my cousin frankie

my cousin frankie, who i consider my best friend – she will be my matron of honor some day – is getting married this weekend. i never had a sister, unlike frankie, and I always considered her my sister. we lived an hour apart, but we were together a ton during my childhood. I spent a few days of spring break every year at her house. our slumber parties usually consisted of four of us snuggled in a bed together, me putting everyone to sleep with a made-up story.

once when we were watching oprah, she had several doctors that specialized in sex education on her show. one was the author of "what your mother never told you about sex." frankie and i immediately went out and bought it at borders, giggling the whole time, especially when the check-out guy said, "yeah, we usually sell a lot of these when oprah has the author on her show." we proceeded to read the book to each other poolside, with a magazine hiding the cover. for a few years we passed the book back and forth, until aunt cathy - frankie's mom - found it, we think, and threw it away.

another time we were in sanibel together and decided to put fake tattoos on our butts. frankie's was a lovely star shooting out of her crack. we took a picture to memorialize the event that i found years later, still laughing as i looked at our beautiful behinds.

we used to walk around in our bikinis to make the son of my grandmother's neighbor notice us.

i peed my pants in the movie rental store when frankie suggested a movie called "concealed weapon" for my brother - with a picture complete with a gun hidden in a woman's lacy stocking.

frankie found dozens of letters i had sent her when we were little, before even the land line phones were available to me. i usually told her stories about my snake or my school or dance lessons.

i always wanted to be frankie. i wanted to wear what she wore, do what she did. i'll never forget how happy i was that she was copying me when she decided to try flute lessons. she didn't last on the flute, but it was the fact that my heroine was emulating me that made me so happy.

we had endless shopping trips together, shared bottles of wine, made desserts out of a box that were the yummiest cakes or cookies or brownies. we spent holidays tucked into my grandparents' bed, watching parades and christmas movies that we had seen a thousand times. we laughed at the absurdity of our mothers, at ourselves when we were young, at the stupid things we had done in college. we called each other when we started working, lamenting how tired we were or how far away we lived. it figured the minute i moved to her hometown, she was 10 hours away in minneapolis, a day-long car ride, a $300 plane ticket. suddenly holidays were the highlight, if only because i got to see frankie. i always planned on naming a daughter after her, and accidentally told her that one evening after too much pinot grigio.

and now she's getting married, the first of the 12 grandkids to do so. and i love her husband-to-be. when i walked in his sparkling clean condo and had a rice krispie he made for us on the spot after frankie mentioned she was "hungry for dessert," i knew he was perfect. and, as my aunt cathy tipsily said to a party guest, they will make beautiful babies.

but first we all have to get through the wedding of the year. frankie will go on her honeymoon, and i'll go visit her in november, my married cousin, all grown up. it's how it should be.

fall fashion

diversion post alert: even though it's still august, which means it's sticky and hot in indiana, fall - or at least september - is right around the corner. i can't wait to start wearing my fall clothes, though i can live without the cold for a while! the stores of course have all started putting out their fall clothes, which makes me pine for my cozy sweaters and tights even more. the great thing about some fall trends is that they're mostly classic. forget the leggings and gauchos of the past - if you invest in these pieces, they'll work for seasons to come, instead of being one-note clothes. some of my must-haves for fall:

long sweaters

one of my favorite trends, as this is one that will work long after they're popular. these are showing up in thick wool and thin merino (like the one to the left), in colors that work as well for spring as they do for fall, making this a three-season sweater. they work with dresses, skirts and pants. add a belt around the natural waist (a la Michelle Obama) for a really polished look.


shoe booties

a slightly harder trend to pull off, even though it shouldn't be. these have been around for a while, but they're popping up more as the season changes. a true fall-winter accessory, dressy booties work with dresses, pants and skirts and come in lots of materials, from suede to leather to fabric. for a different look, they're also popular in a sandal/gladiator form. i love these.


