FOOD!

I love food.  I love cooking food.  I love teaching others the beauty of food and its simplistic beauty, of wonder of fresh and local food.  Because of those loves, I have a special place in my heart of Jamie Oliver.

Advice to a Younger Me

I mentioned a few blogs back that I have things I would like to say as the new town whore of the FB group I am questioning myself for being a part of.

My first piece of advice - Date.  Sounds bizarre to some but I was raised in a culture that said date only for marriage.  I agree with the idea - don't date a douche you see no future with... however, this idea has been socially translated into, date ONE person, as in THE ONE.  There apparently is no room for error, no room for coffee dates with men who you haven't made your BFF or background checked via the CIA or what have you.  Yes there is this crazy belief that because you should only date for marriage that dating in and of itself is sinful or indulgent. 

Actually it's incredibly practical.

1. It teaches socialization - the same skills you have to harness for a date with a relative stranger are the same ones you have to harness for job interviews, meeting new people in general, company events, meeting parents and the list goes on. Yes you are not going to go on to kiss your interviewer, company representative or future in laws, but you are going to start in the same place with all of them - positive not too personal small talk.  You learn how to with confidence stick out your hand and say Hi my name is SP, it's nice to meet you....

2.  It teaches you want is important to you.  I could tell you that I love books, but you already know that.  But you know what? I REALLY love books.  BV didn't like to read.  I found that out and the conversations started to fumble.  They fumbled even more when I found out he was apathetic about his incredibly cool sounding job.  You can love your God/gods all you want but if you are a bummer to be around then I'm sorry that is not enough.  I hear women say it's a turn on to have a man who loves God.  You know what?  It isn't really - a man who knows what he believes and is passionate about EVERYTHING in his life is a turn on.  And by passionate, I do not mean off the walls happy, but genuinely interested/invested/knowledgeable etc.

3. It teaches you that you are worthy.  In dating I found I learned the key phrase - I am worthy of more than this.  Yes I was able to say that early into AB and my relationship and ignored it, but if you say it enough, it's the dull blade that frays the relationship cords.  You break a relationship slow and rough like that and you end up with two adults who go on without each other, rather than the yo yoing that happens when you cannot say those words.

4. It refines your gay-dar and your general understanding of chemistry.  You might be BFF's.  But I will tell you stand across from someone you don't know at a party and find yourself feeling that I must talk to this person, get to know them etc. Now go look at the BFF.  Doesn't matter that you've devoted all this time getting to make sure he's the right one to date - if you don't have the juice to make the reactions work, it doesn't matter.  Seriously.  If you fight me on this, let me direct you to CEF.

Rough Weekend

I came home on Thursday night fried.  I meltdown in those moments.  I know it, I can see these moments coming from a mile away.  So I spent Friday on my back watching Spooks.  I was not going to see people if I didn't absolutely have to.  Of course family dinner was on Friday night - and I did okay.

This weekend as a whole has been sort of heart breaking too.  I miss X.  There was a time in my life when distance in a relationship - the spacial difference wouldn't have hurt.  But now it does.  We're really busy people and we carve out time for each other the best we can.  I don't feel neglected.  That is not the feeling I have but rather a sense of jealousy that others can roll over and see their love's face in the morning.  Or go for dinner with them, a walk, a talk in person and so on and so forth.  The feeling comes and goes.  Right now I think it smacked me upside the head as Ms. J has a suitor now.  He seems great, but a part of me sees what we don't have in seeing their relationship unfold.  Would I change things?  If I could sure - but the only thing that we could change right now is not on the table.  I don't have any desire to walk away from this even when it is the pits in these moments.  I know some would say I'm stupid.  That there is a world of men who live in this city who would be perfect.  They might possibly be correct. HOWEVER, I believe that at some point you make a choice.  You stop looking.  Yes we could all spend our lives endlessly searching because we want every little piece to be absolutely perfect.  But that isn't the way life or relationships work.  Rather you have two dynamic, evolving, changing and failing people who are dedicated to each other - to grow together and work out and through the process of life... I am rambling. The point is - I miss X but I know that it's worth it - the miles and miles.

Sorry Long Time, No Blog

But I am here now to do some kind of simplified epic update of sorts:

1. Went shopping last weekend with Just Sayin' - awesome woman, funny, gracious and witty - you should check out her blog. We weren't successful shopping though - and this is where I will say, if you ever are having a meh day shopping, try it again.  Case in point - I was trying on some dresses and in the end I was in like with them, but not love and the prices while reasonable, weren't eye catching.  The same with some shoes I saw... and so on and so forth.   However,

2. Went shopping with A (new roommate) and we did extremely well at the B and JF.  At JF I purchased a black trench, 2 cardigans and a dress for X's graduation or his niece's christening all for 100 with tax.  At the B, I purchased a pair of Nine West heels and a pair of Ralph Lauren dress stilettos for 180 with tax - saving $90 due to sales.   Before I have X or Ms. J down my throat - the Nine West are black peep toe pumps, useful for EVERYTHING and the dress stilettos?  They go with my NYC dress!! The darn well annoying to find shoes for Grecian purple/cornflower blue dress bought in Greenwich Village. 

