i'm really bad at handling nice gestures.

 

 

 

Ok. I just got flowers delivered to me at work and I'm about to confess something weird.

 

 

 

I honestly don't know what it is with me, but I absolutely DESPISE this sort of attention in my professional environment. Or my personal environment. Or at all.  I just can't get on board with receiving the gift of flowers. Every single time it happens, all the blood in my body rushes to my face and I can't make eye contact with anyone else in the room because they're all grinning at me like idiots because OMGZ FLOWERS and I JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT. To their credit, most of my loved ones are aware of my total neurotosism about this, and I have only recieved flowers approximately five times in the past five years. Usually from people who don't know me well. Every single time was agonizing and riddled with anxiety and panic sweat.

 

 

 

I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but cut flowers have been murdered. As someone that holds Joan Root in my top ten idols of all time, I just can't get on board with cut flowers as a sign of admiration. Potted plants? Love that shit. Totally about it.

 

 

 

On top of that, the attention that comes with getting flowers is just really unsettling for me. Today, for instance, a company whose account I have handled (among many others) for the past two and a half years sent me flowers because I am leaving my job and they wanted me to know that they appreciate the bomb ass work I have done for them and their finicky personnel and mountains of paperwork. It honestly was a major organizational achievement for me. I love doing a good job and being told I did a good job and basically just being the best and winning at everything I do because I am ultra competitive and also kind of an asshole. But a simple email, copying my boss of course, saying that in words, would have been just as awesome.

 

 

 

Instead everyone in my department just witnessed how terrible I am at receiving nice gestures, as I turned blood red and avoided eye contact with anyone as I very loudly announced several times, "Wow, that was really nice. Really nice of them." Because they're not here to thank and I had no idea what else to say.

 

 

Gotta go send a thank you. Eight more working days. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

 

 

my birthday present to myself. it was free. which doesn't mean i'm cheap... i don't think.

I'm turning 26 on Saturday, which is partially bullshit because I'm obviously immature and partially totally fine. Mostly I wonder if college kids look at me and think "Damn, that bitch is old." Because when I was in college, I totally thought 26 was old and that I'd have way more shit together when I got old. But it turns out I'm still substituting stolen peanut butter samples for entire meals in favor of buying booze, so I guess not.

mmmmm...breakfast!

Anyway, birthdays are honestly not that big of a deal to me. I more like that people make the effort to see me for once rather than me having to drive halfway across town to grab a couple of beers at some tool-ridden bar. But not too many beers because I have to be able to safely and legally drive home. In that sense, being an adult sucks because I don't live in a cool place in my city where I could walk or ride public transit anywhere. That's not the point. The point is it's my birthday, and I choose the bar. And I choose a fucking dive somewhere within walking distance of a place we can sleep. Because on my birthday I call the shots and I say we're all getting too drunk to drive home. Or I choose camping because drinking around a campfire and stumbling six feet to a tent after housing 4 hot dogs and 17 marsh mellows is my idea of the perfect evening. I know, I'm lucky to have friends, let alone a devoted boyfriend.



obviously my ideal situation.



Anyway, I know I said earlier that I thought I'd have a lot more figured out at 26, but in all reality I'm really not that disappointed with how things have shaken out so far. I'm good. I'm making strides and blazing a path for myself.  I got into grad school, I'm moving alone across the country, and I have more than 19 dollars in my back account. In my eyes, that last fact alone is cause enough for celebration. I'm letting myself do what I enjoy and say no to what I don't. Sometimes, I find, that's half the battle.


There are a number of things that I'd like to improve upon before I officially consider myself a grown up, but I'm mentally giving myself until I'm 30 and really old to accomplish most of them. At which point I'll probably give myself until 35... and we see what trend we're going on here. I never plan on actually recognizing myself as old. I plan to be infinitely forgiving of myself and stubbornly optimistic about my own future progress. And that's a promise.


I'd say that's a pretty decent gift to give one's self.


Happy birthday, Me. Cheers to, like good bourbon, getting better with age.

the very edge of sanity. though strangely void of tears.

I am a basket case right now.

 

Whew.

 

Typing that wasn't really a relief, per say, but the fact that I"m acknowledging the point seems a step in a right direction.

 

I am frustrated, stressed, emotionally exhausted, pissed off, and irritable. Among other things. They're have a marked influence, to the negative, on my excitement level toward my next step and the huge, awesome changes that are about to take place in my life.

