WWJD (T-Minus 289 Days)

A couple weekends ago I went to Vegas for a bachelorette party in advance of one of my esteemed BFFs impending nuptials. I had only met the other ladies once, but we all agreed beforehand the event would be nothing short of epic. Think “The Hangover” [1] … only pink.

I mean, what started out as one became four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. Or at least we expected blackouts, makeouts or to be kicked out. To be honest, I even kind of wanted to see someone get tased (as long as it wasn’t me).

While it is safe to say absolutely none of that happened, the trip still had its moments – impromptu photo shoots with curtains, candy necklaces made of phallic shapes, scavenger hunts and late-night conversations that can only take place between drunken friends. The soon-to-be-bride rocked a veil, woke up with writing on her arm and proclaims she was “toasted for three straight days.” Plus she was led around the majority of the time by monkey backpack as to not get lost.

All in all, from a debauchery standpoint, I would say the weekend was still a success.

Although disappointed not to find Baby Carlos, I find myself being grateful that festivities ended there and I am able to remember the trip without having to re-trace steps, battle a tiger or … worry about our best friend being face down in a ditch with a meth head butt-fucking [her] corpse.

This clearly illustrates one of the surest signs of getting older is the redefinition of fun. Once we were settled in Vegas, it became way more appealing to relax by the pool with a cocktail, hang out (i.e. lose money) at the Blackjack table or sit down to a totally amazeballs dinner. We even changed out of heels and into flip-flops to go out dancing and the closest anyone got to hooking up with someone was me eye-fucking the shit out of some guy in the crosswalk.

(Don’t knock it; I still felt like I needed a cigarette afterwards.)

When I look back on the blackout-free weekend, there are several moments that will forever stick out and bring a smile to my face. Among them is a conversation that seems more preposterous every time I play it out in my head involving the namesake of the Bellagio water show – Jasmine – and her possible life story. What started as one off-handed comment turned into a weekend-long monologue of torrid affairs, magic carpet rides and clandestine meetings with Mr. Lexor in a suite at Mandalay Bay.

The theme eventually emerging from the weekend was WWJD – What Would Jasmine Do – and I actually find myself channeling the mantra from time to time because, at least in our minds, Jasmine knows how to live it up.

To put it in my terms – she has her groove.

One of the other resounding moments of the trip came on the last day, after we had all said our goodbyes and hugged it out in the In ‘n’ Out parking lot to go our separate ways. With the other half of the wolf pack headed to the airport, my esteemed BFF and honored bachelorette told me they had deemed me an official member of their “brain trust.” It was probably just the overindulgence of the double-double, but my heart actually felt fuller at that moment.

Going into a weekend with three women who were all college friends, it would have been pretty easy to feel like a loner, or a one-woman wolf pack, but I left Vegas feeling as if I had even more to be thankful for and excited to see everyone again.

So it may not have gone the way we all had expected, but I think it was probably better. Although I do still wonder what tigers dream of when they take their little tiger snooze.

8. Home is the finish line. (T-Minus 304 Days)

I was planning on elaborating on the 10 (+1) Commandments  in order, but I’m going to take a risk (No. 7) and not follow the list. Plus, the idea of home is still reasonably fresh on my mind after visiting my parents a few weeks ago. They were the source of inspiration behind rejuvenating the quest for my groove, so it seems appropriate to explore the idea early.

The concept of home has long been foreign to me and there are times I wonder if I even really have one. I know it sounds crazy coming from someone hailing from an unbroken home who grew up in an upper middle class household with few complaints, but even from an early age, I knew I didn’t belong there.

I love my family, but ever since I went away to college, I knew I needed to find something more.

About five years ago, I found something which makes me feel like I’m at least headed in the right direction. I have a piece of ceramic art hanging in my kitchen with the words “Home is where the story begins,” and for some reason that half-price piece of glass from a bargain bin at Kohl’s makes me feel like I’m not the only one without somewhere to call home.

The first person who articulated everything I didn’t know how to say I was feeling was Zach Braff’s character in Garden State, Andrew Largeman. There is a scene where he is in the hot tub with Sam, played by Natalie Portman, which unfolds a bit like this:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.

Sam: I still feel at home in my house.

Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

The movie came out my senior year in college, but it wasn’t until a couple years later when I bought it on DVD for $5 at Target and watched it again, that it really hit … home (pun clearly intended).

From time to time, I watch the movie or just the selected scene and relish in the comfort. I also imagine what my mythical version of home might be. Because, even though I don’t know where it is, I long to one day find a place to truly call home.

It may not be by the time I am 30, but I remind myself consistently finding it eventually is among the chief goals. I have a feeling, once I do, it’s where I will find my groove.

Commandments (T-Minus 306 Days)

I have a really annoying habit of putting stuff off until later.

I cannot tell you how many mornings my alarm has gone off at 5:30 and I have rationalized going back to sleep by telling myself I can always go to the gym after work only to realize midway through the day I don’t have time and there was a reason I had planned to go early.

I do the same thing at work, putting off a release or project until right before it’s due.

