spring fever

I've got it, all right.

And I'm not happy about it.

(Please excuse the following rant.)


My mom just texted me a picture of my little sister having a picnic in the grass, somewhere sunny with a blue sky in the background and surrounded by green grass. With it came the following text: "We're having a picnic. What are you doing?"

I could have screamed. While they're outside enjoying the sun and warmth, I'm stuck in a bomb-shelter-like office with no windows and these damn flourescent lights. (I think I blog about the flourescent lighting in my office at least once a week, angrily.) I stepped out of the office for 15 minutes to pick up paychecks and made sure to roll my windows alllll the way down, only to have it snatched back from me the moment I stepped back inside school. I'm slightly hungover from fesitivities yesterday and it's taking slightly longer than I thought it would have to recover. I haven't had a cup of coffee all day because I'm too lazy to get up and make it, and I only had $1 dollar left over from last night and hate to charge a $3 latte. Not to mention, I got home at an ungodly hour last night (for a Wednesday, at least) and am running on very few hours of sleep. I need my sleep. Negligent coworkers are annoying me and I have too much to do before I have to teach a class of 14 very angry 3rd graders in one hour. And I have to babysit overnight right after work so I can't even look forward to some downtime when I'm done.

I love spring, but this is not spring. Isn't spring supposed to make you happier? Is it Saturday yet?

really?

My body sways.

My eyes hurt.

My hands shake.

My sinuses ache.

My head pounds.


All Friday posts point towards spring,
but I can only think of a point in time when my head won't hurt.

I say to you, anticipated-Friday-afternoon, "Boo. Boo. Booooooo."


And to think, I was just saying yesterday how much I looked forward to you. For shame.

sick day

Who knew there was so much sunshine between 9am and 5pm

outside of office walls?

snowmageddon?

Have you heard?

We're snowed in . . . . .

More to come when we can dig out of the 20+ inches!

ice skating.

This past Saturday (wow, I'm just getting around to this post almost a week later??), I went ice skating for the first time in years. I've been wanting to all winter, and finally the opportunity arose so I gobbled it up eagerly.

Put on boy's hockey skates that barely fit? Sure!
Fear desperately of the couple-inch-deep water cracking? Of course!
Try not to roll my ankles and topple over like the Abominable Snowman? I'm so there.


(Note: I know skating in a human-made rink in a public park hardly qualifies as ice skating, but it was about 40 degrees and rising quickly, so we didn't want to take our chances. By the time the sun rose fully and we were heading home, there was already a layer of slush across the ice and I was practically running off of it. No, I wasn't afraid of falling into two-inch deep water, but I sure was afraid of falling in, losing my balance, getting my skate stuck, and landing on my ass. And, more importantly, dropping my camera.)

It seems as if we're standing on absolutely nothing in this picture. In actuality, you could see the twigs and leaves frozen on the layer of cold dirt at the bottom, as if we were looking into some amber fossil with a mosquito in it like in Jurassic Park. I don't know why that scared me so much--maybe it just looked too eerie.

I guess I'm going to have to muster up a little more courage if I want to go ice skating in DC when MH and I visit Rachel in February, or gasp! on a real pond!

Do you have any traditions or must-dos for the winter season? I need some ideas to get me through this dark and dreary month!

o christmas tree.

I love Christmas. A lot. If I could celebrate before Thanksgiving without feeling too guilty, I would.

However, I'm back home living with my family, and they're not quite as Christmas-crazed as I am. Our tree isn't up yet, decorations are hardly out, and there's not nearly enough Christmas music playing as I'd hoped for.

Alas, I now have one tiny bedroom to call my own, instead of a whole apartment at school. But that didn't stop me from putting up my own little tree. And a stocking. And lights. So maybe the bulbs are big as the branches, but that's okay. It's just a tiny plastic tree with cheap ornaments and my one hanging elephant from South Africa, but this little guy makes me smile.

Take that, living at home after college!

