2013: Resolutions!

This is one of my favorite times of the year - I love reflection and planning for the New Year. It makes me feel like anything is possible and even though that may be hokey, I love the feeling. For the past couple of years, I've chosen a theme that I center my resolutions around and I think it makes it more interesting than writing a list of 5-10 things I want to do. My theme for 2013 is authenticity.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I should do and how I should be, but I don't spend a lot of time embracing who I am and what I love. I'm not saying that self-improvement is a bad thing or that I should stop trying to fix certain issues in my life. What I am saying is that it's a fine line between improving yourself because you recognize there are things you need to work on and changing who you are to fit into some preconceived notion of what your life should be. There's pressure all around us (from friends, parents, significant others, and society at large) telling us what we should be doing. I want to live an authentic life based on the things that I feel are important at the time. If I make mistakes, hell - I make mistakes. They'll help me learn, and when I'm on my deathbed, I'll know that I lived the way I wanted to.

Lately, I've felt this massive pressure to "be an adult," whatever that means. I'm 27 years old and the world tells me that I should be fiscally responsible, with a husband and a baby on the way. I'm not there or even close to being there. I don't want to feel bad about it anymore! There are so many things I want to do in my life and I don't want to turn opportunity down because I'm waiting for some man that may never appear or some feeling of stability that might not even make me feel content. I want to travel. I want to live abroad for a bit. I want to take risks and live. Sometimes I think my greatest fear is being alone. That all my friends will get married and leave me single and by myself. Then, when I really drill down and think about it, I know that what I fear more is the thought of boredom. I like to be busy and tired and packing my life full of activity. While yes, someday I want to find that great love and have children and do all of that, I also have so much I haven't done that I want to do. I just have to follow my path and trust in the universe that I will end up where I'm meant to end up.

So this year, I want to live authentically and start following my little whims and seeing where they take me. I find I rarely regret doing things, what I usually regret is my inaction and letting my fears keep me grounded. 2013 is time to start really living.

2012: A Year in Review

Holy crap! I cannot believe we're at the end of 2012 and getting ready to ring in 2013. I don't really know what to say about this year - I can't tell if I thought it was positive or negative. It kind of just... was. I will say, though, it was the fastest year of my life thus far. Everything just seemed to go at warp speed. I don't know if it was my new responsibilities at work, or the fact that I finally feel a bit more settled in my social life, but it was just so speedy.

This year:

• I dated a man I actually liked. Hmm. Shocking, for me. I learned to let someone in and to tell them my deepest, darkest sexual fantasies without fear of judgment. I let myself be courted and treated with chivalry and southern gentlemanliness (is that a word?). I also allowed myself to be heartbroken when he ended it and I gave myself the time I needed to get over it. 
• I took a vow of celibacy, kept it and (secretly) loved it. It kind of felt nice to be my only sexual partner and not to stress and obsess over some dumb boy.
• I hated my job, got over it, and then loved it. Nothing like having a career crisis to put things in perspective. I'm glad I went out and interviewed and struggled with what to do. It's made me love event planning even more and now I have greater clarity on what I want out of my job.
• I fell in love with my teammates. My job is pretty awesome. I get to do some amazing things and go to places and meet people and see things I never thought I'd see. Event planning for a company as large as mine is freaking awesome and I love it. The best part, though? My amazing colleagues, who have truly become my close friends this year. I don't know what I would do without those girls (and one guy)! I truly miss them when I'm away and they've helped me get through some shit this year.
• I traveled: this year I went to Austin for SXSW, Mexico with my lovely Y crew, Montana (where I got to see a rodeo and eat the best ice cream of my life), and a whole bunch of other random places. I even rode a train across the country!