 

I don't know why, but I have this stubborn idea that I have to maintain a calm exterior at all times. At all times. When sometimes I am thinking to myself, "Will this be the last time I drink out of this glass in this apartment?"

 

I didn't realize on Monday morning as I grabbed my keys off of the bookshelf by the door on my way out to work that it would be the last time I would see Matt and my books jumbled together on its shelves; his were gone, packed into a box, before I got home from work that day.

 

Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that I'm putting all this pressure on myself to be totally fine with this. With everything happening. To let the disappointments and downright shit that's happened in trying to make this move GO  just roll off my back. Which is completely contrary to my nature.

 

I freak out a lot, that's all there is to it.

 

But I hold some absurd amount of smug pride in the fact that I can truthfully say that I haven't broken down and cried yet. Cried about leaving my boyfriend, my family, my new niece, my dog, my friends, this town that I have grown to love. Fucking good for me. For holding onto pride at the fact that I'm not letting myself process the loss. Because you know what I've decided? That's stupid as hell. All this holding everything down is holding down the good, too. All this not getting upset over minor and major obstacles in my path is forcing me to stay numb. Even keel. I'm not an even keel person. I'm passionate and loud and boisterous and I cry over the damn movie previews, what's the point in holding it all down for something this, this, this...worthy?

 

I don't know.

 

I guess I feel like I should be marching bravely ahead. This is the path I chose, so my devotion and commitment to it should be unwavering. But at the cost of showing my friends and family that leaving them is actually hard? I don't know. I don't know if they know that I'm struggling with it at all, because to be honest, up until this moment I haven't really let myself consciously realize that I actually am struggling with it.

 

I don't want to be the kind of person that is afraid. And I think that's part of the reason for my impressive show of stoicism. But I also don’t want to be the kind of person that isn’t honest about my emotions and feelings.

The truth of the matter is that I am willing myself not to struggle. It’s essential for some to do this to get through the quagmires and swamps that life drags us into. But this doesn’t have to be that for me, and I think I may be making it that way.

So, I am a basket case right now. There, I said it. A step in a right direction.

craigslist has become a compulsion.

You don't know what to do. You're not having any luck finding an apartment and now you're not even having any luck finding a roommate situation.

 

You just keep telling yourself that the right place, your place, just hasn't come up yet. But there's a bit of tragedy in shopping around for homes, you know? You click on some anonymous craigslist add based on the fact that it has a picture and feel an instant wave of fury sweep over you when it's only an exterior shot. You take a post even less seriously when there are no pictures attached at all- at least at first you do.  And then there are the posts for places that contain pictures and you fall instantly in love or feel your stomach drop in dread that someone else is scrambling in this race to find the biggest, brightest, cheapest, closest , etc... to call home. Someone is going to have to settle for that bottom -of-the-barrel hellhole. The law of diminishing returns or something, right? We're all throwing unknowing elbows at each other, trying to shine a little brighter to catch an eye, emailing these replies that make us look quirky and fun and responsible, but not too quirky, Right. Craigslist has become your most frequently viewed page. Even at work. Even on your phone. Because this has turned into an arms race you and WILL see anything posted first. When it comes to selling yourself in a query it may be every man for themselves, but you WILL get there first.

 

You know the unit/apartment/house that everyone wants. The one that's too good to be true because it was obviously created for you. AND IT'S IN YOUR PRICE RANGE. GLORY! The one that you look at the pictures over and over, scrolling, scrolling more slowly over each one, eyes glazing over slightly. Because you start to see your shit in there. You can imagine your couch by that window and see your pictures hanging on the walls and your dishes in the sink and your bed angled just so. And seeing your apartment in a place that is advertised for anyone and everyone to see, 2000 miles away from your eyes straining on pictures of it on a screen while you lounge on your couch in your current home, it makes you feel uneasy. Queasy. Almost militant. Your heart starts pounding a bit louder even though you will it not to because at this point in the housing search, this feeling of deja vu isn't new anymore. It happens daily. Sometimes more than daily. The possibilities are endless, but they're probably not yours for the taking, so try not to get too excited.

 

But you do. You DO get attached and excited and send the link to one of your friends with the subject "I think this one might ACTUALLY be THE ONE." Because you're hopeful. The housing search hasn't beat you yet. It's dealt some blows, sure, but you're still looking. You're not giving in on that hardwood floor criteria. You WILL walk to school from home. Those things are non-negotiable. You can live without a dishwasher, maybe, if you have to.  And maybe a view of the mountains out the windows isn't crucial, likewise a bathtub, but you WILL have hardwoods floors and a short walk to campus.