shrunken jacket

one of the most adorable pieces. so versatile, so easy to throw on and go. the classic styling means this jacket will work as well this year as it will in ten years. as cute with jeans as it is with dress slacks and heels. i can't wait to grab a cute scarf to go with the jacket on my way to work. another plus: gray is a great alternative to black and looks amazing with almost every color. perhaps the best part about this jacket is that it's effortless: you don't even have to think about getting dressed in the morning. just grab this and go.



plaid shirt

this one's in pretty much every year. there's just something about plaid, something slightly childlike, or maybe i'm reverting to my catholic school girl days. plaid is dorky and preppy and casual and dressy all at the same time. the color combos are endless; my personal preference is green and blue, and i could kick myself for not nabbing a ruffled j. crew plaid blouse with those colors a few years ago. but the great thing is plaid always comes back year after year - it will always be in style. and fashion should be fun and comforting - to me, the epitome of a fitted plaid shirt.

dealing with things way beyond my maturity level

if it's meant to be, it will be.

i really, really fucking hate that god-awful cliche. mostly because it sounds like i have no control. and i have to have control. control and white wine = two of my best friends. when i don't have control, when i feel outside my comfort zone, when i start edging past the ability to schedule and label and categorize my various conflicts and problems, when i can't make a list on my pastel pink post-it note - that's when i start to spiral down into a pit of self-doubt and deprecation.

most of the reason i don't believe in fate and destiny and all that crap is it implies i have no control over the decisions that will lay out my life - that they're already decided and mapped out in some blueprint in the universe. i don't want to be some helpless person who has no control over her future, even if i am some helpless person with no control over my future. i know i can't predict or plan or even guess what happens next. but i would rather fool myself into thinking it's possible, that maybe, just maybe all my dreams and hopes will come true, and all my fears and doubts will just be dust in the wind.

a fear

so i don't know when this started - maybe landing in indy in the middle of a thunderstorm, maybe on september 11, but i have turned into a really bad flyer.

i love airports. i love the hustle, the controlled (for the most part) chaos. i love watching planes land and take off. i know there's a theorem to it all, but it completely mystifies me that we've figured out a way to get a piece of metal that ways thousands of tons off the ground and keep it in the air for hours and hours. i could do nothing all day except watch planes land and take off, especially jumbo jets, because apparently i'm a five year old boy. but i hate flying. i hate take off the most, that horrible feeling watching the ground slowly float away, as the plane shakes for the first time going up in the clouds. i hate the silence as the plane is descending, and then the sudden pops as gadgets and mechanics start working to get the plane on the ground. i hate the unknown of it all, the sheer hopelessness and helplessness if anything went wrong. and i hate - i really hate - how even though there are thousands of flights every day all around the world, i can't help but think about those 'what-ifs'.

maybe what i hate the most is i have to fly if i want to get to places i want to go. sure, i could drive to arizona...if i had three days to kill. but i can't drive to ukraine to visit olesia. i can't drive to russia to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine. and i really can't drive to china to adopt that baby girl several years down the road.

when i flew to europe last year, it was really scary for me, and also incredibly annoying that i couldn't stretch my legs except when i went to the bathroom. my dad, who flies all the time for his job, gave me melatonin, which didn't put me to sleep, but did take the fear away. i know i'll have to fly again, with fear in my heart and melatonin in my stomach. and for all the worries, it was worth it to see london and paris...and even more to get home safe.

a project

t left today. we're both trying to stay positive, and doing a pretty good job about it. his leaving involved a frantic search for the cell phone at 6:15 a.m. then hammie redeemed himself after pooing on the floor yesterday by finding it laying on the ground a ways away from our apartment. what are the chances? hey, i never said i was an atheist...completely. so t has his cell phone, thank goodness, and is coming home next weekend to help my brother and dad move all the heavy stuff. so it's just like way back when he was working for hh gregg and would travel for a week or even two weeks at a time. just like that.

