Things About Me - Part 2

25 MORE THINGS ABOUT BRANDI

1. I eat the caramel off the top, then the chocolate off the sides, then the cookie part last when eating a Twix.
2. I finally branched out into the world of pointy-toed skinny heels, and round-toes are back in style this fall.
3. I have always hated the game Monopoly. Then I got it for my birthday and have beat Aaron three times. Now I love it.
4. I am the Zoolander of driving – I will go out of my way to avoid making a left turn.
5. I played basketball, volleyball and ran track in high school. I was okay at the first two, but excelled in track. It was the first time I got to be the star of the team instead of just a bench-warming supporting player. I loved it.
6. College was an especially wonderful time in my life. Sometimes I miss living in the dorms and having waffles for dinner every night.
7. I make up songs with very detailed verses about Miles the Wonder Dog.
8. When I was three, I tripped over a step in my parents’ bedroom and hit my face on their bed frame. I had to get four stitches underneath my eye, and as a result have a small tic-tac-toe board scar. They are the only stitches I have ever gotten.
9. My five desert island bands are: Waterdeep, Counting Crows, Carole King, Patty Griffin and Weezer. I didn’t list the Beatles because they are a given. All desert islands come equipped with their complete catalog. It's like saying your favorite book is the Bible.
10. I really love wrapping gifts. It’s my mom’s fault – she is the gift wrap Nazi. I love buying wrapping paper and using funky ribbon and that tape you can’t see. I would love to have a room dedicated solely to gift wrapping like those homes on the tours have. I always have tight creases and folded corners (thanks Mom!)
11. I hate coffee and most hot drinks. I can drink hot tea if it is tempered with milk.
12. When I was in high school, my friend Melanie’s mom would buy root beer and keep it in the fridge just for me.
13. My favorite book is Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis, followed closely by Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner.
14. I played percussion in the band in junior high. I really liked it and was pretty good, but I succumbed to peer pressure and quit in high school to focus on sports. Good plan, as I use my track-running skills on a daily basis.
15. When I am a rockstar, my first single will be “Everybody’s Guilty” by Waterdeep. I am meant to stand on stage and sing that song.
16. I have a real soft spot in my heart for junior high girls. It is such a crucial time in your life, and I feel like my ministry is with them. You start defining who you are, who your friends are, what you believe and how you make decisions during that stage, and anything I can do to help them form a foundation for those decisions is very important to me.
17. I love to work those logic puzzles with the grid where you mark things with X’s and O’s until you’ve got the answer.
18. I met Aaron on the internet. We were in the same chat room in the fall of 1998 and he and a friend were talking about a girl I knew. I started talking to him and we stayed in touch for a long time after that via email and IM. Over time we realized that we’d grown up within 5 minutes of each other, had many mutual friends and had been in the same place at the same time a freaky number of times. Our first in-person meeting was not planned… I was at a concert with some friends. One girl, a friend of a friend, had gone to high school with Aaron and we had figured out that we both knew him. At the show, she pointed him out to me. I had no idea he was going to be there. I walked over and introduced myself, and we both kind of looked at each other before quickly making excuses to leave. Very awkward. We stayed in touch after that and had several strange coincidences before we really started hanging out in person. We went on our first date four days before he moved to Nashville. We dated long distance for two and a half years before we got married.
19. I used to have a recurring nightmare. I was running down a hill that was covered with snakes, and I was jumping over them. A guy with a giant cardboard box was chasing me. The box was full of snakes, and he was throwing them at me as I ran.
20. Growing up, the 45-minute drive to my mom’s parents’ house felt like it took a thousand hours. We lived for that stop at the convenience store for soda and candy on the way out of town. Somehow, Dr. Pepper from that store always tasted better.
21. During early morning basketball practice in high school, I would fake nauseous feelings to get to go to the bathroom for a while and get out of practice.
22. I was the editor of my high school yearbook and my college newspaper.
23. I got to see the Normals live several times before they broke up. I didn’t realize how big of a deal that is until they decided to do a reunion show in Nashville and people started making plans to fly from all over the country to see it. Luckily, the show is in Nashville, so I’ll be there with bells on.
24. My dream job is to own a stationery and paper store that also plans weddings and events.
25. I can’t wear hats. My head is deceptively large and most hats are way too small.