My resolution for the year was love. I wanted to love myself, love my friends and family, and be receptive to romantic love. In a lot of ways, I failed. I don't know if I loved myself in the way that I should. I still struggle with my self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. I did, however, grow in my love of my friends. I think my friendships have been the best part of my life thus far. I know so many amazingly wonderful people and they mean the world to me. I'm so happy that I've been able to keep  in touch with so many of them and really focus on keeping those bonds alive. I do have a few friendships I need to nurture in 2013, but for the most part I'm doing fine. Family was another thing. My parents and I have a very good relationship, and this past couple of weeks, I really grew to love my youngest brother even more than I already did. I feel strangely bonded to him - we're both very similar and we have the same sense of humor, so it was fun to spend time watching movies and talking to him. My two middle brothers... well, you can't win them all. I want to try to be better about it, but it's hard to get over shit that has been a problem since childhood.

Romantic love... ha! EPIC FAIL #FOREVERALONE. I mean, I had a nice little run with TOJ. I am happy I met him because there were so many things he was so good at and I did finally feel like I had found someone that had some kind of long-term potential, but in the end it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe if we met each other at a different time, it would have been a different story. I am glad, though, that after him I took a little hiatus. I haven't had sex in 9 months and it's been a good 9 months. I've said no to some things that I definitely needed to say no to and I'm just focusing on tuning in to my own wants and needs and that's a good thing. I think I'm ready to throw off the shackles of my chastity belt, but I'm glad I wore one for the majority of 2012.

Here ends another year - it's been a wild ride, but I love how interesting and fun this year has been. Looking forward to 2013!

i sing the body electric, part iii.

Here we are - the last post in the series. Whenever I write about things that really bother me, I always get all tense and nervous. I've thought about deleting the previous posts, but they are who I am and how I feel about myself and I know that leaving them out there will only help me in the long run. Now that I've gone through my past, it's time to take a look at my current state of mind and what I hope the future holds.

I like rebelling against societal norms - it makes me feel good and I like challenging the status quo because a lot of the time, the status quo is bullshit. Yet, I go back and forth when I think about weight and my body. I've spent the past couple of years getting more acquainted with the plus sized community. I read a ton of fat fashion blogs and I ran my ass all over NYC 3 (or 4?) years ago to find the edition of V Magazine with all of the beautiful plus sized models. The fact is --- I don't want to be skinny. I don't think I've ever wanted that for myself. I like hips, thighs, boobs, ass. It's part of my culture and I don't want to lose it. I also don't want to conform to what society says is "beautiful." I've started to slowly throw away the trappings of that life. I don't chemically straighten my hair anymore and while I get frustrated sometimes with the kinky, curly craziness on my head, I really love it because it's the way God made me. I wear makeup a grand total of maybe 6 times a year. I've also been thinking about ditching my colored contacts and rocking my natural, dark-brown eye color. So I desperately want to be able to just say, "This is my body as it is. Take it or leave it." There's this war between the girl who wants to be society's version of hot and the girl who wants to say fuck it. As in most things, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

I will never ever be thin. I know this in my soul and I've accepted it and I'm fine with it. I've grown wayyy too attached to the curve of my behind and my breasts to ever want to give them up. However, I do recognize that I could stand to be a little healthier. I also genuinely miss the days when I was an athlete. I like working out when it involves the achievement of some goal - be it to win a game, complete a race, or run a certain distance. That kind of competition motivates me and I miss having that discipline in my life. I also refuse to live my life eating lettuce and dry chicken. I like food and I'm going to continue to eat it. I know, however, that I need to start making better choices with what I eat, when I eat it, and how much alcohol I consume. I think right now, all I really want is to have some regular form of exercise that keeps me working out a few times a week, a consistent diet where I make healthy choices without depriving myself, and a dress size of about 10. It seems reasonable and doable and would make me a happy person. In the meantime, though, I want to love where I am right now. I'm the average size of an American woman and I need to remember all of the best attributes I have and be proud of the skin I live in and the way I look. This is my life and this is the person I am, whether I'm a size 4 or a size 14 - I am more than my dress size. I'm hoping to gain more confidence in the new year and become someone who loves themselves regardless of whether I fit the norm or not. I'm tired of being the insecure girl who doesn't believe anyone could ever love her. Change starts now.

