Lightening It Up

The past couple, few, several posts have been very serious, solemn, and emotionally charged. They make me seem so... I dunno... serious. I don't take myself that seriously. I spend 98% of my life laughing at myself and the stupid things I do or say. So this post is going to be a little-list-like update on what's been going on in my life, which isn't as solemn or well-thought out as recent blog posts might indicate.

So...

* Current TV crush? Well, I'm glad you asked. He is the man who established my irrevocable crush on & love of all British men. I met him as Horatio Hornblower, but now he's on my television weekly as Dr. Henry Morgan in "Forever." Ioan Gruffudd is a Welshman who has had my heart for 15 years now. Everybody, swoon with me.

* Agents of SHIELD is back on my television. Super fun, super good, super super duper awesome! Skye's bangs and Ward's beard have their own twitter pages now, so that's a thing. Tuesdays at 8, people! The must-see part of this season though has been the stellar performance of Iain DeCaestecker as Fitz. Every scene with him makes me cry. That actor delivers the emotional punch in every. single. scene.

* I know I'm on a television kick here, but there's just one more that I have to mention. That's it, I promise. What is this must-mention show? Gotham. I wasn't totally on board after the pilot episode, but BEN McKENZIE. Episode 2 was solid and in episode 3 they really hit their stride. And their stride? It's fantastic & awesome. It's a quirky show, pretty dark for an eight o'clock time slot, but incredibly comic-book like, so that makes it somehow more ok...? I think. Still dark, not good for small children, but a fun ride. I'm excited to see where they take it!

* My children will have to eat apples with the skin on. Or, I will have to only use really dull knives. I was babysitting on Saturday and the kids wanted apple slices with the skin peeled off. We don't have sharp knives at my house home, so when I used a knife there that sliced right through my own skin at the lightest pressure, I was a bit shocked. There was a bit of blood, but mostly shock & the realization that my future children will only eat apples with the skin on them or their mum will have some serious cumulative blood loss.

* Speaking of children, one of my besties is having a baby in April. I haven't stopped being giddy about that yet. I love it when my friends have babies and right now everybody is having babies, so I have so many reasons to be happy.

* Aaaaand on the topic of being happy, I had another excellent surprise yesterday when I got to see my wonderful, fantastic, awesome physical therapist from 10 years ago. It was so wonderful to see her and have the chance to catch up! Since I'm all old now (being an adult has its privileges), we can be friends! It is going to be great.

* Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is the perfect song for chicken dancing. That is all.

* You know you're an adult when you happily eat nonfat yogurt for dessert. Weirdly, sadly true.

* I've been baking a lot of squash. A lot of squash. Who knew it could be so much fun? It really is that much fun. Baking it in chunks, roasting it with garlic, mashing it with brown sugar, baking it with oatmeal... the possibilities are seemingly endless! And perfectly delicious.

Happy Monday, guys.

"You're Just a Baby"

It's the most-oft repeated phrase I hear at work. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It's come up in different contexts:

him: "When did you graduate?"
me: "May."
him: "Oh, well then, you're just a baby."

me: "You need to go to the emergency room. You hit your head really hard."
her: "How would you know? You're just a baby."
me: "I may be a baby, but I've had six concussions."
her: "How does a baby get six concussions? There hasn't been enough time."

At first, I just found this funny. I'm not a baby. I graduated from college. People keep telling me how grown up I am. Then it hit me: no one tells real grown ups that. "Oh, it's nice to see you. Look how grown up you are, turning 40 and sending your kids to college."

Being at college, particularly a small, private school, where almost everyone is between 18 and 22, you tend to think of the upperclassmen as old and mature. "Oh, they're so smart and mature because they're a senior. They're 22." In that little bubble, since no one is older than that aside from the faculty and staff, who don't really even count as human beings, you tend to over mature the 22 year olds in your mind.

22? Not that old.

