A Note from the Windy City on the Eve of 2012

Last year, on New Year’s Eve, I laid on a bed, snuggled in sheets I could never afford, in a room I will never be able to afford, tipsy on free champagne I could never afford, collapsed with laughter with my partner in crime, Valerie. High on sparkling possibility, hair windswept from the river and red lipstick worn onto the rocks glasses of Vodka Tonic on the bedside table, we swore to things we would accomplish, promises we would not break for 2011.

We checked out late from our fairytale New Year’s Eve at the Trump Tower, returned promptly to real life in frozen Chicago, starting the new year on the highest of all possible notes – brunch from orange. We earned it after the amount of Ciroc consumed the night prior. We spent the evening sitting on MollieBrandonDavid’s floor, playing never have I ever. Not glamorous, but easily one of my favorite moments of the year. Still, it’s too bad every day can’t be chauffeured by a Bentley, accompanied by 8 course dinners and skyline views.

I’d like to say I accomplished everything on the list; that I lost 40 pounds, that I maintained thanking someone every day in my blog, that I figured out how to not procrastinate in my last quarters of grad school, that 2011 was a breeze. It was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. On a New Year's Eve that will honestly probably never be matched for the rest of my life, Val and I swore to a rule of 4. I won’t tell you what those were; they are super secret and only known by the Donald himself.

What I will tell you is that I accomplished infinitely more than the wide-eyed girl with the red lipstick could possibly have imagined.

I finished grad school, I acquired a big girl job, I survived the worst not quite big girl job on record. I fell in love, I ran, I danced, I sipped too much gin. I fell in love with someone who tolerates the fleecy polka dotted pajamas and thinks it’s adorable when I laugh without my mouth moving. I traveled, I figured out being by myself, I moved on.

Things have settled into a glorious calm. I drink more seltzer than gin and tonic. I make asparagus and salmon and enjoy coffee breaks in my office. I realized how fortunate it is to be able to see your best friend from elementary school do stand up, following her dreams or to sleep on the person’s futon whose known you forever or to sleep on a friendly floor after spending hours wandering and exploring and finding new magic in someone else’s city. I realized it’s ok to be homesick, to cry to your mom on the phone, to flee instead of fight every single battle. I realized how thankful I am that Taylor Swift convinced me to keep believing in fairy-tale-breathless-romance. That I figured out how to keep the stars in my eyes.

Maybe I still don’t know what I want to do in ten years, maybe I don’t know how I’m ever going to manage to save enough money to go to Paris, maybe I don’t know when I want to get married or how many children I want to have or in what increments or if I want to get my PhD.

But I do know, after fighting battles and problems and pickpockets and broken hearts, who I am today, what I want for breakfast tomorrow. I know that it’s impossible to show the amount of gratitude I feel for where my path has brought me, but that a thank you note is always the best way to start. I know that anything is easier when you have someone there to hold your hand. I know that I’m never going to stop trying to go everywhere, trying to do everything, and why would I want to? I swear that sometimes when I wake up for my 7 AM meeting, while I’m drinking my intentionally tepid coffee and sunlight is spilling into my dining nook office and I can hear the softly muffled snores of my roommates, I know I’m ready to take over the world, one comma, one casserole, one more lap on the treadmill at a time.

Adieu with many thanks, 2011. 2012, I’m coming for you.

Wish List

It's Falltime.

Which means that birthday time is approaching. And therefore my mom requested my birthday list.

So, here goes.