i sing the body electric, part ii

Now let's see... where were we? Ah, yes. The first time I started to hate my body. Going from working out 15 hours a week to not working out at all can really change your body. The effects were almost immediate. I started gaining weight, but to be honest I didn't really care. Oddly enough, I was just like - oh, I'm getting older and this is what happens. It wasn't really annoying to me until other people started noticing or I was in a situation where I was the other. I was drum major of marching band my senior year with a close friend of mine and we went to go pick out our outfits. I just remember being ashamed that while she was looking for a size 4, I was looking for a size 10. From there on, the insecurities just started to pile up. Not only was I wearing a bigger size, I was also a good deal taller than most of the women I was friends with. I've been 5'9" for a minute, which means I often tower over other girls my age. People are always going on and on about how great it is to be tall, but it sucks sometimes because you just feel bigger than everyone, looking down on them. I have an incredibly thin friend who is about 5'10", thin as a rail, but she hunches to appear shorter. Most women don't want to feel big, but when you're tall, you feel big just coming out of the gate. Tack on wearing 3 sizes bigger than your friends and you feel huge.

The farther I got from my sheltered little world of colored people, the worse it got. There was college - I went to a pretty white, Ivy League school in New England. Not a lot of people looked like me and it was easy to feel invisible and undesirable, especially since I was 21 years old before I even kissed a boy or had sex. I just kind of felt... I don't know... like no one could ever find me attractive. I can't really explain it because men have hit on me for a long time, ever since puberty, but sometimes I think you just can't really see yourself clearly sometimes.When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was OTHER. Taller than the other girls, bustier than the other girls, big thighs, big lips, big butt, unruly hair, and a size 12. I couldn't believe that anyone would want me. I remember I argued for like 45 minutes with The Banker (first guy I slept with) about how I was so much bigger than him. He looked at me like I had 9 heads, but in my reality I was just this huge cow and he was a very attractive guy. That was probably the beginning of my poor choices with men.  To this day, I don't believe anyone is ever really flirting with me. My friends have to smack me in the face when a guy is interested because I just can't tell. I've had guys hit on me and when they do, I laugh because I find it absurd that anyone would think I'm attractive. I never really noticed that I do this before, but now I'm starting to see it and I know it's something I need to change.

Present day - I work in tech and live in San Francisco, land of the very white and the very thin. It's rough out here. Especially not being with my people and trying to date and meet new people, it's really hard to feel worthy or beautiful because I'm so out of my element. I miss when I lived in DC and saw lots of beautiful black women that I could identify with. So, I've kind of developed my own dating patterns based on these insecurities. I tend to date bigger guys. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable dating an average sized guy because he would make me feel really big. Instead, I stick to larger, overweight dudes who I feel less self-conscious around. I won't even look at thin men. If you're a thin, white dude and you step to me, I just assume that you made a mistake and will write you off. Thin black men are okay because I'm pretty sure he has mothers/sisters/cousins/aunts that look like me and so my body isn't this foreign entity. I know that's wrong and silly and stupid, but it's just how I've adapted. I think it's a thing plus-sized girls do - we remove ourselves from the race before it's even begun. If I don't flirt with/entertain men who are fit or thin or average, then there's no chance of rejection. I reject them before they reject me. It's a survival mechanism born out of great insecurity. I'm just happy I'm noticing the pattern - that's step 1 to correcting it.

Basically, I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to parse all of this out and figure out what I want from my body. I'm learning what I think I can change and what I simply need to accept. More on that journey tomorrow...

i sing the body electric, part i.

Being a woman sucks sometimes. There is a tremendous focus on your body and fitting into what society considers beautiful and desirable. While I've always enjoyed flouting societal norms - I'm a black girl raised in a bi-racial home and a die-hard liberal feminist - sometimes it's hard to live in a body that doesn't fit that ideal. On the one hand, I want to be able to be a proudly plus-sized girl who loves her body, but on the other hand, I also just want to fit into the mainstream box of what it beautiful and desirable.