PostScript:

Maybe it sucks to be living at home, but it sure doesn't suck that I now work in an elementary school. Today's our first snow day!

a funk. a rut. a terrible head fog.

These types of things don’t just go away. They really don’t. They must be worked on, and worked on, and worked on some more, and then really worked on (as in, you really have to try, you can’t just half-ass it), and then honed, and then probably worked on about 593014 times harder. And it absolutely sucks.

It’s easy to get out of. It’s so easy to not work on it, and to let it fester, and then let it take over. It’s so easy to be miserable, isn’t it? You don’t see people running to therapy and just gobbling up advice and bolting back to their daily lives and applying all they’ve been taught and then moving on with complete success and a smile on their face. It takes a lot of work (see above paragraph) and if you’re already pretty miserable, “a lot of work” might not even cut it.

The teensiest little break from real life, from reality, is welcomed now. My mind can zone out faster than I realize, maybe in some kind of self-preservation effort. Walking into the post office for six minutes is like entering another realm. Leaving it, and walking back through the rain and fog, back into my ever-familiar car, is like an unpleasant slap on the face with a dirty dish towel. Reading a book or a blog is as if my world dissolves around me as I crumble into pieces and land together in another person’s more-upbeat world. I have my crocheting, where I watch the hook dive in and out of the yarn loops, mesmerized at something creative and imaginative occurring outside my body. But usually, my head’s just in a fog, and walking into the post office or getting into crocheting does nothing more than stir up my brain cells a little, unresponsive.

Unfortunately, my brain responds better to misery. Is it a curse, or am I to work on it, and fix it? Maybe I don’t respond well to other people’s misery. Studying in South Africa was nothing but confusion for me. My brain could not physically piece together the data it was receiving, I think. Mansions, bordering slums? Extravagant shopping malls on the wharf, bombarded with the homeless? Internally, it was nothing but anxiety. My body was literally rejecting what I was sending it. And it still does. I have to remind myself to unclench my stomach while I’m at work, suffering through a lock-in drill (a drill, unaware to us). As Maggie of Flux Capacitor puts it: “I can feel the weight of mortality and suffering from around the globe pressing me down into the dirt like a horrible gravity.” Isn’t that the truth? The anxieties from South Africa and crime and poverty in the city give way to petty anxieties from endless triggers, like being late to an appointment or hurrying to bed with the fear of not getting eight hours of sleep every night.

So I drive in to work, acting the typical white suburban girl, making sure all my doors are locked at stoplights and practically running out to my car after work and fumbling with my keys as images of muggings and heads at gunpoint dance through my mind. Before long, stomachaches set in at the tiniest tinges of worry, and soothing tea and antacids are regular supplements. This isn’t right.

Anxiety is a hard thing to work on. Sure, tactics and methods to stop anxiety before it sets in are fabulous ideas, but only for those who can employ them. For those that have a nice stable environment in which to practice them. If you can’t work on yourself, and you can’t comprehend the skills, and you can’t get your head out of the fog, you can’t fix things. You probably can’t. Unless something huge gives way, and a little glimpse of sunlight peeps through, and it inches your heels forward just enough to push you to do something about it. Because these types of things don’t just go away.



postscript:
i almost didn't post this, but then clicked PublishPost before i could think otherwise. so if you've struggled through this, i apologize. comments are welcomed openly.

making sense.

I've been in such a funk lately. Actually, more than lately. For awhile.

I know, I know--all blog posts around the web for the past week have been lists of what everyone is thankful for. I'll get to that, sometime. I really will.

And I should be thankful. I mean, I am thankful. Especially with all that I see everyday at work.



Like the woman who came into our office the very day she was going to be evicted, unaware that we provided resources, and moved into a crowded shelter that night.

Or the kids who come to school every day wearing the same uniform they've been wearing all week, with stains and dirt and tears in them. And then again, on Monday, unwashed.

Or the parents who came to pick up turkeys and carrots and onions and potatoes last week, for a Thanksgiving dinner they could give to their families.

