I hate packing. Hate packing. Hate, hate, hate.  Hate it. 

Ps. Guess what I am doing right now?  

I am the type of person who goes pretty out of my way for friends. It’s not really for any reason other than I like to think that everyone deserves that from a friend. I am typically the one throwing parties, or gathering the troops for something, decorating the workspace for a birthday, buying a present for the friend who is down, calling to check in on them when things are bad…and I am not saying that because I think I deserve recognition for it…I’m saying it because it dumbfounds me that everyone doesn’t do those things.  To me it seems like it should be the natural way of things.

This weekend Stephanie (who is very much the same way that I am in this respect) and I threw Noelle a wedding party.  1/2 of the people who RSVP’d didn’t show up. Half.  With no phone calls or prior warning. 

And to me, it is just astonishing.  And infuriating.  Because it was a day to make a friend feel good about her wedding and her happy news.  And how simple is it to just be there? Don’t get me started on how much we could have saved had we known that only 1/2 the people were going to be there, or how we could have planned around the things that they were supposed to bring that they didn’t, or how the first hour was us sitting around waiting and trying to get   of people…honestly, the real thing that made me so mad was that it was for a friend, and I don’t really understand that. 

I have to let this one go after this post, because all day I have stewed over it and gotten more and more angry, and there’s no way to go back and do anything differently, so I am going to move on.  

But, I guess the point is that I am, you know, amazing, and it is just not possible for everyone else to be that amazing as well.  Ha. 

I can touch my nose with my tongue. I can also roll my tongue, scrunch it, fold it over in two, unwrap a starburst with it, and tie a knot in a cherry stem.  

My boyfriend is a lucky guy. 

Today we found out my dad is not responding to the chemo, so they’ve pulled him off of it. 

Today’s random fact is that I have absolutely no idea..can not fathom, can not conceive, how I am going to live in a world where he does not exist.  I don’t know how you prepare for that, when the person is right in front of you for now, especially when that person is arguably the most important person in your life.  It’s like I miss him and he’s still here, and I am not sure what I am going to do when he is not.  

This isn’t so much a fact as it is a story about my past. 

I’ve told this story several times over the years, telling it to New Boy recently brought it up again. It’s more a story about friendship than it is about really, really poor choices that I have made in my life. Because, you know, one of those things is way more fun to talk about than the other. 

Story goes…

Several years ago, I met a man who lived in Arizona.  I was totally caught up in him for reasons I still don’t understand, and I got so head over heels that I made the  extremely misguided decision to move there to be with him.

For many reasons, none of which I am going to get into, I spent the next 6 weeks in hell…and not just because of my absolute and total hatred for all things Arizona.

I became a person I wouldn’t recognize today-jealous, angry, dependent, spiteful.  I tried to get a job, and ended up quitting because getting out of bed in the morning became too difficult to do. 

I would cry when I woke up and cry when I went to bed and in between I would do a lot of yelling. Like, completely “I have lost my fucking mind” Mel Gibson type yelling.

But, as happens, I got stuck.  It was hard to see outside of the box that I was in, and I was having trouble finding the strength to get away from him.

The day before Fourth of July weekend, I had hit rock bottom.  For days he and I had been having the kinds of conversations where we were border-line threatening to kill one another, and on Friday, I got a call from my best friend.

She told me that I had become someone that she didn’t recognize, and that if I didn’t leave by Monday, she was coming to get me.  For those of you who don’t know my best friend, understand that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was telling the truth. 

She was right. And I knew it.  I had to get away or I was going to slip so far into my abyss that I would never get out.

I packed what little I had and on Monday drove up here to Sacramento to live with my parents.  I ended up staying in the area once I got on my feet.  That was 5  years ago.

That time in my life was horribly painful.  The months of recovery from all of it, I thought were going to kill me.  But now it all just makes me feel lucky.  Because I have always had people in my life who care about me.  And friends who fight for me.  And I have gotten to a place where the things I accepted then, I will not accept anymore.   I am grateful to be dating someone who is thoughtful and respectful and kind, and remember what it is like to have none of that.  Most importantly I think, I am stronger, and smarter, and know certain places that my life will never again take me (in a figurative sense, though..in a literal sense, Arizona is one of those places). 

My self-confidence is a bit of a joke around people who know me.  I have moments of self-doubt like everyone, but for the most part, I am absolutely happy to be me.  And I am typically not afraid to let you know it.  

It’s certainly not that I think I am flawless (well…), but just that I recognize my strengths and focus on them. And I’m old enough (shush) and wise enough to know that if you don’t like me, well, then you and I are probably just not meant to be a part of each other’s lives. 

But I think people who know me now would be surprised by how much this has not always been the case.  

Moving so much growing up…always being the new girl…I became incredibly self-conscious. I always felt like someone was watching me. And judging me.  And I didn’t feel worthy of that. At 16 and with limited control over my life, the only way I knew to try to become more for all of them was to not eat.  Or, more often than not, to binge and purge.  So I could be thinner.  Better. In whatever screwed up teenage way that those two things are associated with one another. 

I was also always a person who remembered, and hung on to, every hurtful thing anyone ever said about me. There have certainly been times in my life where I let those things get the best of me. 

My first real “love”, for example, was a real doosey of a douchebag. He once told me that not only was I not beautiful, but that if any man ever told me I was, he was lying.  To have sex with me. That’s right. My boyfriend, who “loved” me, told me that men might find me cute, but I was simply not beautiful. And no man would ever think I was.

And here’s the thing about something like that.  At the time you think, well STFU, you ass.  But, if we learned anything from Inception, it is the power that a simple thought can have once it’s placed within your mind and allowed to fester.  For years, years anytime that a man called me beautiful, no matter how genuine he may have seemed, in the back of my head I knew he was just patronizing me.  No man could ever think you are beautiful. Man, you don’t even know how much I’d like to punch him in the face now.

