The 100 Kajillionth Anniversary of Your Mother Is Always Right

A couple weeks ago was the three-year anniversary of this here blog.

Realizing this set me thinking about what I was doing three years ago, just starting law school.

I went to law school because a) I was bored, b) I wanted a three-year break from working, c) I had hit the glass ceiling of the financial services industry, and d) I thought I might meet a nice boy there.

Three years later, a) I am certainly not bored, just anxious to do well, b) I miss Fridays off, why aren’t all jobs on a four-day work week, TELL ME PEOPLE? doesn’t four days seem more reasonable? c) yeah, I make a lot more, but I OWE MY LIFE to Sallie Mae, and d) I met the most wonderful man ever, but he lives in a different city.

But you know what? I am still OK with it all. You know why?

Because my mother tells me it’s OK.

My mother has told me since I was 6, outlining my strategy for ascending to the presidency (pretty sure it involved cookies for all), that life doesn’t turn out exactly like you were thinking, but it turns out OK. And she didn’t tell me to discourage me from my path of being becoming the first female POTUS; hells, no, she is ready for any non-white, non-male to lead us into something better (I believe she last told me that if we could just a black lesbian in the office, all would be right with the world).

No, she told me that because it’s true, and because if you plan too much, you miss things.

More recently, she told me not to act like my life is on pause. With The Boy in a different city, life sometimes feels unreal here, like I’m just going through the motions, waiting for something to happen that reunites us, somewhere.

But whatever, you can’t live that way.

So last week I decided to re-engage. Not with the world, that’s next week when I finally start calling people (baby steps), but with my home and my health.

For the home:
Dude, I cleaned EVERYTHING. And cleaned OUT everything.

This is my Goodwill pile:

I know what you are thinking: “Jen, wasn’t one Goodwill debacle enough?”

But I’m totally over the loss of all my black shoes. You know why? Because it was an excuse to buy these!

(I paid only $49 for them at Shoe Pavilion, snap!)

Besides, I finally have room for all my clothes to fit on hangers, I’ve got my purses down to the bare essentials:

Do you see all that lovely space, enabling me to actually FIND something to wear in under 5 minutes in the morning?

I am so excited!

For my health:
I started knitting and running again, both of which help relax me after work. And I have astonished my friends and family by purchasing, and eating!, fruits and salad.

The latter part might be because as part of this whole getting rid of non-working clothing, cosmetics, etc., I also decided to get rid of my analog scale and replace it with a digital one. And, well, I’d always suspected that my analog scale broke the news gently to me. Alas. My suspicions were confirmed when my weight suddenly jumped up five pounds. Part of me was like, “Oh, the horror.” But the rest of me shrugged a whatevs. I’ve been marginally contented with my weight for the past few years, and that it’s heavier than I thought doesn’t change the way I look.

Nonetheless, pass the salad! And the fruit.

They’re good for you.

Just like your momma always told you.

Dude, Don’t Get So Butthurt, Just Chillax…

So tonight I “made the mistake of” just “accidentally” “happening upon” an old episode of Laguna Beach on The Noggin/Nog/Whatever It Is The Kids Are Calling It These Days.

Anyway, there was Jessica, talking about how Kyndra would be totally “butthurt” that Jessica and Cameron were hooking up. And a) we all know that Jessica is the one in Laguna Beach who gets consistently butthurt by boys. And b) “butthurt?”

I was so grateful at that moment that “butthurt” didn’t take a stronghold on the vernacular of Southern California girls.

I am, however, grateful that “ginormous” has. I know, it’s an abomination of the English language, but it conveys so much, no? The Boy hates it. Thus, I try to limit my use of it around him to situations in which, um, it might be helpful and flattering. Like, say, when describing someone’s arm muscles: a trip to the gun show, ginormous, etc. Luckily, my girlfriends love the ginormous in all its varietals, so I am free to use it to describe the size of our salads, our wine glasses, my zit, etc.

The Boy also hates the term, “chillax.” And you know, when he first told me that he hated it I think I nodded my head, so sympathetic, like, whoa, man, that is awful, I am so sorry you even had to hear that word uttered. But later I was like, wait, where did he hear “chillax?” I mean, tell me people, have you heard it? I think he watched one TV show 15 years ago that featured it and was so appalled that he has imagined it infecting American slang like “fugly” when in fact it hadn’t been Spoken By Man since 1992. p.s., love you, The Boy, totally understandable given the GINORMOUS ridonkulousness of the word.**

The one word I have not been able to cleanse my verbal palette of in the last 15 years is, “dude.” I mean, DUDE. I don’t even know how it happened! In Redding, not at UC Santa Cruz as one might suspect. (But then, the other biggest fan of dude I know is from Chicago, with nary an ocean in sight). Perhaps I watched Point Break too many times. Perhaps I love to emphasize a point, and what better way than with a “DUDE!”