Or the families who come in every day asking for clothing for their babies who have nothing but one or two outfits, and no winter coats. Or for sheets and blankets for the beds in their home they just moved into from Puerto Rico. Or for mittens for their kids. Never anything for themselves, just for their kids.

Or the kids who tell me about their lives so matter-of-factly, as if having emotionally abusive, alcoholic fathers and police who come to their house every weekend is a completely normal thing to live with.

Or the parents who teach their kids to fight back, to "never stay hit," to punch back. Because that's what they need to walk down their street alone.




It's so hard to legitimatize the world. I can't justify it in my head. Life's not fair, is it?

if only . . . . .

. . . . . I could take a train from my small town into the city for work every morning.

Forty-five minutes of my life wouldn't be wasted sitting idly in a car, avoiding neurotic highway drivers and listening to bad radio and racing to beat the clock.

I could work on my crocheting and get some reading in and maybe even take a little nap.

If only . . . . .

(Photo via OsvaldoZoom)

if you want to be popular . . .

. . . you can't afford to be skinny?!

That's right, "Wate-On." Better known as, "Lots-And-Lots-Of-Calories-You-Can-Get-From-Eating-Regularly."

1969, please come back?

(Spied via BleubirdVintage.)

do tell?

Okay so, in an effort not to ditch blogging altogether and not to shoot this NaBloPoMo to hell, I need your help.

Does blogging ever come harder than usual to you guys? Some days, I'm all about it and will post one, two, maybe three times in one day, while other days (or weeks, who are we kidding here . . .) I want nothing to do with this blogging business. Sometimes it feels like I have to put on a smile and "show up" just to keep the blog going and also keep myself from letting my writing fizzle out. Especially during times like the past week or so, when I just have so much going on personally that I can't really share with the internet, it's so difficult to make myself see something positive in life and post about it. (Or not so positive, like I'm doing write now, apparently.)

Am I alone?

That being said, I'm begging for your help. Can you guys tell me what kind of stuff you like to read here?


Do you like Felicitous Findings?

Do you prefer real-life stories that spare no details and lay it all out there, like my hair saga post or my Big New Job reveal?

Do you enjoy silly little nothings I find on the web randomly and then share with all of you?

Do you like videos?

Maybe you prefer philosophical wonderings that get even myself confused, like my I Love Lucy quandary or the Facebook conundrum?

Do you like the happy, feel-good posts?


I would also take advice on what you don't like to read here, be that the case. Anything you can tell me would be huge. Blogging ain't easy. It's too bad I like it so much, or I'd just quit.

Send help.

imagine, if you will . . .

6:00am: My alarm goes off. I hit snooze.

6:05am: My alarm goes off, again. I am dead to the world. I hit snooze again and again, because apparently I think 25 more minutes of answering my alarm amidst fitful sleep is better than just getting out of bed.

6:30am: That annoying alarm noise annoys me to death. I remind myself to find another ringtone. I push the cat off of me and heave myself out of bed.

6:40am: Just when I'm finally able to enjoy my cup of coffee and the morning news, MH wakes up and joins me. The girl is sick. She never wakes up so early. I try to get her to go back to bed, but no, she's awake. And jabbering away. My head swims.

7:15am: My shirt doesn't look right. My jeans are too ight. I remind myself to go on a diet starting tomorrow. My bangs won't lie flat and my hair is wild. I throw in a stetchy headband and vow not to look in a mirror for the rest of the day. I should have taken that shower.

7:40am: I'm trying to put on makeup in the bathroom when I hear my mother arguing with MH. She tells her to take the medicine. MH says the taste is so awful it will make her throw up.

7:41am: MH runs into the bathroom and straight to the toilet and proceeds to throw up. I am brushing my teeth. My mother comes into the bathroom shouting all sorts of things like, "Oh--you know, Mary!" and "Stop it! You're making yourself throw up that medicine!" I spit my toothpaste. And storm out.

8:00am: I make my lunch in a huff. Whoever made the chicken salad put way too much mayonnaise. The fruit drawer of the fridge is so broken I can barely get it open. And I'm still mad about the bathroom/puking/yelling incident.

