The First OG Gangsta to Go

One of my Dolphin Sisters got engaged over the weekend.

Because of this, I’m a little sentimental today.

You spend your whole life, growing and changing with friends. Or, at least I’ve been very lucky to have a select number of girl friends who’ve been by my side since junior high. They’ve walked next to me during days I was too embarrassed to go to school, too heartbroken to get out of bed, too young to make the right decision, too in love to see straight, too sassy for my own good, too stubborn to say sorry, too self conscious to be myself in a crowd…

My point being—you spend 10 plus years with childhood friends, dreaming of college, boyfriends, careers and families. College came and went. Boys have come and gone. Careers are there and growing. But the day a best friend meets the very right person and commits to a lifetime is always a little surreal. It’s like the 13 single years you’ve spent together—when you’re number one to each other and no one else—flash before your eyes.

And do you know how many memories 13 years hold?

The very foundation of my being—years that formed my personality—are years spent with Larisa. We met in 7th grade. I was a lost girl who knew two people in a sea of converging elementary schools. When popularity and “being cool” start to count, two people don’t get you very far. But eventually familiar faces and the possibility of friendship begin to emerge from a crowd. And there was Larisa.

We played softball together every day after school during softball season; I snuck home illegally on her bus to rollerblade the Burke Gilman in the sunshine; we went every winter to Snoqualmie, where we learned how to snowboard while listening to “Tool,” eventually teaching classes together. We shared the exact same sense of humor and disregard for rules that got us in trouble. A lot. (Voted Biggest Rebel 2000 ) Ha ha. We have so many inside jokes, I couldn’t even being to explain or list them.

In high school, we went to countless dances together. We’d skip school to gamble and get cinnamon bread from Great Harvest Bread Company during second period break. We started our careers at McDonalds, where eventually we were banned from working together cause we got in trouble for having a fight with all-purpose cleaner water bottles in the lobby. We went to Korn concerts (weird), Limp Bizkit (funny), Pearl Jam, The Gorge, Dave Mathews and countless more shows. We’d play Doctor Mario after school for no less than four hours, an unhealthy amount of days in a row. We drove around in my 1973 Volkswagen Beetle that was painted to look like a root beer float, yelling, “PERVERT!” to people walking out of Taboo Video every time we drove by, and stopped to smoke raspberry ciggies on the docks in Kenmore. I lived in her room for a month during senior year, where we’d share clothes and sneak out to bowl at Kenmore Lanes.

Come college, we went to separate schools, but I’d come home to spend the night in her sorority, and we backpacked through Europe. I’d bring her pineapple and tomato pizzas the summer I came home to deliver pizzas for Papa Johns, and she lived in a fraternity at the U.W. We’ve been to Mexico together, twice, drinking far too much tequila and dancing in our Mexican sundresses. We’ve been Captain Hook and Smee, his first mate–and Jem and Pizazz, one of The Holograms.

We’ve had terrible arguments, circumstances or relationships that have sometimes put distance between us, but we’ve always come back eventually, always rollerblading together every summer just like the days we were 13.

And then, she became my Dolphin Sister. After drinking a little too much one night, she sent me an e-mail that she didn’t remember until I called her the next day. Something about how she’s glad we’ve been friends for so long, and made it through all our ups and downs. “I think we must have been sisters in our past lives?! I kinda think I was a dolphin, so maybe we were dolphin sisters?,” she wrote. It has been a joke forever since. We buy each other cheap dolphin trinkets and wear dolphin rings on our fingers. (Both on our ring fingers because it’s the only one it fits). As cheesy and silly as it might be, I believe it is our way of reiterating how important our friendship is to one another, and that we really do love each other as a sister.

So, yesterday her Dolphin Sister ring was replaced with a platinum diamond.

But it’s not a replacement for our friendship.

You get to pick your friends. And you get to pick ONE person, to spend the rest of your life with, who becomes a part of the life you’ve shared with all your friends.

I picked Larisa, and she chose me.

And Larisa picked Dave, and he chose her.

And that makes Dave, my Dolphin Brother to-be.

I couldn’t be happier for them. And I can’t wait for another 13 years of friendship with Larisa—AND Dave.

Congratulations!

Currently Feeling: Mucho happy it’s supposed to be in the 70s all week.
Currently Anticipating: Picnicking and rollerblading in Alki tonight with the BF.
Currently Loving: Work dresses! I can’t buy enough!

