streak.

I have a grey streak running through my hair. Really, it's more silver, but still, grey. It's on the right side of my head, midway up and maybe an inch behind my ear. Sometimes when I'm bored or nervous, I'll grab a cluster of hairs in that area and check just to make sure it's still there.

It's still there.

I've always had it. My mother used to have the hairdresser cut out the grey strands from the rest of my mess of hair when I was a kid. I've got so much hair, it's so thick, that no one notices if I'm twenty or so hairs short of my normal full head. I don't think she meant anything by it, it's just strange to have a child with grey hairs, why not simply rid me of any evidence of abnormality? At least of one so easy to remove.

In college, I went through a phase where I dyed my hair pretty regularly. Usually just a few shades darker. Occasionally I'd fall prey to the pictures I'd seen in magazines and go for some highlights. I forgot all about the grey. It was always covered up.

I literally just forgot about that part of myself. Maybe the hair dye killed my brain cells.

Anyway, partially due to financial constraints and partially due to me becoming the kind of person I actually want to be, I stopped dying my hair a few years ago. It kind of feels good to know that the chemicals are out of it. I kind of feel smug to be comfortable in my own skin. At least in that way, for every one part of me I've grown comfortable with, it seems five more insecurities pop up daily. Don't even talk to me about my pores, I'm set on spending an exorbitant amount of money trying to shrink them back to the size they appeared when I was sixteen and worried about the size of my boobs.

It's always something, I guess.

It was December when I noticed that my grey streak is back. I'm twenty five now, so at first it wasn't exactly a happy reunion with an old friend. I was curling my hair for a rehearsal dinner the night before the marriage of two of my college friends. Matt was in the shower in the next room.

I veritably panicked at the sight, because my first thought was that it made me a mortal. Someone who can't stop the sands of time. I mean, duh. I exclaimed for him to come and look and of course, he didn't see what all the fuss was about. When it comes to appearances, Matt is one of the least fussy people I know. Usually I appreciate that. In that moment, I did not.

My parents are both in their forties. I've never spotted a grey hair on either of their heads, and lately I've been looking more closely. None in my father's beard from what I can tell either. Isn't that where men show their age first?

 I'm standing frozen, transfixed, with a hot curling iron in my hand, wearing a salmon colored sleeveless dress in the middle of winter in a dark hotel room next to a highway in Columbus, Ohio, ticking through the Rolodex of grey hairs I have archived in my memory, significant ones. My Nan's blond color shampoo in the shower at the lake house when I was young. Her first attempts at covering what she now wears proudly. My aunt confessing that she's been dying her hair black for 15 years. A few streaks of silver in a couple of my friends, always yanked. And then there it was. The streak, buried far in the back, but still there. A forgotten memory of my childhood. Squelched as quickly as it could stubbornly reappear every time I sat down, cape resting around my narrow shoulders in the spinning salon chair.

Since then my grey streak has been more novelty and less foreboding omen for me. I'd like to say I've always been an old soul or something equally cliche, but the fact is that I haven't. I haven't always been an old soul. Sure, I like a lot of the same activities as my grandmother, and I'll gladly partake in them with her or alone, but really, I'm still figuring out new things about myself just about daily. I think that makes me still pretty young in the grand scheme.

My grey streak? It's not exactly a badge of honor, because I can't for the life of me figure what it's done to deserve that. I guess the best I can decide is that it's been a constant. It's stood there, stubborn, despite all the ways I've tried to yank it, cover it, or forget about it. No matter what I do, it takes root and hangs on for dear life. It's watched me change and grow and love and hate just about everything about myself. And it never mattered because it wasn't going to change, not really, not even when it was unrecognizable.  And now, I like it, just the way it is. Finally. 

I guess it's kind of like me. 

stuck.

Sorry about the lack of posting and all.

 

I've just been tearing through every word Tana French has ever written (that I can feasibly get my hands on) and doing everything I possibly can to avoid tackling the ever-growing mountain of my clothes piling up on the bedroom floor since Manfriend and I kicked Hally out of the master bedroom and moved our stuff in.

