Reason, Season or Lifetime

I found this blurb today while scouring the Internet. Despite all the prayer crap, I don’t think it could possibly make more sense to me. Especially during this week, while I’m trying to figure out the REASON for the relationship with me and Tre. I think it’s a perfect way to look at why people come into your life, good or bad, and a way to let go without being bitter. That aside, I have so many awesome SEASON and LIFETIME friends. I don’t know how one person gets as lucky with friendships as I have in my life. It’s the tie that binds me together…

Please Tell Me Grey is the New Black

I find it somehow too fitting that on the morning after my little sister turns 18, I find more than one—let’s be honest here—more than three grey hairs.

Eighteen years old. Wow. I feel old. I remember 18, literally, like it was yesterday. I remember my friends, what I did with my time, and how I was feeling. I remember going straight after school on my 18th birthday to get my nose pierced, and I remember going to Red Robin with my family for dinner afterward and how they made me stand on a chair in the middle of the restaurant while they sang to me. I remember who I had a crush on, the parties, and the anticipation for college. And now my sister is 18—she’s SEVEN years younger than me. As Tre so eloquently said last night, “That’s like a whole person!” And now she’s 18. This, coupled with the big 25 looming months ahead, makes me feel old.

It gets worse. They say you can’t go up until you’ve reached bottom, right? Well I hope I’ve reached the bottom of these 25-year-old woes that have been itching in the back of my brain. Really, are you serious, GREY HAIR? I never, never let my hair grow out that much. I’ve been dying it shades of colors ever since junior high. I’ve been blonde, dark brown, highlighted, lowlighted, and every shade of red known to man. But, now my hairdresser still lives in Bellingham and since our lives are so busy, I rarely get the chance to keep up on my roots like I used to. So, I’ve been joking the last month that I’m channeling Carrie Bradshaw in season three of SATC. She’s single, fabulous, fashionable, gorgeous and has huge black roots, so I can do it too, right? Well, I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror this morning before exiting my car to go into work, and the light was shining in just the right way to highlight the couple different grey hairs scattered throughout the top of my head. I even stopped to pull a few out, just to make sure. AM I GOING GREY? Holy shit. My hair always has had some sort of chemical substance on it for the last 10 plus years, so if I was going grey, I wouldn’t know it. Maybe that’s for the best. I can handle being 25, I can handle not having a boyfriend, a fiancé, a house, a dog, 1.5 kids, a hugely budding, successful career, a 401K plan, thousands of dollars saved in the bank…I can handle all these things that someone might say every 25-year-old should have, and I don’t.
But.
I.
Cannot.
Handle.
Going.
Grey.

Perhaps sleeping with a cute young thang will help me through this mid-twenties crisis…

Currently Feeling: Hmmm, I’m going to go with old.
Currently Anticipating: Wine and hors d’ouvres with Sarah tonight at a condo opening for her work.
Currently Contemplating: What I should do Friday night.
Currently Loving: Someone to snuggle with at night. It’s been a long time.

Welcome Home Stella!

Residence Revamp

Now that the weather is cooling down and the drizzle has begun, I will inevitably be spending more time at home. This has spurred me to do a mini “home revamp.” I’m big on lighting, color, atmosphere etc, which if you’ve ever been to my apartment you’re aware of this. Case in point: my huge pink wall. So, today on my lunch hour I went to Ikea with one goal in mind—a new area rug. I have hardware floors, and when I moved in, I bought a large, cheap white rug. It is now hideously dirty and adds insult upon injury when I have new people over and my apartment already looks like a junk show. A comment I received recently, “It looks like Hiroshima in here!”

Ikea did not have the large, fluffy white rug I had envisioned, so I settled for a black area rug. Since my leather couch is also black, it forced me to rethink a few things, and of course, purchase more items to incorporate a little more white and color into the room. I left today 250 bucks poorer, but with the rug, two new throw pillows for the couch (obviously four isn’t enough and six will be better), a side coffee table, curtains, a lamp for the table, some orange accents, and a Weeping Fig tree (that I’m not going to play “see how long it takes this thing to die without water” with like I did the last).

In short, I’m excited to go home and clean today and recharge my currently boring, dreary and dirty apartment. Perhaps it will inspire me to spend more quiet evenings at home…

Currently Feeling: Tired, but oh so satisfied.
Currently Thinking: That I’ll attend Burning Man Festival next year.
Currently Reading: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Single White Female Seeks Roommate, Maybe?

The last couple weeks I’ve been contemplating moving out of my apartment at the end of my lease and moving in with a roommate. Am I crazy? Someone please help me decide because I’m having difficulty doing it on my own.

I’ve loved living by myself the past year. I do exactly what I want, when I want to do it, and there’s isn’t anyone around to criticize my super-single behavior. An incredible sense of freedom goes hand-in-hand with living by oneself, and I’ve embraced it with wide-open arms. However, lately I’ve felt like a roommate could make me a little more grounded. I can’t even stand to be at home for an hour anymore. The last couple months, I haven’t been at my apartment any longer than it takes me to shovel down food, throw clothes on the floor, and put new clothes on. It’s an insane way to live. The minute I get off work…or more often than not…several days before, I’m making plans so I don’t have to be home alone. “Who can I call, where can I go, what can I do?!?” is constantly running through my head at all times. Perhaps a roommate will help me slow my roll a little. This pace I’ve been keeping up is making it virtually impossible for me to ever get any sleep or accomplish the necessary things in life such as laundry or any other cleaning-based upkeep. Therefore, while the weather has been nice, and I’m spending increasingly less time at home, I’ve been living increasingly more like a pig. It’s embarrassing. I think I talked about cleaning my apartment for about five weeks before I actually accomplished it. And even then, it took me a week to finish all the loads of laundry I had, and fold and hang them up.

So this makes for a pretty good argument for obtaining a roommate. Not to mention it would be cheaper, and I could hopefully find somewhere awesome with a patio.

But, I’m afraid now that I’ve lived by myself, I’m going to be a pretty bad roommate. I’ve had some awesome living situations in the past with girl friends, but now that I’ve been living on my own, I think I’ve started to forget what makes a “good” roommate. For instance, will I remember not to blast my techno music in the morning when I get up? Will I actually have to be quiet when stumbling around drunk at 2:20 in the morning on a Thursday, trying to cook Trader Joe peroshkies? (Whoops. Guess I’m not really allowed to do that anymore anyway.) Will I have to be conscious of where I put my clothes when I take them off, when I empty the dishwasher, when to throw away rotten milk or leftovers in the fridge, or will I have to abstain from eating the Oreo cookie ice cream in the fridge just because it’s not mine? Yuck. All of these things sound unappealing to me.

Furthermore, I love my apartment. If I had to move out, had less freedom, and ended up not wanting to come home cause I hated my roommate…not cause I didn’t want to be by myself…well then that would suck even more.

So, here’s the question:

To roommate or not to roommate?

Currently Feeling: Really, really happy. Life is great right now.
Currently Anticipating: Oh man, the list is long this week: my date with Kelly, walking Greenlake tonight with my new friend Meagan and watching Project Runway with Sarah and Larisa, and most definitely PEARL JAM this weekend with six single girls and hot rocker boys!

Attention: Single White Female No Longer Drives Homeless Man’s Vehicle

Ok. So maybe miracles really do happen.

After running in circles over and over again today with eloans.com, they denied me. I had to send them my proof of income, just in case I lied on my application about how much money I make. Then they denied me because I work for a “temp agency.” Otherwise known as “where lazy slackers are employed.” So I drafted a letter with my boss about having a contract with them through the year, then an offer for a permanent position, but it still wasn’t good enough. Eloans.com denied me again.

Finally, I went to the credit union that my parents bank at and was approved for a loan (without a co-sign, surprisingly enough) in two hours. I’ve been losing sleep while waiting for this stupid E-Loans place to tell me I’m good enough when I could have just gone to a local bank and been approved in two hours.

I haven’t been as stressed and strung-out as I was in the last two days in a long time. Thanks to those of you who listened to me worry and convince myself over the phone that everything would be all right.

Tomorrow I am meeting the girl who owns the car at a bank downtown to sign over title papers and all the junk I don’t have a clue about. Then I officially get to drive home my new red 2001 Volkswagen Beetle.

P.S. As soon as I get back from Sasquatch this weekend, I am throwing a celebratory bar trip in honor of me finally getting rid of my old car. I’m sure all of you who endured the smoke; the rotten food and Jamba Juice; the garbage you had to sweep away to sit down; the oatmeal bugs; the dirty windshield; the passenger-side window that didn’t roll down; and the embarrassment of riding in it with me; would love to attend.

Frenzified Stressification

I cannot function properly right now.
I’m sitting at my desk, staring blankly at the wall, chewing my nails.
I’ve worked myself into quite a frenzy over this car situation.
I’m currently sitting here, waiting to hear back from the application analysis for my car loan. I’ve faxed my paperwork but don’t know if they’ve even received it because their computer system is down. I check my email, MySpace and cell phone over and over again in a continuous circle because my brain can’t seem to focus enough to do any work.
And the clock just ticks on minute-by-minute.
I couldn’t sleep last night…I kept having nightmares about having bad credit and getting turned down for this car loan.
I feel slightly sick, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve stressed myself out this much or if I really am sick because everyone in my office currently is.
I’m debating going home and lying in a ball in my bed with my eyes closed until I get a phone call from these loan people.
If I don’t get to drive this car home this week, I think I just might about die. I’ve already driven in it, fallen in love with it, pictured myself driving it, pictured myself driving my homeless vehicle off a cliff…I don’t think I could come to terms with the idea of driving my homeless vehicle day in and day out ever again now that I’ve tasted something different. I have a ridiculously bad habit of thinking my life is over if I can’t have something. Hence my addiction to clothing.
This whole situation is making me feel quite ridiculous, over-worked and materialistic.

Here’s a lesson to you: Don’t ever let your credit get bad. It’s quite a headache and hassle. If I wouldn’t have done that, it wouldn’t be any problem for me to obtain auto financing. Instead, I’m losing sleep (literally) about not obtaining this loan and losing the non-refundable deposit that I already submitted to the girl who owns the car.

I will really be glad when this whole situation is over.
Ring phone. RING!

Double "Fuck Yeah"s

Woah. Halt. Looks like I won’t be making any plans in my near future to move to California. Seattle, I regret to inform you, I believe I’ll be around another year.

This morning I received a visit from my boss to discuss growth of my current position and how we wanted to move forward with a few ideas we’ve been discussing. I’ll spare you the details because they aren’t something anyone would understand unless one was familiar with working within the World Vision framework. However, I’ll say that I’ve been building my new position since I started it in March, and it involves taking over tasks that have been housed in other departments of World Vision.

Long story short, by boss basically verbally offered me to have my position become permanent, which would therefore involve be becoming a “real” World Vision employee, vs. a contract employee. I’m not sure if this includes a raise, but it does mean that I’ll be getting sick pay and vacation days. In addition, she talked to me about the possibility of becoming a world communicator for World Vision. This means I would write articles, press releases, etc. (more of my journalism vision) from a different country. She mentioned Afghanistan, and while that scares me, there are possibilities to do this position in other countries as well. She told me that if this is something that I would be interested in, she’d help me move forward with this as well. I’m so excited because becoming an actual World Vision employee means more job security, an opportunity to move-up in the company or to a position more in line with where I see my future and an opportunity to travel. It also means that I get to continue living life with my current salary and flexible schedule, two things I think I’d have a hard time living without. Fuck yeah.

Alongside this good news, I bought a ticket yesterday to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It looks like me, Larisa, Vanessa, Shannon and two of Shannon’s friends will be spending the third week of June basking in the hot-hot sun. Double Fuck yeah.

I guess this is just my week.

Hmm, I Think I’ll Contemplate My Future

Today I suddenly made a decision in my head to progress forward with the idea of moving to California. It is something that has been present in the back of my mind since I’ve known for a couple months now that my job and my lease will be ending at the end of September. This presents me with an ideal time to make a switch in my life since usually it’s either the job or the lease that is ending, rarely both together in the same month.

