week or so and then going to the movies (Along Came a Spider). It was a full-on first date kind of evening. He picked me up (is it just me or is it odd that I remember him picking me up but don't remember where the hell I was living?), it was a perfectly delightful evening and when it was over, he took me home.

I refer to him as my first love because he was the first person with whom I had a romantic relationship. He went with a friend out to Seattle one weekend to visit another friend and when I dropped him back at work after having met him for lunch the day before they left, he told me he loved me. And I told him the same. But you know how there's the kind of love you feel for someone because you simply enjoy their personality and company and there's the kind of love you feel for someone because when you come into each others' lives, you turn it upside friggin' down in such an amazing way, you're left wondering how the hell it's even possible for one person to have had such a profound effect on you? Yeah. Steve wasn't the latter. At one point in High Fidelity, Rob says about his relationship with Laura:

She didn't make me miserable, or anxious, or ill at ease. You know, it sounds boring, but it wasn't. It wasn't spectacular either. It was just good. But really good.

That was exactly how I felt about Steve. Things were easy and comfortable. There were other people, both before and after Steve, for whom I had much different and much stronger feelings. But I consider Steve my first love and enjoyed the time in my life when we were together. When I decided to move to Chicago, I knew my feelings for him weren't strong enough to warrant the effort it would take to make a long distance relationship like that work, so I ended things.

He eventually joined LiveJournal and we became 'friends' on there but I used the living hell out of that site, posted a good deal of personal stuff and locked most of it. Shortly thereafter, he stopped using his own journal and we just fell out of touch. Last I knew, he was still living in Rochester and happily married.

And...SCENE.

days of our lives - day 01

Introduce yourself.

Thirty-two years ago, I was introduced to the world as the baby girl of two awesome parents and the baby sister to one awesome brother. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York, where my parents and most of my family still live. I was the girl who waited all summer to go back-to-school shopping for school supplies. I loved (and do love) to read and because I was the only one in my family who hated watching sports, I spent many an afternoon in my bedroom with my stereo on and / or my nose buried in a book. I was best friends with the boy across the street until his family moved into a different house across town.

I was raised as Catholic and remember going to St. Michael's for mass but don't remember when it was we stopped. I never much cared for it because it was boring as hell, my first childhood crush went to church with his family and I basically sat and daydreamed about him through most of the service. We did, however, frequent Midnight Mass when Christmas rolled around and to this day, although I don't care for the religious aspects, the smell of incense and the singing of carols is Christmas to me.

I dug grade school a lot, can remember each one of my teachers except for the 4th grade, and will always answer, "who was your favourite teacher?" with "Mrs. Turner. Hands down." I won a spelling bee in 5th grade but can't remember the word that won it for me. Junior high sucked ginormous amounts of ass but it was when I started taking French (which I would continue to take until my Freshman year of college) and realized my Francophile tendencies. I'm fairly certain it was in the 7th grade when I met my best friend and one of my earliest memories of a childhood sleepover was a night spent at her house. The first time I danced with a boy, it was with one of my brother's friends and to Firehouse's "Love of a Lifetime."

High school was sucky in the typically sucky ways and awesome in others. One of my brother's friends told us the summer after our Freshman year was when we would really start to party and that held basically true. I was somewhat of a geeky kid who got good grades but still lived it up like most teenagers. The first time I got drunk was on some blue flavour of MD 20/20. The first time I smoked, it was a Salem menthol (fucking gross) at a Steve Miller concert. The first time I got high, someone asked me to put on Dave Matthews "#34" and I kept scrolling through the disc numbers wondering why, for the life of me, I couldn't find any tracks beyond track number twelve. I enjoyed every class but Math and used to go home everyday, watch Kate & Allie, and promptly do my homework. I became good friends with the girl I've always considered my other best friend and remember our group hug at graduation as if it were yesterday. I started working at Morgan's somewhere in there and developed the hugest crush ever on a co-worker who, even today, when I see him, causes me to go home and leave my purse and milk in the car because I totally forgot why I had to run to the store in the first place.