Am I right? Right? Dude, I am so right. Don’t get so butthurt. Just chillax.

**UPDATE: Apparently “chillax” is popular enough to warrant an Urban Dictionary entry! And TMZ was using it as recently as May 2007! I am shamed. And scared. DUDE.

Dude, Don’t Get So Butthurt, Just Chillax…

So tonight I “made the mistake of” just “accidentally” “happening upon” an old episode of Laguna Beach on The Noggin/Nog/Whatever It Is The Kids Are Calling It These Days.

Anyway, there was Jessica, talking about how Kyndra would be totally “butthurt” that Jessica and Cameron were hooking up. And a) we all know that Jessica is the one in Laguna Beach who gets consistently butthurt by boys. And b) “butthurt?”

I was so grateful at that moment that “butthurt” didn’t take a stronghold on the vernacular of Southern California girls.

I am, however, grateful that “ginormous” has. I know, it’s an abomination of the English language, but it conveys so much, no? The Boy hates it. Thus, I try to limit my use of it around him to situations in which, um, it might be helpful and flattering. Like, say, when describing someone’s arm muscles: a trip to the gun show, ginormous, etc. Luckily, my girlfriends love the ginormous in all its varietals, so I am free to use it to describe the size of our salads, our wine glasses, my zit, etc.

The Boy also hates the term, “chillax.” And you know, when he first told me that he hated it I think I nodded my head, so sympathetic, like, whoa, man, that is awful, I am so sorry you even had to hear that word uttered. But later I was like, wait, where did he hear “chillax?” I mean, tell me people, have you heard it? I think he watched one TV show 15 years ago that featured it and was so appalled that he has imagined it infecting American slang like “fugly” when in fact it hadn’t been Spoken By Man since 1992. p.s., love you, The Boy, totally understandable given the GINORMOUS ridonkulousness of the word.**

The one word I have not been able to cleanse my verbal palette of in the last 15 years is, “dude.” I mean, DUDE. I don’t even know how it happened! In Redding, not at UC Santa Cruz as one might suspect. (But then, the other biggest fan of dude I know is from Chicago, with nary an ocean in sight). Perhaps I watched Point Break too many times. Perhaps I love to emphasize a point, and what better way than with a “DUDE!”

Am I right? Right? Dude, I am so right. Don’t get so butthurt. Just chillax.

**UPDATE: Apparently “chillax” is popular enough to warrant an Urban Dictionary entry! And TMZ was using it as recently as May 2007! I am shamed. And scared. DUDE.

True Colors

Hi! I’m back! What did I miss?

That’s basically how I feel, like I missed a lot. Not missing like the missing of to-go coffee I experience abroad, but missing more like, I now feel so disconnected from everything I did before. I returned home to a new job, The Boy gone, and no internet, so all my familiar routines were missing.

But things are starting to feel more settled. The Boy came to visit this weekend, internet was restored, and week #2 of a new job is always less jarring than the first.

Anyway, I have tons of stories from our month in Argentina, and I’m sure I will bore you all to tears with them, but tonight I will just share one:

We had decided to take a driving tour of the Quebrada Humahuaca, to see some of the most beautiful colored rock formations in the world. Our tour group consisted of our tour guide, The Boy and I, and these two very nice 65+ Argentian women, with us 3 ladies cramped into the back of this truck.

It was the most amazing day — we were miles above sea level, eating llama in the middle of nowhere on tables made of salt culled from the salt flats; The Boy and I each sat on a purloined street sign attached by flimsy rope to the back of the truck and sledded around the salt flats; we saw some of the most beautiful rock formations in the world; and we heard Fur Elise played on rocks.

Toward the end, the rocks just got prettier and prettier and finally we arrived at Purmamarca, home to the Mountain of Seven Colors, which is, literally, a mountain of seven colors of the most amazing rock you’ve ever seen. It’s just nutty!

Somewhere along the way, our guide had put in a Phil Collins CD, oddly enough the third time a driver had treated us to Phil (what is it about him that the Argentinians find so appealing? One more mystery of their culture I failed to solve in my month there). And right when we hit Purmamarca, the Phil Collins version of “True Colors” came on, and The Boy and I looked at one another. It was just too much. The Boy explained in Spanish to the guide and the two ladies about the eerie relevance of the song they were listening to, and translated the lyrics, and it was quiet for a moment. And then, as we kept driving slowly along, drinking in the color of the rocks, the two women and guide all began warbling along, in English, to Phil.

I couldn’t help but join in. It was awesome.