I believe I would have the opportunity to stay on at World Vision because of the position I’ve created for myself. New roles and opportunities keep coming my way and each week the position expands more and more. My boss is aware of the fact that the current position I’m in right now is not either my “dream job” or where I plan to be in the future. And as the last couple weeks have progressed, a few things have reminded me about how bad I want to work in the magazine industry and how much I miss writing articles or just journalism in general. I have also been mulling around the idea of going to grad school for Web site design. Recently with the onset of MySpace popularity and my blog site, I’ve taught myself how to read a little bit of HTML and CSS code, which is what creates a Web page. I’ve found this endlessly entertaining and fascinating and would love to see myself in this industry somewhere in the future. Plus, magazines and newspapers nowadays are all housed online in addition to print, and there are even some exclusive online publications. Recently I’ve read a lot of job descriptions for writing jobs and most of them require the applicant to have Web site design knowledge. If I add this to my resume, I will be one step closer to someday obtaining my dream job…

As far as California goes, I’ve always wanted to live somewhere else for a short time. It is just something I have to do to ensure I live life to my fullest and don’t regret anything in my future. First and foremost, Seattle is my home. I love the city like Carrie loves New York. My friends and family are here, and I truly believe it is one of the best places to live. I will find myself here settled later in life. As for now, I seek warmth. I seek adventure. I don’t have a boyfriend or anything holding me down. And in September, I will have the possibility of a new job and a new destination. The idea of moving somewhere by myself is freaking frightening, but we’ll see where life takes me in the next year. If I find another job somewhere in Seattle, well my adventure will have to wait another year or so. Nothing is set in stone. But, as of now I’m going to focus on trying to set the goal for an October move. Now we’ll see if I can manage to save a little bit of money. *Fingers crossed.*

Currently Feeling: Excited about where my position could be heading at World Vision and also for a potentially huge change in my life.
Currently Anticipating: Watching Memoirs of a Geisha tonight with a bunch of girlfriends.
Currently Wondering: When I’ll run into the Brit and if it will be weird.

Transition to a New Position

It’s amazing, don’t all of you fall over after I’ve admitted to this, but I actually have a lot to do at work now that I’ve transferred positions. I’m trying desperately to squeeze in blogging time now, in addition to MySpace time. God, life is rough. For those of you who don’t know, the first six months of my job were spent writing “Project Summaries” for different World Vision projects. (Click here to read page 1 of a summary I wrote about Child Sex Tourism and here for page 2). I was on my own deadline schedule, so it usually included a number of things other than writing for eight hours a day. (You take a guess at what those things were). Now, I’ve transitioned to “Project Manager of Community Partners.” Sounds like jargon if you ask me. Community Partners is a program World Vision began not too long ago where it matches a donor (a family or church) with a village in Africa. The donor pays for the village to receive life-changing necessities such as water, schools, food, clothing etc. In return, the donor gets to visit the village and receives letters and gifts from the village. It is a personal way for a donor to spend their money and get confirmation in return that they are making a difference. I would love to do it if I could afford $25,000 a year for the next five years, but then again, that would be half of my income. Don’t think that’s too feasible. Anyway, I’m now doing “Project Management,” which I guess is a fancy way to say that I am organizing all the unorganization of this new program. This of course includes a lot of Excel spreadsheets, which are amazing. (I’m actually considering laying out my monthly expenditures on a spreadsheet so I can get a grip of how much money I’m spending/need to save for bills and rent.) Basically, I have so much to wrap my head around and accomplish that I sometimes feel like I’m swimming through information and trying to grasp it as it slips through my fingers. It keeps me busy though, and I’m welcoming the break from writing Project Summaries day in and day out…after 52 it was getting kinda old.

Currently Feeling: Like I want to sleep with the new intern at my work…he’s hot!
Currently Anticipating: Of course, ANTM tonight!
Currently Listening To: Bloc Party. Check them out…tons of energy. They’re awesome!