I've gained more weight in the past 2 years than I have in the preceding 7, which is not making me a happy camper. It's also sparked these feeling of unhappiness that I have with my body in its current state. In some ways, I'm really lucky because I'm tall which allows me to gain quite a bit of weight before it's noticeable to other people. Unfortunately, it also takes me some time to notice when I've gained weight. When I recently went to the doctor, I nearly had a heart attack when I read the number on the scale, because my size has been fairly consistent over the years. However, despite my sizing fluctuating minimally, I'm still starting to feel this loathing for my body that I've never felt before. It's led me examine my relationship with my body, starting from my childhood.

The thing that makes this whole weight gain thing so damn annoying is that I was never one of those kids who struggled with their weight. Growing up, I was your average kid. I wasn't chubby or chunky or any of that. As a matter of fact, until I stopped playing sports in my junior year of high school, I had a pretty nice body that I was extremely proud of. I've always been a little self-conscious of my height and I was taller than most, but I played a million sports (field hockey, volleyball, swimming, and lacrosse) and I kept pretty fit and active. I never got teased about my weight at all - if anything, my biggest pet peeve about my body was my lips, which I thought were too big. Back in middle school and my early high school days, my mom was a big woman (this was before her gastric bypass surgery) and she LOVED having a tall, thin daughter. My mother would buy me the cutest outfits. I still remember 8th grade and getting this beautiful checkered string halter top from Abercrombie. It only had one button and exposed pretty much my whole back. I would kill someone to be able to wear that now. I was living thin and fancy-free!

Besides being average in the weight category growing up, I also had the benefit of my race. I'm sorry to my Caucasian readers out there, but a lot of ya'll are FUCKED UP when it comes to critiquing your bodies. I never truly learned how to hate my body until I started having more white friends and being exposed to mainstream (read:white) media. Within my black and Puerto Rican family, there wasn't this insane pressure to be thin. My mom was big, but she was insanely beautiful - she had pretty skin and nice features. I saw women of all shapes and sizes in my family and amongst my mother's friends and they were beautiful, whether they were a size 2, a size 12 or a size 22. A lot of my white female friends love to hate on their bodies, spending most of their time talking about losing weight and eating salads and going on juice cleanses. This shit was not what I was raised with. I can't even recall having any of those conversations with any of my black friends. I'm not saying that black society is the healthiest (there's a ton of obesity in the community), but shit - we don't wrap our beauty and self-worth up in the size of our jeans. I'm just going to be real right now and I know this isn't feminist and that I shouldn't focus on beauty and being pretty and all that, but bear with me. Just because you are skinny does not that mean you are pretty and just because you are fat does not mean that you are ugly. One of my biggest pet peeves is ugly skinny chicks that hate on fat girls. I will never be thin, but I have a nice face and cuter features than a lot of these skinny girls who throw shade at my curves. I'm tired of seeing plus-sized girls who don't think they are attractive simply because they aren't thin. Beauty comes in all sizes. But, I digress.

As a black woman, I never worried about my weight affecting how I felt about myself. Mostly because I saw a bunch of beautiful plus sized black women who lived full lives and looked damn good doing it. Most fat black chicks aren't the shrinking violet types - they own their bodies and they keep themselves impeccably well-groomed - nails did, hair did, feet did, all of that. One thing my mother always taught me - you can be fat, but that doesn't mean you have to be sloppy. Growing up in that environment, I never stressed out about my body or what I ate. I exercised and worked out like a fiend, but mostly because I enjoyed playing team sports. We practiced 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. I ate whatever the fuck I wanted to - usually I had 4 square meals a day and in general, I didn't care what I ate because it didn't matter. My body was simply something that moved me from point A to point B and I ate to fuel that body and because I like food. I didn't give a shit about being attractive to men and I never compared myself to other girls. I was the size I was and it was fine with me. My body was strong and it got me through volleyball matches, sprints at lacrosse practice, and laps around the field hockey field.

