Gchat excerpts (or, my thoughts on settling down)

i stare at babies with the same longing you feel when you stare at my ass.

thats a new user ecard on someecards and its soooo true

the impulsive part of me wants to get married and have babies right frickin now

i dont know why i can so easily not want to commit to a place or a job, yet i latch on to a guy tooth and nail

why am i putting all my eggs in one basket

fuck egg collecting

i am gonna start throwing my eggs at a large volume of men

Expectations vs. Standards

I've been doing a lot of emotional work lately with regard to relationships...which of course ultimately comes down to doing a lot of emotional work within myself. A lot. More than I've done in years. And it's been hell, but clearly so very necessary.

Any reputable person will tell you not to settle for--or even put up with--someone who isn't worth your time. Any reputable person will tell you to believe that you are deserving of good things and good people who treat you well, and to only pursue those things and people that make you better. However, any reputable person will also be the first to tell you that you cannot place expectations on other people; that you can expect things only from yourself. This seeming hypocrisy is something I've struggled with for as long as I've held conscious thoughts.

How can you demand the best without being demanding? How can you go out in the world--and into your relationships--believing that you deserve good things, but without carrying around a sense of entitlement?

I think this is where it's critical to recognize the difference between having expectations and having standards. For example:

You can't expect a person you are dating/married to/whatever to act in any certain way and not act in certain other ways. You can, however, make a rule for yourself stipulating that you will not have, as a partner, someone who cheats, lies, steals, wears stripes with polka-dots, etc.

You can’t expect anyone but you to make you happy. But you can have a standard for yourself that says, “if person x in my life is behaving in a way that I find upsetting or disappointing or [insert some other negative adjective here], then it is my responsibility to myself to evaluate the relationship and decide whether or not I want to keep person x in my life.”

Personal responsibility--it's something that I have to remind myself of again and again. But I've found it's been the times when I've expected (consciously or unconsciously) someone or something outside of myself to make me feel a given way--well, those are the times when I've experienced the hardest knocks.

Blue is not a color.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Blue, I guess."

Whoever answers this way is a moron. First of all, it's generic. I mean, come on--it's not like I've ever met anyone who hates blue. But need we be so unoriginal? Your "favorite" things should shine a light on elements that are unique to you. They're your favorites because they tap into something personal, something that speaks to who you are (and who no one else is). So really, why essentially admit that you're dull and not even all that thoughtful by representing yourself with "blue"? You'd come across as much more self-knowledgeable--not to mention interesting--if you said something like "rust-tinted adobe with a hint of dandelion." Or whatever specific combination is true for you. Secondly, blue is not really a color in itself, but rather a generalization that encompasses a whole range of colors. So, if you are honestly all about things that are blue-ish, at least have the decency and introspective capacity to respond with "cerulean" or "azure." Or, at the very least, "navy."

These are a few of my favorite things

Munich :)))))
Bayern as a whole
Altstaedte (old towns)
sunny days
going for long, aimless walks
introspection and internal monologues
internal monologues that quickly turn into outwardly talking to myself
Swedish fish but only the large ones. The smaller ones that come in big bags have a craptastic coating.
German
Germany omg i miss it
living in Europe omg i miss it
the Alps...specifically the Bavarian Alps
trainrides through said mountains
soulgasms brought on by literature, art, and ideas
the Jazz Age
randomness
ridiculousness
analyzing
the sky
children
Bavarian and Austrian children
cats
small dogs that look like cats
small dogs wearing sweaters and coats
animals in general
comedy a la Arrested Development, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office, The Royal Tenenbaums, and 30 Rock
taking absurd amounts of photos
drinking absurd amounts of water
eating absurd amounts of food, especially Mexican and Thai
dresses omg
shoes
metallic colors
metallic colored shoes
soul connections
sleeping deeply
dreaming vividly
psychological exploration
ducks
squirrels
farce
absurdity

Trial-sized musings

I was in CVS the other night picking up some things and glanced down the aisle, catching a glimpse of one of the item signs--you know, those signs that are intended to help you zoom in on what you're looking for, but instead end up being practically as numerous as the products they're guiding you to. Anyway, the sign said "trial-sized." As I turned my head my eyes scanned over the sign marking the hair color products. In my mind, the two signs blended together and I thought, hmm, wouldn't it be interesting if there were trial-sized hair dye. Then I got to thinking, what if everything in the store came trial-sized? After all, aren't trial-sizes created and marketed based on their convenience? And don't we, as a society, like things that are convenient and, not only that, but things that don't require a real commitment? What's stopping companies, then, I ask, from marketing trial-sized reading glasses? Trial-sized diapers? Or how about trial-sized condoms: "1/3 the size of regular condoms"? Non-committal and easier to travel with. This consumer doesn't see any drawbacks.

Why stop there? Why not get a boat? Oh wait...

Today I'm going to introduce a character who will no doubt make multiple appearances on this page, because, what's a good blog without a crazy mother figure? My mother tries...and she does have her moments of being nurturing and, well, motherly. However, her moments of absurd, wtf-did-you-really-just-do-that behavior seem to outnumber them. Sometimes vastly.