 

Yeah, we were sleeping in the tiny second bedroom. It's a long story. The fact of the matter is that the closets aren't switched over yet, and hopefully I'll get a gust of energy this week that forces me to take care of it. I'm not a betting woman, either way.

 

In an effort to keep the restlessness bubbling up inside me from boiling over and scorching everything in sight, I've been a flurry of nesting and thrifting and antiquing. It's getting expensive, but I'll fill your head with another empty promise of pictures soon. Pictures, soon. I promise. I'm trying. It's just that we don't exactly have internet right now. Yes, we have satellite, but no internet. I have to go back to casa del parentals for that kind of luxury.

 

We DO have a washer and dryer now, though!!!!!!!! YAY DOMESTIC THINGS.

 

 

I don't cook.  

 

The meat and potatoes of it is that I feel weird. Yes, I always feel weird, but I guess I feel weirdly off.

 

 

Not long ago, I felt like I couldn't go one night a week without seeing one of my girlfriends for one reason or another. Impromptu cook-outs, a quick drink after work, a jog or a trip to the store- it seemed like there was always a posse around.

 

 

Not anymore.

 

 

Now, it's official.

 

 

Erin and I are the only two left in this city, including the greater outlying area, and to be honest I never imagined I'd be one of the last two standing.

 

I've got a gal pal in Korea, one in Kenya, two gone to the east coast and even more that have shipped out west. We're spreading, exactly what I always expected to happen with any group of friends I made. I've always been ready and willing to deploy the shards of my heart to all the corners of the world in the name of a grand adventure for the ones I love, and now it's happened in spades and I don't quite feel like myself.

 

I'm grateful to be able to surround myself (even at the distance) with women who aren't just unafraid to pack a bag and raise their face to the breeze and set off to wherever the destination may be, but who crave it. I wouldn't have it any other way. But for me this time, watching it all happen and knowing I'm staying here, for however long it turns out to be until it's my turn for another grand run of the adventure track, just seems however TOO long.

 

Sure I can plan trips wherever, a weekend in Chicago, a few days back in the old college town, even a week in a place I've never been, but for me there's nothing as scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs wonderful as the rush of adrenaline that comes with watching everything you built your life around fade into the scenery. Those terrifying moments where the line between 'Too late to turn back now' and 'I could totally pretend I never really planned on doing this in the first place if I wanted to' start blurring into each other and in the back of your mind you can just see yourself falling. It's the moment when you're far enough away that suddenly everything coming into focus holds the immeasurable potential to shape the whole next segment of your life. Could this be the destination for this new adventure?

 

I can just see myself at that stage. Gas-station sunglasses, friendly-fighting with Manfriend over who has to eat the orange and green gummy worms, daring him to eat all the sugar at the bottom of the bag. My hand reaches out for the volume knob and I give him a devilish grin as I crank it up much higher than he deems necessary. It doesn't matter where we're going, we're on our way. Happy.

 

I'm not sulking, really I'm not. I know my chance will come whether it takes another 200 fitful nights of sleep or 20.

 

But it doesn't change the fact that it's simply not today, and that I'm the one who's been left this time with the usual, the routine, the familiar- and they're the one's who are getting the opportunity to have their minds blown wide-open with new.

 

Be back sooner than later.

 

XO Sare

 

my honest thoughts on being skinny

I've got a confession: I still buy and read Glamour if I feel any affinity to the lady on the cover when passing by in the grocery check-out line. I don't know any other woman in my life that still buys any magazines like it. Whatever. I love the pictures and the colors and its glossy play on a pretty life, what life could look like. If I was richer, skinnier, and had a smaller nose.

While I wish I'd turn to Time, or even Newsweek, the truth is that in my precious moments of alone time, I usually don't. Which is fine because although it's true that the media shapes how we feel about ourselves and what we think we should look like from our earliest pony-tailed, sticky-fingered memories, it's also kind of tells me "Fuck YEAH, you are powerful. This is right within your reach." And sometimes, feeling powerful and seeing the world as a place brimming with beauty is What. I. Need.