1.) A Kindle
2.) Orange Coffee Beans from Orange
3.) The Tiffany Twist Bow Ring



4.) The matching bangle
5.) Wine glasses and champagne flutes
6.) A new bowl for my KitchenAid mixer
7.) Decent Headphones
8.) An African Safari
9.) Peach Cobbler Cupcake from Molly's Cupcakes
10.) Books you think I'll like to read.
11.) ITunes Giftcards to buy music for running.
12.) Cooking Classes
13.) A new Canon Point and Shoot
14.) Dinner and drinks at Maude's
15.) An Adventure, doing something I've never done before
16.) Aerosoles Joyride Boots, Black Combo, Size 8
17.) Urban Decay Eyeshadow
18.) Stila Lipstain
19.) Coffee and Conversation Catch Up
20.) Decent headphones
21.) A trip to turn 25 somewhere that isn't where I spend every day
22.) Monogrammed notecards with matching envelopes for corresponding
23.) Pizza from Art of Pizza
24.) Entry into the Hot Chocolate 5K
25.) Kate Spade Burnside Avenue Metallic Evangeline
26.) Kate Spade Swim Team Statement Earrings
27.) Kate Spade Supercalifragilipstick -- Adventurous or Fuschia Fete
28.) Burberry Brit Perfume
29.) Tarte True Blood Cheek Stain
30.) Nars Orgasm Blush
31.) Macy's Giftcard
32.) Shoes, size 7 1/2 or 8
33.) Scarves, Fashion or Winter Wear
34.) Lululemon Giftcard
35.) New Athletic Type Apparel
36.) Manicures and Pedicures are always welcome
37.) Star Wars Pancake molds
38.) Super Hero Cookie Pressers from Williams Sonoma
39.) A cake decorating class
40.) Kitchen Gadgets
41.) Snow Skiing
42.) Tickets to a Broadway Show
43.) Beach Time
44.) Colts Victoria's Secret Pink Apparel
45.) New Sheets and Pillows
46.) Manpower to hang my pictures
47.) New Nail Polish
48.) Colts Tickets
49.) Brunch at Orange

I think that's a pretty good start...

Making Magic

I have been hardcore nerding out at an increasingly rapid pace to a serious of books called The Dresden Files. Think Harry Potter meets Nancy Drew, tangoes with a trashy romance novel and then like gets mentored by Indiana Jones.

It really couldn't be more awesome.

Most importantly, though, there's magic.

If you know anything about me, then you know how I feel about magic. I begged for pixie dust when I went to Disney World, wished in wishing wells, read Harry Potter as though I could find magic through osmosis, wrote fanfiction with fervor to trigger magic from somewhere within. Because magic is awesome. Duh. And I'm always in constant wonderment of pondering its possibilities, ficitious or otherwise.

And magic isn't all glitter and spells and charms by the book. It's really silly, but reading about magic never ceases to make me notice little things that I find really magical. For example:

1.) A two year old's ability to applaud the 37th time through of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as though it were the opening notes of Carmen.

2.) The way cake batter forms itself into the perfect, tiny cupcake when baked at the correct temperature for the correct time.

3.) The way two tiny moving men can get a couch through a hallway barely big enough for people.

4.) The stillness of a Sunday morning, early, even on busy city streets.

5.) The grandness of Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in Gallery 201

6.) The happyexcited feeling when you finally see someone you've been looking forward to seeing.

7.) The promise of always being able to go home.

8.) The breezy moment in the moonlight when you finally say out loud that you are falling in love.

9.) The coin behind the ear trick. I honestly still don't get sleight of hand. It really amazes me.

10.) Sunsets and sunrises. Pinks and purples and oranges and blues and the way the light shimmers on the lake and the beach and reaches up and over to start and end the day.

Anyway, enough with the sappy stuff. I leave you with this.

Faith, trust, pixie dust. Stars and stones. Hell's Bells. Magic is everywhere.

Summer Accomplishments I'm Genuinely Proud Of

1.) I survived grad school. Yeah, I know the MA from DePaul is nice on a resume, but it's just so much more than that. How many times did I try to pack up my toys and go home, turn tail and not finish? How much of a struggle was dragging myself to class when I was some awful, broken shell of a girl? Well, I persevered. And now it's over. And I still managed an A average. Take that, Grad School.

2.) I simplified my life in the form of cutting 7 garbage bags of old, ill-fitted, broken, useless things out. When your room/closet are the size of mine, 7 garbage bags makes a world of difference.