Things About Me - Part 1

My sister and I are participating in a blog challenge. For the next four days, we will be writing a list of 25 things about ourselves. At the end of the week, we'll each have compliled a 100 Things About Me list. Check her out!

THE FIRST 25 THINGS ABOUT BRANDI

1. I am addicted to Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with chocolate graham crackers crushed up in it.
2. I am glad I was born in 1980 because it’s always easy to remember how old I am. 2005? I turn 25. Easy peasy.
3. When I got my new cell phone the guy laughed at me because all I wanted was to be able to make and receive calls… he couldn’t understand that I had no desire to text message or take pictures or make home movies with my phone.
4. I love that Outlook automatically capitalizes the letter I for you in email. I never hit the shift key correctly and end up capitalizing half the email.
5. I have been married for three years, one month and 4 days.
6. My favorite movies are Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Almost Famous.
7. My favorite TV show is Curb Your Enthusiasm, followed closely by America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.
8. I am hideously self-conscious at work about how I look at work… I feel like my job is too cool for me.
9. I call my husband any time I successfully parallel park or back into a parking space.
10. I do not call him when I do either of those things unsuccessfully.
11. I am painfully picky about the newspaper. No one is allowed to touch any section of the paper until it’s been placed in the ‘discard’ pile. I take it apart, toss what I’m not interested in, and organize the rest from least interested to most. That way I get everything read, and my favorite parts are saved for last. If you try to take something out of the ‘not yet read’ pile, I cannot be held responsible for what happens.
12. I really, really, really love thunderstorms.
13. Fried food makes me very happy. Chicken fried steak, fried pickles, fried okra. Love it all.
14. I am worried that an inordinate amount of my list will be centered on food subjects.
15. I had a great childhood. My parents are fun and interesting; my sister is a wonderful friend and partner in crime. I have a major tendency to romanticize things, but we had a happy home growing up and to that I attribute my relatively well-adjusted status today. That status will probably be in serious question by the end of this list.
16. I only like blue ink and ultra fine point Sharpies.
17. I wear the same watch, rings and earrings every day. I never wear necklaces. I drool over jewelry in magazines but never buy it for myself. I don’t even want the nice stuff… I want cheap trendy stuff. But for some reason when it comes time to buy it I always chicken out and end up with nothing.
18. My favorite pair of shoes I own is lavender, pointy-toed flats with a bow at the toe. Super cute, and completelly unlike anything else I have ever bought.
19. I hate to play spades – the bidding process stresses me out. I always feel like whatever I play, my partner is annoyed with me. This is hardly ever the actual case.
20. I have only been drunk once, and I use that term loosely. I had a slight hangover the next day, but it wasn’t much. This was also one of the very first times I drank alcohol, at my friend’s sister’s wedding. I tried several things that night, and ended up drinking almost an entire bottle of champagne by myself.
21. I also caught the bouquet at that wedding, and got engaged less than two weeks later.
22. If I could do it again, I would have a much smaller wedding with much better food and music.
23. I am terrified of having children.
24. I am slowly expanding my cooking repartee. Whereas I used to have three things I would reliably and boringly bring to a party, now I have several dishes to choose from that I know I can create and get good reviews.
25. I want to live in an old house with creaky wood floors and a big yard with giant trees. A big porch on the front and a screened in porch in the back. A pool. I want the outside to be completely old school and the inside to be totally modern.

Laaaaaaaaaazy.

We had a slow and lazy weekend. Due to pay schedules, the goal was to spend as little money as possible. I'd say we did a pretty good job. Friday night: We had intended to go to Shakespeare in the Park, but the rain that poured that afternoon prevented it. Instead, we stayed home and did a whole lot of nothing. Aaron and Miles watched football. I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing from scratch (icing too!) I was impressed with myself and Aaron said I did a mighty fine job. That's pretty huge, since that cake from a box is his very favorite thing. Then we played Monopoly until we couldn't take it anymore... no one could build anything and Aaron was taking my money $26 at a time. (Damn you, Pacific Avenue!) Saturday: We were heavy on the lazy today. Slept in, watched the greatest TV of all time (cooking shows on PBS). Cleaned the house. Then we got heavy on the pathetic and sold some clothes to Planet XChange. We made $50! Very impressive. Bought some food, headed home. I can't really remember what we did Saturday night... must have been exciting! I'm sure football, or SNL, or West Wing reruns were involved. OH- we watched Before Sunrise. It was alright... I probably would have liked it more if I'd seen it when it came out. Sunday: went to GracePointe. Came home and ate, then played out our regular Sunday afternoon routine, Aaron took a nap while I read the paper. He left to play Frisbee golf and I painted a lampshade and watched Garden State. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon. Last night we were running kind of low on food but Aaron managed to make grilled chicken with brocolli and corn and pasta. Very impressive, and yet another reason why he is the bestest.