But then puberty hit and I started filling out a bit - I got hips, a butt, and boobs. This would've been fine, except my rampant nerdiness and desire for an Ivy League pedigree caused me to stop playing sports after my 10th grade lacrosse season to focus on schoolwork. That would be when the shit hit the fan. I started gaining weight and while I was okay with it initially, I started to let what other people thought about it poison my thoughts. My body was no longer my own - it was community property and I wanted nothing more than to go back to not giving a damn.

sibling rivalry.

Living on the West Coast and having most of my family 3,000 miles away from me, I often forget about sibling dynamics and what it means to be one of many. One of the things I both love and hate about going home for the holiday is falling into old patterns established from childhood. I have three brothers, no sisters, and I'm the oldest in the family. I'm 27 years old and my brothers are 22, 20, and 19. We've gone through many different permutations of sibling love and aggression, but it's all kind of skewed along the same lines. I get along the best with my youngest brother, and by all accounts (including our parents'), we are the two responsible and mature ones who don't cause trouble. I'm not saying we're saints, but we generally keep our dirty laundry to ourselves. My two middle brothers, on the other hand, are the troublemakers. I go back and forth about my feelings for them. I mean, I love all of my brothers - they're my family - but that doesn't mean I like them all. There are parts of them that I like - one is outgoing and tech-savvy, which I admire. The other is the hardest worker out of all of us and does not have a lazy bone in his body. However, this trip I've been insanely frustrated with one of them - the stupid one who got into a car accident that I mentioned a few entries back.

I dislike being irrationally upset with people because it makes me lash out in cruel ways. I am a mean person. Most people don't know that because I hide it well, but I have a really harsh tongue and I can be extremely unpleasant and I've been directing a lot of that at him. Part of it is because I'm mad at him for being an idiot, but when I dig deeper and unpack it a little bit, there's that sibling resentment that bubbles up. I sometimes feel like I got the short end of the stick family-wise, since I'm a girl and not a boy. I don't know if this affects other cultures, but black women have the weight of the world on their shoulders and we support our brothers, sons, and husbands through all kinds of bullshit. I just can't help but think that I would NEVER be allowed to display the behavior my brother does, all because of my gender. I can't even imagine going out and drinking while being underage and living at home, much less getting into a car after that! My parents would've flayed me alive and it would've been game over. So I get upset when my brother does stupid shit and nothing happens to him. It angers me and then I get mad about being mad because the truth is that I never wanted to do any of those things. I never wanted to behave rashly or foolishly - it isn't in my nature. Yet, I still resent the fact that it was never an option for me.

I just keep trying to figure out why he is allowed to exist this way, without any real repercussions. My parents have been driving him around - to the movies, out with friends, etc. I don't get why nothing has changed with them. Maybe they are just happy that he is alive and unharmed. Maybe it's because he's a boy and boys get to do everything they want - test the boundaries of authority, be reckless, all that shit I never got to do. I had to beg to be allowed to do anything fun growing up. Or maybe (and this is where my mind goes dark), maybe it's because he's their actual blood-related son. I don't have a lot of adoption insecurities. My parents have raised me better than that and have given me almost everything I've ever wanted, so I know that that's not it. I'm only human, though, so sometimes my mind strays to that. Sigh.

I don't know what I want to happen. It's not like I want my parents to kick him out or anything, but I just expected something. Anything. I'm not a parent, though, so I don't know what's going on in their minds. I'm sure they're tired. I mean, my father is 60 and still has two grown sons living at home -- I'd be tired, too. I just wish sometimes it felt like we all had the same treatment, even though I know that's impossible. This will pass - it always does, but it's just what's been on my mind lately.

merry christmas!

Yay! Christmas! This is truly the one day each year where I don't feel the insane pull to be productive. All I did today was wake up, open presents, eat food, nap, read and watch movies. It's been a pretty great day. I think I'm ready to go home soon, though. That's the thing about getting older and establishing your own routines and patterns - childhood home is only bearable for a bit. I'm happy to be home with my family (even with the drama) and I love eating home-cooked food, but I really am ready for reality again. Being at my parents' house always feels like an alternate universe.