 

But then you never hear back from any of your meticulously crafted responses, you never hear anything back at all. You start to worry that something is wrong with you. Is this giving you a complex? What are you saying wrong? The non-negotiables that seemed like basic staples are now sounding just the slightest bit frivolous, even to you. You'd settle for newer carpet maybe, right? There's a bus system isn't there?

 

You are starting to imagine yourself in that dark, dank, basement apartment that you cringed at, crammed and jammed with carpet from the 80s that smells like feet, and an upstairs neighbor with a litter of children and a pack of wild dogs crowded into their equally tiny space, the paper thin walls letting you get suddenly intimate with someone you'd usually avoid.

 

You actually shake your head a few times to clear it of that horrendous mental picture when you realize it's only a bad daydream. Only a bad daydream.

 

Except now it's getting down to the wire and since you still have nothing secured and only discouraging responses from shady would-be landlords, you're considering not only dropping your non-negotiables but also (yikes!) living with roommates. Or paying a fuck ton of a lot more in rent than you can really afford. A LOT more.

 

 

It was your dream to live alone. That's all you really wanted, to live alone. One. More. Time.

 

 

And now even that is looking completely ridiculous. So you send out queries to any ad that can even be stretched as 'passable.' Even to self-important sounding dickheads who are three years your junior, almost begging them to reply. At least tell you what's wrong with you. You don't remember ever feeling so insecure.

 

And it's hard, you know, to look forward to where you're going when it seems like everyone hates you there or are at least totally uninterested in anything you have to say and all the landlords now seem super shady and a single 26 year old non smoker with no pets can't even find a place to call home. It's really hard to get excited to move somewhere that so obviously doesn't appear to want you- now that you've had to sludge through the underbelly of the housing market for months before you actually move there. But this is what you wanted! Adventure! You're leaving everything behind! So you better be fucking happy about it because no one really gets why you're doing it anyway! Don't you dare falter in your thrill to be moving onto something new! Don't you fucking dare panic or be anything other than glowing with radiance and thrill!

 

 

And then your mother, always trying to help in the most embarrassing ways, sends you the link for the women's shelter out there and you realize that the low you thought was THE low in your housing search, it's not even close. But don't worry, you can always crash at the women's shelter! You're not a freeloader taking valuable resources away from battered women! And now your mother has just officially made it her personal mission to find a a place for you to live since she doesn't believe it can really be that hard. You're just not trying hard enough. As if you've never heard that from her before. So you get a near constant string of emails yielding the results of her god-only-knows elementary-level internet search, probably fucking yahoo or something. You know it's mean/rude/ungrateful, but you can't think of anything even vaguely grateful to say in reply, so mostly you just don't reply at all.

 

 

Now your eyes hurt and you feel pretty solidly jumpy and tense at all times. But you're totally fucking cool, you know? You're not going to freak out, no way. You're fucking PSYCHED to be moving out west and you could honestly handle the leaving everything behind part if you could fucking secure a place to live in the next three weeks so that the movie company actually has a place to drop off your shit at the end of the cross country haul. No biggie. You're not worried about the way your life is going to change. Mostly just about finding and warm dry place to lay your head at night.

 

 

Suddenly you realize that you haven't checked craigslist in the entire time it's taken to type this dramatic narrative. Gotta go.

i'm (kinda) crafty!

Not really! But I sure can paint a copy of something I find on Pinterest! And here is some proof:

This will hang in my future domecile.  I love it.



I painted this for my niece's room. It's foxy.



Unfortunately my painting supplies were among the first things packed for my impending move so it will be a while until I get to pour my creative juices onto canvas again, but I'm getting some good ideas thanks to the interwebz.

an adventure with my baby brother last thursday.

I'm reading the waiver, even though I never read waivers. I get it, it's my life, you don't want the responsibility. I usually scribble my name with flourish, grinning in the process, ready to stretch my own limits again. Not today. No, today I'm reading the waiver, actually forming the words silently with my mouth, which has gone dry, by the way, due to the number of times 'unsupervised' is appearing.