I pack the morning I leave for trips – for work and play – and therefore always end up overpacking and/or forgetting stuff. I have about seven hairbrushes from various parts of the country because of this.

And … I don’t write a blog entry when I first think about it because I want to write it through in my head first. Or because I think the idea is too inane to turn into a whole rambling piece. Or I don’t think anyone will care. Or maybe because I don’t care enough.

When I last wrote, it was all about rededicating to the original goal of finding my groove in 500 days. Not surprisingly, I have put it off for a large portion of that.

Inspiration was found, however, by reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project. She basically decided to spend a year consciously pursuing happiness by concentrating on one specific aspect of life — marriage, work, attitude, etc. — a month. Like me, she believes in lists, and attempted to reach this elevated state of happiness by adhering to resolutions.

Unlike me, Rubin has the essential basics for happiness down – loving husband, family and a home and career she loves. I see her quest as the icing on the cupcake of life. Maybe even the sprinkles too.

I don’t think I can boil down my goals into tasks able to be tackled in a month, but I do think cementing a strategy for tackling them is important. Plus, it’s an excuse to make another list.

And so … The 10 (+1) Commandments of Me, Myself & I: 

1. Do it now. Not later.
2. Get up with the alarm (or within a snooze or two).
3. Think long-term ... but don't overthink.
4. Simplify.
5. Recognize my own shadow.
6. Take 10 seconds.
7. And risks.
8. Home is the finish line.
9. Two wrongs do not make a right.
10. Believe in the sanctity of dreams.
    + 1 TNT. Dy-no-mite.

Explanations forthcoming.

Re-dedication (T-Minus 325 Days)

When I started this whole thing 175 days ago, the last thing I meant for it to turn into was yet another blog by a reasonably successful and independent yuppie single woman who has nothing better to write about than forays into online dating, tales of steamy hookups or complaints when neither of those worked out. This blog was (and is) supposed to be about said woman trying to find her groove and a state of happier-ness by sorting through the three categories of live, life and love.

In other words: work, play and someone to makeout with after doing both.

Somewhere along the way, I think I decided the last thing would be the easiest facet to control, and that is what I concentrated on, albeit halfheartedly. After nearly six months, all I have to show for “love” is a discontinued match.com membership, a perpetually-positive mono blood test and a completely impractical crush. I never put my heart on the line, or my pride, and the lack of risk is probably proportional to the lack of reward.

What is even more startling, however, is the lack of effort put into figuring out the rest of it, at least until recently. I have spent more time than I care to admit patrolling job websites over the last couple months, but I have been more successful finding future jobs for friends than making any headway in figuring out what I want my next step to be. Or how I want to make a means to “live.” The same could be said for figuring out where and what kind of “life” I want to lead.

I got nothing.

There is something about being back at my parents’ house, where I just so happen to be this week, which puts everything in perspective. This is my first visit here in about nine months and I have spent the last two days simultaneously wondering how I stayed away so long and contemplating why on Earth I would bother coming back. This place is obviously a large part of making me who I am, but that is the largest role I ever want it to play.

I love my parents, and my brother and sister, and we are fortunate to remain an intact family through nearly 34 years of marriage and three kids aged 22-31. In fact, on the surface, we’re a highly-functional and nuclear family. Suffice to say though, things are not always what they seem and you can learn a lot from analyzing your own family dynamics, even if it’s realizing they are the complete antithesis of what you hope to someday build on your own.

The relationships within my familial unit have long been a point of contemplation and accepting the reality of them has not only revitalized my zeal for wanting to find my groove and build my own life, but once again made me appreciate the fact I am in a position to be fortunate enough to question it.  

I also have realized I need more finite guidelines to get me through the next 325 days because “figure out life; find groove” is kind of a broad idea to practice on a daily basis. My penchant for lists has already been established and I think this is a case for yet another. Inspired by my current book of choice, The Happiness Project, I hope to come up with a concrete list of goals over the next few entries, eventually crafting at least a framework for potential success and outlining a set of personal commandments to live by in the process.

In the meantime, any updates with Sparks will still be passed along with alacrity and self-centered stories of dumb boys, hot makeout sessions and bachelorette parties in Vegas will still be relayed in a timely manner with sarcasm-laced wit. It is my hope, however, they will be intermingled with a little bit more self-exploration, and more importantly action. If for no one else but me. And for no other reason but to find happier-ness and sanity.

Inbox Inspiration (T-Minus 327 Days)

Random thought for the day: if you like to mix things up in the bedroom (or wherever), then I highly recommend subscribing to daily dose emails from Women’s Health (http://www.womenshealthmag.com/). Today’s email: “The Best Sex Positions You Have Never Tried.” Now I dare not open this email while at work because I’m pretty sure a red light would go off down in the IT office and they would have someone up here before I could think to myself “they want me to do what with my legs.”

Plus, I have been on their sh*t list ever since my computer caught a virus after Google-ing a Saved by the Bell reference two years ago. My apologies for needing to prove I was right by saying Zack and Kelly were dressed up as Romeo and Juliet for the uber-intense breakup episode.