I don't really have anything else of note to say - got some nice presents from the family and I'm happy to say that all of my gifts were well-received. I'm not that great of a gift-giver, so I'm always insanely happy when someone likes what I've gotten them. Now I'm going back to my black hole of television and reading.

Merry Christmas!

life.

I've been a little bored with my life lately and I'm not sure where it's coming from. I feel this need to spice things up, but I'm constantly at war with the thought. I am not really content with being content. I don't know if I was born under some crazy moon or something, but I am the poster child for contradictions. I'm an extremely extroverted introvert. I am a wild child who loves doing boring shit like reading for hours and watching TV. I am incredibly polite and kind, but also extremely cold and I can be insanely mean when I have a mind to. It makes life hard because there are so many different things that I want to do and I'm not really sure how to do them all, since many of them are at odds with each other.

Being a control freak also lends a strange light to my life. I've been rethinking my philosophy on life and love and this strange journey towards happiness that I've been on my whole life. I feel like I've spent a lot of time the past couple of years focusing on things I cannot control and trying to engineer my way to a perfect life. One of my managers once called me "a high-functioning nutjob" and I think it's the truest descriptor of myself that I've ever heard. I am able to seem really freaking normal, while at the same time being completely and totally crazy. I am a hardcore control freak - I make lists for every aspect of my life and when I feel as though I'm losing my grip, I cannot function or get out of bed. I'm pretty sure that I will have a spectacular mental breakdown at some point in my life just based on who I am. It's likely that no one will ever know, either. I'm very good at hiding what I don't wish others to see.

I've always wanted to be spontaneous, but it's hard. Even when I make major crazy life changes (moving cross country three times, switching careers, etc), I always think and plan and micromanage the whole process. Sometimes I fear that I'm not really living. I have so many interests and things I want to do and yet, I somehow I talk myself out of them. I want to stay safe and reliable. For a while, I told myself that I would only ever find love and a family if I stayed in one place and committed to it. I'm starting to doubt the wisdom of that philosophy. I want to be bold enough to make the tough decisions. To commit to a life that is exciting and fresh and new. That way, when I finally have children (I may not get a man, but I am having a child for damn sure), they will know that their mother did exciting, crazy things and followed her dreams. Each path I've been on has given me something positive, even if it just taught me something about myself. I don't regret anything I've done in the past because the lessons have been valuable.

I want to do something big. I want to live. I want to do things that I want to do because I want to do them, without fearing the consequences. I don't want to talk myself out of life. Instead, I want to explore and grow and do badass shit. Life is too short for dullness or mediocrity.

damn.

It is December 21st and I've only written 3 entries in this blog for the month (this is the 4th). Yikes! I am rededicating myself to actually blogging in this thing before I lose the precious few readers I've got. I don't know what it was about this month, but I've just had a hard time getting my thoughts out into the blogosphere.

What have I been up to? Let us see. I got to NYC on Monday morning after the worst red eye flight of my life (3.5 hour delay - seriously?!) Tuesday, I met up with friends in Manhattan for food and catching up. Wednesday night was the amazing holiday party at the Waldorf-Astoria. I got wayyy too drunk, which made Thursday morning hell. I haven't been that hungover in years, honestly. I think it was not eating. Jesus, I'm too old for this shit. I saw The Hobbit. It was meh. Today, I dealt with random family bullshit as a result of my brother drinking and then driving and either (1) blacking out or (2) falling asleep at the wheel, crashing his car into a storefront. Let's not even talk about it. I haven't said one word to him and I likely won't for a while. I don't understand how someone could be so stupid. He's lucky he's not dead or paralyzed and that he didn't hurt anyone.