But the magazine thing is kind of problematic too, because, you see, I have a degree in women's studies. I am supposed to be a better feminist. I'm supposed to be leading the next women's movement into battle for reproductive rights, dealing a shattering blow to that ever-present glass ceiling, showing young girls that we can and SHOULD give those glossy beauty magazines the middle finger and CREATE a beautiful that is realistic and more importantly, truly who we are and what makes each of us feel beautiful. INDIVIDUALLY. No more boxes and unfair compartmentalizations 

Which I do make a conscious effort to do, most of the time.

And not to toot my own horn, but I'm kind of a babe, anyway. A curvy one, with brains, an unexplainable driving force toward politics and making the world less hateable and hate-filled, and a sometimes overbearing snark level. Usually,  I get quite a kick out of myself.

But truth is that even the days when I feel most powerful and smart and able revolve around when I also feel like I look the part. And the part is flawless, and skinny.  Neither of which is realistically attainable for my body. Which never made me feel less beautiful before, well, now.

What's happened here? I am five foot nine inches tall. I wear a size eight. Sooooooometimes, on a reaaaaalllllllly skinny day, I'll slide into those size sixes and strut the SHIT out of it. Safely, size eight. I've been known to delve into double digits, too. You know, when need be. Winter blues and the like.

I am also easily the heaviest, tallest, BIGGEST person in my core group of girlfriends. And as much as I hate to admit it, it's REALLY been fucking with my self-image lately. You see, because there's nothing like a slim size-two putting herself down and making self-loathing comments about every pictures of herself, when you yourself are six sizes larger. 


You begin to wonder, "Does that mean that I'm fat?"


'No darling, you're lovely, look at that hair today, and your ass, work itttt!',  would be the healthy response. But lately, I've got nothing but negative for myself. 

I was the kid who spent more time in a revolving door-spin of doctors and 'tests' than middle school dances, as a result of not being able to put on any weight despite eating everything in sight, I know that skinny isn't something we always get to choose. But it is what we are told is ideal, healthy, even when it's not, so being stuck as a stick will probably get you fewer judgy stank-eyes than being stuck being heavy. That said, I know that side of the spectrum, and I'm not ragging on svelte ladies or voluptuous ladies or anyone in between. I'm ragging on bad feelings at EVERY size. And how I hardly ever meet another woman who feels "Just right" about their weight. Not that I'm taking a survey.

Now that I'm older, things have thankfully worked themselves out in the health and weight department,  and I'm curvy. I've got boobs and an ass. And although what we see may never tell us this, boobs and ass equal not being stick thin unless you're a freak of nature, are willing to alter yourself, or have just hit puberty. Which would be fine,  if all we're ever shown as perfect wasn't unattainable for most of us.

Up until now, I've always been the indulgent, completely fine with my body, confident girl that doesn't own a scale, dresses for myself, and gives a chagrined chuckle when someone snaps a picture that captures me with multiple chins. Because I've always known and just accepted that this is what I'm working with. That I'm more than a bad picture, or my thighs in that skirt, or those two extra pads of butter I throw on my mashed potatoes- and that I like the woman I am and the appearance of that person that is reflected outward, for the world to see.


Except lately, doubt has been creeping in, and I've grown paranoid, and critical.

Recently a friend of mine posted a picture of me on Fbook, which I looked at and actually cringed. My first thought was hand-to-Christ, "Ohmygod, is she mad at me?" My disappointment at the way I looked in that single picture has managed to tarnish my entire memory of the incredible amount of fun I had that night with my girlfriends.

Because I thought I looked fat. And because around them,  I already feel fat. Why am I so  negative? Where's that obnoxious self-confidence now?


I later mentioned it to her jokingly, something along the lines of, "You're a total dick for posting that picture.... etc." And you know what she said?


"REALLY? I love that picture of you! It was like I captured the entire night. You're laughing and sitting on the porch and just so relaxed, pretty."


So I looked back on that picture, searching for something I've somehow missed. And I still hate it. *&#*(*#$&(#$fuckinghateit.  And I can't for the life of me get the feeling from that night, at the moment of the snapshot, back.