Aaron was here!

Mmmmm... food. The last Thursday of each month, we get together for dinner with the folks in our now-defunct Bible study. So far we've only done it twice, but each time it's been wonderful and I am already looking forward to the next one. Last night we had dinner at the Hansen's. Erik and Amanda are two of the coolest people I know, and they have three of the most adorable children I have ever seen. I think the reason I am drawn to them is because they have three kids, but they don't take over their lives. We don't spend all night talking about them. Amanda stays at home, but she's never been that stereotypical frazzled mom I know too many examples of. Erik is terribly smart and always funny. They are a joy to be around, and we see way too little of them. Plus, they're from Texas, so they ROCK. They would have completely been in had I thrown the party I wanted to when Blue Bell came to Tennessee. Erik and Amanda's oldest son, Kai, has always been oddly attached to Aaron. We think this stems from the first time they came to our house, when Aaron carried him around all night and fed him potato chips. From then on, every time we saw them he was thrilled to see Aaron. Last night was the first time we'd seen Kai in several months... I can't even remember the last time. When we arrived, he met us at the door. He was so big! I hardly recognized him. He was playing shy for a while, but then warmed up to Aaron a bit before going to bed. Today we got the following email from Amanda: "This morning when Kai woke up, he said, "Where did the friends go?" I told him that the friends went home and he smiled and said, "Aaron was here!" You are quite the celebrity around here!" LOVE.

An 80-year-old woman in a 25-year-old body.

I am old. I have been 25 for two weeks, and my body has decided that 25 is where it all starts going downhill. My back hurts, my knees ache, my ankles won't bend well. I am creaky and cranky and it is not pretty. The culprit behind all this pain? Volleyball. Aaron and I have started playing in a pick-up volleyball game on Monday nights. It's competitive, which I love. I am a volleyball snob, and I have a hard time playing in games where people don't know what they're doing. I know it's all in good fun, and I can do that, but it's a struggle. I need a game where it won't hurt someone's feelings if you block them. Or hit them with the ball. Or argue about whether the ball was in or out. So we went, and it was good. There was one guy there, though, who was kind of a volleyball nightmare. I don't really mind stupid people. They bug me, but they're stupid, they can't help it. What I do mind is stupid people who don't know they're stupid. This guy was one of those people. We started off on the wrong foot when our friend Michael blocked his serve (a totally legal play). He said you can't do that, and had all these crazy reasons about why. He was wrong, of course, but after one round of "I think you can do that, we learned how in high school", I gave up. It's no fun to fight with people. Anyway, I won't go into the details, but it just got worse from there. The worst part didn't occur until the next morning when we woke up. I could. not. move. We were pathetic - me, all hunched over walking to the bathroom, and Aaron, being knocked over by our 19-pound dog because his knees won't bend correctly. Regardless, we had a great time and plan to keep going. They're starting up a co-ed league in October that we will probably play in. Now that we're not at CC anymore, we have a lot of free evenings that we don't know how to fill. I'm excited about finding new activities, and especially excited that volleyball will be one of them. I hope I don’t get too annoying with my strategies and drawings of plays on paper. Not that I’m already doing that or anything.

Just tell me I'm okay...