meanwhile, i'm lonely already and need a project. besides the whole house thing, i've decided that i want to try to write a romance novel. i love my romance books. this is a love affair that's been going on for more than a year now, so i'm pretty sure it's not a crush. there is little else that makes me happier than snuggling in bed with hammie and a new eloisa james (i broke down and had to buy her new one, "a duke of her own." being #20 on the waitlist at the library wasn't going to cut it, especially after "this duchess of mine" was so good!). good romances, as i've said before, are really well-written pieces of literature. writing one isn't going to be easy. but i have fallen in love with this world that i can't believe took me so long to learn about. then of course i had to think of a good story idea and decide what period i wanted to write in. of course i picked regency. i've rarely veered away from romances from that genre, and vastly prefer them to any others. i just need something to occupy my time and help me remember everything will be alright. because i really, really believe it will be.

health care

listen, i've tried to stay silent about this. i really have. not because i don't have an opinion, but because i don't want to make this blog my political soapbox. at least not all the time. but seriously, this whole argument is fucked in the head.

here's what i know: fear is a powerful, powerful tool, and people are prone to it. taxes suck, and we hate to pay them. sometimes we're lazy, and we don't know the facts, so we let someone else research for us. i know i'm guilty of all these things. but i just can't shake the notion that something has got to change. obama isn't killing grandma. she's going to die anyway because her prescriptions are too expensive and she can't afford the surgery she needs.

and as for these "grassroots" protests organized by average, middle-class americans (usually supposedly from my neck of the woods) - i can't say it better than rachel maddow:

fingers crossed

it may have happened.

but i am a sad believer in jinxes, so i feel like i can't stay what it is. only infer from my previous rantings the one thing that has consumed my life for what feels like years. and know i am starting to be semi-hopeful. of course 20,000 things have to fall into place for this to happen. oy oy oy. but it's nice to be hopeful instead of despair that i'll never find what i'm looking for. i'm looking at my apartment, the place where i've discovered how much i really love my freedom and all that comes with it (yes, even paying bills). this place is usually clean-ish, but is now covered with boxes and random things that don't fit into any sort of category. i have hurt my back twice in this prolonged move already, but i am so excited to be going home, even if it's to my room that doesn't look anything like my room anymore. columbus may be god-awful boring, may be small, may die at 8:30, may be the place where most people my age pray to escape or give me weird looks when i say i'm happily returning, but i can't wait to go back.

fingers crossed this all works.

book diversion: "Sold"

every now and then i want to write about a book that really touched me, and this book's effect on me was profound. "Sold" by Patricia McCormick is written for a reader starting at the pre-teen level, but can be enjoyed by any person. it centers around lakshmi, a 13-year-old girl living in a very poor village in nepal with her mother, stepfather and baby brother. she dreams of making enough money to repair her family's tin roof - and perhaps stem her stepfather's gambling problem. then he tells her she's going into work as a maid in the city, and she leaves with a woman for a job that is filled with promise for her family. instead, she has been sold into the sex trade and ends up in india. lakshmi tells her story in a poetry/prose form that is not only very fitting, but also makes for a quick read - i think i finished in this book in under two hours. but it was so, so well written. i could smell the men who paid for lakshmi - and was heartbroken for her when she overhears one of them and realizes they paid as much for her as she would have paid back home for a coke. at the end of the story, i learned over 12,000 nepali girls are sold into the sex trade every year. the author traveled to nepal and india to interview people who had rescued these girls, as well as the girls themselves, and her hard work shows over each page as she brings you there, exposing one of the cruelest places in the world. please read this book.

hello lover

would it be wrong to spend $950 on a pair of shoes?

really? i mean, seriously, they are the most beautiful pair of shoes ever. lily allen wore them on australian tv and said she stole or "nicked" them. i completely understand why.

although it pisses me off slightly that lily, a girl who is both younger than me and in a position to buy a $950 pair of shoes, had to nick them. (p.s. the word "nick" is so much more fun than stole. i love british slang.)

ok, see them for yourself. and if you'd like to buy them for me, go here. (size 10.5, please!)

