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Random Photos, Take Two: Branches

Random Photos, Take One: Roots

Now You Know Where My Witty Sense of Humor Comes From

OK, so it's been a few days since I've posted, but between deciding which table is worthy of getting Jason Chambers at the reception and going back and forth with Luke as to whether a wedding party dance is really necessary and explaining to my brother that "Blow Job Betty" is not so much an appropriate song choice, there's been NO. FREAKIN'. TIME. A fabulous entry is planned for tomorrow, an entry I've already started on, but in the meantime I leave you with a joke my mom told me last night and requested I share with all of you. ("You can put jokes on blogs, right?")

A lady goes to the doctor to get her annual mammogram, and when it's through, she comes home all excited. "Honey, honey, honey," she says to her husband, "The doctor checked me out and said everything's fine. I have the boobs of an eighteen-year-old."

And the husband says, "What did he say about your fifty-year-old ass?"

"Well," she replies, "We really didn't talk that much about you."

My mother, ladies and gentlemen.

An Easter First

I didn't go home.

Originally that was the idea, even though Luke and I hadn't figured out how it was going to work, because this was also the first time we've been together for Easter. Before he moved in, our roles in each other's lives during the holidays were constantly being negotiated. The first year we dated, I was a senior in college, and I remember us saying our good-byes as I prepared to leave town for my week-long Thanksgiving break. There he was, holding me, telling me he loved me, and then suddenly wishing me a wonderful gobble gobble with my folks back home. I remember standing with my arms around his shoulders, trying to blink my tears away before he had a chance to see they even existed. I was hurt because I'd assumed we'd be together, even if only for part of the day. Same thing that winter. It was Christmas Eve morning and I was moping at the kitchen table, trudging through the first Harry Potter and not feeling particularly impressed (anyone else agree that one kinda dragged?) when Luke called to talk about his activities for the next couple of days. Only after my shrill "Aren't we going to SEE each other?" was any kind of game plan established. The early days of a relationship are so hard, when you're with someone but have no real claim on his time. You've made a commitment, but it's delicate, one with lots of love but no track record, one that has yet to prove itself worthy of superseding all others.

As we became more serious it became more important to work our relationship in on major calendar boxes, but it was still difficult, as my roots were in Chicago, and his in Merrillville, a good forty-five minutes away. Plus, I worked for a Catholic college that was very generous with its vacation schedule, which included "soft" holidays like the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Good Friday AND Easter Monday (and I left why exactly?). Luke was a reporter and thus had to be at work more times than not, so while he could get away for an afternoon with his parents, anything more than that wasn't doable. I often left family functions early to see him in Indiana and then drive back to enjoy the last few hours of the day with him at his apartment.

Once he moved in with me, everything changed. Holidays were no longer about fitting into a greater familial whole; rather, it was about re-evaluating whether or not our individual traditions were conducive to the new life we were making for ourselves. This year, we were all gung-ho about making the drive up north for Easter, even though Luke was tired from working nights and I was tired from going to bed at twelve-thirty because he was working nights. By Thursday night, we were both ready to drop and decided it might be better to simply stay put. It's a big step for any couple, to say what you have in each other is all that's necessary for a successful holiday. I'm proud we were brave enough to make it.

But the weekend wasn't family-free. My sister Ryan and her boyfriend, Jason, stopped in on their way to Chicago and slept over to avoid the rain and hail that seemed to remain about ten miles ahead of them. They also brought along some special guests.

Meet Bunny, Whose Official Name Is Sox But Is Only Referred To As Such. Ryan fell in love with him as he was hopping around her apartment but tried to tell my mother, who was afraid of catching Rabies or other stray-animal diseases, that she rescued him from Bloomington's National Wildlife Society. On Friday night she explained that she attempted to pass him off to a local animal shelter but was informed Bunny had been away from his mother too long to survive on his own. She's taken that as her free ticket to indulge him in carrots, lettuce, and Cheerios.

Spades, our second non-human houseguest, is Jason's dog and was actually adopted three days before he was scheduled to be euthanized. As you can tell from this picture, he's a frisky fella, and fond of the biting, but neither Jason nor his wrist seemed to mind. I also feared he might be fond of Sox, but Spades was content munching on the pepperoni slices from our late-night pizza.

Saturday and today passed by in a sort of peaceful blur. There was breakfast at my favorite pancake house, a trip to the zoo, two mediocre movies (the latter redeemed only slightly by the two glasses of wine), a walk on our favorite Indy trail, and an Easter service at a nearby Episcopal church, which laid the foundation for another first: receiving communion outside the perameters of Catholicism. Standing in line waiting to partake, I felt like a virgin all over again, only it wasn't my sexual innocence I was losing. It was something less tangible, less able to be defined as right or wrong. I knew Protestants invited all baptized Christians to take the Eucharist and Catholicism restricted it to those baptized within its church. But what about "away games"? Were Catholics allowed to participate with other churches? And did these rules even apply to me, a heathen who dared to think salvation could exist for a Catholic in the walls of an Anglican church? Was my soul clean enough to receive the host at all?

The closer we got to the altar, the harder it was to keep my legs from shaking. But I couldn't turn back. I can't explain it any better except to say this was the only way to validate my recent choices and revelations regarding spirituality. How could I say all denominations were equal in the eyes of God but refuse an invitation to his table because I was afraid of being chastized by a religion I didn't fully embrace?

I'm glad I did it. I cried from the minute I left the altar to the moment my knees bent to pray, but I'm still glad. It freed me in a way my Idiots' Guide to Christianity never could. For the first time, I was taking my relationship with God into my own hands.

I may not have gone home, but in that moment, home came to me.

Shower The People You Love With Teenage Literary Drama Actually Geared Towards Pre-Pubescent Girls

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for: the reveal of those individuals who fought long and hard for their chance to receive a small piece of Heaven that is Sweet Valley High. Number Twelve, Isabel, Lauren R., and Fraulein N., pull out your bangle bracelets, roll up the cuffs of your jeans, and prepare to be amused by the delightful antics of Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield as they learn about life and love with their crazy gang of bookworms, playboys, cheerleaders, and jocks.

Choosing a winner was really hard, not only because every woman is worthy of the wisdom SVH can bring, but also because only four people expressed any interest in receiving one, and how could I deem one gal's reason as more valid than another? I mean, would you be able to choose between a first-time mother about to go into labor versus a stressed out bride-to-be versus a working mom looking to make peace with the gaping hole in her teenage existence versus a woman who wants to reconnect with the series that introduced her to Linda Ronstadt? Cuz I sure couldn't. Also, I'm a little bit in love with all of you for leaving such great comments when you visit, so the idea of strengthening the Internet bond I feel we now share by declaring everyone a winner is really the best way to go. So, if I don't have your address already, be sure to send it to my gmail so we can get on with the sharing as soon as possible.