Say No to Hippies

Saturday morning Baby Daddy and I went to breakfast at the The Hi-Life in Ballard and then decided to take a mini walking and shopping trip through Ballard and Fremont. My goal—a tea strainer and some teas for my mom’s birthday gift. His goal—new sneakers. But not running shoes, and they can’t be black, brown or tan. They have to be GREY. (I’m dating a bit of a metrosexual. But tits okay. I enjoy a man with style.)

Ballard has a well-known teashop that we stopped into. Teashops are quite overwhelming. I had NO idea there was such a subculture in tea. You could buy all sorts of imported teas from Asian with names like “Oriental Beauty” and “Green Goddess.” Now really. I have no idea what “Oriental Beauty” tastes like and prefer tea canisters that give it to you straight. “Peppermint,” “Orange Blossom,” or “Vanilla.” Those I can handle. But there wasn’t just tea, the shop was filled with fancy tea sets, even sets to-go with zippable cases and handles, antique tea tables, and all sorts of contraptions and devices for drinking, preparing and serving tea that I never knew even existed. I didn’t find a basic tea strainer, which is what my mom was wanting. So, the owners kindly directed us to a “natural and herbal” store on the opposite side of the building.

When we pushed open the shop’s door with a tingle from the hanging bell, an overwhelming smell rushed out of incense and Patchouli oil. “Uh Oh…. HIPPIES!” I whispered to Baby Daddy. But, the first table I saw was covered in teapots and mugs, which included strainers for loose teas. Perfect. I picked one up in cornflower blue (my mom’s favorite) and walked through the store to check out their other items and perhaps find a tea to accompany the mug. There were small bags of loose tea, but each looked like a bag of dried weeds and listed ingredients like honeysuckle and catnip. “CATNIP?!” I exclaimed out loud.

“I hope you don’t have a furry friend to compete with at home,” the shop owner said.

Yes. I do. And so does my mom. I’m most certainly not gifting my mom tea with weeds and catnip, or other weird, natural hippie ingredients. “Here mom! I picked up a handful of lawn clippings and mulch from the yard recycle bin, you can drink them as tea, and you can even smoke them!”

I decided against buying tea and wandered over to where Baby Daddy was looking at some incense and soaps. In a display shelf next to where he was standing, there was a sign and a basket of little colorful cloth squares with snaps, in all sorts of fun fabrics. “Hmm. What are these?” I thought, and picked one up, turning it over in my hand. I slowly leaned over to read the description hanging on the shelf.

“All Natural, Re-Usable and Washable Menstrual Pads”

HUHHHHHHHH.

In case that doesn’t translate, it’s supposed to be a sucking in of the breath, shocked and disgusted sort of a sound.

Hippies are dirtier than I ever thought.

Currently Feeling: Slightly better, but still pretty anxious.
Currently Anticipating: My day off for Good Friday tomorrow.
Currently Loving: The patience and understanding that resides in my boyfriend.

Third Year’s a Charm

Lately I’ve been overwhelmingly busy with a bunch of tricks up my sleeve. Hopefully I can share with the crowd soon. But, in the madness as of late, I missed my second Jeanniversary. This blog—my baby, my journal, my release and the keeper of all my memories—started two years ago, on March 1st, 2006. My posts have changed a bit, but I feel that I’m still the same ole’ me. Maybe just a little less crazy now that I don’t go out six days a week, but we all have to mature sometime, eh?

The site has grown somewhat. The numbers are still quite small, but I’ve managed to nearly triple my readership since the beginning. I really appreciate all of you who have read since the start, and a big welcome to all the new readers. I’ve noticed visitors from all over the worldwide Internet and nation, so please feel free to comment once in awhile. Don’t be skerred. That means you—Colorado, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, some Army base in Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Oregon—Bend, Portland, Hubbard and St. Paul—Bothell, Whidbey Island and all Seattle locations: The Zip Connection, Covad Communications, The Seattle Times, Eschelon Telecommunications, Seanet Corporation, Children’s Hospital, Microsoft, Washington Mutual—and even you, Austria, Peru and South Africa (strange).

Amazing what site stats can provide, eh? The purpose of listing all these is not to scare anyone away, but maybe to get you to introduce yourselves. How did you stumble here? What blog did you link from? What keeps you coming back?