So, yes, friends. I am incredibly confident now.  Because eventually, I think, you grow into your skin.  Grow comfortable with who you are.  You recognize not only your flaws, but your assets.  You appreciate your intelligence more and care about your ass a little less (I still like my ass, I’m not going to lie).  You are able to just be yourself…with your sense of humor and your crazy quirks and your personality, and you come to realize that you are pretty freaking awesome, and it is okay that everyone knows that. 

Andrew Jackson is my least favorite President (whoa am I not kidding with the “random,” right?). I am about 1/4 Cherokee and Choctaw, and many of my ancestors were marched on the Trail of Tears. So, I’m pretty convinced that he was just a barbarian.  ”Oh, these people? No, we’re just going to move them west.  Like a quarter of them are going to die along the way, but we’re thinking less is more here, so it’s okay. In the end they’ll be in Oklahoma and Arkansas so really, we’re doing them a favor.” 

Second is probably Reagan. Because, well, how much time do you actually have? 

(Fav’s are FDR and Kennedy, in case you were wondering. What’s that?  Oh, well, sorry, I told you anyway.)  

I replace one addiction with another.  Quitting smoking again (since I had a mild set back for about a month) has brought me back to an even worse habit:  and smoking would be so much better than him. 

I steal internet from my neighbor…because, well, because I can.  But I really wish he’d get a more reliable provider.  Dammit.

When I was 4 years old my parents planned the first outing to an amusement park for their little girl.  They were excited to let me ride all of the kiddie rides, as I imagine all parents are.  

So, we drove a couple of hours to Elitches in Denver, they paid to get in, we walked through the gates, and I, it seems, looked up at my dad and said, “I ain’t riding nuthin’” 

This has pretty much dictated my behavior in amusement parks for the rest of my life.

I am quite enthusiastically whatever the opposite of an adrenaline junkie is. 

I can’t help but feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t have a best friend who understands them, despite all their differences.  Who laughs at the stupid stuff with them, and whose heart breaks along with them at the important ones.  Who shares their history, their stories, their memories.  Who believes in them and trusts them with their life. 

I don’t know where I would be without mine. 

If life had a soundtrack of music that faded out as each new scene began (and oh, how I wish it did), mine would be comprised almost entirely of Jackson Browne music. 

My parents were hippies-like 60s, bay area hippies.  As their child I was raised to appreciate, among other things, vinyl records, classic rock, and the beauty of a talented singer-songwriter. 

Jackson was always their guy.  Almost every memory I have with my family before the age of 18 has one of his records playing in the background.  Lives in the Balance, Running on Empty, Late for the Sky…and we’re talking the quality album tracks…not Somebody’s Baby.

These were songs with lyrics that will make your actual heart ache. Listen to Late for the Sky, Sky Blue and Black, These Days, Sleeps Dark and Silent Gate, The Pretender, Fountain of Sorrow or For a Dancer.  Listen to the crackle of the record, the chords of the piano and the melancholy in his voice.  My parents have always appreciated these things. I am eternally grateful that they passed that on to me. 

As I grew older I (and both of my older brothers) adopted their love for the man. Partly out of nostalgia, I suppose, and partly because there is no one who can write a song like him.  I mean, we’re talking about a guy who wrote These Days (you may know the Nico cover) at age 16. 

So, now when nights are hard, I do exactly what my dad would have done at my age…I pull a JB album out of it’s sleeve…lay it on the turntable and close my eyes. 

It always makes it better. 

My favorite movie of all-time? The Philadelphia Story, with Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. Because, I’m not sure if you understood that…it had Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart in it.  And it is hilarious and classy and all of the things I love about classic movies. 

If you have never seen it, Netflix. This. Second. Now. And, you’re welcome. 

I get profoundly offended when anyone asks me if I need help.  Call it independence?  Or just stubborn. Either way, it pisses me off in the way that a nice gesture probably shouldn’t.  

Case-in-point:

I know that it is meant to be a great customer service thing, and I know most of them are required to do so, but grocery checkers?  When you ask me if I need help out to my car, I want to strangle your little necks.  Especially if I just watched you not ask the man in front of me, who had three times more groceries than my 2 bags.  I’m sorry, is there something about me that looks handicapped?  

Trust me, if I need help with something I’ll ask (well, okay, probably not. But then, that’s my fault, isn’t it?).  Until then? I got this. 

My first experience with alcohol is this: 

I am six years-old and the dining room of my family’s home is filled, as it always is, with a dozen teenage boys.  My older brothers, nine and ten years my seniors, have somehow stolen a couple of packs of wine coolers, and suddenly they are the kings of universe.  

As is typical, I am lingering close-by, wanting desperately for them to notice me. A half-empty bottle sits on the table, and one of their friends-all of whom are like obnoxious siblings to me-jokingly calls for me to finish it.  Uproarious laughter ensues.

I’ll show them, I think to myself and strut, deliberately and defiantly, up to the table and grab the bottle.  Both brothers are too shell-shocked to react, and I drink, in one long chug, the remainder. 

I am beaming with pride at the cheers when I am finished.  These boys are my heroes.  I want to be one of them. Just one of the guys.  I don’t want to be the pesky little sister they are forced to pick up from school, I want to be cool.  It’s why I wear Appetite for Destruction t-shirts to 1st Grade. It’s why I “prefer” matchbox cars over barbies.  It’s why I’m learning to ride a skateboard.  And now, at six years old, it is why I have hammered down my first Bartles and Jaymes. 

23 years later, and I have been known to still strut, deliberately and defiantly, up to the bar, order a bottle of beer, and put it away in one long chug-while a nearby group of boys look on, shell-shocked and amazed. 

Just one of the guys.