I made plans to go out with a boy. I broke plans to go out with a boy. I'm still feeling completely run down and mildly depressed. I'm not sure why. Mostly work, I think. I love my job - it's just truly overwhelming and I am struggling to keep my head above water. I'm strangely lonely, but also realizing that I'm not actually lonely. It's weird. I think I want a relationship, but I also think when I look in my soul, I realize that I want a business and independence first. I'm reading this book and they asked what your one true wish is. I struggled really hard, wanting to say love, but instead I said that I wanted a business and financial independence. Scary to confront that and wonder if that's why I haven't been able to find someone. Maybe I just want other things more.

I've always occupied this weird space where I respect love and cherish it (I love weddings, I coo over romance), but then I also view it as a weakness. I tend to like looking out for #1 and that's come out even stronger lately. I don't know if I have room to give a shit about anyone buy myself at this stage. I also don't want to be one of those girls who abandons all sense of reason and all of her friends when she gets into a relationship. If I never have one, then I will never be that girl. I want to be successful on my own terms and let's be real - I've never really believed that having a relationship would make me feel successful. I think it'll really take someone spectacular to actually make me ready to truly settle down. This is going to sound insanely conceited (but it's okay because I have crazy self-esteem issues about my looks), but I haven't ever met a straight man that has interested me as much as I interest myself. I'm just keeping it 100. I have pretty much disliked every man I've ever dated. The exception being TOJ, who as much as I hate to admit it, I still miss greatly and regularly replay the highlights of the time we spent dating. I would never go back with him, but I find comfort in the nostalgia. I probably just need to get laid. In general, though, my motto for the time being would be "Fuck bitches. Get money."

I'm struggling with my body right now and struggling with the fact that I'm struggling with it. More on that later. I haven't exercised in a while, so I feel kind of crappy and I still have this damn cough that won't seem to go away.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but my goal is to write a post every day from now until January 1st. Wish me luck!

getting over my social anxieties.

Most people who know me on a surface level (and probably a few who know me closer than that) think that I'm an extrovert and I love being social. I do love going out and having a good time, but I am terrified of people and most social situations leave me with a great deal of anxiety. I was incredibly shy as a child - cripplingly so - and it's taken every fiber in my being to break against that. So naturally, the thought of spending 3 days, 2 nights away in Carmel with my client group (of whom I know about 2 people, and in a very superficial way) made my stomach do flip-flops. Shockingly, I actually had a lot of fun.

My boss acted as my social crutch and we hit up the opening reception together. I was able to mingle and mix with a few people - chatting up the Europeans. Of course, we immediately found the only gay developers in the room and spent the rest of the weekend being horribly snarky with them. I mean, I love engineers more than anyone I know, but some of them are really weird (and have really weird dates). So snarkiness was a much needed part of the evening. When I wasn't being social, I was relaxing in my amazing suite (complete with an in-room fireplace) and spending the day in the spa getting the best facial ever. Seriously, my face was glowing! Also, the woman told me I was beautiful and that she liked my natural hair. I love anyone who loves my natural hair.

I also conquered a major fear while out there. Bugs of any sort terrify me. If it flies, creeps, crawls, bites or stings, I'm not a fan. In the spirit of my 2013 Year of Adventure theme, I opted to do the Beekeeping Experience at the ranch. We got all suited up in the white beekeeper suits and went in and played with a hive full of 10,000 bees. Nothing like having hundreds of bees swarming your suit and landing on you, buzzing in your ear. I did some deep breathing and just chilled out while learning more about honey. I learned a lot about beekeeping and the lifespan of bees and how they do what they do. It was nice to do something at a work retreat that wasn't just drinking copious amounts of alcohol. I greatly enjoyed it.

As per usual, I freak out about things and then they end up being okay. It was a fun trip! Now, I'm back at my parents' home on Long Island, wondering how I'm going to get the massive amount of work on my plate completed. I'm also obviously staying on West Coast time as it's 1am and I'm still wide awake. This is going to be a hell of a week...

what am i doing with my life?

I know I owe you all a real entry, but I'm just so damn tired. Being sick will do that to you. I still don't understand how I'm still fucking coughing. It's terrible - I have a fit every morning on the MUNI. I'm pretty sure I need one of those SARS masks. Doctor says it should go away soon, so there's not much help there. I was hoping to get some of the good codeine-filled cough syrup. Instead, I am stuck with over-the-counter meds. Womp womp.