Anyway, I digress, I also dare not open because who wants to see exactly what they are not getting?

Every day, I hover over the unsubscribe link and try to remember how these ended up in my inbox to begin with. I don’t think I ever purposefully signed up to get said emails; I probably just left all the optional boxes checked when I joined. Or maybe it’s something I elected to receive while I was on the road for those eight glorious days in March when I thought it would actually be useful information. Now, however, it’s just a slap in the face of what is waiting for me in a city seven hours away.

Hmmmm, seven hours and a time zone change away, I could be there by dinner. I wonder if the email has flash cards …


P.S. Also in my inbox this morning: RachaelRayMag.com email with a phenomenal-sounding recipe for turkey burgers. Now also on my list of things to try.

Karma is spelled m-o-n-o (T-Minus 331 Days)

Yeesh, the last three weeks have flown by. Time got away from me while I was, quite literally, sleeping for days on end.

You may have heard this one before, but Karma can be a bit of a bitch. I knew hooking up with someone on the road, while still seeing someone back home would come back to bite me somehow. It had to; what goes around comes around. I just didn’t see this one coming.

On April 4, I was diagnosed mono.

No, I’m not 17-years old and making out with boys under the bleachers after lacrosse practice. Been there, done that and somehow came through unscathed. I am a self-respecting 29-year old professional woman … with the kissing disease.

I had been battling what I thought was a quality nagging cold for a few weeks now and I thought it would go away once work calmed down a bit and I wasn’t gone all the time. Turns out the adrenaline was the only thing keeping me going and once I stopped my body shutdown. It wanted no mas.

I’m not sure I have ever felt as miserable as I did that week. Or slept as much. Everything, quite simply, hurt, ran, pounded, hacked, swelled or was, in some way, gross.  

The added factor to fuel the misery was of course having to tell, not just one, but two, guys they were exposed to something they probably haven’t thought about since Backstreet Boys and N Sync were duking it out at the top of the pop charts.

Turns out The M-P had it already, so he wasn’t too stressed and checked in throughout the week to see if I needed anything. As sweet and thoughtful as ever. Of course.

Sparks was a slightly different case. I mean, it’s not exactly something you tell a man that inspires the feeling of wanting to make an effort to be seen again, especially not sooner rather than later. He took it in stride though, asked what he should be on the lookout for and, of course, wished me well in my recovery. But man, nothing like a communicable disease to kill the flow and momentum and a potential budding relationship.

In the last couple weeks, we have rebounded from the weirdness and have broached the semi-awkward topic of if we want to see each other again. Planners have been pulled out and flights priced. Once a few more things shake out on the professional end, a weekend can be picked.

Until then, I’m feeling pretty fantastic for the first time in almost a month and a half and looking forward to everything spring has to offer – in all aspects of life.

Closure (T-Minus 352 Days)

I met The M-P last night for drinks. He wanted closure and I wanted a couple free beers. I judged him for the last week after he asked if we could get together to talk about things because I have simply never understood guys’ need to hash things out after a breakup. What’s done is done and I feel like it doesn’t need to go any deeper than one person does not like/love/value/appreciate the other as much as vice versa. In my experience, it’s usually because one person needs to feel better about things and somehow explaining how feelings fell apart, or why they should still be there, ad nauseam accomplishes the goal.

Despite this frigid bitch outlook, I genuinely care about the guy and want to build a friendship with him, so I went with it. Until he chose the site of our first date as the location, and then I just started to judge again.

And I continued to do so as the night went on and we shot the breeze about sports and the weather and other inane conversation topics, clearly avoiding the elephant in the room. After 2.75 beers and a walk to my car to add change to the meter, however, I finally said “you have one-third of a beer to ask me whatever you need to ask me.”

And so, we hashed it out. I was honest about my activities on the road and my lack of feelings for M-P. I cushioned the blow by explaining my occasional unhappiness with work and the geographic location, knowing he was not willing to leave and thinking it was better to end things before they went too far.

By the end of the night, however, I was the one in tears on the drive home. Still 100 percent convinced I had made the right choice, but sad because part of me wished I didn’t feel that way. The M-P is a wonderfully sweet and thoughtful man, but he is clearly not for me. Our lives are headed in very different directions, not to mention the whole complete lack of chemistry. Apparently he did not see those things though. Or was willing to ignore them.

­­Buzzed and sad, I lay on my couch at home texting friends and telling myself watching the new Grey’s Anatomy was probably not the best decision in my current emotional state. One of the wise and wonderful women I have the pleasure to go to work with every day, then reminded me via text “No need to drag it out. Feelings won’t change, right? You need the spark – no fun without it.”

And, for the moment, I was content.

As a sidenote, I recently received a CD by an artist named Jenn Grinels as a gift. I had not had a chance to listen to it yet, but threw it in on my way to meet The M-P and was absolutely mesmerized by the fourth song. Grinels’ voice is hauntingly beautiful and this song struck a deep chord. I must have listened to it five times. I brought the CD into work this morning and noticed, for the first time, the title of the song. LISTEN HERE and enjoy the irony.