In other news, in case you couldn't tell by these blogs, Luke and I were given a totally awesome wedding shower by my sister and my parents. There was spiked punch, Frema's landslide winning of The Toilet Paper Game, and the congregation of blog readers and writers alike.

 

Lost A Sock, Number Twelve, and me.

Auntie Betty, Ryan, and Brooke. Unlike her digital-photo companions, Ryan is not a faithful reader of this blog, but I didn't remember to get a picture of Betty and Brooke together, so there you go.

Our towel cake. I have never heard of such things being used outside of weddings in my family, but apparently to someone they are a traditional element of bridal showers, and my mother has taken it upon herself to carry this tradition on with us. Yes, my momma made that, with her own two, carpel tunnel-ridden hands, no less. Talk about having a kick-@$$ heirloom to pass on to your kids.

Edited to add: OMG, I can't believe I forgot to showcase the coolest readers of all. Our families! Here we are with Luke's parents, Daddy D. and MJD. Don't be surprised if both sides ostracize me for making such a fatal error in judgement.

Samantha and me. She's been the best matron of honor a girl could ever ask for.

Sunday was the day we met with our pastor for the first of two premarital counseling sessions, which took place in Joe's Crab Shack after the late-morning service. A man of many opinions but few words, Pastor Tim's message to us was simple: remember what brought the two of you to this point and never lose sight of it, no matter what. Be aware of what your partner loves most about you and work hard to nurture that part of yourself. And finally, "Take a good, long look at the person sitting next to you, because that's all you need to make your marriage successful. Each of you will serve as an anchor for the other."

It was a new experience, sitting in front of a person who didn't know the details of our relationship and yet listening to the best advice on marriage I'd ever heard. And explaining to him what it is about Luke that I love so much moved me in a way I didn't expect. It was as if I was looking at him in a new light. Luke is prepared to love me for the rest of my life. He'll be by my side through new jobs and the birth of our babies and the loss of my parents and the purchase of our first home (though hopefully not in that order). We'll celebrate second honeymoons and golden anniversaries and the beauty of compounding interest with our 401(k)s. And one day, after we've retired and our children are grown, we'll be like those sweet little couples I see walking hand-in-hand down the street, shuffling along at a snail's pace, barely talking, happy enough just to be in the presence of the other. Thinking about it chokes me up inside, because I know how lucky I am to have crossed paths with a man of Luke's caliber; I know some people go through their whole existence never being part of such a happy accident, never knowing what it feels like to be loved so intimately and so completely by another human being. That feeling is the best reason I have to bow my head and give thanks to God.

On that note, I leave you with the most unique gifts we received on Saturday, courtesy of our beloved Number Twelve:

Brenda's Ability To Do Good Hair: Denied!

By now, everyone who reads this site knows I heart Brenda, my Chicago hairdresser, because apparently stylists in Naptown can only shape and color celebrity styles for the likes of Eighties Madonna and Severus Snape. One of the first things I did when Luke and I got engaged was to make salon appointments for my bridesmaids, flower girl, and me, so there was no chance in hell that Brenda wouldn't NOT do my hair. I was on it like flies on that stick-paper thing my parents leave in the basement because, well, they don't like flies.

Guess what? Brenda's not doing my hair.

It's tragic, actually. On Friday the 13th, she broke two bones in her right hand, her magic hand, the hand that gives me bouncy layers and the side bangs I love so much. She's at work but limited to answering phones and sweeping up hair for the next four to six weeks. It's like having Mariah Carey pre-Charm Bracelet wipe spittle from Hilary Duff's microphone at the Grammys.

I called the salon yesterday and transferred my upcoming Saturday morning appointment to Kasia, a stylist with a great reputation for updos, and the other person scheduled to help Brenda with my wedding party, and there's still at least a slight chance she'll be in tip-top shape come May 12th, so all should be well. But I'd like to take this opportunity to brag about Gina, one of my very awesome bridesmaids, because she is the only reason I discovered this potentially life-changing information. Seeing as I discovered Enve through her seven years ago, she became aware of the situation at her own cut-and-color and immediately contacted me so alternate arrangements could be made. It's in instances like these that a wife-to-be truly needs her bridesmaids. Don't fuss over silly things like bachelorette parties or finding something blue. Just let me know if my hairdresser ends up in the ER.

This weekend will be a busy one, as tomorrow Samantha and my family are throwing Luke and me what is sure to be a beautiful wedding shower, and Sunday we have our first pre-marital counseling session with the pastor who will marry us. One of the subjects will be religion, which I really am feeling much better about these days, as Luke and I continue to talk openly about what kind of church life we want with and for our children. I also broached the subject with my mom last night, something I was pretty nervous about because I never want my parents to think that I'm unhappy with the way they brought me up. I didn't want them to become defensive of their choices, especially since they made some really great choices, and to be totally honest, I was also afraid they'd think I was ruining my chance at Eternal Salvation by even considering converting to a Protestant denomination. For better or worse, whether I get it or not, I will always seek their approval.

The conversation I had with my mother proved (once again) how little credit I give my parents sometimes. She reminded me about the similar faith journey she took around my age that brought her to Catholicism, years after she and my father got married. She said Luke and I are going to do the best thing for our family, and as long as we believe in God, everything will be fine. Well, that and infant baptism, which we do, so it's all good. For the first time in months, I'm at peace.

Note: the SVH contest will run through the weekend, because I'm leaving for Chicago today and don't want to make such a difficult decision in such a short time frame. So if you want a book, it's not too late to beg for one. And I promise not to give Luke any special consideration. Really. It's anybody's game.

Frema's Life in Pictures: Part One of ?

Luke normally sends me a link to his blog whenever he's added a new post, and upon seeing the title for this entry, my first thought was that he stole my idea to shamelessly display our family photographs online. But he didn't, so then I felt dumb, and also remembered that I didn't invent posting photographs on the Internet.

Anyway, without further adieu, I bring you Frema: The Early Years.

I was born on January 9, 1980. My mother was barely nineteen when she gave birth to me. At that age I was chasing shots of ten-dollar vodka with Hershey's syrup and being seduced with adult films like Hindfeld by small-town boys eager to show me their glow-in-the-dark pictures. What do you mean, there's no glow-in-the-dark picture? If there's no observing of the glow-in-the-dark picture, what on Earth do you want us to do?