3.  Started studying for the GRE again, this time I need to find the desire to just do it. I will let you know if that desire is at the bottom of my Americano

4. Started contact lenses.  I have access to free contacts with my job, and figured it is high time I get used to them so I am not doing the glasses/sunglasses thing all summer - seemingly having one on top of my head and the other on my face at all times...

5.  My soon to be ex-neighbour has apparently found herself a girlfriend after the last 4 years of really minor dating.  Fabulous right? Well see the thing is, they like to shag really loudly every Saturday morning.  And to the men who think it's a turn on, it's actually frightfully embarrassing to hear it with the clarity as if I was standing next to their bed. I have found that I need to either stay in bed until about 10:30/11 or go for a run and then return to my room with noise.

6. I have become the town whore in a FB group that a mentee of mine set up.  She's young, naive and green as they get - all the things I was at her age (well less so but close enough) and she's asking very personal though important questions of those women older than her.  The problem is these are the kind of women who believe feminism is evil, birth control - of any form is abortive (Lord have mercy on my soul for the anger that statement causes to swell),  and that courting not dating is the way to go and that dating in general is wrong.  I could honestly write a whole blog in and of itself on all the craziness that is their beliefs and how they have NOTHING to do with my faith or anything.  However, I've come to realize that they're what seasoned users of social networking call trolls.  And you don't feed the trolls.  So I might just feed you all my answers as to why I think birth control is a good thing, or why I think we should date and no date does not equal screw the entire human race, contrary to some people's opinions *le sigh* I am cutting myself off, you get the point

7.  Oddly I know there is lots more but that's about it for now

Today's Song

Life Changing

This talk has seriously challenged me - I hope you get a fraction of what I got from it

Fashion Advice

I am looking for a little advice from you wonderful people.  I have X's graduation and a wedding this summer along with other events.  I have learned in my few years of adulthood that there is always a need for a good (solid) dress.  What I mean by that is not a cocktail dress (though they are extremely important) and not a cotton summer dress/winter sheath, but that thing in between.  I was thinking I had found it and now I'm not sure - behold:

It wouldn't be this colour or this length - but the point is a convertible dress. I was looking at a short deep navy colour.  It goes for about  $80 on Etsy.  For the longest time I thought it was brilliant and now with things being a little crunched I'm not sure if in the end I'm better off buying something from H&M for half the price and either not using the other half or putting it towards other summer gear.

Let me know what you think.  I will also say I'm a little apprehensive as Etsy has burned me in the last little while correction Customs has burned me by holding packages for 3-4 weeks longer than projected on everything I've purchased from Etsy.  I do not want to invest in something so crucial not to have it come or even worse look right. 

Slightly Overwhelmed...

Life seems to be picking up the pace these days and I'm not sure I like that idea.  I actually really don't like it.  I feel like I'm failing everyone including myself, especially myself at my inability to balance and do everything that needs to be done.... *gah*

But oddly I still feel the need to pass on something - 10 Most Frequently Challenged Books from last year.  Now you might not be aware but every public and school library has books that can be challenged and removed from circulation.  Book banning makes me mad.  I will say that it makes me mad on the level it makes PETA mad every time a chicken becomes a KFC meal (and for the record that doesn't make me happy).  It actually makes me mad on the level that whatever PTA I'm apart of will likely egg my house out of frustration with my insistence that no book should be banned.  I know there are going to be people who say that they are not appropriate for children.  Read the book then yourself and have your child/teenager read it and then discuss it.  Ideas are not lethal if they are discussed and challenged.  They are only destructive if we do not equip ourselves and those we are responsible for with ways of negotiating, challenging and respecting or accepting them. 

As an aside number 10 on the list is Twilight.  I will admit I have read the series. There is nothing remotely offensive in the series - there is implied sex AFTER marriage, and there is violence which is described but not by any means graphic.  So what in there has the after 12 year old not be exposed to in the advertising media?  Books like Twilight as much as I loathe them, they are easily consumable, like Harry Potter, and open children/young adults up to the wonders of reading if they haven't found it already.  So bugger off crazy parents.  That or pick up a classic - Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Vanity Fair and the list goes on because everyone one of those entrenched classics has at least one of the following: racism, rape, violence (bloody at that), sexism, cannibalism, elitism, homosexuality, transgender issues/themes, adultery and the ism's go on.