 Man, this is bullshit.

I thought I'd made it safely and relatively unscathed past the point of constant self-scrutiny and self-hatred. But apparently, I've never been more wrong. Midtwenties angst or something has got a hold on me.

I used to trust that my body would just inherently know, send messages to my brain when I was tired or not eating right, or getting too heavy. I trusted this fact above everything, held it higher than those glossy photographs could ever hope to reach. In return, I've never said no to a dessert I wanted, been tempted to throw up anything I consciously put into my body, or weighed myself only to feel my stomach drop below the scale instantaneously. Instead, I've rocked high heels despite my already-ample height, wandered bikini-clad for miles down a busy beach-scape, and cheesed it for pictures without considering the chance of a double chin.


So why do I suddenly feel so fat?

I know that my body needs exercise and healthy foods instead of greasy breakfast croissants and sunscreen instead of nicotine. I'm happy to have discovered these facts and I'm happy to comply. Shouldn't I be just as apt to embrace my juicy curves and trade in my size-two aspirations?


So, I'm making a pledge. To myself. 


To stop seeing 'realistic' as a dirty word and a challenge. So stop being romanced by bright colors and glossy covers that will ultimately only leave me wanting. To listen to those who love me that tell me I look GREAT. To not lose an entire evening of perfect harmony with a group of people who surround and protect my heart because of one measly picture.  


I promise, self, that I'm going to stop trying to channel celeb bodies, even you Kim K!, when I'm sludging through my workouts, daily grind, and big nights out. Instead, I will start channeling myself again. 


The self that licks the brownie batter bowl and eats bell peppers sun-warmed right off the plant, and grins instead of smirks in those obligatory girl-group photos. 






Fat? Skinny!? 




What bullshit, nonsense, vague constructs. I'd rather be a warrior than a waif, any day. 


Xo Sara

blood is thicker than water, but peanut butter is thicker than blood

Since I emotionally don't have the tools to deal with the fact that the sky is snowing its balls off right now, ON MARCH 30TH, I'm taking a walk down the sunny side of memory lane, where the temperature mostly stays above 65 degrees and I don't have to deal with minor annoyances like wind-shield wipers and wearing socks.


I've mentioned my love of summer camp before and I think it's safe to say that it effectively made me into a geeky, 'girl power,' tie-dye loving freak. Amazingly, I still have a successful social life and due to my extreme awkwardness, vastly competitive nature, and fairly strict social upbringing, I'm sometimes told I come off as intimidating and unapproachable, which couldn't be further from my own actual perception of things, but hey-o, I don't hate it.


My sister, nearly three years younger than I, is similarly blessed with these qualities. Minus the tye-die loving freak part, that's all mine. Although, just to be clear I'll have you know that I actually work the power-suit and pumps look and I like to keep drum-circle Sara limited to certain area of my life, if you know what I mean.




When I was a senior in high school, my sister, Beth, was a freshman. PSH, more like FRESH MEAT. Bahaha.  Okay that wasn't funny. Anyway, we were both on the Cross Country team. Except, I was like, a senior, and like, totally varsity, and she was significantly lower on the totem pole, because duh, FROSH. It's kind of a tough thing to build up your image or popularity level or status or whatever bizarre pissing contest it is in high school and beyond for three years and then have a family member who actually knows you and the fact that you cry during the fucking movie previews and also uses the bathroom after you at home where all the number twos go down. It's an intrusion. Or, it can  feel like one.

There's no mystery.


 It was high school, it was cross country, in Indiana. This wasn't exactly Laguna Beach or 90210 or Gossip Girl. Again, cross country. Not a headline sport. But whatever, I had the team of girl and guy runners and we all sat around together on Friday nights and ate carrot sticks and watched Forrest Gump or Sandlot if we were in season, while the rest of our fellow student body was robotripping or getting busted for throwing corn husks at semis from the overpass.  It was vaguely cult-like, as most sports with semi-talented athletes are.