In the meantime, here are my favorite posts from the last year:

March 6, 2007: Accident-Prone, or Unlucky in Life? (20-Something finds herself in yet another drunken, household predicament)

April 27, 2007: When I Grow Up (Little old ladies are the best)

May 4, 2007: Yet Another Reason Not to Pick Someone Up in a Bar (Fun with boys and Peso’s)

May 18, 2007: Lock This Single Up Tight and Throw Away the Key! (One of the crazy dating adventures 20-Something embarked on in 2007)

May 31, 2007: MIA Roommate Drama (Bad habits that are oh-so-nice when the roommate is gone)

July 9, 2007: Neighborhood Battle (20-Something challenges her neighbors to an F-Off)

July 26, 2007: But this. I remember this. I want this. (Squishy, romantic thoughts that get ya)

August 16, 2007: Thoughts on the Three of Them (Reminiscing about three relationships)

August 23, 2007: Dubliner Man Crush gets his haircut: Love blossoms (The oh-so-famous Dubliner Man Crush story)

October 5, 2007: The Body of a 25-Year-Old with a 15-Year-Old’s Crush (20-Something snags the Incredibly Sexy Man in Great Jeans)

October 10, 2007: Bring on the Men! (Dating kicks up speed for Sextober)

October 11, 2007: From Leavenworth to an Impromptu Date (Oktoberfest in Leavenworth leads to a new date for 20-Something)

November 12, 2007: It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This (Best date ever with Interested Reader)

November 18, 2007: 26 x 365: Mike (Now) (Along comes Baby Daddy)

November 26, 2007: Conundrum, Conundrum, CONUNDRUM (20-Something finds herself juggling two guys)

December 5, 2007: Invasion of the Baby Screamers (Oh joy! Oh fun! Screaming baby moves in)

December 12, 2007: Obstructing the Law in the Name of Christmas (20-Something changes her luck around)

January 2, 2008: I did it…2007 was a Year of Me (How 20-Something declared 2007 a Year of Me)

January 7, 2008: Breaking down my barrier, letting someone in (Letting a super single lifestyle go)

January 10, 2008: Baby Daddy Girlfriend (20-Something gets an official boyfriend for the first time in four years)

January 17, 2008: Late Afternoon, At the Coffee Counter (Boys. Ewww. Gross.)

January 28, 2008: An Open-Ended Letter to Cigarettes (20-Something quits smoking)

February 11, 2008: A Slow but Steady Decline (20-Something finds a dimple in her butt cheek)

Here’s to another year of laughter, love, friends and spilling my life stories on the Internet!

Currently Feeling: Thrilled and anxious.
Currently Anticipating: My first meeting with my Taproot team tomorrow night.
Currently Hating: Now I might have to decide between two?! How’d that happen?

The One After You

In bed, Neil asked me if I’d ever been close to getting married.
I told him a little about Chris: He’d grow up in Manhattan, gone to Brown, and worked as an advocate for homeless people. I said that we’d been engaged for three weeks when I decided not to go through with it.
“Why?”
“I saw that getting married wasn’t going to change anything,” I said. “It would just be more of the same.”
“Which was…?”
I said, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
He said, “So, you don’t regret it?”
“He died,” I said. “In a car wreck.”
“Jesus,” he said. “When?”
“About a year later.”
“That’s so sad,” Neil said, holding on to me.
He fell asleep, and for a long time I lay there. Then I got dressed and went downstairs. I poured myself a glass of wine and took it outside to the little porch.
There was a nice moon, not full but fat, and it lit up the apple trees and the petals underneath.
I smoked a cigarette.
What I didn’t tell Neil was that I always thought I’d wind up with Chris, even after we’d broken up, even after he’d died.

Adam had gone with me to the funeral. It was crowded, as a young person’s funeral almost always is. We sat in the back, where it was hard to see and hard to hear.
I was looking at all the women. I could only see them from behind, but I studied each one, their hair and backs. Their necks and shoulders. Their arms. I found myself thinking, You? Did he sleep with you? Here I was at his funeral, overwhelmed not by grief but jealousy.
Reading my mind, Adam told me that whoever these women were they hadn’t meant anything to Chris. “They were just keeping your seat warm,” he said.
As a procession, we walked to Central Park, past the carousel to the field where Chris had played softball on Sundays. There was a metal can of his ashes, and Adam and I each took some and scattered them on the mound. As a joke, I said, as I had a thousand times, “Tell me the truth: You don’t think Chris and I will ever get back together, do you?”
Adam laughed, and so did I; he hugged me, and then I think he knew I was about to cry because he said, “Oh shoot, I think I got Chris on you,” and dusted off my coat.
Adam and I were walking to the Boathouse when a woman stopped us. “You don’t know me,” she said. “I’m Myla. I was the one after you.”
Once she’d gone, Adam said, “See?”
It didn’t make any difference.
The part of my brain that made no sense at all didn’t believe Chris was dead. He’d switched hospital ID bracelets or charts with another patient. He’d tied sheets together and lowered himself out the window. I looked for him, like he was a fugitive in hiding. A hank of blond hair, a jean jacket, and I’d think, Chris.