Not that this should be an excuse to be immature and irresponsible. College graduates are supposed to act like adults. The key word in that sentence, however, may be "act." We... well, I... don't really know how to do this. It's sort of like playing follow the leader. Some day we'll figure out how to do this on our own. We'll have acquired experience and be able to give good advice to others. Right now? It's ok if we're a bit confused. After all... we're just babies.

Life: Musical Chairs on a Grand Scale

"I'm so happy and excited about the big changes in my life."

Something I will never say. 

I used to think of myself as a happy, easy to please, easy going person. (Yes, Mum, you may laugh now.) Ok, I'm pretty sanguine. I'm a people person, generally happy in disposition. But not easy going. I don't like things to change. 

If I'm happy where I am, don't move me.

Unfortunately, life... doesn't work that way. Life moves you. Shoves, pulls, pushes, kicks, and occasionally turns you inside out. It's like playing musical chairs. Non-stop. For the rest of your life. You plod along, around and around the chairs, while music plays in the background. Then the music stops and you frantically fight everyone for a seat. You try to survive the sudden jolt by finding a safe place to sit it out until the music (usually a different tune) starts up again. You find a new pace, a new pattern, but it's all new. And alarmingly temporary. 

Maybe it's my particular age, but life is so up in the air right now. I have a full time job that would basically cover food expenses if I were to have to leave home. No housing, car, utilities... just food. Just barely. I moved away from 95% of my friends and the other 5% are in the process of moving away from me. My best friend... well, that's another story. Let's just say I feel very alone right now.  And like is so often said, you don't know what you've got til it's gone. (don't freak out, he's not dead or anything. just... very... distant...) Even spiritually, things are in adjustment. I don't have a chapel within a two minute walk with Sacraments available every couple of hours and Jesus available during all waking hours. I can get to Mass once a week. I should count my blessings... but right now they seem to be significantly fewer than they have been.

And I have been assured, over and over again, that this is a phase. A particular transition period. That things will fall into place. But that doesn't make it feel good. At all. Unfortunately, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I try to at least look happy, but even the absent-minded guy at work offered to buy me a huge bar of chocolate after taking a look at my face the other day. 

My phlegmatic side (which I didn't know I had until about April) is unhappy. I was happy where I was. Then they made me graduate. How unreasonable of them. Learning to be happy in a completely new situation (like completely new) is harder than it appears. 

In the meantime, I'm trying to take Fr. Buckley's advice: look to the future with hope. And practice smiling in front of a mirror in the meantime.

Day Three

Yet again, a wonderfully creative title. This is what work does to my brain. Zaps the creativity right out of me and replaces it with useless mush. My dreams have evolved into accounting program problems and angry customers on the phone. All day and all night... my life has literally turned into a receptionist/accounting clerk existence. My world revolves around it. At least for now. People assure me that once I get more used to the job, I'll relax more. Maybe even stop dreaming about it. We'll see. I'm not ordinary chopped liver.

And no, I don't know where that last sentence came from.

You may or may not have noticed that Day Two is missing. That, ladies and gentleman, is because I fell asleep at eight o'clock last night. Yup. It wasn't even completely dark outside. I was sooooo tired. I barely zombied my way through putting together lunch before I crashed. Tonight is a (more or less) different story. I am pretty awake. I worked out (yay Zumba!), ate dinner, and actually had the energy to sit in front of my computer for a little while longer. (blog posts don't write themselves) Today just went better. I was busy, a bit overwhelmed at times, but I got through it. I plugged away at stuff, this time fairly confident that I was doing it right. I think I only inadvertently misdirected half a dozen calls instead of... well... possibly all of them. Like what may or may not have happened on Monday.

But I think a very large contributor to my happiness was the fact that I got through "hump day." Since Wednesday is positioned in the middle of the week, it's like getting up to and over the top of a hill. Tomorrow is Thursday, which means the day after that is Friday. And then it's the weekend. Weekends are so much more exciting when you work all week. Then, of course, it will be Monday again, but we won't mention that yet. :)