8:05am: I realize I need to stand up for myself. I live here, too. I tell Mom and MH that I'd appreciate it if they'd at least let me exit the bathroom before screaming at each other, next time. They hardly notice I'm speaking.

8:10am: Even though I have to leave for work in five minutes, I can't even fill up my water bottle on account of last night's dinner dishes piled in the sink. I spend my last precious moments scrubbing pots.

8:20am: I finally get out the door. I'm so agitated I forget my cell phone.

8:23am: I turn around and go back for my only piece of sanity.

9:10am: I then arrive to work late.


Live at home for a year and save money? What did I get myself into?

I miss college . . . . .

(Photo via Deerlings and Ghostthings)

saga of a bad stylist.

Do you have a brain? Can you wield a pair of scissors?

CONGRATULATIONS. You just beat my hair stylist.

I wish I was kidding. But all my worrying was not in vain. (Okay, so maybe I was just screwing myself over because I decided to see a new, random stylist, but really--how much bad luck can one possibly have with a hairdresser? I sort of figured I couldn't possibly have any more and hoped this one would be super and fabulous.)

Wrong, Ruth. So wrong.

Close your eyes and let's paint a little picture, shall we? You walk into a pleasant hair salon. It's upscale, modern, and smells nice. It even has interior brick--you fall in love instantly. It's bustling for 6:30 on a Wednesday night, so you figure it must be popular. A nice girl takes you to wash your hair (even throwing in a little scalp massage!) and brings you to your chair, combs your hair, and tells you Becky* will be right with you. You furtively glance around, trying to guess which one is Becky. Is she the old one, terribly dressed but with fabulous silver hair? Is she the one who cannot possibly be more than eighteen, too cool to wear an apron and instead donning a shirt straight out of the 80s with leggings and Uggs? Is she one of the countless 30-somethings with pin-straight obviously-dyed blonde hair and an eternal side bang? Or is she the one sitting right next to you, chatting loudly while waiting with a client whose hair she has just dyed? That couldn't possibly be her, right? Someone with a good name like Becky couldn't be that rude. Ha, I thought to myself. Imagine if that were my hairdresser--how rude would that be to keep sitting there talking to someone you're already done with while I've been sitting here waiting for a solid five minutes? Right?

Two seconds later she gets up, pats me on shoulder nonchalantly, and tells me she'll be right with me as she walks away. NO JOKE. I'd feel pretty damn guilty if I knew my client was sitting there wet-headed and antsy while I sat and chatted it up with someone else. And that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg.

I brought aforementioned pictures. She grabbed them out of my hand and flipped through them before I could even explain them. I believe her exact words were, "Ugh, this bang's too heavy. Ugh, this one's too light. And this one is just--" and she scowled and tossed them to the counter.

SHE WAS EVEN CHEWING GUM. WITH HER MOUTH OPEN.

I made sure she knew what I wanted, and let her get to work without frantically screaming just yet. Once she had cut them, which didn't look too bad at first, I had to blatantly order her to cut them shorter (which I suppose is better than being too short) because she was insisting they were a good length.

I could hardly see my reflection through them.

Now tell me--when you pay a decent amount for a professional haircut, should you have to fix it when you get home? Should you have to hem and haw in front of the bathroom mirror while snipping here and there to make your uneven bangs even? No, I didn't think so.

Therefore, I've chalked up yet another bad haircutting experience to my perpetual bad luck. THIS is why I cut my own hair. If I could reach the back or if I actually knew the proper tecnhique of bang-forming, I'd never see another professional again. But alas, I'm stuck.

So if you know how to handle a client professionally, have a clue about hair, and don't snap your gum in public--would you be my new stylist? I bet you'd be fantastic.

(No but really, if you live in my area and know someone good--YOU MUST TELL ME!)