I’d always thought of him as the one who got away, but right then it stopped being true. I knew that if Chris walked across the moony grass and up to this porch and proposed again I would say no again.
I wondered if he was here—that is, everywhere. I imagined that he was. I imagined him saying, Who’s the guy inside?
As though he had, I made my voice as kind as I could: “He’s the one after you.”

Pg. 275-276, “The Wonder Spot,” Melissa Banks.

A Slow But Steady Decline

Today I’m wearing light-colored work pants, and while primping and admiring myself in the bathroom mirror, I noticed that the small dimple that has formed in my left butt cheek is visible through my pants. SICK. Is there anything grosser than those old ladies whose legs and butt are noticeably lumpy? I’ve walked around all day, tugging at my camisole in the hopes of covering my imperfection. My days of wearing white pants might be coming to an end if I don’t do something about trying to get rid of this little dent! Running?! Increased exercise? Magical, miracle cellulite cream?! Butt lifts at the gym?! I’ve heard that cellulite is hereditary, and I’m lucky to have escaped most perils of the cellulite world. I’m thankfully, for the most part, curvy but muscular. But, since I was not graced with big beautiful breastesses, I MUST PRESERVE MY BUTT. It’s the only man magnet I got!

This little dimple on my left cheek has formed some time between college and now. It could have something to do with sitting on my butt for eight or more hours, Monday through Friday. I’d be sour too if someone squished me into a pancake, numbing all sense of feeling, for that long each day. I think my butt has boycotted this office job by puckering.

This whole dimple thing really stresses me out. Mostly because it’s all downhill from here…

Don’t you love the visual I created for you?! I just happened to have this photo lying around that someone took last summer. God bless Photoshop! LOL.

UPDATE: I’m feeling very vocal about my work day today…When you have nothing in your lunch bag besides squash soup, a small dollop of cottage cheese, a small dollop of tuna fish and a small dollop of Rosemary Chicken Salad from Trader Joe’s, you really wish it was 5th grade again and you were sitting next to someone who might want to trade lunches with you.

Currently Feeling: Disappointed that both passes were closed this weekend, and we missed out on our Leavenworth cabin trip for Larisa’s birthday. I was really feeling the need to get away for a weekend.
Currently Anticipating: Starting this new walking aerobics class at work.
Currently Wanting: The new Vampire Weekend CD.

Manners please! Aisle Four!

Last night I reluctantly stopped at the grocery store on my way home even though I was in a DayQuil fog, and it hurt to hold my body upright. (Damn you mid-winter cold!) I was walking down the dairy aisle on my way to pick up yogurt when, “EXCUSE ME!” was shouted at me, in a ridiculously loud voice. I quite literally jumped and made a slight yelp. It scared the shit out of me. A hunched over, very old man pushed past me in his tweed newsboy cap and tweed sports coat and waddled his way in front of me.

I was immediately annoyed. It was quite rude. Not only could he have passed me on the right or left (I’m not so wide that I take up an entire aisle), but it could have been requested in a quieter and much more polite tone—one that didn’t make me jump six feet in the air. To make matters worse, we were heading toward the same goal, and he really only arrived five seconds prior to me. So, why the rush? Apparently he was there to pick up cottage cheese with fruit, which I overheard while the grocery store employee was assisting him.

I really hope that when I’m an old lady, the only thing lighting a fire under my butt and causing a big excitement in my day won’t be cottage cheese with pineapple.

Currently Feeling: Tired of not having any sick days.
Currently Anticipating: Getting this long, meeting-filled day over with.
Currently Wondering: How things are going on that little boat in the middle of the Bering Sea.

An Open-Ended Letter to Cigarettes

Dear Cigarettes,
I used to refer to you as my boyfriend and didn’t know how to quit you. But, I finally beat you down. Sent you packing. Told you to take a hike and didn’t look back. I don’t need you, your approval or your unrequited love! It’s been 60 days, cold turkey. Oh, how happy I am without you. Let me count the ways:

• My clothes don’t stink
• My coats don’t stink
• My hair doesn’t stink
• My car doesn’t stink
• I don’t walk into a restaurant or bar with a cloud of smoke around me
• I no longer sit and think about you the whole time I’m at dinner or out with friends
• I no longer have to be “that girl” who needs to excuse herself from social situations to step outside
• I don’t have to feel weird, hugging my parents or having them ride in my car, thinking they can smell you
• There aren’t mounds of ash on every surface of my car anymore, and I can sit through traffic without feeling like I’ll rip my hair out if I don’t have you around
• My friends no longer wrinkle their noses at me or give me disapproving looks because of you
• I don’t have to hide or feel self-conscious in any social situation, whether it is with a cute boy, at work, with strangers or friends
• I’m not spending an extra $25 plus on you each week
• I will no longer be spending four-pack, quick-death weekends with you at the Gorge
• As each day passes without you, my lungs and my health are getting increasingly better
• Quiting you is no longer a huge “To Do,” hanging over my head
• I won’t be that 60-year-old lady with wrinkly skin and a scratchy voice
• I’m just happier!

Thanks for the couple years you were around, but I won’t be needing your services anymore.
-20-Something

Currently Feeling: Severely boy malnourished.
Currently Anticipating: Getting back on the work-out horse this week.
Currently Loving: My mom’s chicken verde chili she sent home with me!

Toilet Talk

Growing up, my dad used to get all in a huff over the amount of toilet paper our household went through.

“You only need two or three squares!” he’d exclaim.

Two or three squares?! I’d think to myself. Two or three squares is most definitely not enough toilet paper. So, I went merrily on my six-to-10 square way. After all, it’s not like he could really monitor my toilet paper consumption.

I have come to the conclusion, however, that my dad is totally right. Women use faaaarrrr too much toilet paper. It takes 71.48 people to completely utilize a single roll of toilet paper. (#) I’m assuming, if the sample pool was just women, it’d take four.

In the bathroom at work, I always hear women in the stall next to doing the following:

Rustle, rustle, unravel.

Tear.

Rustle, rustle, unravel.

Tear.

Rustle, rustle, unravel.

Tear.

Tear.

Unravel.

Tear.

Rustle.

Tear.

SIX?! SIX lengths of toilet paper is what you really need to go to the bathroom? I mean sheesh. I’d think by that time you’d have a bowling ball-sized mound of toilet paper to wipe with. Clearly unnecessary.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll shout over the stall, “You only need two or three squares! Two. Or. Three!”

Currently Feeling: Like it’s not Friday. But it is. Yippee!
Currently Anticipating: Project Red Dress tonight with Sarah and her coworkers.
Currently Loving: Broccoli with chopped walnuts and Parmesan cheese.

Wearing Underwear is So Uncool

This weekend my little sister (19 and in a sorority at Washington State University) came and stayed with me for some sisterly girl time.

“I’ve stopped wearing underwear because one of my friend’s read that it’s supposed to give you cellulite,” she declared while we were getting dressed and ready Saturday morning.

“What?! You. Stopped. Wearing. Underwear?! Isn’t that a little weird?” I replied.

“No,” she said. “In fact, I don’t really know any of my friends who do wear underwear.”

Great. Twenty-six years old, and I’m already super uncool because I wear underwear.

Currently Feeling: Bored and stuck.
Currently Anticipating: Snuggling with slippers and sweats tonight. It’s cooold!
Currently Hating: That I can’t kiss Mike.

Late afternoon, at the coffee counter

I just ventured over to the sink and coffee area in my office to rinse out my Tupperware from my lunches in the last couple days, (a rare occasion that I get around to this before they’re so crusted and moldy that it’s more beneficial to just throw them away) and to grab a late afternoon cup of coffee.

An elderly lady who I’ve never seen at work before, probably in at least her 60s, approached the sink just as I did.

“It’s about that time of day, huh?” she said to me in a cute little old lady voice, in reference to washing our lunch dishes.

“Mmm hmm,” I agreed and moved over to pour myself a cup of coffee, only to find the carafe was empty.

Argh! I swear this happens to me at least three times a week. Three years out of college and two years past my days as a barista at Tully’s, and I’m still making everyone else’s coffee. Common courtesy, people!

“Well you got here just in time to refill the coffee!” she exclaims.

“I know; lucky me,” I replied. “It is my opinion that this should be done by the person who used the last of the coffee.”

“Yeah, but I bet it was a boy, from what experience tells me…” she said with discern as she walked away.

I laughed. We never will lose that cynicism for the opposite sex, now will we?

Currently Feeling: Impatient sprinkled with a few drops of relief.
Currently Anticipating: Girl Power Hour tonight at Solo.
Currently Listening To: Mike’s techno mix he made for me.

P.S. I updated my link lists to be alphabetized, and my blogroll includes a couple more blogs I’ve been reading lately…