Oh.

This is my first school picture, which puts me in kindergarten, possibly the only grade where children can pull off wearing cherries on their dress collar without bearing some sort of "dork" label. On my first day, my mother said I was inconsolable because we showed up for the morning session and my group was slated for the afternoon.

Notice how sleek and straight and shiny my hair is here? How the light hits the brown and gives it the illusion of exotic jet-blackness? Soak it up, my pretties. Soak it up.

The first thing you'll notice is the hair, because most of it's gone. This is partly due to lice and partly due to my scissor-happy grandma. The elementary school I attended had a terrible lice problem; at one point, my parents were receiving notices from administration every other day about how "a recent case" had been reported and what lice was and how to look for it and what to do when you found it. In the beginning, my mother was very diligent and spent hours checking every strand on our heads for signs of them before subjecting us and the house to a thorough purification with products like this and scalding hot water. However, it didn't take long before the mere sight of a typed letter was enough to send her stuffing our Wuzzles into garbage bags (where the bugs would die a slow and painful death via suffocation) and lathering our scalps with twelve-dollar shampoo that BURNED. My hair was the worst because my shade of brown was almost identical to the color of their shells, and it was very thick, so thick it took an entire bottle to de-lice me. My mom finally decided enough was enough and sent me to my dad's mother for a hair cut. Cut it she did. And I wept.

(You know, the only book I remember even mentioning lice was Starring Sally J. Freeman as Herself. Judy Blume deserves mad props, because if anybody in my class or Samantha's class had it, they never let on, and we were so embarassed, but someone had to have it or else why'd we keep getting those damn letters? It's not too late, people. Break the silence!)

The second thing long-time readers might notice is the necklace, because I hate necklaces so much I can barely tolerate seeing them on other people, let alone myself, but my mother thought my outfit needed "a little bit of color." We fought for fifteen minutes, and she won, and I wept yet again. The humanity! The pained smile! Just further proof of my defeat.

The day before Easter, 1989, coloring eggs and decorating my cousin Kenny's forehead with awesome star stickers. The Necklace Torture had escalated to unthinkable heights, as I was forced to wear a gold cross my great-grandmother had chosen especially for me in honor of my First Communion. The woman was seventy-five and only knew about twenty words of English, so she couldn't be expected to remember that the very thought of precious metal sent shivers of horror down my spine. However, Parental Management decided my wearing it was the polite thing to do, so I wore the necklace.

I hated wearing that necklace. The chain always tangled in the shower and pulled out chunks of the little hair I had left when I slept. There were no tears when the clasp broke three months later.

I think this picture was taken on the day my parents closed on the purchase of this apartment building; we lived on the second floor and my mom's mom and my auntie Donna took the first. Now, though, my gram has since passed away and my auntie Donna started her own family so now the remaining members have found ways to monopolize the entire space. There are pool rooms and ping-pong table rooms and personal offices and separate bedrooms for each kid. MTV should feature it on an episode of Cribs.

My dad's the one with baby Geo. My mom's lovin' her Reebok high-tops, I'm sporting Simpleton glasses and a questionable hot pink/beige color scheme, and Samantha's rocking the casbah in her neon green shorts and purple headbead. All while Ryan tackles daring experiments in skirt length and Auntie Donna guards my pre-pubescent, negative size-A breasts from the exploitive nature of the camera. All of us trendsetters WAY before our time.

Same day. I'm only including this so you can fully appreciate the Simpletonness of my spectacles. Vision problems didn't show up until third grade, so this was my first pair of glasses. My dad thought I was mature enough to pick my own frames. And really, after seeing the results, don't you agree?

It gets worse:

For some reason my eleven-year-old mind must have equated frame size with frame coolness; there's no other explanation as to why I would intentionally seek out lenses that swallowed both my cheekbones. My mother held back the urge to ask "WTF?" when she saw my latest fashion accessory but did request that I remove them for Picture Day. Whoops. Not helping matters is the red bow clip that seems to be hanging on only by grace of the Lord Himself.

This black-and-white dress (complete with trendy plastic belt!) is the same one I wore to my auntie Diane's wedding earlier that September, on a day that started out with me deciding there was no harm in yanking off the lid of a can of Purina when the can opener failed to make a clean cut. Turns out there was harm. And lots of blood. A five-hour trip to the emergency room and stitches for my left index finger and thumb. And yet I still made it to the wedding, because the last reception I went to had these really cool drinks called Kiddie Cocktails, and no way was I missing my chance to have some more of that, because even though it tasted just like 7 Up it came with a decorative cherry and little red mixing straw, and holy crap did I feel Adult ordering my drink from the bar like everyone else.

No Early Years photo essay would be complete without at least one picture of Donna Lyn, the youngest of us five, born to my mother at the age of thirty-two. This was about a week after her first and last C-section, and she let me skip school on the account of officially Becoming a Woman that very morning, and the cramps, woman, my God, the CRAMPS! Actually, it was less about the cramping and more about the attention I wanted to shower on my latest sister, and my mom didn't mind the extra help because in her midst was a brand-spankin' newborn and a four-year-old boy waiting patiently for his invitation to join the world's Most Fearsome Fighting Team. It's likely that the root of my Baby Fever is traceable to this very moment. See how natural Donna looks in my arms? Why I didn't become a teenage mother I'll never know.

I'm only one year older than I was in the last picture, but already my hair has taken a turn for the worse: thick, frizzy bangs and a layer that crowned around the top of my earlobes, a layer I thought I could cleverly disguise by pushing it back with a headband. But I also thought pink glasses were cool, so is anyone surprised my middle-school nickname was Shredder?

I didn't think so.

Resolution With China

The plate you see above has served as the answer to my china-resistant prayers. Turns out that Luke's grandma had earmarked her darling twelve-piece collection to him months ago, before the two of us were even engaged. I called my aunt tonight to give her the wonderful news, and she said that's wonderful, and isn't it nice that we're inheriting a wonderful family heirloom, and she would buy us something else equally wonderful. Everybody wins.

In a perfect world, after the wedding, Luke and I could store this china ourselves. Having room for delicate serving ware would mean that we've moved into our first house, a house boasting of spacious closets and a basement for storage and a backyard. It'd mean we worked extremely hard to save for a twenty-percent down payment and a few nice things to make the place ours. We'd have the proper accommodations for a dog. We'd have room for a baby.