So if you've made it all the way here through that long-winded and rambling rant, here's a before and after shot for your viewing pleasure:

These are obviously wavy vs. straight, but you get the idea. I'm still getting used to them and still fiddling around with them. Hopefully once I style my hair curly, like I usually do, the bangs will look a bit more natural. They definitely could have been worse, so I shouldn't be complaining.

And the funniest part of all--guess who wanted to be twins as soon as I got home:

Yep. MH wanted me to cut her bangs, too.

*I contemplated substituting a made-up name, but then shot it to hell. Her name was Becky and she sucked.

even the corn's all gone.

Some things about fall are just plain sad. This road is still my favorite in town, though.

Good thing pumpkins and apples and golden leaves come around to fill the void.

if you're not making it, can you fake it?

Okay, so I've had this post in my head for awhile now and I think it's had just about enough time to percolate and can now be released to the blogging world:

Can you really fake it till you make it?

Positive thinking, affirmations, plain old optimism--does it really work? If your life is in shambles and you find it difficult to see anything in a positive light, can you just trick yourself into thinking so? Can you just repeat some mantra every day for a month and poof! have everything right-side-up again?

I struggle with that on my blog. What do I put on here? I read all kinds of blogs--some that let it all hang out, and some that stick to the happy and positive only. Which is better? I can't say. But I just feel so fake if I only talk about the good parts. If I only put up pictures of myself that I've double-chin and bad-hair approved first. If I only highlight the fun activities of my weekend and not the arguments or mood slumps or moping around the house. But who wants to hear about my weekend mood slumps?

Is it better though, to hear and read about other people who are possibly going through the same things that you are? So that you can feel some belonging to the human race and know you're not alone?

Or is it better to surround yourself with positivity? To read blogs that make you happy and lift your spirits when you're feeling down? In other words, to purposely be fake for the purpose of making yourself happy? (Because let's be honest, we're not all happy, all the time. It's just not possible. Even the happiest and most content of people have their down days. Right?)

So now I'm turning to you, readers.* What do you prefer in a blog? Would you rather see the blogosphere through rose-tinted glasses, or are you a realist that just damn wants it told like it is?

*And for the sake of an "example," I'm going to embrace the realist side of my argument and say: I don't know how confidently I can address "readers"--do I have more than my whopping thirteen followers? Half of which are family members? Sometimes blogging can be so disheartening. There!

don't ask me to do math in the morning.

Or anytime, really.

me: oh i have a question for you
will you crunch some numbers for me? im too stupid
Rachel: sure
and you're not
me: i need to figure out how much i spend on gas driving to work every week
i drive 280 miles/wk, get about 28 mi/gallon, have a 13 gallon tank, and gas is about 2.60/gallon
i dont even know if i need all that info, but i have no idea how to figure it out
ha
Rachel: really ruth?
Sent at 11:33 AM on Monday
me: um yes
hey i have a headache!!
i cant think straight
Rachel: so if you drive 280 mi/week and your car gets 28 mi/gallon, then you use 10 gallons of gas a week
me: if i really tried, i could, but you can do it a lot faster than me
Rachel: and if gas is 2.60/gallon, then you spend $26/week on gas
me: oh
ha
haha im laughing right now
Rachel: why do you need to know this?
me: so i can make myself a budget!
Rachel: ohh got it!
me: haha thank you
Rachel: you're welcome

Via gchat, on a Monday morning. Ack.

summed up so well

Nicole Antoinette of More Is Better has a great post on the "quarter life crisis" that is SO spot-on I couldn't stop laughing.

This girl knows her shit.

If only I could turn my sorrows and misery into popular witty banter.

TGIF

Yesterday, my day went like this:

: I shut my alarm off in my sleep, somehow, and woke up 45 minutes late for work.

: I was then late for work.

: I tripped over my own feet walking up the cement steps into the school and fell flat on my face. I got a bloody knee and a shoulder that still hurts. Oh, and I ripped my never-before-worn pants.

: My boss didn't show up until 1pm, so for 5 hours I sat by myself listening to Pandora and working on that damn book list, and not much else.