Remember Silverchair? I liked them. Last night I went to hear Don Miller read from a few of his books. It was really good… he’s a funny guy and very comfortably interacted with the audience. It was interesting… after reading Blue Like Jazz, which reads almost like a journal, it was strange to see him in person. I kept thinking, “I know so much about this guy and how he thinks, and he knows nothing about me or how what he said changed me.” At one point, a girl asked a question about finding our validation in Christ, in His unbelievable love for us. Why, if we are called to something so much higher and the God of the universe died because he loves us so much, do we look to other people for our worth? Why am I more worried about what my coworkers think of my outfit than if what I am doing is pleasing to God? It was an interesting question that he apparently addresses in Searching for God Knows What. It’s a question I’ve dealt with most of my life, as I’m sure most of us have. For the sake of argument, I’m defining “seek validation” as letting someone’s thoughts or ideas of me shape who I am and what I do. I started thinking about whose validation I seek. Aaron’s, of course, but not for the same reasons as everyone else’s. Validation from Aaron is validation of our marriage. He is not judging me for my outfit, or how funny I am, or the meals I cook (thankfully). Part of his job as my husband is helping me be the best person I can, helping me follow Christ as closely as I can. Approval from him means I’m doing something right… it’s measured against a different standard. I don’t think I would say I seek validation from my friends. I feel pretty confident that they like me for me, that in spite of and because of my quirks and screw ups they love me. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have friendships that are real. These are not friends who will be bitter toward me for having something they want, nor look down on me for doing something they wouldn’t. They celebrate my happiness and support me in my sadness. And I them. I definitely seek validation at work. I work in an ‘industry of cool’, which is unfortunate for me and my compulsive uncoolness. My boss was named one of the best dressed people in Nashville, for crying out loud! I am more self-conscious at work than anywhere else… do I look cool enough? Am I too plain? Am I doing a good job? Do they talk about me when I’m not here? Last night after the event, I called my dad. He recently read and liked BLJ, and I wanted to tell him about it. I realized after our conversation that for the bulk of my adult life I’ve sought validation from him more than anyone else. Subconsciously, I think. He always wanted us to do well, of course, but more than that he wanted us to be independent thinkers. Whatever we chose to do and believe, he wanted us to seek it out and be sure it was what we wanted and what we truly thought. Never to just go along with the crowd. I’ve always been worried that he’s disappointed in me somehow. That by getting involved in church and getting married young I have somehow sold out. Even now, when we talk on the phone, I try to phrase things so he knows that I’m ‘cool’. As I’m starting to figure out who adult Brandi is supposed to be, the pressure to impress my dad has lessened a bit. Maybe I’m more independent than I think I am. He’s certainly more forgiving than I used to think he was. Maybe part of being the person he always wanted me to be is not being so worried about what HE thinks. He wants me to be happy. That’s enough for me.

We'll be groovin'.

One time in college, I made the mistake of telling my roommates that I had a slight crush on Uncle Kracker. They never let me live it down. His video for "When the Sun Goes Down" with Kenny Chesney just came on. I have no shame - I still like him. I don't want to make out with him or buy his albums or anything, but cute he is.

Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm not a fool.

This one of my favorite times of the year. Late August and early September. It’s still hot outside, but you know that fall is fast approaching. Fall is a great season in Nashville. The leaves change colors slowly, and for several weeks there are great views of hills full of reds, oranges and yellows. I love Nashville weather because we have four actual seasons. Not like Texas, where you have summer for eight months and one icy day. But I love these pre-fall days for another reason. Nashville is full of colleges: Vanderbilt, Belmont, Trivecca, Lipscomb. And in these last weeks of August, the college kids start flooding the town. I know that in a few weeks I will be cursing them – the way they take all the tables at Panera and Satco, the way kids eight years younger than me drive cars eight years newer than mine. But for now, I just love the season. I loved college. I loved living in a dorm room, eating in the dining hall, scheduling classes around what was on TV. I loved the library, and walking across the quad, and sitting in coffee shops all afternoon reading and taking notes. I loved editing the newspaper and arguing over page design and competing in journalism contests. Aaron and I met in college, and I learned quickly how to maintain a relationship from 12 hours away and how to find the best prices on phone cards online. So when these kids start arriving in their cars, packed to the gills with shower caddies and milk crates and matching comforters, I get a little emotional. It’s such a major thing, college. You start to become who you’re going to be. You meet the people who you hope will be your lifelong friends. You get your heart broken. You learn to remedy hangovers, cram for tests, write 20-page essays in two hours. How to be a real friend. How to let people really love you. I know college isn’t like that for everyone, but I’m thankful that it was my experience. So I get a little emotional, not just for my college experience but for what these kids are getting ready to do. They are on the verge of an amazing, heartbreaking season of their lives. I hope it is everything they never thought it could be.

Random things.

I am frazzled today. I think it would be a bad idea for all involved it I tried to write a coherent entry, so I'm not going to. Instead, I shall make lists.