But right now, we live in a one-bedroom apartment. Our only storage facility is adjacent to our balcony and already filled to the brim with tupperware containers stuffed with holiday decorations, photo albums, movies we don't have the appropriate shelving to display, and our modest little barbeque grill. My home office is the space behind the TV, and our kitchen table is about five feet to the right of that. And it's going to stay this way until June 30th, at which time my lease on this place ends and we'll have made a decision on where to live next. It might be a neighborhood in which we contemplate buying property; it might be a trendy hot spot that will help us celebrate our last child-free hurrah.

The only thing we know for sure is it won't be a house. As it is, we're stretching ourselves to afford this wedding, and now I can't believe I spent the last few weeks telling everyone and their mother that our goal was to move right into a house, when really it was my goal, because dammit, I want a sense of permanency and a real home office and a place for this beautiful china and my God, I want room for a baby.

It's when stuck in such self-manifested crises that I most appreciate my husband-to-be, because Luke has calmly brought me back to Earth with the realization that life will not end if we spend another year in an apartment. After taking a minute to absorb that life-altering pearl, I decided it'd be kinda nice to spend the next twelve months just settling in and enjoying our new marital status. I want to get a new pair of shoes from Baker's without feeling guilty that I'm spending our mortgage money. I want to see a movie at the show more than once a season, and I want grab the good contact lens solution at Target. Besides, if we can hoard several thousand dollars in five months for a wedding, imagine if we took double that to save for the house that will symbolize our first step towards making a family.

In other words, I'm chilling the eff out. My brain feels much more awake. And that? Feels refreshingly nice.

To Plate Or Not to Plate

While trying to fudge with the margins of a balance sheet I'd just pasted into PowerPoint at work, I received a phone call from my aunt, my father's sister, who also happens to be my godmother. It had been a few months since we last talked, so she asked about my job, offered congratulations on Luke's and my engagement, and wished me a happy birthday. We were on the phone no longer than five minutes before she got down to business.

"I want to buy your china," she said.

"Oh?"

"I'm looking at the catalog for Carson's, and they've got like seven patterns on sale for fifty percent off. I wanted to get you white, you know, so that they could go with everything, and they have different trim colors. Do you want blue, silver, or gold?"

"Oh!"

"If you don't get it now, you're never going to get it, you know? I figured that since you're a professional, you'll need it, you know, to entertain."

"Yeah.... Thanks, Auntie. I really appreciate you wanting to do this for us."

"So which one do you want?"

"Can I talk to Luke first?"

"Sure, sure. I wanted to get you something special, honey, since I'm your godmother. I want to do this for you."

"I know, and I appreciate it. But.... Auntie? I don't have people from work over for dinner. And we kind of weren't even thinking of china right now. We were just going to look some regular dishes--ones we could use every day."

"Well, I'm not sure how long this sale is going on...." (Flip, flip says the pages of a Carson Pierre Scott catalog, because my aunt believes that Carson's is the Greatest Store on Earth.)

"It's really nice of you to want to do this for us. But I don't even know where we'd put stuff like that right now. We don't even know where we're going to live afterwards."

"I have a girlfriend who got into a house with almost zero down. You could do that, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, but...."

And so on and so on.

I have no doubt that her intentions were sincere. Throughout the years, she's made a conscious effort to remember my birthday, buy me gifts at Christmastime, and generally establish a relationship that better mirrors one that's shared between girlfriends. And I'm grateful for that.

But that's not the point. The point is this whole china thing. I don't want china. Luke doesn't want china. Luke and I don't want china! We eat soup out of bowls from the Dollar Store that have been disfigured by the microwave and spaghetti off of plates that bear rust stains on the rim. We're simple folk, really, and have no need for plates that cost more than ten bucks apiece and/or could inspire the makings of a family feud years after our death.

"I want Momma Frema's white gold china with the blue trim she and Daddy got from Carson's!"

See? No good for anybody.

But I couldn't make my aunt see that. It makes me wonder if the gift is about me having the china or my aunt being able to say that she bought me the china. I couldn't have been any nicer about not wanting the china, any more appreciative about appreciating the sentiment but not appreciating the china. Yet still, it's all about the china.

China, china, china! And while we're at it, Appreciate!

I suppose this was to be expected. When my sister got married last summer, HER godmother was also insistent about purchasing fancy plates and went so far as to tell her to register for a nice pattern at Marshall Field's. Samantha didn't need the china, either, but she didn't want to appear ungrateful, so she went downtown at the height of the Wedding Crazy and picked something out. A few days later, the godmother, the person who asked Samantha to register for the dishes in the first place, called her back and suggested that maybe she would consider a lesser pattern at Sears?

Samantha said a paper shredder would do just fine, thank you very much.

Her godmother bought the china. One setting, to be exact, as in one cup, one plate, one bowl. Samantha returned them all and got her very first Coach purse. This is quite distressing, as I am the oldest sister and I don't even have a Coach purse.

Maybe I should reconsider my aunt's offer after all.

The Best of 2005, The Worst of 2005

When I was a teenager, every December 31st I compiled a list of highlights from the last twelve months. The list featured top songs, favorite reads, and significant milestones I'd experienced relating to school, love, friendships, and personal goals. This year's tally won't include Ace of Base, Ann M. Martin, or my first French, but no one said life was fair.

School
I graduated college for the second (and possibly last) time of my life. This is still weird for me, as the Intellectual part of myself still has longings for textbooks, classrooms, and blue-book final exams. But I'm the first family member to hold a master's degree, and I can suffix "MA" after my last name. Some people with fewer diplomas listed on their resume wrongly believe this makes me smarter. It doesn't. I'm just more in debt than they are.

I also have mixed feelings about pursuing my writing degree immediately after wrapping up undergrad. When I first began talks with my current boss about taking a job with the lab, he stressed that his interest in me had less to do with my credentials and more about the job experience I'd gained in my position at Saint Joe. Knowing this three and a half years ago would have saved me forty thousand dollars in loans, a couple of hundred bucks in ink cartridges, and precious VHS tape that can never be recovered. I'd have an extra five hundred smackers each month for paying off my car. Financing my wedding. Purchasing my first house. There are hard compromises to make when taking on such a huge financial commitment.

But I also have a sense of accomplishment for managing my time so efficiently (or at least enough to get by). I have something tangible that helps me to hold my own in the presence of older peers who think they can treat me like a little girl on her first day of kindergarten. And did I mention I can add a suffix after my last name? Total coolness.

Love
I moved away from my boyfriend. I moved in with my boyfriend. I became engaged to my boyfriend. Wee for me!