3.) I looked in the corner of the cabinets where I thought there might be something dead just for the sake of clearing out a foul smell in the kitchen. Ew. I'm still freaked out some tiny animal carcass is going to turn up somewhere.

4.) I have learned how to let people help me. Whether it's dinner from the boyfriend, letting someone else pick up those hours, or letting my Dad help me in my job search, I have finally found the balance between being independent and taking on way too much for any one fairly small individual. It's nice to have back up.

5.) I have embraced my nerdiness. Upcoming Star Wars bar crawl, new nerdy book series, playing Mario Kart with the lesbros. Let's face it; ant semblance of cool was always just a facade anyway.

6.) After about a million horrible relationships making the same mistakes that I was making when I was 13, I have finally learned enough about myself to be a functional person in a couple and not just that guy's girlfriend. Grown up relationships are so much better for this, so much less draining, so much more conducive to becoming a better person <3

7.) I successfully traveled across the country and made it home in one piece.

8.) I climbed a mountain (Ok, it was hiking. And it was a small mountain. But it was still awesome)!!! And tap danced on top of it. With Vanessa. The fact that my best friend from when I was 10 is still in my life to scale mountains and then be willing to tap dance at the top of them never ceases to amaze me. Kind of like Vanessa and her passion and beauty, inside and out never cease to amaze me.

9.) Cooking. My cooking has really vastly improved this summer :)

10.) Balance. My life feels like there is so much more balance than there has been in ages. I blame that guy who keeps ruining my melancholy tendencies by making my heart all flippyfloppyfluttery.

The Missing Piece

It seems that I might actually be on to something here. Some kind of lucky break, some kind of winning streak.

(Trust me. I'll take whatever I can get)

And I find that suddenly, very very very suddenly, like a little-kid-dying-to-know-where-mom-hid-the-Christmas-presents, I'm remarkably curious about what it is that's around this next corner...

It's like I have maybe finally acquired almost everything to make life fall into place, found the last few things on the grocery list to check off or something. Whatever little change in the wind it was; I'm so happynervousexcitedawed.

So much gratefulness in this little heart of mine for so so so many things.

Sneaky

Love is sneaky.

After months of trying to figure out new places to go, new ways to meet people, new ways to catch that guy with the dogeared copy of Crime and Punishment's eye. Agonizing over another night in Boystown where you will not be meeting any tall, muscley, book-loving Colts fans with real jobs, another overtime shift, another Friday night of laundry and wine, baking cupcakes for happy coworkers -- simple singleness, slightly settled. Very set in one's ways.

And all of it's fine. There are nights where you twirl down the street in the snow with your best friends, thinking life can't possibly get any better than these starry lit nights where your breath swirls in the breeze with snowflakes and Lady Gaga running circles in your head, walking home on the always alive streets of Chicago. Nights with so much laughter you cry. Nights that are nothing but trouble trouble trouble, stories to tell to entertain adoring fans and captive audiences.

And since life can't get any better, you start to do the same things. Musical Monday, New recipe on Tuesday, Trivia on Wednesday, Class, Homework, Gym, Work, Laundry (lots of laundry). And as quickly as everything became eclipsed by the terrible, happiness creeps in. With no parade, no hoopla, it's there.

And then, on some random night after some lengthy day of procrastinated grad school final writing when plans you had fell through and you end up at the second most likely place you'd ever be found in Boystown on a Monday night, when you least expect it, when you aren't desperately searching for it, when you are just being yourself and drinking the purple pitcher special at Roscoe's, everything changes.

And such a lovely-unexpected-fireworky-sunny-day-in-the-middle-of-a-week-of-thunderstorms-lucky-beautiful-take-your-breath-away-amazing-ninja-out-of-nowhere change, it is. You know, in that, I'd be so annoyed and disgusted if this were anyone else kind of gross way.

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

Thanks Lisa

Dear Lisa,


Thanks for helping me start over and figure out a plan for getting re-railed instead of de-railed.


Love,
me