 

I glance over at Charlie and, just for a second, I wonder how much he would hate me if I backed out right now. How long can an eleven year old really stay mad? He'll forget by tomorrow, right? Next week, maybe? No. He won't forget. None of us forget things like this, we're Drakes, our memory is impeccable. Seriously, though? No helmets? Completely unsupervised? 40 feet in the air in places, with harnesses and zip lines and safety lines that we ourselves have to secure onto wires and strings suspended between the trees? A fifteen minute training? That's it? And I have to sign this form saying I acknowledge that I am 100 percent responsible if anything should happen to harm a single hair on my baby brother's head, high up in the trees? God damn. I should have gone to bed earlier/not drank so much last night. I'm already sweating.

 

I'm not even new at this. I've done high ropes courses before, at summer camp. And I've been on long, high zip line courses, in Hawaii. So has Charlie. Plus, we're doing this for fun, right? A fun adventure... I took the day off so we could hang out together. And do this. This crazy, dangerous, unsupervised thing. For fun.

 

Fun, my aunt Fanny. I'm feeling shaky.

 

I push it all away for a moment and force myself to sign the form. Again and again on all the lines. I print Charlie's name. I take full responsibility. I shoot a bewildered smile at my mother, who looks completely unperturbed on the other side of the picnic table. In fact, she may even be smirking at my reaction to the waiver. She's had a bit more experience than I have at the whole parenting thing. Apparently watching your children walk and bounce and skim through the trees, forty feet over your head, while left to their own devices to make sure safety lines are properly fastened and functioning is just a walk in the park.

 

I am suddenly one hundred percent positive that I would be an unfit mother at this point in my life.

 

But I signed the form, so I guess it's time to make an effort. We wiggle into our harnesses and let the staff tighten us in. I make sure Charlie is listening to the instructions so many times that I have no idea how I actually heard them myself. We do the practice course from the ground and the instructor who looks about sixteen gives a a three question 'quiz' that anyone with a functioning brain stem could pass and then she lets us do the baby zip line to make sure we know how to land... and she she says "Have fun!' but to me all it sounds like is "Go with God, Sucker!" And then she disappears and we're surrounded by trees and ropes and wooden platforms but no authority figures or trained personnel and I guess it's time to get on with it.

 

 

Charlie beelines it toward the first station and I follow, slowly. My knees don't feel very stable. Certainly not stable enough to climb that tall ass ladder and remember all the steps in the instructions and make sure Charlie makes all his harness connections correctly and make sure we're both securely and safely connected at all times. If I were by myself, I'd already be swinging in the trees, seeing just how safe that safety line really is, letting go, swinging around with all my weight. testing it. But suddenly, this other person has been thrust upon me, and despite my love for him, I can't help but remember that his nickname is "Squirrelly" for a reason. He's got a short attention span, minuscule. And a knack for not listening to a goddamn thing anyone says. Then I glance at him, and he's so eager and excited, and I promise myself that if we make it through this, I will definitely allow myself a nap this afternoon.

 

So I watch as Charlie climbs the ladder and I'm strung so tightly that every single move I make feels jerky and I swear to everything good in this world I've never in MY LIFE felt more compelled to follow every rule without question. We're held to the course by two lines that you have to unattach and reattach to the next portion of the course separately. I remind Charlie "One at a time, buddy," so many times that he starts rolling his eyes at me, and the one time I consciously hold myself back from saying it, he tells me he's really proud of me.

 

We inch through a course, me following as I wring my hands and we pause every now and then so that my mom can snap pictures of us from the ground. And my hands are steady, but that doesn't mean my nerves are calm, not at all. I am shaken to my core. Because I imagine being suspended in the air with a tiny person always ten feet in front of you and already moving onto the next super unsafe thing and only two small lines of security and no solid ground to speak of are maybe metaphorically what parenting feels like every single moment. And yeah, I like to take risks and throw myself around haphazardly and do stupid shit for the hell of it, but that feeling of fear and responsibility and constant, "Please get us through this in one piece." Yeah, that's something I want no part in right now.

 

 

So Charlie and I climbed, and obstacled, and ziplined all over the forest that day. And every now and then, he'd look back at me and exclaim, "This is so much fun! Thanks for doing this with me, Sare!" And I'd take a breath and let myself take my eyes off of him for one second (but not two) and realize how beautiful everything looks from high in the trees and I'd bounce along the obstacles and catch myself smiling or yelling out a battle cry as I swept down the zipline, hitting leaves and rays of sunlight on my descent. And I'd enjoy it for a moment. Just a moment, and I'd remember I was doing this for fun too.

 

 

But the moment it was over and I tousled the top of his head on solid ground, that was the real pay out. I've never been more relieved in my life.