I also learned it's not the end of the world to make decisions loved ones don't agree with. Living In Sin was not on my original list of things to do this year, nor was it an unfulfilled dream held by Mom and Dad on my behalf, but it turned out to be the best decision Luke and I could have made. That doesn't mean I think every couple and/or Mary Beth in Cincinnati and/or even you should do it. But I do think it's OK that it worked out for me.

Friendships
A tricky subject, as the majority of my relationships are maintained long-distance, and I haven't had an "everyday" gal pal for a long time. I miss that. There are certain things you can only do with a girlfriend. Eat ice cream in your sweatpants while watching Father of the Bride. Crochet blankets you'll never finish. Have your dinner covered by the restaurant's bus boys. You know, real bonding moments that weave together your very souls. In that respect, I truly feel a loss.

However, I've had wonderful, wonderful conversations courtesy of SBC, and I've been introduced to a number of fabulous individuals through the Internet. I've laughed and cried for women I may never meet in person, and I've seen new layers of those I've known for years. Amen for the world of personal publishing!

Personal Goals
On the surface, I've done great things. There was the landing a new job with great pay and even greater potential. Publishing an article about pee in a national magazine. Affording Prada (read: Pra.da.!) glasses, for cripe's sake. And yet, I'm still not passionate about what I do. It's the same problem I had at Saint Joe. I loved elements of my job, but I didn't love my job. I envy people like Samantha and Number Twelve, who make their living in fields perfectly suited for them. I sure as hell don't love sitting through weekly production meetings, filling out requisition forms, and hauling my @$$ out the door at ten to eight every morning. I'm also not crazy about being in a work environment for six months without making one real friend. Surely a change is in order. I just don't know what that change should be.

But I'll figure out. After all, I did survive scary car accidents, several bouts of Baby Fever, and countless incidents of sporting food on my person. That has to count for something.

Anyway, may your 2006 be filled with wine, spinach dip, a great support system, and endless good cheer. And possibly even suffixes.

Recovering

Four Christmases. Three nights spent away from home. Two very excited families. One very tired couple.

The festivities began on Friday night, when Luke and I traveled to Chicago to have Christmas with my mother's side of the family and participate in our new tradition of The Ornament Exchange--cheaper than buying actual gifts but just as much fun. We spent the night by Dan and Samantha's and left for Merrillville the next day, where Luke's parents were waiting for us. It was relatively low-key; a little church-going here, a little gift-giving there, and my much-anticipated viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. The next morning, it was time to pack up and head back to Chicago to see my family. Monday we came back home to see Luke's brother's family. By the end of the night, we were both ready to drop.

Which is why I can't believe that yesterday I actually fulfilled my last shift for the museum's Lord of the Rings exhibit. Most of the night was spent pacing the floor by the green-screen interactive station, although I did get to fold tee-shirts with a man who appeared to be the offspring of Peter Jackson and Kevin Smith, if ever such a thing were possible, and was very proud of his open marriage with his wife.

I had a wonderful holiday, but now I'm ready to move on. This weekend we'll be traveling north again for my mother's birthday and also to get some more details finalized for the wedding. We have appointments with photographers, a bakery, and a tuxedo place, and there might be visits with two DJ services. I'm not freaking out yet, but suddenly everything seems very overwhelming. Luke and I are seriously considering coming back to Indy on New Year's Eve and bringing in 2006 together, just the two of us, in an apartment that desparately needs a dust and vaccuum.

Not that I've regretted our frequent trips home. I love seeing our families and knowing that we're not letting our relationships slide simply because we're a few hundred miles away. And I hate when people complain about their social plans, because if you don't want to go, DON'T FREAKIN' GO. The universe will not explode into a billion pieces if you don't attend that birthday party, and though you might like to think so, the day won't be veiled in a blanket of sadness because of your absence. In our case, people would certainly understand if we didn't make every major event on the calendar; they'd miss us, but they'd get over it. Actually, when I lived in Rensselaer, I attended fewer functions than I do now. There's something about living farther away that instills in you a greater love for those you don't see all the time.

Meanwhile, I have to go to the bank this morning, because I've been charged ISF fees on four separate occasions in the last six months. I've never been one to balance my checkbook against my bank statement, but I've always been very good at recording my receipts, and I went for three years without any problems, so now I'm all like, "WTF? I accounted for that check two weeks ago!" At this point, my plan is to open up a brand-new account and start fresh. I wanted to avoid this since my name will be changing relatively soon, thereby wasting about a half-box's worth of checks, but we can't afford these thirty-three-dollar dings any longer.

I'm going to miss my last name.

My writing sounds just as tired as I am.

Quiz Show

Today is significant because:

a) It's pay day.

b) The January issue of Glamour arrived in the mail.

c) I participated in an all-you-can-eat spinach dip contest.

d) It's exactly five months to the day Luke and I say "I do"

And the answer is... D, for Dammit, It's About Freaking Time!

On the night I returned home from my trip to Minnesota, the Red Sea parted and the angels in Heaven sang a chorus of "Hallelujah" as Luke got on bended knee and asked me to be his wife. With me in sweat pants and a blubbery mess of tears. Then it was Ramen noodle soup and off to bed, because it was eleven o'clock and we were both tired and apparently we now resemble senior citizens who get pooped after a round of Bingo and an episode of Wheel of Fortune.

I have to say, thus far, our journey to the altar has been anything but traditional. The shenanigans began in mid-November, when we started talking about having a May wedding, and wouldn't it be nice to have a May wedding?

Then came the day after Thanksgiving, when the two of us not only picked out my engagement ring, but Luke had "The Talk" with my dad.

Saturday, December 3: Luke picks up the ring, which I refuse to lay eyes on again until it's slipped on my finger. I worry all the good May dates will be taken. We nail the hall for Friday, May 12, 2006, in Merrillville.

Sunday, December 4: Secure the pastor. (Yes, pastor. However, the race isn't over until the Fat Lady baptizes someone. The Catholics still have a chance!)

Monday, December 5: Book a gazebo for the ceremony.

Wednesday, December 7: Officially become engaged (read: I'm finally wearing the ring that keeps me from looking like a fool for making plans without having the goods to back them up).