TEN RANDOM THINGS THAT ANNOY ME

1. The guys on the second floor who come up to the third floor to use our private bathroom. YOU HAVE A BATHROOM ON YOUR FLOOR. Just because you're embarassed to do your business down there does not mean you need to share it with us.
2. When the guys from the second floor don't answer the bathroom phone when we call it while they're in there.
3. Our new neighbors who park both of their cars on the street out front instead of in the driveway in the back. I do not like looking out my window and seeing a giant red pickup truck.
4. Toby Keith.
5. People who think tipping is optional.
6. When people at church treat junior high kids as if they're some kind of subspecies. They are fascinating and creative and smart and loving and a whole lot more accepting of most people than they are of them.
7. That tiramisu and creme brulee are not fat free and vitamin fortified.
8. Vanity Fair magazine.
9. People who are unable to listen to someone talk without interjecting their own, only slightly related, experiences in the matter. Sometimes people just need to talk. They don't care what happened to you.
10. My wardrobe.

TEN RANDOM THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

1. Miles the Wonder Dog.
2. When Aaron gets me a glass of ice water before bed without my asking.
3. The book on puctuation I got for my birthday. I can't wait to read about someone more frustrated by excessive exclamation point than I am.
4. The sweet, sweet girls at church who went out of their way to tell me that they are thankful for the time we spent together and they learned a lot from me and sad to see us go but excited about whatever lies ahead for us.
5. The September issues of magazines with all the fall shopping guides and tips and the pretty pretty pictures.
6. Getting home after work on an evening where you have nothing to do and can just lay around and be lazy together.
7. Chai Tea ice cream from Maggie Moo's.
8. When bad books are still able to create good discussion.
9. Friends that seem to come out of nowhere and become important in your life very quickly.
10. Lunch.

Hello, and welcome to The Price Is Right.

I start an inordinate amount of these posts talking about how I’m embarrassed by whatever music I happen to like. Today it’s that Brad Paisley “Alcohol” song and Big & Rich. I love Big & Rich. I am so ashamed. Last week I received the birthday box from my mom. It is one of my very favorite things about my birthday. She fills it with gifts, magazines, candy, and whatever random stuff she thinks I need. Then she wraps it in brown paper and she and my sister cover it in clippings and pictures from magazines. Then they wrap it again and ship it. It is so great. This year in the “random stuff” category was the video of my 10th birthday party. It was as embarrassingly good as I remembered. At one point, my sister does a fabulous lip synch/dance to NKOTB’s “Step By Step”. In my mind, the best part of the dance is the high kick she so passionately performs repeatedly. I was mistaken however. There is a move in this dance so inspired, so creative, so amazingly awfully awesome that I must have blocked it out for fear of overwhelming my brain. At the end of the song, Joey hits a loooooooong high note. When Chelsea performed this part of the song, she added my favorite dance move: the slow-motion fist raise. Her eyes are closed, her nose is squenched, and her fist is raised. It. Rules. After the birthday party, there is a mercifully short clip of a 5th grade Christmas choir concert that includes not only terrible singing, but a peach sweatshirt and MATCHING SKIRT with lots of dangly ribbons in my hair and excessive nose-wiping. After the concert, there was something I’d never seen before. It was my friends and I when we were about 15, dressed like we’d just come home from basketball practice. There were about seven of us. We were just hanging around, playing darts, singing goofy songs. Kelley was doing a Bob Barker impression. Jayme was bullying us, as usual. Callie was playing computer solitaire and trying to avoid the camera. Steffanie was reading a magazine and Melanie and I were singing. (the camera is on Jayme, shooting darts) Kelley: Brandi! Point the camera over here! I’m going to do Bob Barker. Jayme, pointing a dart at Kelley: I’ll show YOU Bob Barker! (pan to Kelley) Kelley, holding a toothbrush: Hi! I’m Bob Barker. Welcome to The Price Is Right! I’m so glad you’re all here today. Me: That’s it? Kelley, laughing: Yeah. Me: I’m never filming you ever again. It was so much fun to see. I love those girls, and am thankful that I can still call a couple of them good friends. I had a great group of friends growing up… we kept each other out of serious trouble, went through all of our ‘firsts’ together, and just had a good time. It’s not something I think of often, but every now and then something reminds me. The video was short, but by the time it was over I was crying. I’m so thankful for my life now, and especially that we don’t live in Texas anymore. I don’t think we could all be friends today. But for a season, we had it pretty great.

