2010 reflections

Although the year is not technically over, I always feel that the winter holiday season is kind of that limbo week of indigestion that marks the end of one year and the beginning of another. Who really does anything between Dec 22 and Jan 3 besides seeing family/friends, eating their weight in pork sausage, and complaining about how everyone forgets their birthday? Or is that just me?

Sometimes I can't believe that I've actually kept myself alive for a whole year. When did I become capable of this?? Especially when I come home and immediately revert back into my awkward and slightly unkempt high school self.

So I'm coming up on my first full year of being in the "real world," with my real apartment and real job and real cooking dilemmas that I have to solve before certain real significant others pop over for supper. It's been a good year. I really mean it, which is kind of a new feeling for me, since I generally err on the side of pessimism. Also because I usually get myself into unfortunate situations that cast a blight on the whole year, like that time where I decided to go to grad school. (My therapist says I'm making great strides, though. And by "therapist," I mean "the wine bottles that have claimed the 'juice' section in my fridge." What can I say? I'm a boozy lush, with my half-inch of wine and "Enchanted" on TV.)

Here's my 2010 Year in Review. However, I'm too lazy to actually fact-check any of these things, so the dates and facts are approximate at best and subject to wildly irresponsible conjecture.

January
New year, new job, new apartment. My brother texts me a picture of my NU diploma, which triggers a rage flashback. Neighbors report being terrorized by woman in a puffy brown coat, waving her arms and screaming about baby shark bunnies and Powerpoint.

February
Something about a one-year anniversary with some guy. Blah blah, I love him, blah blah. Whatever.

March
My cousins visit Chicago!! The Midwest is in the grip of a negative 15-degree spring heatwave complete with freezing rain and ice. We eat deep dish pizza at Gino's East; discover that Madison's air mattress is the same size as my living room; witness a bizarre fantasy marine animal/faerie creature show at the Shedd. In-between all of this excitement, Adam manages to get pinkeye from a CTA railing.

April
Tyler gets a haircut. I cease to recognize him.

May
Back in VA for Colette's wedding! Brief attempt to help make bouquets (mostly just watch Brittany work her floral magic). Tyler is exiled to a hotel lobby for a couple hours while we get ready, and is a real good sport about it. Colette looks like a movie star, Jae is so handsome, food is delicious, weather is pitch-perfect. Just a really great day.

June
Medill's graduation ceremony. Monica stays with me and doesn't complain once about lack of air conditioning in my apartment. I successfully bribe Tyler to attend several local craft fairs with me, but was unable to get him to make any purchases for me. (Why WOULDN'T you spend $500 for a photo of dangerous weather phenomena?? I don't understand!)

July

Taste of Chicago with the Blues. 4th of July at Navy Pier with Tyler. Dinner and fireworks with my cousin Jimmy and his co-workers during their training week Chicago trip! I think there was a wedding or two thrown in there. Continuing to melt in my apartment.

August
Elleen passes through Chicago on her road trip to San Fran! We do Ann Sather, we Bean it up, we take in a Mass. I <3 herrrrr.

September

Heather visits Chicago with her man and is immediately able to correctly identify more Chicago buildings than me. Kim stops by on her road trip to San Francisco. I have a delicious week with my mom in Virginia.

October

Finally starting to make friends in Evanston! Definitely nice to have more female friends nearby. I also take art classes in the ballroom of a renovated Victorian-era mansion. My brother turns 16 and I panic, just a little, b/c he's officially entered that age of dating, driving and "driving." Oh. My. Goodness.

November

HARRY POTTER 7 NAVY PIER IMAX. Matching Gryffindor scarves? Yes, please! We do Thanksgiving in Danville. I make a peanut butter pie and get really competitive about my banana bread.

December

Oscar visits Chicago! We take him to see the Improv Olympics with another fellow W&Mer. Tyler and I do the Walnut Room and take in the Nutcracker with the Blue/Bootcheck clan. I immediately abandon him afterwards to go home to my East Coast loves. I have tons of fun at (and got lost coming home from) Robby's 8th Annual Christmas Bash.

I have 6 more days here and so many people yet to see in Virginia, and I already know that I'm going to miss it and everyone here so, so much. I truly believe that I know the best people in the world. Also b/c I have zero tolerance for stupid people, mean people and ugly people, so you've got to be intelligent, kind and beautiful if you want to stick around.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

highly sensitive information

So recently, I was reading the December issue of Marie Claire before I went to bed when I came across this fascinating article: Are You Too Sensitive? I took the accompanying quiz, which asks you to answer True or False to a series of questions. The more Trues, the more likely that you are what the article's expert calls a "Highly Sensitive Personality," or HSP for short.

I answered True for 21 of the questions.

I don't know, maybe some of you out there are nodding your heads and going, "We could've told you that without some stupid quiz" but honestly, I was a little bit surprised. I thought I had my various neuroses pretty well under control! But in thinking about it more, I guess I do exhibit a number of the HSP signs, and some of it actually does explain my rather extensive collection of fears. Some examples:

- I get really tense if people around me are angry or upset or talking loudly. Political shows on TV and the radio are the worst, because I usually don't even know why they're so angry.

- I avoid eating with people I don't know very well at all costs. Part of it is b/c I eat really slowly and I don't want to be judged, but the other part is having to make small talk.

- The three seconds before I get to my desk are always nerve-wracking, b/c I have to ready myself to say good morning to my new cubicle neighbor. Then, right before I leave, I fret about having to say have a nice evening. I don't know why. He moved in like a month ago. You'd think I'd be better about it by now.