: I got severe blisters from wearing heels that I should have known better than to wear, and had to traipse around all day trying not to limp too visibly.

: I left feeling relieved, until I saw the $50 parking ticket on my windshield. Who knew Thursday was street cleaning/garbage day? Not me, because THERE WAS NO SIGN.

: I spent the next 20 minutes driving in circles around the city trying to find the highway, adamant that I didn't need my GPS because really, how hard is it to find an on-ramp? Apparently very.

: By the time I got to where I was meeting Steph and Abby for dinner (the one redeeming quality of the day), my feet were in such pain I actually stopped and bought shoes. I wish I was kidding.

That was my Thursday. Today is Friday. Please God, let it be better than yesterday. Weekend of comfy shoes and sleeping in, here I come.

(Photo via ...stephanie...)

The end of my (former) life as I know it

Caution: Ranting and raving follows. I become gloomy and fearful and pessimistic and melodramatic in the sentences to come.



When I was younger, I was never one for change. I hated everything from moving around the furniture in my room to wearing a different color nail polish. I needed order.

I guess I was raised in a very habitual home. My parents are creatures of habit. My dad has parked in the same spot in the driveway for as long as I can remember. My mom always cooks too little vegetables at dinner and way too much meat. They do things the way they’ve always done them, and I don’t think they’re going to change anytime soon. Maybe that’s partly where I got my fear of change. I liked things the way they were and never wanted them any differently. I saw change as bad, for some reason.

Seasons were even worse. I know, I know—I just wrote a whole post on how I didn’t mind summer ending and loved welcoming fall. I do. I really do. But the whole adjustment from season to season has never been easy for me. The end of summer always meant a new school year was starting, the end of fall always meant everything was halfway over, the end of winter always meant a year was all over, the end of spring always meant the school was over and I’d be another grade older.

Wow, I guess I really wasn’t the most optimistic of children.

But this year, I wasn’t going back to school. I didn’t have to be another grade older or sit in classes all day again. But I did have to start my Big New Job.

And that meant the end of my life as I know it. I know that sounds negative, but I don’t mean it that way. My life as I knew it was just . . . not going to be anymore. Everything would change. I would go from college student (yeah, so maybe I continued to call myself one throughout the summer . . .) to working professional. Even though it’s not really a real job, it’s still somewhere I have to commute to and work at from nine to five. Anyone reading this over the age of twenty-five is going to roll their eyes right now, but I just feel so old.

I actually pay attention to the traffic updates now. Rush hour is my enemy.

The night before work I have to seriously consider what I’m going to pack for lunch the next day, and then make it by myself and pack it some kind of lunch box thingy that won’t make me look like a child nor a middle-aged working mother.

I come home and when someone asks me how my day was I have to say things like “We had a really long workshop today” or “Meetings can just be such a drag.”

I have to actually put gas in my car more often than every three weeks.

This is me? Is this how my life is now going to be for the next year, at least?

I know I shouldn’t be complaining, because I at least have a job and am making some money, but I can’t help but feel strange about all this change. I’m trying to jump in with both feet and really embrace this new opportunity, but I’m a little wary.

Do you often feel intimidated by changes, too? Even if it’s a really positive change?

Pardon me. I’m grappling.



(Bottom photo via J.Ota)

So Long

Vacation is over.
The beach is gone.
It's no longer eighty degrees and air conditioned.
My bathing suit is in the drawer and I haven't seen a beach towel in days.
My body does not smell like sun tan lotion 24/7.

This greatly troubles me.

It's not that I'm really that crazy about summertime (more to come on this later), it's just that I really enjoy doing nothing on the beach all day every day. I don't mind drinking more than one glass of wine every night with dinner and I don't mind lounging in a hot tub for hours on end. We don't even have palm trees in our backyard.

What kind of place is this?!



So, so long summer vacation. I'll miss your long car trips (did I just say that??), your endless amounts of junky food, your annoying family relatives, your hazy hot beach days, your sunrises on the sand, your shell-collecting and mermaid-building, and your surf shops galore.

I'll miss you.