So my parents got divorced two and a half years ago. Conveniently for my mom, she quickly married the guy she cheated on my dad with (and had been living with since...well since before they even split, unbeknownst to anyone else). A ready-made new life to fall into, with none of the hassle of pesky transitions--what better? Beyond just the physical logistics of it all (a new car to drive!, the new guy's double military and police force pensions!, a nice house just five minutes down the road from work!), my mother inherited a whole lifestyle, complete with new interests, beliefs, and activities just waiting for her to absorb as her own.

I won't detail it all here. I prefer to spread out the crazy a bit, dropping it when least expected. I will say, though, that my mother immediately snapped into a different version of herself and adopted all the likes, dislikes, and hobbies of her new dude. For about a year there were flying lessons and ever-increasing mentions of becoming a licensed pilot and buying a plane (a photo of a private turbo prop even landed a spot as the computer desktop in their "library" for several months). Then, out of thin air, all of this ended. During this fascination and after, there was much talk of a variety of new ventures: scuba-diving certification, renting an apartment and backpacking through Spain, sailing lessons, buying a boat, mountain climbing expeditions, adopting two purebred yorkie poo puppies--and the list goes on, but again, I'd like to reserve some of the mania.

The last time I was in Ohio visiting family, we were sitting down at the dinner table and Tony (my mom's dude) got to asking me about what my plans for the near future were--if I would settle down, where I might settle down, etc. I stressed the necessity of living in a city with excellent public transportation, as I do not have a car. He said--quite to my surprise, but not really because I find him making random, grandiose offers like this rather often (undoubtedly a contributing factor to his and my mom's ever-changing large-scale plans)--that they were getting a second Honda soon and that when they had it, I could have my mother's Buick. Not only that; he was absolutely insistent on it. Having seen his words go unrealized too many times, I knew not to count on a car, but at the very least, I thought there was a chance I would see a few bucks come my way in a couple of months.

Months did indeed pass, and I was moving into a new place (the fifth in ten months, yay subletting). With moving of course comes scrounging up first month's rent and an equivalent security deposit. Having just started a job and waiting for my first paycheck, I delicately asked my mother if there was any possible way I could borrow $100-$150 to help cover some of the expense, promising to pay it back in ten days when I got paid. Her response? "I really wish I could help you, but I can't swing it." Well, it was worth a shot.

Except I didn't believe she honestly couldn't help out. Afterall, I heard almost non-stop about the purchases of new clothes, nail appointments, trips to nice, out-of-town restaurants, deck painting, countless new landscaping elements, and more of the usual ridiculousness. I asked a couple more times over the next week. No can do was the response.

Finally, crunch time came and I tried my luck once more, this time begging. She told me she would ask for permission from Tony and see what could be done. He had no problem with it and even told me not to pay the money back. Not unusual behavior for him.

A few days later my mother and I talked on the phone and I could tell he was in the room. Her voice takes on a saccharine sweetness when he's nearby and I told her, "You sound different--you sound younger." A weird phenomenon, I think. Yet another indication of the fantasy world quality of that whole situation.

I asked what she'd been up to. She mentioned something about making the final payment on the new Honda. I was unaware that they had already bought a new car, but I figured it was the one they had discussed months earlier. And again, a car. So I asked, "Oh, what did you get?" Her answer: the newest SUV on the market. Knowing that Tony is a retiree who spends most of his time reading and napping at home--and given the fact that my mother works at the library a mere five minutes down the street--I questioned, "What do you need an SUV for?"

Her answer was, of course, perfectly logical. "We needed something to put the kayaks in."

Squirrel Hazing: What You Can Do

Walking to work today I stumbled upon a sight all too familiar--one rogue squirrel hazing another. I hesitate to even call the creature rogue, however, as the insult--when paired with the name of the animal--seems redundant. There's no easy way around it: squirrels are giving themselves, and each other, a bad name.

I first became aware of the problem of squirrel hazing during my junior year of high school. Two friends sought to communicate the gravity of the issue by designing a t-shirt: on the front, the embossed photos of two squirrels--the hazer and the hazed--with the declaration "I'm a fighter" scrolled on the back. Squirrels, perhaps out of an overly compensatory attempt to embody the mad, demon-possessed nature we humans often attribute to them, have taken to terrorizing one another. Long gone are the days of friendly games of acorn hide-and-seek and playful chases around tree trunks. Now, we pass through otherwise quiet, residential neighborhoods only to see one squirrel chasing another into the path of an oncoming car. We watch with wide-eyed bewilderment as that same squirrel dares another to climb higher and higher up in an ever-thinning network of branches, leaving the latter's life quite literally hanging in the balance. And we have only to look at the decaying carcasses of the fallen on our sidewalks and front yards to remind ourselves that the violence far surpasses that which we directly observe.

"When will it end?" is the question undoubtedly weighing on so many human minds. Is the population doomed to render itself extinct? This observer would like to think that the problem can still scale down. I believe that if we humans stop perpetuating the stereotype of squirrels as a manic, crazed species--thus projecting onto them a caricatured identity that their tiny brains can in no way parse from reality--then these creatures will gradually find their way back to a more harmonious era. After all, peace within a single group is the first step to peace between different groups. Perhaps if the squirrels start, other species will follow suit.