It's the end of the year, so I'm reflecting on things and thinking about next year. I've started making my goals list and really trying to decide if I learned anything this year. Work is killing me right now. There are too many events and I feel overwhelmed and underprepared. There aren't enough hours in the day. I've stopped exercising and following my diet habits, which means I'm going to be chubby and dissatisfied going into 2013. Oh, well. Nothing on the boy horizon either. I need something to kick me into gear. I'm too hesitant to make any kind of move and men make me nervous right now. That is definitely no bueno.

I saw my psychic this weekend and what she had to say was enlightening and interesting, but also disappointing. I'll talk more about it tomorrow. I just hate when I know something about myself and I try so hard to fight it and then it gets reinforced. It's always difficult.

I'm considering submitting a piece to an erotic online magazine. The theme is masturbation. I find that topic crazy taboo, so I think it might be a nice way to open up and take a little bit of a risk with putting myself out there. I need to write more - I've been neglecting that piece of me.

Okay, now I'm going to attempt to do as much work as I can before I pass out. Typical Tuesday evening at home =)

i hate being sick.

I haven't been sick since SXSW and back then, I had TOJ to bring me soup. This go-round, I'm on my own. I've taken some time off of work and the gym and I'm trying to get myself A-OK since I have 4 holiday parties (including one at my apartment) in the next week. Tis the season! I have soup, tea, and medication. Basically, I need to get healthy as fast as possible. I'm pretty sure part of my sickness stems from my Napa trip this past weekend. I had a ton of fun - it was my first overnight there. I went with my friend, AP, and we had an amazing time.

First of all, AP is one of the best drivers ever. She seriously makes me want to learn how to be a more confident, better driver. The first winery we went to was so nice - they had a great tasting room and beautiful views. The whole area made me want to get married and move to Napa, so I can spend my days in a space with floor to ceiling windows, drinking delicious wine. It was better than a lot of the other tastings I've been to. I feel like you could really relax and settle in - they don't rush you through anything. The second winery was a bit more low-key. That is to say, it was like drinking in a barn. The guy was nice, though (AP thought he was cute) and he gave us a free half-bottle of wine when we left since we were the last customers. I don't know if I'd go back there, but they did have lots of cats and a goat on their property (I love both kittens and goats)!

Ate lunch at a cute restaurant called Grace's Table - delicious hamburgers and more wine. We checked into our hotel and napped, then got ready for dinner. Dinner was at this place called Zuzu that the winery dude recommended. Great tapas and paella, but given how much food we'd eaten at lunch, we pretty much had to will ourselves to finish the meal. Then, it was out to explore downtown Napa. I've never really spent much time in a small town since I've been legal to drink - most of my experience is in big cities like SF, NYC, DC, etc. So I had a really fun time doing the townie experience. We went to a local bar, befriended the bartender and settled in for a night of people-watching. LOTS of cougars in the bar. Everyone had ombre hair, too. Talked to a few locals - one girl who was getting married and then this other married dude who was chatting with me about San Francisco. We tried going to a classy bar (because the guy AP was crushing on said he *might* be there), but it was kind of lame, so we went back to the original place.

Sometimes, I really do think about leaving the city and trying to live a simpler life elsewhere. I'm not sure what holds me back. Part of it is my single status. I don't want to move to the boonies alone, but then I also think that perhaps being out of the city might change the way I date and the people I meet. I do think that when I'm ready to launch my own business and settle down with a family that I won't want to be in the city. I'll want to live much like I grew up - in the suburbs, a mere hour away from a large metropolitan area. Anyway, it was nice to get a chance to see more of Northern California and I drank enough wine that I don't think I need to drink any more wine for the next month. Hard alcohol only for me!

Anyway, fun weekend in Napa. Paying for it now. Wish me luck and a speedy recovery!