when i grow up

is it the pink shoes that make my feet look so professional when i point? or the grace of the dance? it's gotta be the costumes with the tulle and sparkles and beautiful colors. for whatever reason, ballet always captivated me, the way it has captivated little girls ever since it became en vogue. i took lessons at my elementary school when i was 7 or 8, and i'm double-jointed in my ankles, letting me turn out past 180 degrees. that's about the extent of my knowledge of ballet, but i've always, always wanted to take lessons again. i thought about doing it at iu - stupid that i didn't, considering they have an amazing school there. then i thought about doing it this year when i was up in indy, since there are lots of schools around here that have adult lessons. now i'm moving back to a town with a whole two dance studios, none of which have adult lessons. and i'm really sad about that, enough that i'm considering entering a beginner class with 5-7-year-olds. almost.

but how good would it feel to snatch back a childhood regret? most of the things i do wish i had done, i'll never get the chance again. just the idea that i might be able to dance again is empowering. i can't wait until i actually get to put on those shoes.

now if i can just figure out how to get en pointe in a few months...

my mother, myself

"all women become like their mothers. that is their tragedy."

my mother and i have always been close. i'm her only daughter, i'm her oldest child, i'm basically her clone born when she was 29 years old. i look like her and - even scarier - i act just like her. it's not that she acts a way i don't want to, it's that because we're so much alike, we end up at odds a lot more than we should. i have her temperament, her tendency to perfection, her want of control, her fears for everyone she loves, her sometimes judgmental attitude. that sounds all bad, and it's not. i inherited the good traits as well: silliness, passion for those i love, determination. and as i've gotten older, i've come to appreciate my mom and all she's done for my brother and me more and more.

but the control - the control is the worst. the judgmental looks as she wants into my apartment and sees that it's not clean. the high eyebrows when she hears my dog sleeps on my bed with me and always has. the constant telling and retelling of how to live my life.

(she does redeem herself. when she had to take care of hamlet, he slept under the covers with her. i was so shocked to hear that, i couldn't speak for a few seconds.)

it's so difficult for me to deal with the things my mom does because i crave her approval. i want her to accept and be happy for every decision and aspect of my life. and at the same time i can't stand it when she tells me what to do. i couldn't take it when i was 18 - that first summer back from school was the worst. i really can't take it now that i'm 24 and independent. and i have to move back with her in a month, and she wonders why i'm desperate to find a house?

i love my mom. i want to make that really clear. i love her, and i'm very grateful for her. it's my own daughter i'm worried about.

i found my mac again

next stop: house!

that's how this works, right?

twisted logic

i have been thinking and wondering and wishing and thinking about buying an apple. i had one years ago that was tragically killed when i accidentally dropped it down the stairs. pretty funny now, but horribly tragic then. i have a really bad track record with computers - for instance, my dell (the replacement) is in t's computer graveyard right now because the screen keeps falling shut and it won't turn on. this could also be because dells are pieces of shit and i hate them. i'm not sure.

i actually went into the apple store today and played around on the macbook i want. it was all white like a computer angel and absolutely gorgeous. i'm dying of indecisiveness, because even though i don't technically need a computer, i really, really want this one. and i have considered this choice for over a month, so i'm not rushing into it. i'm trying to be logical about my purchases, considering i am financially responsible for myself and all.

but here's where the twisted part comes in. i've been reluctant to spend that kind of money because from what i hear, houses are expensive. if i find a house, i'll need the money that's already gone because i bought a computer. but of course i haven't found that elusive piece of property. so what is the answer? no computer = no house. buy a computer and be in the hole a lot of money = i'll find the house of my dreams. perfect! it's a win-win! i'm buying the damn computer. and then the house will magically go on sale. because that's pretty much how my life works.

thanks aunt karen

my dad's family could not be more different than my mom's. my mom's is a loud, always arguing, Catholic bunch. my dad's was always much quieter - and much smaller. while at my mom's there are four aunts, four uncles and 12 grandkids, at my dad's there's only my brother, two cousins and my uncle bob and aunt karen. karen and i have always had a very special relationship, and she can tell me things i can't and don't want to hear from anyone else. i haven't seen her in a long time, and unfortunately she lives in arizona, a 3+ hour plane ride away. not bad, but nothing that means we're together as a family very often. in fact the last time we were all together was my popop's funeral. the next time we'll all be together is in june when we bury him in arlington. very sad. and also the reason why i won't move far from home.