This weekend was The Telling Of The Families, which means it's now OK to share our happiness with the entire Internet, which I have been dying to do since Black Friday. So now you know why my entries have been somewhat sporadic. Suppressing the information that has just about taken over my entire being was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It was worth it, though, to see everyone's faces when we sprung the news. The scene at my parents' house was like one comprehensive episode of The Brady Bunch, with Marcia and Greg building the house of cards in one corner, Bobby weeping over the disappearance of Tiger in another, and Jan yakking it up with George Glass. I finally shouted, "Everyonebequietwehavesomethingtotellyou!" Then I held up my left hand and cried, "We're engaged!"

Imagine much hugging and crying and the perusing of many, many bridal magazines.

This moment in our lives has been four and a half years in the making, originally conceived one April night when I was brave enough to bounce a check.

We're so happy.

Note: I am fully aware that the publishing date of this entry says Monday, December 12, but that the actual publishing date is Tuesday, December 13. However, if I were to officially acknowledge this by changing the date, my whole quiz gimmick would go to pot and I would have to kill Luke for being too tired to blog and thus foiling our plan to update our blogs within minutes of each other so neither could accuse the other of stealing the wedding thunder. See how well that worked out?

Checklist for the Ghetto Fabulous

An e-mail forwawrd courtesy of Donna Lyn, my twelve-year-old sister, the only sibling who can say things like "holla atcha gurl" without appearing whiter than a slice of Wonder Bread.

You Know You're Ghetto...

1. If you've ever used an album cover for a dustpan.
2. If you've ever run a race barefoot in the middle of the street.
3. If you had a candy lady in your neighborhood.
4. If you ever had to pick your own switch or belt.
5. If you have ever had to walk to school or walked home from school.
6. If you have ever used dishwashing liquid for bubble bath.
7. If you ever mixed Kool-Aid one glass at a time because you got tired of other people drinking up the Kool-Aid you just made.
8. If you have ever played any of the following games: Hide and Seek, Freeze, Tag, Momma May I? or Red Light Green Light.
9. If your neighborhood had an ice-cream man.
10. If you refer to "Now and Later" candies as "Nighladers."
11. If you've ever run from the police on foot.
12. If you've ever had reusable bacon grease in a container on your stove.
13. If the batteries in your remote control ever been held in by a piece of tape.
14. If you have ever worn any of the following: Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Stetson, Charlie, or Faberge.
15. If you've ever used Tussy.
16. If you've never been to the dentist.
17. If you have a friend or family member whose nickname is one word said twice: dee-dee, man-man, kay-kay, lee- lee, ree-ree, ray-ray, nay-nay, etc.
18. If you have ever paged yourself for any reason.
19. If you've ever worn house shoes outside of the house.
20. If you add "ED" or "T" to the end of words already in the past tense (for example,Tooked, Light-Skinneded, kilt, ruint, etc)
21. If you use 'n'em to describe a certain group of people (for example Craig'n'em or Momma 'n'em)
22. If you've ever driven on a donut more than two weeks after your flat.
23. If your child drops his/her pacifier and you sanitize it by sucking it.
24. If you have ever slept in a chair to avoid messing up your hair.
25. If you've ever left a social gathering with a plate.
26. If you can't hold a glass because of the length of your nails.
27. If the gold teeth in your mouth spell words.
28. If you don't have your own place but your child had a leather coat and a pair of Jordan's.
29. If you constantly hit *69 and ask, "Did you just call here?"
30. If you think Tupac is still alive.

What I find most disturbing about this forward is the fact that participating in childhood pastimes like Hide and Seek is just as ghetto as having a lack of pride in your dental hygiene. Other thoughts: Do pre-teens even know what albums are? Who says "Nighladers?" And since when did the simple act of walking become synonymous with pimphood?

I feel old.

Entry With Everything On It

During the four days in which there was no blogging at all, some interesting things have happened, things that in and of themselves could have made for well-versed and comedically peppered posts, things that I will instead talk about in lazy, fragmented sentences categorized by day:

Thursday
Worked my second of six volunteer shifts for the Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Indiana State Museum. Folded tee-shirts in the exhibit gift shop and received guidance from two high schoolers who will probably never score a date and resort to becoming pizza delivery boys and quoting dialogue from The Family Guy on their days off. Saw Dakota Fanning, as the museum hosted a special showing of her new movie at the IMAX theater. Briefly wished that Luke and I had rented Hide and Seek instead of Birth last weekend.

Friday
Spent seven hours talking with Number Twelve about whether the cover for my lab's testing directory should be run through a four-color process with a spot color to nail our logo's specific Pantone shade of blue or just go with the four-color process and an educated guess as to which CMYK combination will produce 287C. Briefly wished I was a pizza delivery boy and had no need to discuss the intricacies of offset printing.

Saturday
Wanted to get to first base with my hair dresser after my well-worth-the-wait-and-one-hundred-and-forty-dollars-plus-tip cut and color in Chi-town. Did not have the heart to tell her I planned on scouring Indianapolis for salons, so instead I made another appointment, this time for an updo for a Chicago wedding this Friday. Pretended my baby sister wasn't wearing a shirt that read "You Don't Know My Name But Your Boyfriend Does." Briefly wished I lived in Chicago.

Sunday
Left Chicago after a fabulous two days of hanging out with my family. Saw my mom crying after I went back upstairs to grab my keys. Hugged her for two full minutes. Cried. Wished I lived in Chicago so that I could see my wonderful parents and siblings every day, and also have a better chance of securing the seventeen-year-old copy of Ninja Gaiden for Nintendo that was promised to me MONTHS ago.

Somewhere in there I managed to pick up Harry Potter again, and now I am fewer than 100 pages and four chapters away from being finished. Am deathly afraid that I will finish the book on my lunch hour at work and sob like a little girl. It makes my heart hurt.

My head hurts, too. Time for bed.

Temperature Spike

Like a volcano, it lay dormant for months, patiently waiting to attack the vessel that is Frema. But the Baby Fever, it can no longer be contained.

I was doing so well, too. Since I moved to Indianapolis in May, I've paid regular visits to Matt, Patty, and their newest addition, thus curbing my desire to be a full-time mom. However, in the last week, there's been the birth of Noah, three baby-sitting shifts with Anna, and this shocking revelation. For cripe's sake, I thought the man was infertile. How much more is a girl who's already named her children supposed to take?

I know it's coming. Luke and I are doing great, and though we're not officially engaged yet, there's already been discussion about having our wedding next summer. And still, I'm ten steps ahead of myself. How long will Luke and I wait before we start trying? What if we have trouble? How would I feel about never being pregnant? What if I CAN get pregnant but need a C-section? If I decide not to breastfeed, would my love for my baby appear less than unconditional? How many children can we afford on one income? How would I feel placing my kids in day care?