And boy, did we have some hot ticket events of which to look forward. One particularly exciting highlight was TEAM CAMP. Team camp was when we stayed IN THE DORMS of a college campus twenty miles away from our hometown for three nights and basically gorged ourselves on each other... and running three times a day. And sometimes swimming. And playing ultimate frisbee. And having ping-pong and basketball tournaments in which everyone, even the most uncoordinated, were required to participate. ALSO, the talent show.

Oh, the talent show.

Senior year summer team camp talent show, it was the 'cool' thing to be in as many skits as possible, or maybe that was just me. I'm not sure on that, I just know I was in several talent show acts, but that was maybe just because of my compulsion to win and so I felt being in as many of the acts as possible would up my chances.  The senior ladies coreographed a dance WITH PROPS and MATCHING OUTFITS to the tune of Video Killed the Radio Star. Style, bitches. Also particularly memorable is the skit I'm about to share with you and the reason for this post.

It's called Peanut Butter and Jelly.

And if I may say so myself, it was a crowd favorite. Even if we were scammed out of the highest honors.


Right, so Peanut Butter and Jelly.



The premise of this skit is to act completely stoic the entire time. It's to be treated with a sense of gravity and artsy pretentiousness to the crowd, who is hopefully losing their shit and laughing their asses off. One person is Peanut Butter and the other is Jelly. Essentially, you just go back and forth smearing the ingredient you're assigned on the other person, naming the part as you do it, taking turns until you're both miserable, sticky, messes. We used entire over-sized jars of each on one another, and if we're being honest, I wouln't have hated having two a piece.

My Sister and I attended the same summer camp, albeit at different points in the summer, as children. We'd both witnessed said skit, and been amazed by it as wee lasses. So, in an effort to be less of a bitch to my little sister, the newbie on the team trying to gain some notoriety,  I decided good old Beth and I should perform this together. It's kind of the perfect skit for sisters to do, because nobody knows how to be malicious like closely-aged sisters know how to be malicious to one another.



Our version when something like this:

Me: (Smearing peanut butter on Beth's pig-tailed locks) Peanut Butter hair gel!

Beth: (Playfully ringing my neck with jelly) Grape Jelly necklace!

Me: Peanut butter tube socks!!

Beth: Grape Jelly Sleeves!!

Me: Peanut butter lip gloss!!.

Beth: Grape Jelly blush!!

Me: Peanut butter eyeshadow!!

Beth: Grape Jelly underwear!!!!!


Grape jelly underwear. ON STAGE. It was totally on after that. I'm not kidding, we had an all-out war. The camp counselors we'd seen perform this skit as children were friends, so they hugged it out at the end. A third counselor had run out and rapidly threw a loaf of bread, slice, by slice on them and proclaimed 'Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich!!!!!!!' And they bowed it out and it was met by overwhelming applause, by the fourteen and under crowd.


We were NOT met by overwhelming applause right away. We were sisters, and shit was getting serious, seriously out of hand.  The other high-school aged members of the team had NO idea how to react. Perhaps it was weridly erotic for the male members and we didn't really think it through. My coach nearly LOST. HIS. SHIT. about the mess we made, us failing to realize just how fucking sticky everything was to become around us. Plus, we started getting legitimately pissed at each other and my friend Jessica ended up akwardly running out with the loaf of bread and kind of breaking up our shoving and condiment flinging as she doused us with bread.


In the end, we gave each other the one-stage hug, but like, the kind where you squeeze so hard that you're actually trying to hurt the other person without making it super obvious.



Crickets.



AND THEN, WAIT FOR IT.


The ROAR of applause. Weird, confused, oh-shit-what-just-went-down, 'that was fucking awesome,' applause.


God, do I love the sound of applause.


In the end, our coach was seriously furious about the skit and how we weren't *exactly* forthcoming with details prior to performance (um, we knew he was going to say no, and it's obviously better to beg for forgiveness.) and purposely didn't include us in the applause level judging to determine a winner. AND we had to scrub a nasty dorm common-area for a unreasonably long time. However, the clean-up did allow us time to make ammends and bond over the fact that we just made total fools did the most badass skit ever, together.