Okay my rant is done, carry on now - hopefully to your local library.

You Wouldn't Think

That a weekend spent in a hospital room would be exhausting.  I love Ms. J and would stay as long as she needed me there - but it's hard to see her dependent on others.  But she is doing really really well in the grand scheme of things. 

But this blog isn't about how awesome and strong she is, though it should be - it is about a video that I needed to see this morning.  A friend of Ms. J's and I posted it on her FB.  Now I'm not a huge fan of FB but when it means that I get to hear something like this - something that almost made me want to cry and shout amen and nod along in silenced awe/overwhelmedness.   She is, that, will be, makes me, and  and will and want to be and and and there is no one sentence that will come from my mouth.  So listen while I try to untangle the sentences from my mouth.

Don't Make Promises You Cannot Keep...

I believe that's the saying... I confess I will likely fail at keeping my promise to keep blogging in the next little while.

My bestie Ms. J has a brand spanking new hip and as such I'm going to be spending my next few days sneaking food into her, watching movies and giggling about the hot doctors (there better be hot doctors).  As such I won't be here.

And when I'm not here I'm going to be studying for the GRE again - good gracious I thought I dodged that bullet, *le sigh.* X and I started talking about the future - not like that kind of future but sort of - it's the even more challenging and complicated future.

See I like to plan, but in recent years I've beat down the planner in me so much that I think I'm afraid of planning. I'm afraid of saying yes to things - of quite frankly dreaming.  I feel like when I get into dreamer/planning mode I forget the present, I forget my commonsense, and I find that the world I try to dream/plan into existence is founded nowhere in reality.  In the end I guess the more I dig into this relationship and my future the more I realize just how damn burned I am/was by the whole CEF process.  Some moments I find it's like realizing not only a scar I wasn't aware of but a whole abscessing wound.  And then there are things that I thought I was afraid of that I really never was... *le sigh times deux*

X and I got into two little arguments if you will call them that last night - one about the cost of his graduation shirt - apparently he's neglected the part of growing up where dress shirts aren't found on the sale rack at the Gap, they cost money because you're an adult and looking like a schlumpy 19 year old is not acceptable at 30+.  But we'll discuss that later.  The other one was why am I doing two years of seminary, when seminary is ultimately just a middle man/point for my MA.  Good question. One that actually didn't really sink in until this morning.

I'm not sure.  I think when I set out to do my two years I was in a completely different place - I was single and I was (still am) really happy with the way things are here community and friend wise.  When I became unsingle I didn't see the point in rushing off to apply anywhere.  I don't plan on moving to be with X unless we are married - plain and simple.  It's a huge move, it's a lot of paperwork and it's not going to be for us just to try things out.  X agrees but thinks I should just apply in his general area - so we are close but not living together.  Here is the sticky thing.  The schools I want are on the West coast... they all require the GRE and I'm feeling royally overwhelmed. 

I know this all doesn't really make sense.  I guess what I mean is I understand that the most practical option is for me to apply for MA programs this Fall, but I think I'm just scared out of my gourd for that whole process.  I once was a jump and deal with it girl, now I'm one who realizes that there are still open wounds from the last time I did that.

Photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizacate/3393159650/sizes/z/in/photostream/

I'm Back I Promise

I have a very busy past few days and this week and the next few weeks at that will be very busy.  But I promise to stay around for even short moments.

So X was in town this weekend, and the weather cooperated, sort of.  It was definitely whirlwind - I tried to make sure it wasn't crazy busy - we didn't do any sites like the MOA or Aquarium etc, but we did manage to find the days full and passing by too quickly.  I will give all the gushing details later, right now I have a case of the sads along with a case of the WTF is going on outside weatherwise and gah it's Monday, and well all those combined along with a still angry tummy about it's heavy inadvertant dosing of gluten will result in crying at my desk.  Crying in public is something I'm trying avoid after yesterday.

Moving on Ms J gets a brand spanking new possibly pink (secretly praying it's pink) hip on Wednesday.  So excited for her to be back kicking asses and taking names or whatever she normally does but can't do right now because she still cannot quite fire her delinquint hip bone. So thank goodness I have that to look forward to - that woman will keep me sane in these moments.

Anyways, life moves on, so I'm going to offer these lovely songs for you - the first artist cd was from X and the second we share a love for - they have two songs on their newest album that always make me think of X (and I am still looking for these ones online...) and last but not least what I felt asleep thanks only to Gravol yesterday as I clutched his tshirt... okay so that made me sound worse than it is... seriously I'm in one piece

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