Makes your head hurt, doesn't it?

This last picture was taken yesterday night and is the epitome of what I believe motherhood to be. Yes, I know it's not all sunshine and roses; I grew up the oldest of five children and experienced plenty of number-two diapers, spit-up clumping in my hair, and incidents that tempted me to scotchtape my siblings' lips together, therefore denying them of their right to cry. But, on the good days, I also experienced plenty of this. How lucky I was.

I know that in good time, babies will come, and I need to be patient. But until that day, I fully reserve the right to cry at the sight of them.

[Edited 12/9/06 to add: Some photos removed.]

A Wedding Wedgie

I can't believe I forgot to write about this the other day--it consumed my entire being for three-fourths of the ceremony. As it's not considered classy to pick underwear out of your tush when you're standing in front of 120 people in God's house, I kept my hands to myself, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Which made it even more painful to hear Father Off-the-Subject ramble about Notre Dame and his upcoming fiftieth anniversary with the priesthood and his praise of Samantha's Italian heritage. Please note that the only Italian in Samantha's background is the occasional spaghetti dinner and her devout love for pizza. The cause for celebration is questionable.

Anyway, I've got a better handle on my emotions and am slowly making peace with the fact that not everyone will jump for joy at the moving-in-together news. And that's OK. Luke and I were not asking for permission, or approval, or even for advice when we spilled the beans. Those who think this is a mistake are certainly entitled to their opinion. However, we reserve the right to feel excited and happy, so for those of you who are actually on board, much love.

To prepare for Moving Day, which has yet to be determined, we are each taking inventory of our respective things and mulling over what can stay and what must go. I am also preparing to lament over the loss of my fabulous closet space. Right now the left side is reserved for casual clothes and the right for work clothes, with both divided by season. The shelving unit holds almost all of my gazillion shoes, and my purses are nestled comfortably on top. I think I can live with everything else, but this will take the most getting used to.

I also asked whether or not we would keep any CD duplicates, but Luke assures me there are more important matters to dwell on. Besides, who COULDN'T use two copies of Liz Phair's Whitechocolatespaceegg?

A Wedding Story

Well, she did it! On August 19, my little sister, the girl who sucked her thumb until the age of nine, became a wife.

She was amazing. No apprehension, no worries, just full of eagerness to get to the church and start her life with Dan. I held it together pretty well until she and my father made their way down the aisle. Mad props to Maybelline's Full 'n Soft waterproof mascara in Very Black.

Here I am, showing off a sleek blow-out, an air-tan, and the red lipstick that only comes out when I'm feeling particularly adult. Also, scandulous cleavage. It could not be contained.

There were a few surprises with the tan, the biggest one being that an "air technician" applied it to me personally instead of an automatic sprayer. Which basically means that I got to first base with a Keira Knightly look-alike who saw me and my flabby flab in all its naked glory. I was also given disposable underwear to don, but for all the coverage it provided, I could have just put on a maxi-pad and connected it with a string around my waist. I put the smackdown on that and refused to take off my briefs. I do have some pride. And for all that trouble, it had all but faded from my face by Thursday night. Bronzer to the rescue, with mixed success.

Here are The Cleavage and I, keeping Samantha's wedding dress from hitting the pavement. Apparently this very act is the sole reason for having a maid of honor. Even the priest (who took a brief hiatus from his homily to talk about Notre Dame's football team) was telling me to pick up her train. Very, very important.

The reception was a lot of fun. The only glitch was that the air conditioning konked out from a brown-out the night before, turning the hall into a giant sweat box. My sister was so hot in her dress I thought she was going to faint, so she ended up ditching her slip after pictures, a slip I had to cut her out of with a steak knife. I blame my mother and her affection for the double knot.

Now it is Tuesday, and life is still filled with The Crazy. We moved Ryan into her Bloomington apartment on Sunday so that she could start transfer orientation at IU. Luke and I also made the big decision to move in together by the end of September, whether or not he had another job lined up. He gave his two weeks' notice at the newspaper yesterday, and we both broke the news last night to our parents. His are very supportive; mine are more skeptical. My mother thinks it's a way to avoid marriage, despite my telling her that we want to get married soon, and they both wonder why four and a half years have passed without it already happening. I haven't made a move that they haven't been proud of for almost four years now, and when you have the emotional sensitivity of a kindergartener, it hits you pretty hard. I understand where they're coming from, but it hurts just the same.

As if THAT joy wasn't enough, I found out that I filled out the wrong consolidation forms and now owe a four-hundred-dollar bill to The-Evil-Student-Loan-Company-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in three weeks, half of which is overdue. It'll take about a week to sort out, so in the meantime I get to fantasize about where to find four hundred dollars if this bill actually needs to get paid. God forbid they CALL me and TELL me about the screw-up. It's not the end of the world; I know I can get the money. It's just one more thing to keep me from paying down my Visa bill. Grrrrrr.

And I still haven't finished Harry Potter. At this point I'm tempted to use the last precious vacation day I have just to BE DONE WITH IT already. And I still have to model in that post-Labor Day fashion show. In case you can't tell, I am not in a very model-y mood. If all else fails, I can bust out with The Cleavage. No pun intended.

Memories of Sissy

The picture on the right is not meant to indicate my sister's state of mind but is rather my own attempt to bring humor to a site that has, recently, been junked with body-image woes, self-pity parties over a three-hour drive, and the loss of "real" TV. No more, I say! In two days, Samantha will marry a truly wonderful man, and I will be sporting an air tan, manicure, pedicure, and a great blow-out. Everybody wins!

Last night, I was combing through family pictures, searching for inspiration for my maid-of-honor toast, and recalled favorite memories of my sister and me...

- sharing the toilet because we were both to stubborn to let the other one go first

- making trips to the corner store, her chasing me with fallen tree branches and yelling, "I'm going to get you with my horny horns!" (Don't turn that into anything dirty, this is a special childhood memory, for cripe's sake)

- inventing "Friend," a game involving a neverending conversation between stick women boasting of long hair and flowy dresses. Wasting tons of our mother's precious notebook paper and our back-to-school Crayola markers, we would each speak for our respective stick woman and carry them through the joys and pitfalls of life. We occupied ourselves for hours with this game. HOURS. When there was no paper, we drew inside the covers of my Archie comic books.