My father looked at colleges with me, we visited only Buffalo State and St. Bonaventure, and I knew the minute we pulled up to the Bonaventure campus that I wanted to go there. I majored in Journalism / Mass Communications because I wanted to get paid to write. When I realized I didn't want to be on television or have to write for a newspaper or publication where someone told me what I *had* to write, I switched to Elementary Education. When I realized I didn't want to parent children I didn't give birth to, I switched to English and graduated with a B.A. My favourite courses were Women & Literature and Women in WWII. Because of that and the fact that only a couple more credits and a Senior project would qualify me for a concentration, I wound up with a Concentration in Women's Studies. My favourite academic moment was when my Women's Studies advisor (who was also my History professor) invited her African American History students to her house to listen to old jazz and blues records as she taught that evening's class in her living room. My Junior year involved the one and only time I don't remember getting from Point A to Point B after a night of drinking. For some reason, I decided to make my First Communion and Confirmation as a Junior. The next year, I realized just how much Catholicism isn't my bag and haven't had anything to do with it since. I worked at the student cafe and had to wear a black and white striped shirt that made me look like a referee. The library is still one of my favourite buildings anywhere. My "let's meet people online" phase began. The very first person, I haven't spoken to in years. The second one could have a post all to himself and I still probably wouldn't be able to truly sum up that friendship, which thankfully, still exists today. I had a single room for most of my Freshman year, lived with an awesome girl my sophomore year, another awesome girl my junior year, and three awesome housemates my Senior year; all of whom contributed to the amazing memories I have of my college years.

I moved back home after graduation and lived there for a bit before moving to Rochester and living with a cousin so I could work the 3 - 11 shift at Kinko's Documentation Creation Center. I typeset a bazillion resumes and academic papers, created a few menus, typed up some horrible, horrible Christmas form letters (complete with cheesy clip art), and met friends I still very much miss. We made fake business cards for each other and replaced Kinko's tag line (Kinko's. We're doing more.) with our own tagline, Kinko's. We're doing your mom. I still have the business card in a box full o' memories somewhere.

My "let's meet those online people in person" phase began, I flew to New York for the first time ever, met a guy from online for the first time ever, and had sex for the first time ever. And I still think The Moody Blues' "Your Wildest Dreams" is the best song to have playing while making out with someone. I met Steve, who was the first person I dated "seriously," the first non-familial male to tell me he loved me and the first non-familial male to whom I reciprocated those words (and feelings).

After having flown to Chicago to meet one of those online guys, I fell in love with the city. Our Kinko's location was closed down, I started a temp-to-perm gig at an Accounting firm, it never went permanent and when I was let go, decided to move to Chicago. I broke up with Steve. My mom and aunt packed up a couple cars, we drove out to Des Plaines, and I moved in with said guy from online. I lived in his son's bedroom in the basement (the kid was in college) which was next to the living room where he kept a giant boa constrictor. I lived there until I found my first job in the city as an assistant at an insurance company and became good friends with the woman who trained me. Exactly a month after I started that job, I signed a lease for my first apartment in the city; a tiny but adorable studio. I met Josh, who I dated on and off for a couple years, who introduced me to Buffy and all things Whedon, and who was the first person to really break my heart.

A few years ago, that same woman from my first job brought me over to the company where I am now and I've been administratively assistanting here since. I moved into a one bedroom apartment, which I love.

I'm a low-key, low-maintenance gal. I'm reserved with my feelings, not so reserved with most everything else. I'm a volunteer rape crisis counselor. I love reading. I love writing. I love cities. I love small towns. I love winter. I love the water. I love creative people and inspiring people and people who challenge me. I love memes that help give me ideas for the ol' blog here.

these are the days of our lives

I rarely use LiveJournal anymore as an everyday (or every few days) kind of journal but I do still read the posts of those on my 'friends list' who do still use the site. And from one of those friends, I'm lifting the latest meme because it's more than questions like, "how many CDs do you own?" and "apples or oranges?" and other randoms shit that really doesn't tell a person anything other than what lousy taste in music you have and your crazy ass enjoys oranges more than apples ('cause let's face it, apples should always win that fight).

I know myself and I know I won't be answering one question every day for thirty days but I *will* answer each question in order. I also know that I tend to have a lack of follow-through when it comes to...well, a lot of shit. So, if days go by and I'm not answering any of them, please feel free to comment or email me and tell me to get my fucking ass in gear.



Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment

Ready? Go? Set! Introductions to commence at some point today.