 

 

 

 

a tribute to my favorite month.

July, July.

It's finally here. The stickiest, most humid, sweat-behind-your-knees-and-on-your-hairline, sunburn-on-your nose-and-shoulders, popsicle-melting-as-fast-as-you-can-slurp-it, cannon balling-into-cool-water, flesh-burning-seatbelt-heat, mosquito-slapping, windows-down, day-drinking VERY BEST time of year.

I may have mentioned it before, but July is my favorite month of the entire calendar year. Not only because of fireworks and my birthday and the raging heat, but mostly.

You see, I am a summer soul. Thoughts of July keep me tethered (sometimes more loosely than others) to sanity all year long. I must say, there's nothing quite like a Midwestern July.

It's true, I've tested new locales far and wide whilst wandering along in July's embrace over the years, but no place I've found does July quite like the Midwest. We've got walk-up Dairy Queen countersand corn fields as far as the eye can see, with stalks growing so fast it feels like if you sit still long enough you could witness them springing further and further from the earth. We've got orchards full of apple trees and raspberries and peaches and you can get a cider slushie that will change your entire outlook on life for nary one dollar. We've got air so humid a thunderstorm can -and will- pop up at any time and hot rain drops will fall on your exosed skin, branding you for a second or a minute or however long they last. We've got streams and rivers and lakes and plenty of rafts and floaties for one more, there's always room for one more to float along side.

July means eternal youth, because heat will sometimes even all playing fields, and reduce us to hose-drinking children and popsicle licking youth. I challenge you to find a person who doesn't feel the slightest sense of glee at lighting a bottle rocket and waiting for the SWOOSH and CRACK! I bet you couldn't find a soul in the Midwest that doesn't relish in the idea of seeing how many we can light off at a time. I've never dated a guy that when I pointed out my favorite kind of firework, hesitated to point his own out to me mere moments later. It's so hot that holding hands doesn't seem chaste, instead it's a testiment of affection to be touching another person's hot skin at all. July is a time when a pony tail or pig tails are appropriate for all age groups. Sometimes (all the time, for me) socks are just too much for our battered and heat swollen feet. That sometimes is July.

I love July more now than I did as a child, even without the reward of no school and 31 days of potential lake swimming and adventure IN A ROW. There's a reason July is one of the longest months, there's a lot of life to pack into a time when it's so hot that every motion seems languid, slower than we'd normally move, but there's so much more we want to do. Leisure. July is a symbol of leisure for me. After those forty hours per week of work fly on by, it's time for relaxation and fun. For baseball games, picnics, and pool days. For sunset walks with the dog, who for once is not pulling the goddamn leash so hard you think your arm will bust out of the socket. July is al fresco dining at that new restaurant and street fairs and outdoor concerts where you sit on the lawn on childhood comforters and sip overpriced light beer until the music starts and then everyone loses themselves and jumps up and down and around. July means joy. Sure, July means heat and a certain wonderful sense of misery but it also means laughter and melting smiles and hammocks and hikes and so many pictures.

I challenge you to find a person that doesn't look just a little bit healthier with some sun on their nose and cheeks. It's why women wear bronzer, right? So we look a bit touched by the sun. July is a perpetual kiss from the sun.

July is good. Not only are we thawed, finally, we're melted. We can reshape ourselves come fall, and we will, we will. But July. July is a good time to be in a fluid state, to move easily and freely, full of flexibility and able to fit to any plan or mold. To try karaoke for the first time or smile at a stranger. To roll the windows down and drive someplace you've never been before. To blame that crazy behavior on 'A little too much sun.' Because the sun never minds, it likes to drive us crazy. Summer is the only time that the sun isn't completely fickle and unpredictable. In July, even when the sun leaves, she's rarely gone for the whole day.

Sure, I like other months and I could name redeeming qualities for each at the drop of a hat, but July, now that is true romance. July is wild, youthful, and it burns. July is fleeting and leaves you feeling spent and a little off kilter, but that's okay. Sturdy September will set us straight if we can suvive the return of order and school in August, with the sun still beckoning enticingly, hotly, from our desks through the window. July keeps us up late and encourages us not to blow dry our hair before work. It scoffs at makeup and ironing clothes in favor of a few precious extra minutes of sun-steeped sleep and one more round of the snooze button. July is a first love that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth when it's over.   But who among us wouldn't go back for another taste of first love?

That's July.