Happy happy birthday. We're so glad you came.

I love birthdays. Love them. All birthdays – family, friends, coworkers. But especially MY BIRTHDAY. Which is today. When I was little, we celebrated my birthDAY. As I got older, it stretched into birthday WEEK. Now, BIRTHDAY MONTH. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Birthdays were always a big deal when I was growing up. We always had a party, even if it was just with the family. Ice cream pie, lots of presents, the house covered in Happy Birthday banners. It’s my mom’s fault that I make such a big deal out of my birthday now. I throw myself a party just so I’ll have one. Cake and ice cream are always involved. And I always get that giant covered-in-magazine-clippings-and-marker box from my family. I love that box. My aunt Susan and Uncle Charles had a pool in their backyard. Since my birthday is in August, I had many pool parties at their house. Pool parties are the best – hanging out in the water, having handstand and front flip contests, seeing who can hold their breath the longest. Getting out just to eat cake and open presents, and spending the rest of the day in the water. I changed my mind – that’s what I would do all day every day if I didn’t have to work. When I turned 10, I had what could be called the greatest birthday of all time. I had a big fat slumber party. At my parents’ house, the garage is sealed up and turned into a room. This was done about 30 years ago, so the room has shag carpeting, a bar, and mirrors along one wall. At one time, it also had two pool tables, a drum set, multiple guitars and microphones and a stereo. This room became Stage Central. My dad set up the video camera on the tripod, and we went to town. That video is one of my most prized possessions. Me and my ten best friends, taking turns dancing and lip-synching to Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli, New Kids on the Block. There is an especially shameful moment, where I, in my palm tree shirt (pulled into a t-shirt tie), lime green shorts, hot pink socks and white keds, perform a solo dance to Forever Your Girl. I am not a dancer. I’m surprised Aaron still married me after seeing that video, and my French-braided giant-bowed self. On my 18th birthday, one of my all-time birthday dreams came true. My boyfriend at the time, Josh, came to my house in the middle of the day. I was there alone, because my family had gone to my grandma’s house to help her with something. I wasn’t expecting him, so he caught me off-guard. He blindfolded me and we got in his truck. We drove around for a while and then into what seemed like some kind of field. He parked and got me out of the car and we walked for a while. Then he took the blindfold off and it was a SURPRISE PARTY! All of my friends were there, my entire family, everyone. It was fabulous. I always wanted someone to go to a lot of trouble for me for my birthday, and he did it. It was also fabulous because that was the summer before we all went to college, so it was great to have that one big memory with everyone there. The relationship didn’t last, but that memory always will. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that birthdays become a bit disappointing. I think it’s partially because they were always because they were such a big deal growing up, and when you don’t live with your parents you’re kind of responsible for your own big deals. I always build them up in the weeks preceding, imagining all of the things people are planning for me. Then the night before, I realize that’s probably not going to happen and I get sad that it’s almost over. I used to do the same thing at Christmas… I love the season, and then Christmas Eve I get sad because it will all be over soon. Maybe I’m not living in the moment. So, happy birthday to me. It’s my quarter-century mark. I feel so old.

Seriously. The beach every day.

What would you do if money was not an issue? I hate that question. It's generally used to "help" figure out what you want to do with your life, what your dream job is. But I find it completely useless. If money was not an issue, I would sleep late every day, then go shopping, then go to the beach, then go out for dinner. Every. Day. Is that a job? Sign me up. We spent a lot of this weekend talking about Aaron's job situation. An opportunity has presented itself, and now he's got a weird decision to make. I've always been slightly jealous of him - he knows exactly what he wants to do. So every decision comes back to this: is it getting me closer to what I want, or further away? Bam. There's your answer. I really struggle with job stuff. I like my job alright, it's interesting and a little creative, which I enjoy. But I don't love that I spend all day working to help someone make money. At the end of the day, it's all about getting her name out there and making her successful. Not exactly what I want my life's work to be. But what do I want it to be? I have no idea. I'm intimidated by business. I'm not terribly ambitious career-wise. I don't have dreams of being a CEO or running the place. I don't want to be responsible for that. I like being an assistant... I don't take my work home with me, I don't have to get all freaked out when the big man is in the office, there's little risk of my making mistakes that cost millions of dollars. It's a simple life. But I know I don't want it to be my life forever. I want to do a lot of things: open an invitation and party planning business, be a stay-at-home mom, work at a job that is helping people or bettering society, learn to cook gourmet meals, build furniture, write for a magazine, lay on the beach all day. I don't love the corporate life. I don't want to sit at a desk all day. I want to stay home and hang out with my dog and read books and DO something. Also - I will never understand why people like Faith Hill. Yuck.