And I don't know if this really has anything to do with HSP, but, as you probably know, I am Queen Grudgeholder of All the Land. Not with people I like; I forgive my friends easily. But I am definitely one of those people who you don't want as an ex with a score to settle (ex-girlfriend, ex-friend, ex-girlfriend's friend). I am an angsty writer, after all, which means I basically have no scruples when it comes to pulling real-life events into my writing (read: ranting online).

I was thinking about this when Facebook so kindly revealed that an ex-boyfriend was now in a relationship with a girl he'd long denied being in a relationship with. (Ugh, prepositions. Hate them. Can't figure out right now how to end that sentence properly. But I digress.) Our whole dating nonsense was over a few years ago anyhow, so normally this wouldn't be a big deal except I'd suspected them of having a thing going on while he and I were still dating. But I didn't want to be the nagging girlfriend, and b/c I'm generally pretty lenient/borderline doormat with the people I love, I let it slide.

Of course, he denied it. A few months after our break-up, my intuition told me that they were seeing each other. He denied it. She denied it. But that suspicion persisted, esp when he spent holidays at her house, esp since she basically moved in with him, esp when there were photo albums of their coupliness, etc. For years, they both straight-up denied it everyone, even to his roommate. He told our mutual friends he didn't like her at all; he said he didn't find her attractive; he even called me paranoid for asking him about it. But most of all, he refused to apologize.

WELL.They've apparently made it Facebook official, so who's paranoid now?! Vindication is sweet. I love being right.

Here's the thing: it's not like I spend all my time being vengeful or whatever; it just pops up when some reminder of it re-surfaces. And trust me, I don't take any pleasure in holding grudges b/c it makes me feel incredibly guilty that I'm not able to forgive someone. Yeah, sure, I joke about it, but it really is something that I work on. This ex-boyfriend thing is just the most current example; there are a couple more, some from much farther back, some that only concern me indirectly (such someone hurting a close friend). But if I feel that someone has wronged me/someone I care about, it's hard for me to really and truly "get over it" until that person acknowledges what they've done.

Is this me being too sensitive? Or is this something that everyone goes through? Also, you think HSP is real, or do you think it's just a bunch of psychology-jargon to legitimize emotionally sensitive or, yes, possibly paranoid people?

secret ingredients

I don't know what it is, exactly, but communal ramen always tastes better than any other kind of ramen, perhaps better than any other kind of noodle dish.

Maybe it's because ramen was only an occasional food when I was growing up. We'd have to be sick, or having a bad day or something, and my mom would let my dad make ramen for us as a special treat. And my dad is a man who adores ramen, so he'd always go all out. Two packages of normal noodles, one package of rice noodles, three different kinds of seasoning packets, all mixed together and simmering in one big pot. He had some sort of secret sense for cooking it at exactly the right heat level and exactly the length of time for each noodle to be translucent and chewy in the way that Asian noodles should be. (Very "Q"...I don't know the pinyin for it, but it sounds like saying the letter "Q." My mom almost always says it in multiples of three: "Q, Q, Q!") Anyway, it was awesome.

Then I went off to college, spent two years puttering around and being weird and emo and angsty before really finding a solid group of friends. One of my favorite college memories was midnight ramen nights my junior year in the C-house. Someone would be making one package of ramen, and gradually more and more would be added in as people walked by and suddenly felt hungry, too. I remember Adam looking flabbergasted (but amused) when he found himself, Strega Nona-like, cooking two separate pots filled to almost overflowing with ramen. Then Connie was holding a carton of eggs and counting off to make sure everyone would get one, and Sunny was doing her sideways-clicky-crab dance across the kitchen hallway and then pretending it never happened. Once the noodles were done, it was doled out as equally as possible into various bowls, mugs and those ugly plastic dinner plates stolen from the Caf. Someone was always eating straight from the pot, hobo-style. Soy sauce and Sriracha was passed around. No one really ever got enough to be full, but it didn't really matter and everyone left the table satisfied anyway. There was a lot of laughing and good-natured teasing and wearing of pajamas. It was fun.

Today, I often make ramen when I'm homesick (or just plain lazy), but no matter what I do, it never tastes as good as it does at home or at W&M. I don't know if it's b/c I eat from a real bowl now instead of a coffee cup, but there's something about that atmosphere, I think, that makes food taste better and the winter not as cold. I really miss that sometimes.

once upon a december

Leave it up to Chicago to send in a pack of snow flurries on the first day of December. You can say a lot about Chicago (corporations, corruption, corpulence) but you can't say that it doesn't do its best to meet seasonal expectations. That wind felt like a knife this morning! Super glad that I got a ride home with Young Finance Guy in the evening, or I may have had to pull a Bear Grylls and shot something and taken its coat to stay warm. (Sorry, I know that was a bad analogy. It's been a longish, very cold day.)

So I've reached that point in my laundry cycle where I'm running out of underwear but don't have the time to get out to the laundromat. I like to do laundry on Saturday mornings, but, for the last few months, that's when I have my art class. It's really thrown me off my schedule. This makes me really grumpy and slightly unhygienic. Sometimes I'll do laundry on Saturday afternoons if I'm not wiped out by painting, but for the most part I wait a bit longer than I normally would b/c the thought of rushing through the laundry process really stresses me out. I'm at the point where you're rummaging through your drawer and trying to decide between: huge, ugly, but strangely comfortable granny panties; wildly work-inappropriate panties, possibly of the lacy and/or thong variety; and panties that are 2 sizes too small. In honor of the holiday season, I'm currently wearing a Grinch-colored and Grinch-heart-sized pair. TMI? Oh yeah, definitely. What can I say? Gotta show that Christmas cheer somehow.