Beth and I already knew we were the real winners. You know, sisterly bonding and blood being thicker than water and stuff.


I think there may actually be some pictures of this circulating around still, so I'll see what I can do in the means of evidence. Oh, shit.


Xo Sare

rub a dub dub get out of the tub... for your facebook picture.

I've been having some thoughts lately regarding your favorite social networking site and mine, the book of faces.


Despite Facebook's ability to make actual human interaction completely unecessary, illuminute us on the minute interactions and daily details of people we otherwise wouldn't have thought twice about ever speaking to again, and its ability to act as a catalyst for petty drama, I actually like Facebook.


We've had some times together, Facebook and I. Months of compulsively stalking exes, blocking haters, hours of penning clever photo captions and album titles, tons of emo song lyric statuses during my college daze, and LOTS of obscure interests, these are all things I never would have had the opportunity to master had it not been for the joy and wonder of Facebook. Once, Facebook and I even took a six month "break" that ended when I moved to a new place for the summer and needed, somehow, to keep track of everyone I was meeting there. SO MANY PEOPLE.


I NEED FACEBOOK TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL MY HUNDREDS OF FRIENDS.  


Not really, but at this point, the benefits outweigh the faults and I'm riding this train all the way to the station.


Sure, the powers that be at Facebook like to shake things up and completely change the viewing format to keep everyone on their toes, or strategically so that they'll get more traffic from people trying to figure the damn thing out... again, which is infinitely annoying and kind of makes me want to do violent things to the undeserving, but the bonds run strong between Facebook and me.


It's gotten to the point where I can say, completely unembarrassed, that I actually gauge how much I will likely get along with a person based on their Facebook personality. And if I'm beating them at life.... you know, competitive little me.


For instance... I can tell that if someone has The Great Gatsby in their favorite books, we won't hit it off, just the same as if they list Cosmo, which for the record, IS NOT a fucking book. Don't get me wrong, I personally got immense enjoyment out of the book and think it's a gentleman and a scholar among literary gems. However, really? Really? You're going to list a book that was required reading in HIGH SCHOOL in your favorites? Holy Unoriginal. I'm certain there has been a time in my six-year F-book career that The Great Gatsby was listed in 1/3 of my friends' favorite books. Don't you want people to think you're smart?! My bad, I guess people think listing that book does make them look smart. Maybe I'm friending all the wrong people.


And another thing, what is this list-every-band-you've-ever-heard-of-in-the-indie-rock genre in your favorite music section? Sometimes I just want to challenge these mother fuckers to name even one album from every artist they list. It annoys me. Just give me an idea of if we would get along together on a long road-trip.

And now, we have the minimailists. At least I think that's the cool thing now. Tell as little as possible, but leave one pithy quote to sum it all up. Bonus points if you can limit it to one word. OR, on the other end of the spectrum, you have the people that update their statuses sixty times a day, using gross abreviations and emoticons.



I sound like I hate people WAY more than I do.



Really, I'm probably the weirdo for reading into the things people nonchatlantly splash across the internet the way that I do. And also, all the stuff I listed above can be forgiven by other redeemable qualities, such as making me laugh so hard in real  life that liquid splurts out of my nose, or a nice comment on one of my wall pix. However, there is one F-book infringement that is unforgivable, other than the obvious, close-minded and ignorant political bigotry in the form of a status-update.


What I'm talking about, sad but true, will genuinely determine if I will make an effort to like a person in the world beyond that safety of the interwebz. The profile picture. I guess this requires some explanation. This recent discovery of myself stems from  something my friend Jessica told me recently; that only girls who think they're pretty leave their profile pictures open to public viewing. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but the girl has a point.


I don't mind if you have a picture of your dog, your child, your boyfriend doing something embarrassing. I don't even give a good goddamn if you have a picture of your newly engaged hand with a huge diamond on it, or if you're particularly proud of a vacation body that you worked your ass off to look bangin' in that bikini for. I'll probably not hate you if you have some angle pics that are better suited for MySpace, although I'll most likely get some laughs at your expense.