Don't you know, things will change? Things will go your way?

I pay $10 a month for the wonderful service that is Rhapsody. Basically, it is an online jukebox that holds every album ever made. You can search by artist, song title or album title and listen to anything you want. You can also save albums and create playlists. In other words, the greatest invention known to man. I've had Rhapsody for about a year and a half, so my artist list and playlist counts are pretty high. I save every album I listen to and like. I do this for two reasons: so I'll be able to find them again, and to have a record of my taste. This explains why I'm holding on to that Fountains of Wayne album that I will never listen to again. When I first signed up with Rhapsody, I was really excited about the chance to listen to music from my childhood and adolescence. I immediately set up playlists with titles like "Teenybopper Pop" and "Grunge" and "Country girls." (Shut up.) While fun at first, I soon realized that it's a good thing Tiffany didn't have a lifetime career. The phrase "one-hit wonder" was coined for a REASON. This morning, however, I was drawn to the playlist titled "Junior High Music." My junior high years ranged from 1992-1994. These were not the best years for music. Just throwing that out there. But sometimes you just need a little Shai. Some Jodeci. Maybe a bit of Boyz II Men to set the mood. And that need, my friends, is how I found myself rockin' out to Mariah Carey's "Someday" when my big-time country music star boss walked into my office. It was the fast part at the end, and I was singing along to see if I remembered all the words. Muy embarrassing. But just know, I do know all the words.

What else could I be? All apologies.

The other day at lunch, I ended up sitting next to a very uncomfortable discussion. I'm sitting there, eating my chicken salad, trying to read Vogue in peace, when I start to pick up on what's going on at the next table. There are two of them, a mother and her son. He looks to be around 20, and based on their conversation I imagine that's about right. I will call her Captain Lilly Pulitzer, as she had on not only a green polo with a pink Polo horse on it, but said polo was tucked into pink capris with green seashells embroidered all over them. Scary. He was wearing baggy jeans and a green tshirt, and had that shaggy bedhead look that's so popular with the kids these days. I will call him Normal Guy. From what I could gather, NG had made some life decisions that CLP did not approve of. I didn't catch what those decisions were, but he was upset. He kept saying things like "I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment" and "It's my life and my choice, not yours." And she was saying things like "A degree is the only way to get a job" and "your resume will never be good enough." So it's my understanding that NG has graduated from high school, but may not want to jump straight into college. Maybe he's in a band. Maybe he wants to join the Peace Corp. Maybe he's a lazy bum who wants to live off mom and dad for the rest of his life. CLP, on the other hand, wants him to go to college and get a degree and a good job and contribute to society. I felt bad for both of them, and the situation brought to mind a similar one that took place in my house a few years back. Not with me - I have always been goody-two-shoes-do-what-you're-told. I went to college right after high school, graduated in four years, wham bam thank you ma'am. But when my sister was a senior in high school, I imagine she felt a lot like NG. There was a lot of pressure, a lot of yelling, a lot of crying and fighting and general unpleasantness. And not just from her. I was convinced she was "throwing her life away", that a 4-year school was the only viable option if she wanted to do something with her life. My parents, who always stressed that they wanted the best for us, knew what life without a degree was like and how much easier her work life would be with one. None of us were very good at communicating what we really thought, and the result was a lot of hurt feelings and defensiveness. The NG/CLP brought that time in our lives to mind, and I've been thinking about it all week. About how easy it is to get caught up in what you want without considering what other people want. About how my life used to be so black and white, and thankfully the last few years have taught me to see shades of gray. About how we get so intent on making people see our side and do what we think is right, and never consider that maybe our way isn't the only way. So Chels, if you're reading this, I am truly sorry. I've been listening to Relient K today, and their song "Who I Am Hates Who I've Been" is certainly appicable here. Looking back, I can't believe I ever treated you as harsly and unlovingly as I did. It breaks my heart, and I cannot express how grateful I am that you are who you are and do what you do. Thank you for being my friend. Travel 'round the world and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidante.