Sleepytime post

I need to remember to write in the morning some times. Because other wise we end up with nights like these, where its 10:30, and I've been working for twelve hours and all I want is to crawl into my bed and wake up sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Sadly, thats not how this will shake out for me but its okay. I am cool with it - it just means no real blog post, just this place holder.

I need someone to tell me how to get my brain to stop automatically checking facebook. Its a reflex and I need to turn it off. If I took all the minutes I spend on facebook in a day and piled them together, it would make an amount of time that I could actually get something done.

But this isn't the time or the place for that.  This is the time and the place for washing face and going to bed.

Little Bee

So Grandipants got a little more social media buzz than normal today and it is giving me all the anxiety.

I like to pretend that no one reads this because it makes me far less nervous about creating quality content. However when I am so rudely accosted with praise and encouragement and tweets from random authors (as in like, actual people who have written books, which I guess I now have to read #awkward) I start to get panicky.

Because eventually, some day I will be forced to deal with the fact that I should be trying harder in this virtual space. That I can probably do better if I were to try just that much harder. It all comes back to figuring out what I am trying to say. What is my message?

Not sure guys. But for those of you who are reading - thanks. I appreciate it when you say nice things. And even if you just occasionally think them, I am grateful. It is nice to know that people enjoy this - whatever it is. And just know, I am thinking and trying and considering how to make it better for you.

A week away

So. I took a week off from blogging. I was tired and pulled away from everything that wasn't totally necessary. It was a week of saying no mostly, instead of yes.

Instead of blogging here are some things I did:

-smelled flowers (I was gifted not one, but TWO bouquets last week. Twice as many as I have ever received in ever. I love having fresh flowers around. It is quite addicting).
-ate things that were so delicious. Mostly this.
-slept on the couch too much.
-wrote thank you notes.
-went to the zoo.
-finished three books (almost. let's just say 2.75).
-did some lunges and squats.
-regretted most lunges and all squats.
-forgot to wash my hair.
-encouraged people.
-considered the future.
-planned a party.
-drank a mint julep.
-stole a gold-painted horse.

Real life (and blogging) starts again tomorrow.

Plan-nerd

So, my goal to use a planner to blog isn't working out, not because of any fault of the plan itself, but because I have not committed to carrying the planner around because it is just one.more.thing in my always-full bag.

Which leads me to believe that my brain may have gone completely electronic in the past year. The act of writing things down only applies to work to-do lists. I'm starting to do my second-best writing in the notes app of my phone (my first-best writing will always be up in my head).

It's a bummer because my commitment to the system that is failing means that I find myself struggling for blog topics.

So today, because I'm sick and haven't showered and am still wearing my pjs (classy lady) you get a blog about how I am failing to blog how I want to.

Also, here is one of my favorite old blog posts: Moral of the Story. I was 21 and I had what I thought were actual problems. But they were no more "actual" then the lame complain-y white girl problems I have now.

Plan it out

I asked for a planner for Christmas.

I don't really know why I put it on my wishlist, but in theory I had problems with the fact that my calendar was a slave to "the cloud," and things could disappear on a whim in a way they can't when you write them down with pen and paper. 

I got a day planner, just exactly how I asked and it just kind of sat around getting water damage and being generally one-more-thing in my bag. 

But now, it is how I make the sausage.

I have always wondered how people make the blogs work. How do they come up with something to write every single day and get it done with all the other things they need to do.

As I think more about blogging the question that has been at the forefront is "how?"

So for the moment, this is the recipe for success. One sharpie pen (the.best), one Mac book and one planner full of ideas of what to put out there on the Internet.

I am grateful for this system of knowing what to write. I am excited to finally figure out the Why. 

New things!

I've been thinking a lot about blogging and this blog and the Internet and the meaning of life over the past few weeks and months and I have really decided that it is time to shit or get off the pot.

So, it's time for something new. New Year, new focus, new intentions. I was hoping that like magic that the new would just appear overnight. Instead it is all still up in my head where I left it. 

So, hang tight. Think about your intentions for this year and finish up all the Christmas cookies. They are not going to eat themselves. 

Happy 2014.

Book Review: MWF seeking BFF

MWF seeking BFF is a great idea for a book in theory. The struggle to make friends in your late 20's, especially in a new city is fascinating to me. Mostly because as Boyfriend and I ponder a move to Elsewhere, I always get hung up on the fact that it will be twice as hard to make friends and there will probably be half as many people "on the market," for new friendships.

All the things that this book talks about make so much sense. The idea that women have, "face to face," friendships while men have, "side to side," friendships. The theory that you can have just about 150 important people in your life at a time, how women are used to being pursued romantically so it is sometimes hard for us to do the pursuing in a platonic way. 

All this is great and interesting and good and neat and stuff. However, I ordered a book with a narrative. I got a book with half a narrative, a dollop of science, and writing that is best left to the Internet.

If my 30 seconds of Internet sleuthing is correct, this book was a blog. And the more I read it, the more I was sure that is where it should have stayed. Rachel Bertsche's writing is fabulous, for the Internet. As a book, it leaves so much to be desired.

And while my sweet book club ladies zoned out on my diatribe on this subject last night- I can now put it out on the Internet to be ignored:

Occasionally the Internet is the best place for a project. It is truly its own medium that, when used correctly, can knock your socks off. But when things try to make the jump to the page, they seem to only juuuuustbarely make it (this does not go for image-based websites, because a coffee table book is a coffee table book and while the world may not need more of them, my house does, so do the damned thing all you amazing people. 

I did love thinking about friendships on a more philosophical level and am now actively working to better my friendships with my current friends because I recognize how valuable these relationships are to me.

I also appreciated that this gave me the opportunity to recognize that this blog will probably never be more than it is right now. Which is probably for the best.

More. MORE.

Blog more, Self.

Blog instead of checking facebook, or falling asleep at 9 PM, or eating that extra scoop of ice cream.

Blog, for goodness sakes, because all the ideas you have for blogs are clogging up brain space that is desperately needed for work things, and other work things, and just general remembering how words are spelled and which day comes after Wednesday.

Self, you are being challenged. Get those blogs written. The one about San Francisco, and the one about pants, and the one about already being madly in love with people who don't exist yet*.

Blog about your adventures and your frustrations. Get it ALL out, Self. Otherwise, you will probably explode and someone will have to scrape your brain off of whatever solid surfaces you happen to be around (probably the cat).

So, Universe, I come to you. When do you write? Do you write when you are procrastinating and have run out of facebooks? Do you write when you're avoiding the scary work emails? Do you write instead of making spur-of-the-moment cake? How do you fill the internet with so many words, Universe?

*okay. Some of them exist, but in general, most of them don't yet. Intrigued? Good.

Trying to ketchup

Hello Blog.

I miss you. I'm sorry I haven't been around. I've been a busy girl. And I've been working on lots of new things and the world has been a little sad and when the world gets sad, I get sad. So. Anyway.

I'm back now... I promise. There's a new chapter starting in May. And with it comes the potential to set new routines in place. And one of those routines will be (I hope) finishing blogs. I have so many half-started blogs lined up, and I lose interest or decide they're not good enough or whatever and move on. So...lets try being better at finishing what we start.

Here is a pictorial representation of my life right now.

That is my fridge. Please note, there is one egg. Un œuf. in that egg carton. Also, please note the three types of butter, the single cans of a variety of caffeinated (and notcaffeinated beverages) and the itty-bitty amount of left over soup that sat for three days before I finally got around to eating it. And you might be like, "hey Rach, look at all that delicious yogurt!" and then I'd be like, "that is Boyfriend's work yogurt, and after binging on yogurt for six months I'm off yogurt until at least summer."

And here is the door of the fridge.

Yep. Approximately one bajillion types of mustard AND jam.

This is my life. All the condiments, nothing to put them on.

To new adventures.

Double Post

Hi!

I wrote a blog about dressing like a fancy regency lady for the Improvised Jane Austen blog.

You should go over here and read it. Then buy nice dresses. You deserve them.

Where have you been, Young Lady?

Ugh! I was doing so good with the once-a-day blog posting and then I tumbled off that wagon and into the waiting arms of some real bad shit.

So far 2013 has been less than spectacular on the things-to-get-amped-about scale. In fact, there hasn't really been a day when I haven't been forced to imbibe some bad news with a chaser of red wine and left over Christmas biscotti (the shining light in this crappy ocean).

The problem is - none of the bad things have happened to me, per se (except the broken toes. I'll talk about them at some point). They've all happened to people I love or people who are loved by people I love. Whatever. The point is - its not my right to put their business out there. So I won't. But let me tell you, if God is real, he is kind of a dick.

Even though I wasn't going to write about these bad things, it felt stupid and shallow to prance about writing about...whatever it is this blog is about (nothing, basically). So I struggled with that, and then I ate too much (as you do).

So now, I am saying - my bad, for ducking out on you like that - it was uncool of me. I just can't promise every day blogs anymore, because some days this year will be too full of sadness.

...AND! Some days will be too full of happiness because while life is straight-up garbage right now, I KNOW of some amazing events coming down the lane that are going to change liiiives. Seriously (again, not my business to talk about but, good things!). And on those days I am going to savor the everyloving stuffing out of the happiness and love that will be in the air and I'll get back to talking about pigeons and my inadequacies in the kitchen the next day.

The need for heroes

oh. Hello, blog.

A few days ago I had a discussion with a lovely person about children's books. She dropped a serious wtf-bomb when she mentioned casually that she had never read, nor knew anything about The Hunger Games books. She's a sweet girl, but apparently the rock she lives under is both spacious and all encompassing, because I feel like dead people at least have some semblance of the plot of Hunger Games.

After reviewing the entire plot (but leaving out the good bits) she shrugged and said she just didn't really connect with childrens/young adult literature.

Believe it or not, I did not just get up and walk out of the room at that kind of egregious and failbomb-y statement.  But I was slightly taken aback and a little disheartened, though it took me a few days to figure out why.

There are SO many reasons that I personally like The Hunger Games, the Margaret Atwood-y dystopian-ness, the struggle to come to terms with what romantic love is and how to react to it, the deep-seated need to provide for the ones you love...granted, we aren't really in the same place in our lives, but Katniss Everdeen is my kind of lady.

But beyond my personal preference, I love these books for what they provide to girls: A real, true-blue, honest girl hero.

As I think back to the books I read as a kid (when you pull "The Baby-Sitter's Club" weeds away) there were some amazing women. Calico Captive, Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and even the Little House in the Big Woods books, although Laura Ingalls Wilder was a big fan of rule-following. Lame.

But ALL of those books were books that my Mom also read. The world was desperately in need of some new females to carry the torch - and what did they get? Harry Potter and Twilight.

Don't get me wrong, Harry Potter is some solid business. But the girls are relegated to the sidelines and to waiting around for rescuing. Even though they seem to be the smartest ones. What kind of message is that?!

And DON'T get me started on Twilight. I could write for centuries about why Twilight is the worst thing to happen to girls and the publishing industry - if for no other reason than we have it to thank for Shades of Gray (so now women of ALL ages can read books about emotionally abused women with some sort of twisted masochistic streak...awesome).

We needed some girls who are in charge without big brothers to save the day. And I am not saying Katniss is the perfect girl. She is super flawed and kind of terrible a lot of the time, but that's a GOOD thing. Find me a male hero who doesn't have a problem with the drinking or the ladies (Jesus doesn't count).

I am glad Katniss was around to open the door and I hope, for girls (both big and small) everywhere, that there is a long parade that follows behind.

Thursday's Best Internet Finds! Stalker Edition

I spend far too much time on the internet. We could go into the why of this - but you're not my therapist, blog reader, and if you were - we would have waaaaay more important things on our metaphorical plate.

In my decade and a half of time spent in the internet tubes I have uncovered a lot of really amazing things and discovered some super cool people. Here's the weird thing - the people I've discovered, don't know I exist.

Its one thing to follow people who are asking for a following (Dear Baby Blog, I am looking in your direction). But there are others who have a super awesome thing going, but are not quite internet celebrities or are celebrities with personal blogs that don't get the same type of attention.

Internet stalking, yo. Don't knock it til you try it.

But today I am taking off the creepy black ski mask and letting my freak flag fly free.

Here are three of my favorites:

Army Pants and Flip Flops. This one is kind of cheating because this girl and I kinda-sorta travel in the same circles. I wouldn't know her if I saw her on the street, but my brother, my mom and probably my sister would - so...there's that. Anywhoodles, she is getting married to your Grade A type Army dude and so of course (because it wouldn't be a romantic comedy any other way) she is your standard Renn Fair loving theater geek. And he's deployed to Afghanistan. And there is a wedding to plan. And she's just trying to figure this ish out. The internet is a great place to get your Ish together. She makes me giggle out loud sometimes and she won Boyfriend's heart by confirming that you can in fact make a wedding registry on Amazon.com (not that Boyfriend is looking to register for Aneee.thing. He just really, really loves Amazon).

The Enjoy Project. Okay - Kristin is pretty darn close to famous. She has a business taking amazing pictures and so she probably racks up the hit counts. I found this blog through T-bone's wedding photographer Lydia Jane (check out T-bone's wedding! Lydia is ah.mazing) who is good friends with this Kristin, who (because Maryland is very, very small) photographed the weddings and engagements of some people I know from high school. Kristin's blog really caught my attention when she started blogging about how she met her (spoiler-alert) now husband. She and I operate on different wavelengths, but it is interesting to watch someone deal with doubt and fear and figuring it out because it makes you feel better about your own doubt and fear and challenges in figuring it out.

Please Note: I did not PLAN for this to be a TBIF all about shmoopy love business. I am not breaking away from my she-man-man-hating club. But I cannot be held responsible for the fact that girls who are increadibly talented and captivating writers tend to get boys all hot and bothered (I mean, duh, Boyfriend, case.in.point).

Dancing Brave. Heather is famous. Sups famous. I was obsessed with Heather back in 2002 when she was recapping for TWoP and had a sweet diaryland blog (guys - Diaryland was the real deal back in '03). Its weird to think that she was younger then than I am now. All making bad choices and being awesome. I thought she was so cool. I still do because she runs Go Fug Yourself (which I will proudly say, I've been reading since Day 1). But she also has a personal blog where she talks about raising twins (!!), and her love for all things Notre Dame (shake down the thunder, everyone). It is fun to see the dichotomy between her glamorous Fashion Week writing and her kids-at-home-how-we-do writing.

The internet is full of funny, smart ladies. The End.

Obliging obligations

I haven't blogged in ages and ages. There are reasons for my prolonged absence that I am not quite comfortable writing about all over the internet. Although - I am not sure why...

Okay, let me test it out, see if the walls come tumbling down...

I am looking for a new job.

.
.
...
.
.

So far nothing, but the types of walls that I am antisipating to see fall don't fall right away or even overnight. It takes days and sometimes weeks.

At any rate, I feel about six pounds lighter just typing it, flinging it out into space, its as refreshing as ice cold lemonade on a hot July day.

It has not been an easy process for a whole host of reasons, including the fact that me leaving my job is going to leave a Rachel-sized hole in the organization I currently work for. Its a hole that will quickly be filled by some one else, but I imagine that it will not be a perfect fit and that is hard to stomach sometimes. Even when I think about how much better things will be for everyone once the move is all done.

Anyway, now that that is off my chest, more blogging. All the time. About absolutely nothing at all. And food. Always food.

Rerereread

Sometimes I get lost on the internet.

This happens to everyone, right? It can't just be me, right? That you're just taking a four-minute break from your first-of-three 12-hour workdays and then all of a sudden you wake up and realize you've been reading old blog posts from a friend (errebody check your stats, see if it was you I was creepin' on)?

I have a lot of work to do today, tomorrow, and the next but sometimes I just need to get lost in words. My own words, other people's, whatever. I need words that are more meaningful than the ones I get paid to read and write.

So thanks everyone - for filling up the internet with all your thoughts so I can read them when I am taking a break from stress-eating cookies.

whaaa happen?

So, I disappeared from the internet for a while. Whoops. Sorry about that.

A friend made a comment in passing that wasn't meant to be mean, but made me feel self-conscious about this blog. Which is dumb, because this is the internet, its my job as a human to fill it with garbage. But the sensation of doubt was hard to shake and has left me tentative to fill the non-existent (and yet still there) void of internet I have.

Anyway - I promise, I will finish writing about Alinea. For those who are interested.

And I will blog about taking on Easter which will be epic.

And eventually, I will blog about something that isn't food.

Until I do - go download the new Of Monsters and Men album. Its real, real good. I do not consider myself a "music" person. So I am excited to be the first of my friends to have listened to them. They were amazing in concert and I cannot wait to see them again.

Thursday's Best Internet Finds! The Fun Facts Edition

I only have one Internet find for you, because I have been working more and internet-ing less in the past few weeks. But this deserved a special nod, if only because with any luck this nod will turn into a nudge and she will update more.

Today in History

Kelsey came into my life at the most opportune moment, meaning - I was looking for a roommate and everyone I had met had been batshit crazy.  Way, way too crazy to share a kitchen with. But Kelsey showed up in a pair of green ballet flats and a kicky scarf (she will hate me for saying kicky - I am not quite sure what to call it though. Jaunty? Fun?) and saved me from a year of living of living with any of the lunatics who came marching through before her.

She is the friend with the best clothes, good hair and enough talent to make you totally jealous, but in a way where you still want to get drinks with her on the regular. 

She started this blog where she is teaching us all about history! And she has fun designs to go with it. And her commentary is hilarious.  You should learn from her, and then protest when she doesn't update for days and days (the days where she is not posting and Jon Stewart is in reruns are the worst for learning in my mind).

I too have a tumblr. It can be found here. It used to be about losing weight but I managed to crush that pipe dream under a pile of double stuf Oreos, so now it is just random thoughts and pictures. It is updated sporadically. If you combine the updates here and there you almost get one per day.

The Case for Uggs

Some scenarios:

1 - You have what is clearly a deathly bout of the flu.  You have been lying around and moaning for hours only to discover you are out of the healing nectar that is ginger ale.  You probably won't pass out on the street but you are also not putting on a bra. It is 20 degrees in Chicago. You throw on an extra sweatshirt and your fluffiest scarf and prepare to battle the elements with some seriously weakened humors.

2 - You have a busy day!  First you have to go to ballet/yoga/zumba then you have to play with some super adorable little kids who will inevitably demand that you watch them run around in circles outside. You hurt your shoulder (in a past ballet/yoga/zumba class) and are trying not to carry around a giant bag.  Luckily, you can take class barefoot - but hanging with the tots? Not so much. Its 20 degrees in Chicago (and if you think that kids don't run around outside in 20 degree weather in Chicago, you are missing the point of this assignment/do not know kids from Chicago).

3 - It's Friday night and you just got home from work only to discover that you are starving and there is nothing in your house.  Literally nothing because you just ate the last snack sized thing of pickles. You call your favorite pita joint and ask for them to deliver some chicken shawarma with a quickness.  They say it'll be about an hour.  You will be long dead by then.  You still have on all your work clothes but have kicked off your super cute but uncomfortable pumps in a symbolic gesture of throwing off the bindings of paternalist female objectivity...or whatever. You know that if you leave now you can be back on the couch in baba ganoush heaven in fifteen minutes. Its 20 degrees in Chicago as you get ready to put back on your coat but recognize that no amount of caloric necessity will get you to put those monsters from Aldo back on. 

The question at the end of all of these scenarios is (of course) - what do you wear on your feet?

And one acceptable answer for all of these situations is you wear your Uggs (or your bear traps or whatever my knockoffs are called - I am calling them Uggs because I can type it faster, but to be honest I love my $40 version far more than my o.g. pair of the real deal).  You wear them and it is totally fine.

So many blogs have been coming down hard on Uggs in the past few weeks, trying to explain that there are so many other less-ugly boot options, which is true, but every shoe has its moment and for Uggs it is all these moments.

Once you get to be a grown-up, it becomes socially unacceptable to wear your slippers outside, no matter how much you might want to.  You know you've seen that woman on the 10 PM news who just lit her cheatin' boyfriend's car on fire - she is always (always) wearing slippers.  You don't want to be her.  But why would you turn up your nose at the most slipper-like thing you can wear in public without having the Channel 10 news team chase you down?

I wouldn't recommend wearing Uggs on a date or a job interview but if you need tampons and a bottle of Little Penguin?  Sure. You're spending all day running around because despite the freezing cold, everyone is either getting knocked up or married and you have to go spend your life savings on gifts they will return for cash? Fine. You're about to go into the office on a god-forsaken Sunday because your boss conveniently did not scan nor email you the files you need before your presentation on Monday? Do it. Go.

Sometimes you just want to be comfortable and warm. And you deserve it.

1 or 2

As I hastely write this knowing that there is a mountain of work growing on the window behind the one I type it - I realize there are two types of bloggers (originally that said bloogers - and I almost didn't change it, it entertained me so).

Type one are the ones who write carefully crafted pieces that they then put in to an internet weblog because they don't work for the Washington Post or Cosmo or Parent Magazine.  Their pieces could just as easily fit in those places as they do in my google reader.  But they don't go there, they go here, for whatever reason. These are the bloggers who take pictures not just to capture a moment but with a thought of, "I am going to blog this" as they click the shutter button. And they don't just upload pictures and words, they Edit to capture everyone in the best light.  Even when blogs are about being frustrated or mad or whatever - it is so goddamned glamorous you feel almost envious of them.  Perhaps problems would be better if I wrote about them in sepia tone. I envy these people for their commitment to the interwebs (and I am not an idiot, I know many of them do this for the hamiltons and the free swag) - to be willing to give up other things (sleep? mostly seems to be the first to go) just to write something as silly as a blog.

Type two are the ones who blog with the unbridled passion of your friend who plans spontaneous trips to Las Vegas. The ones who see no flaws in quitting a job over the quality of the coffee in the break room. They post nearly constantly, more than daily sometimes - it can be no more than a phrase or a single picture, sans caption, but it carries its own weight and you never think to question if the internet needed it. Perhaps its that these people tend to be amazing writers who do not need the filter of an edit (or Instagram), they just can exist and make that existence matter.

I feel like I wobble slightly between the two.  I so desperately try for number 1 but more often than not, the pictures just stay on my memory card. I start a long blog and it takes three days - so by the time I am finished, I don't bother to edit it - leaving it with all the inaccuracy of a type two but without the brevity. I wish I felt like my thoughts validated the existence of posting on my blog more often but in most cases, I end up just second guessing myself so much that I have whittled the blog idea down to something that I can't even bring myself to care about... something to work on.

At any rate, here is a picture of Miller. He is a very clever and handsome cat who doesn't have these problems.

thank you

I've become obsessed with looking at the stats of my blogger because I am incredibly self-involved and I need mathematical proof that people are reading this crap.

Anyway - one of the things that you can discover is what people google searched that lead you to this.  Most of it is pretty obvious, but one person - one faithful person got here by searching "beautiful fijian women."

To that person I would like to say thank you - for clicking on this link, realizing your tragic mistake, and then not hate-mailing me to tell me how disappointed you were at the total and complete lack of hot fijian ladies up in this piece.