The picture you post of yourself is your own perogative, it's how you want the people you know to see you, and I respect that everyone has a little different idea of what makes them feel pretty. Once, I posted a picture of myself three sheets to the wind with a sugar-glider on my shoulder and four chins because I was literally screaming in terror that the thing was going to nibble on my earlobe. We've all got different views of what makes us most attractive.


But I do have a deal-breaker, I just don't do bathtub pictures. I don't care how skinny, hot, beautiful, hipster, indie RoCk 'N rOlL, or badass your are, there is absolutely no reason in my mind that any person, from age 18-98 should ever, ever post a picture of themselves in a bathtub with water running all over them. I recently came across a picture of a young lady that is a REPEAT offender of this one rule, and I must say, I'm completely baffled. Her profile pictures are public, and there she is, at various stages of undress, chillin' in a tub o' water. Will she never need a job? I don't think sitting in a bathtub with water hitting your body is a marketable skill. THIS IS THE MIDWEST, I'm pretty sure no modeling careers are taking off around here. I'm just so confused, does this make one popular with the fellas? Because who wants to date, seriously be committed in a relationship, with a person who's giving previews to every other guy on the block book? It's times like this that I just want to bring these girls big terry-cloth robes, sit them down and give them a hug and preach just a 'lil bit, because maybe SOMEONE already should have. It doesn't matter what super-alternative angle or lens you use to take the picture, it's still a bathtub picture and you still look like a fool.



And also kind of like a hussy.



RESPECT YOSELF.



Xo Sare

the end of an era.

Sometimes, I am the worst.

Or, as I prefer to look at it, sometimes the winter harrasses me to the point of near workplace panic attacks and complete seasonal bitchiness. To cope, I get wine-drunk on a Monday night, thanks to Lucky Duck reisling and forgetting to eat anything other than a Marie Calender frozen mac'n cheese all day, with my friends when I'm supposed to be studying for the GRE test that happens in less than two weeks and cost a cool $160.

This NEVER would have happened in the summer.

So yeah, that's what's up with me.

I'm wearing a silky shirt right now, begrudingly pulled in desperation this morning from the dwindling supply of clean shirts in my closet. It's at bare minimum two sizes too large for me and a ghastly shade of dark greenish blue. Slim pickings.  It's making me feel like a cross between a circus tent and a goddamn douglas fir. Not pretty.

Pretty much the only truly productive thing I've done today is doodle these creepy little faces into the corner of the schedule I made for myself regarding all things work related this week. 

If you look really hard, you'll find that I'm not very ambitious about my time management skills.

Meh.

However, if today's a bad day due to a hangover riddled with guilt, then yesterday was even worse due to trying to process too much neurotic thinking about the past at once, coming out of an intense fight with Manfriend on Sunday evening, and trying futiley to rationalize to myself why it's perfectly fine that I'm such an asshole and everyone else can fuck right off. I felt dizzy and disoriented all day. Yeahhhhhhh, one of those.

Settle in and let me tell you a little tale of my woes.  

When I was 21 years old I started smoking cigarettes to look cool. I was/am a fucking idiot. I was a bartender living on a white-trash island of drunks in Lake Erie and I wanted to be a part of that community sooooo bad.. because, well, it was fun, really, really fun. I also needed an excuse to spend more time with a boy I thought was cute, and he smoked cigarettes, Camel wides, which is just so fitting. 

I started puffing away when I was drunk and could bum one off of someone. Or when I needed a break at work, I'd go sit out back on the steps and puff away by myself for a blessed few moments of peace. And then I started buying my own packs before too long, and it was allllllll downhill from there. I didn't even know how to inhale for probably three months after this whole ordeal started and I definitely didn't realize what an ass-hat I was about it until I was actually already inhaling and hooked....On the boy, Terry, and the cancer sticks, which are probably honestly the two most unhealthy things I've ever done to myself in my life.  He's a story for another time, or more aptly, never.

What kind of intelligent, relatively healthy, active 21 year old just ::picks up:: smoking like a goddamn hobby? The kind that apparently also likes to tolerate being treated like shit and made to feel worthless!

