Born This Way

A few things I've learned over the years:

*Height is like turning eighteen--it's completely overrated.

*You may one day realize that you may be best friends with a person, but that person isn't best friends with you.

*You inevitably will spend an undetermined amount of time loving a person who most likely doesn't love you back.

*You may think that a guy likes you for your brains and personality, but he really likes you for your boobs and butt.

*Beauty is like wine--it gets better with age.

*Friends with benefits is kind of like politics--good in theory, terrible in practice.

*Life is too short and what hurts today might not even be worth lamenting over tomorrow. There's always more books to read, boys to kiss, people to love, funny moments to laugh about, songs to sing...because that's the real beauty of life. It always goes on.

*It doesn't matter what you've accomplished or what you've acquired in your short span on Earth, because in the end, we are all going.

*Laughter might really be the best medicine.

*Your true best friend may live hundreds or thousands of miles away, but they're always there for you no matter what. Distance means nothing.

Symphonies

Take a listen.  Hope you enjoy my cover of Grace Potter & The Nocturnals' song, "Low Road".

Tiny Light

I'm lying here in bed
It's nearly three in the morning
And of course I'm thinking about you
Of course

I'm wondering if you're really going to do
What you said you were gonna do
If you don't get your way
And if
If I really should care

Of course we both know the answer
Yes
Of course

And I'm wondering why I care so much
Why I care so much about you
Why my heart worries so much
About you
It's funny, I suppose

Why I can barely stand the thought
Of an everyday without you
It's ridiculous, of course
Why should I care
We're both adults, free to do as we choose
Ridiculous to miss you
Of course

And yet
I'm lying here
Quietly hoping that you don't go
Because I need you to stay, of course
I've gotten so used to you
That must be it, my brain insists
You're my very own daily routine
That's why I want you to stay

Of course we both really know the answer
I need you, we both know
Of course

--"Wild Hope", 01/17/2011.

Dirt Off Your Shoulder

Yesterday I took the plunge.

No, I didn't get married. I didn't even dive into the deep end of a pool (if I did such a thing I would probably die, since I just so happen to not know how to swim--I'm adding that to my list of bullshit broken promises...I mean "resolutions"). No...I started my diet/exercise/it's-not-a-diet-it's-a-life-plan debacle of 2011. I'm feeling pretty good so far, surprisingly. No debilitating muscle spasms or soreness. I'm known for being too overzealous and idiotic and not being able to walk for like three days after I do lunges. I'm kinda thinking I might be able to stick to it longer than two weeks, which would be the stuff of legends. I expect an epic ballad of medieval proportions...kinda like Beowulf, but minus the slaying of Grendel and hanging with guys named Hrothgar. Although it'd be kind of cool to be friends with a guy named Hrothgar.

I took my obligatory Jennie Craig style "Before" pictures, and um...all I can say is WOW. Nothing puts your debauchery and love of cake and superfluous gourmet grilled cheese in perspective like four simple shots of front, back, ass, and side. I immediately regretted my bacchanal at Olive Garden the night before. I think I found out where all that pasta goodness went after all: right to the cellulite that decided to unpack itself on the backs of my thighs. Sweeeet.

I'm hoping to lose twentyish pounds by the end of May or mid-June. Baby steps. I think I'd like to run in a half-marathon in the Fall, though I'd have to train and bribe my legs not to mutiny and fall off.

Besides, I think I should be in prime shape for my never-ending adventures and constant shenanigans with Nicky. Who needs Jillian Michaels when you have an impatient and seemingly eternally hyper five year old boy? I'm destined for greatness. Wish me luck :)

Like a G6

Happy New Year my wonderful beautiful fabulous readers!!! I hope 2011 brings you joy and brings you closer to fulfilling your wildest dreams.

I can't believe how quickly 2010 went by. I must say that it was a good year, and if it were wine it'd have been sweet, with floral notes and hints of sparkling citrus. I'd buy a bottle of L. Diddy wine circa 2010.

I've taken to calling myself L. Diddy. I think it's catchy and sounds good when I talk about myself in the third person, which I do a lot more now since I have a cool nickname for myself. I made a list of obligatory resolutions, which I hope to try to keep.

Let's do this.

L. Diddy's List of Obligatory New Years Resolutions, 2011 Edition

*Lose 10-20 pounds
*Embrace exercise (and not the bomb)
*Get more sleep
*Go to bed before 3 am...let's aim for 11 pm
*Make more time for Mommy and Nicky time
*Write and finish a novel
*Record a song in an actual studio

And I'm bound to add more as the year goes on. Wish me luck, because I am sending some to all of you as you struggle with your own resolutions, or as I like to call them, "lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better about all the bad crap we did the year before".

Stop This Train

I'll be 25 in about eight days, and I've begun to think about how I'm getting older and how at 25 you're supposed to be "grown up" and living the adult life. I won't lie when I say that I've had my fair share of early quarterlife crises, where I've sat here and been like "oh my god I'm going to be 25 in X amount of months and I have absolutely nothing to show for it." And to me, in the traditional sense, I feel as though I don't. I'm a freshman in college, I still live at home...it seems silly, but it bothers me that I've never lived on my own.

The Great Recession, however, has leveled the quarterlife playing field. College degrees don't automatically signify a sweet high-paying job and a guaranteed spot on the awesome rung of the adult ladder. A lot of twentysomethings have moved back in with Mom and Dad because they can't find a job and the costs of living on their own are too high. I'm no longer the uncool single mom who is struggling to financially get through college and still lives at home. A lot of my friends have moved back home, right back into their bedrooms from their childhood.

So now I'm worrying about the other prong of the quarterlife crisis: I'm getting old. Scoff if you must, but high school still only seems like yesterday, albeit yesterday through a dirty glass. It seems weird for me to worry about dull skin and wrinkles and an entire skin routine. I've always been a low maintenance kind of girl when it comes to beauty routines. I don't have the time or the energy to worry about three steps to clearer skin or whatever. But now, now I have to be a little more structured with my skin or I'll pay for it down the road. Suddenly I'm worrying about those bad sunburns I got as a kid and my two separate but brief stints in the tanning bed. Suddenly I'm reading the descriptions on my face stuff and looking for alpha hydroxy acids and antioxidants. It's a bit daunting, but I figure it'll be worth it ten or fifteen years down the road.

I looked in the mirror a few weeks ago and I noticed that I had lines under my eyes. They weren't overly pronounced or anything, but they were enough to make me regret all those years of not wearing my glasses and squinting to see. I was kind of like a Latin American revolutionary when it came to wearing those stupid glasses. I'd rather die than wear those nerdy plastic welfare kid glasses, so I stayed vain and cool and popular and squinted my way through my childhood. I've since then bought eye cream, and I try to remember to apply it religiously twice a day. I tend to forget, but I figure if I do it enough it'll become a routine habit.

No gray hairs yet, thank sweet baby Jesus. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope I get a few more years out of that.

More on getting old tomorrow when I wake up. It's like 1:41 am and I have to go to sleep 'cause I have work at noon. XO.

Four Kicks

I'm on a Kings of Leon kick lately.  I'm really loving their music.  (See post title.)

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.  Let us not fix the blame for the past.  Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."--John F. Kennedy

Anyway, today was Election Day, and I must say I am very disappointed in the people of the United States.  How could you vote for the party that dug us into the huge hole we are in now?  How could you let the party that accused our President of being a non-citizen because he spent a large part of his childhood outside the US, who challenged the authenticity of his birth certificate because his father was from Kenya, who questioned his religion and his ties to terrorism simply based on the middle name of Hussein, the House majority?  How could you simply forget how we teetered on the precipice of another Great Depression?  How could you forgive a party who led us into a war based on false pretenses?  How could you just blindly turn your head and forget?

How could you give up so quickly on change?

What ever happened to "Yes we can"?

I'm so tired of all the he said/she said red state/blue state elephant/donkey bullshit.  I'm so tired of all the partisan drama and the hate and the poorly veiled blatant racism and the anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic rhetoric.  I'm tired of the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks and the Michael Steeles and the Sarah Palins of the conservative world that make us all wonder if the Republican party has gone mad.  I'm so tired of watching every move Barack Obama makes get attacked on Fox News.

He's our fucking President, if you like him or not, if you voted for him or not.  Show some goddamn respect.  I didn't like Bush, but I showed him respect.  My party showed him respect, even when he dragged thousands of men and women off to die in the Middle East to fight in countries that didn't want us there.  I showed his party respect, even when they touted the gay marriage ban and the suggestion of overturning Roe v. Wade.  I respected him because he was our leader, even though I voted for John Kerry in my very first election.  I think that the rest of the country should respect Obama in the same fashion.

I have to admit that I am becoming disillusioned with our nation's government.  I am tired of watching the GOP block every damn thing that Obama tries to pass through Congress.  I am just so tired of it all.

I propose we start a new party.  Screw Republican and Democrat and Independent.  I say we start the party of NOW.  It has never been so important to speak up and make your voice heard in government.  It has never been so important to speak out against the bullshit going on in Congress.  It has never been so important to tell Capitol Hill you want change and you want it NOW.

I think I want to be the change that I want to see...Who wants to join me???

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek."--Barack Obama