Whatever, like I said earlier,  I'm an idiot. Chugging forward:

Three years later, Summer of 2010. Now those were times.

At this point, I've matured,  I've moved on, I'm in an alarmingly healthy relationship with my best friend, but yup, you guessed it, I'm still fucking puffing away on those cancer sticks. Which Manfriend despises, causing some serious dissent in otherwise the most blissful of times.

So I was basically on a cigarette diet, I'd shaved it down to about one pack a week. I mostly never smoked around Manfriend- I was half-assedly trying, I'd go two or three days without a smoke break, no big deal.

And then the bottom dropped out.

The way I remember it, I made a few drunken allusions towards trying to inxnay the abithay. Then one day I got an email from Manfriend, saying he was quitting chewing tobacco, hence, I would be expected to stop smoking. Like I mentioned I was going to do anyway... multiple times... without doing so whatsoever.

'FUCK,' I thought to myself, 'I'm not ready!" But I decided despite feeling pushed into this, I would try. For manfriend. Certainly not for my own health, or the way people percieve me, or financial reasons. I was doing it for him and everything was GREAT and it was hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons, pots of gold and rainbows, and the red balloon. Peachy fucking keen. For about three weeks.  

And then I got drunk. It was wasn't that big of a deal if one of my friends gave me a cigarette. I wasn't buying them. It was harmless, just one. It's never really just one.

I started slipping up more and more and feeling kind of deceptive and sneaky, but not in the cool Sydney Bristow, spy sense, in the guilty, I'm-a-fucking-liar, letting-my-manfriend-down sense.

And then I started to feel really resentful, which is kind of a scary feeling because it's like a hybrid of feeling angry and guilty and entitled at the same time. I started thinking along the lines of, "Manfriend is trying to change me, and I'm making all these sacrifices like, like smoking! Which is a part of me, OMG I"M LOSING MYSELF!"

This was my thought stream:

OMG I NEED A CIGARETTE-> I can't have one because of Manfriend->  ahhh, smoking-> part of me-> manfriend wants to change me-> OMG I'M LOSING MYSELF-> AW HELL NAW.

And then in my mind I'd have the GIRL POWER head-bob going and dust off the rhetoric from my women's stuides degree and get all  "Ain't no man gonna change me," empowerment shit.

This went on for several months.

And on Sunday, it so happens, I got caught. Without a shadow of a doubt, busted. I rolled home from following my friend Erin to the car dealership to drop off her car and driving her home, and apparently guilt wasn't the only thing I reeked of.

Erin and I had parked in the parking lot of a Japanese Hibachi Grill, GOTTEN OUT OF MY CAR and sat on the curb IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER so that we wouldn't smell like smoke.

It didn't work because Manfriend is a detective.

Anyway, without going into all the details of our fight in which I honest-to-god started to pack a bag to drive to my house for the night, I've come to one conclusion.

I think I really have to quit now.

HEAVY sigh.

BUTTTTTTTT... I think I've finally figured out a way to justify it to myself. Maybe Manfriend wanted to quit together because we both had/have habits that are going to kill us, make us smell nasty, make us look ugly, and just generally bring our demise. I'm not even being dramatic people, DEMISE. I love Manfriend and he loves me and why shouldn't we try to be our best selves for each other? If you think about it, the prospect of wanting to be around for the person you love for the duration really isn't too much to ask. 

PLUS, Manfriend isn't some The Hamburglar character in a weird striped jumpsuit trying to steal me from myself, Terry was.  And I will be damned if I spend another day doing something that was his in the first place.

So, fine, I'll stop trying to make my lungs look skinnier by filling them with tar until they turn black, even if it's every now and then, on the sly, and maybe I'll get addicted to something healthier, like exercise*. After all, I do need some coping mechanism, I've got an incredibly addictive personality. It's why I don't gamble.

*(but let's not push it, I feel I've made enough leaps in the health and wellness portion of my life for one week).

Cheers to my renewed interest in my own health!

XO Sare