- giving manicures to our Barbie dolls (read: biting the tips of their hands so that they extended an extra forty feet)

- playing in our swimming pool, which usually included solo performances, interpretive dances, and Dramatic Death Scenes, me floating on the top, eyes closed, while she sobbed over my too-brief existence

- having late-night talks on school nights as teenagers, her smoking by the window and trying desperately to push the smoke out the window at the sound of our mother's knock

And now she's going to be somebody's wife. Holy crap. I'm a jumble of emotions, emotions that seem to best manifest themselves through crying and peeing. I may have to wear Depends on The Big Day. Meanwhile, it's time to search for some serious waterproof mascara.

But before I go, here's a song that has special meaning to Samantha and me.

A Friend to Me
(Garth Brooks)

Well you and I
We're buddies
And we've been since we first met
Me and you
Well we've sure been through
Our share of laughter and regret
Lord knows we've had our bad days
And more than once we've disagreed
But you've always been a friend to me

You can be so stubborn
There's times I think you just like to fight
And I hope and pray I live to see a day
When you say I might be right
And there's times I'd rather kill you
Than listen to your honesty
But you've always been a friend to me

You've always been
Time and again
The one to take my hand
And show me it's okay to be
Just the way I am
With no apology

Oh you've always been
And you will 'til God knows when
Yes you've always been a friend to me

I love you, Sissy.

Losing Cable, My Mind, And Other Necessities

The cable. It is done.

What started out as an innocent phone call to Comcast last Thursday about possibly terminating cable service in the next week or so turned into the bastard pulling the plug while I was on the phone. While I was watching the last ten minutes of All My Children. The horror! Imagine being a smoker, casually talking about how you'd like to quit, and out of nowhere somebody SHAMELESSLY rips the lit cigarette from your fingers and CRUSHES IT INTO THE GROUND.

While trying to cope with this new sense of loss, I traveled to Chicago this weekend to visit with family and friends--OK, I came in to recolor my hair but thought I would stick around to visit with family and friends--and found out my sister is continuing to get dumped on with all kinds of "assvice" (coined by Amalah) about the wedding. (Which, by the way, is this Friday, which, OH MY GOD.) If one more person says one more thing to make my sister cry, I will choke them to death with my cable cord. God knows I don't need it for cable.

I also had a mini-breakdown, if "mini" means sobbing for three hours about wedding shenanigans, averaging 300 miles per weekend on your car, and missing the boyfriend who has yet to join you in Indianapolis. You know, the usual. I am trying to stay positive, but it's been hard. I've actually considered whether or not this whole "great job in Indy" thing will work out. Life would be much easier if I had somebody other than Harry Potter to comfort me in my zip code, but even he's preoccupied, what with this whole Half-Blood Prince business.

On that note, have a happy day, everyone!

Frema Shook it Like a Polaroid Picture

The Shake 'N Bake I made last night, that is. For the first time in Indianapolis and only the second time in my life, I had me a glorious chicken dinner. Though unfortunately I was the only one who benefitted from this, there are four meals' worth of leftovers that will finish out my lunches and dinner for the rest of the week, so it was a worthy endeavor overall.

It was a good feeling, to eat something that I didn't release from a can or some sort of "pull here" packaging. Having grown weary of Campbell's Soup at Hand, Lean Cuisine teriaki bowls, and moldy-bread sandwiches, I decided to spice things up at the Super Target last Sunday and purchased ingredients requiring the operation of an oven and having nothing to do with spinach-artichoke dip (which still ROCKS!, by the way). Maybe it's silly to feel so proud. It's not like I broke a sweat or even created anything from scratch. Truth be told, though, I've always been a little afraid of cooking. The most I'd done as a child was microwave vegatables, and I didn't even enjoy that. Once I moved out of the dorms and into my own house, I tried a couple of different things--tarts, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes--with mixed success.

Actually, this cooking phobia is just one instance that shows how unwilling I am to try new things. I can take a new job and move to a new city all by myself but refuse to check the air in my tires, install my printer, or change a fuse. Maybe it's because I've always had someone to do these chores for me. Maybe because I'm a girl. Maybe because I'm just that lazy.

However, I'm even more afraid of the idea of my future family living on KFC and frozen lasagnas, so this cooking thing must be overcome. My parents were wonderful at it; there were pot roasts, homemade apple pies, mashed potatoes actually mashed by my mother's own two hands. And it looked so easy! They never let on much calculating it took to bring a meal and all of its various parts together. The only side dish I prepared last night was Rice-A-Roni, which turned out OK, but it finished cooking ten minutes after I'd taken the chicken out, so everything was eaten in stages. Really, I had my own little play, A Dinner in Two Acts, with an optional third act in the form of an orange sherbet push-up at 12:30 in the morning.

I'll get there, future Frema family. Have faith. I'll get there.

Booking My Time

Turns out I've been so busy watching TV that I neglected to properly prepare myself for the arrival of this book. I've barely started The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I wanted to wait until things settled down before I delved into Chris's masterpiece. Plus, I was hoping to re-read The Order of the Phoenix so that I wouldn't be all, "Huh? When did that happen?" for book six. This dilemma wouldn't seem so gigantic if I liked reading three or four novels at a time. But I don't. I like to savor a book I'm reading, the page I'm on, the universe I'm lost in. I like to go back and review chapters, stew over a plot. In other words, take my sweet time.

So, my options are to keep on as I've been (complaining but doing nothing), drop everything for Harry, or dive into all three universes with a vengeance. I'm sure option number two will win. I hate the idea of missing out on all the hoopla, and if I wait, I just know that all the secrets of number six will be revealed on the Internet, thus cheating me out of a proper Harry experience. C.S. Lewis and Chris will just have to understand. This is the only situation where it's perfectly appropriate for a twenty-five-year-old woman to surrender herself to a (now) sixteen-year-old boy.

Samantha's wedding shower is this Saturday, and I am trying my best to wrap up all the details. Centerpieces, menus, RSVPs, touching up my roots and deciding what to wear.... It's going to be a long week.

Almost Pomp and Circumstance

Elated parents? Check. Cap and gown? Check. Funny hood thing that one can't quite figure how to wear (hence the Flying Nun imitation)? Check. It really looks like I went to the commencement ceremony for my master's degree. It really does. But by now, you've probably figured out that I didn't.

I had planned on going to the ceremony. I picked up the regalia on Monday and complained for a whole week about the anticipated FOUR-HOUR ceremony that didn't begin until 3:30 p.m. on a SUNDAY, for cripe's sake. I woke up that morning planning to attend; it wasn't until Luke and I were leaving from a quick breakfast in Merrillville that I thought, "Yeah. I'm just not gonna go." I was worried that everyone would be upset with me for waiting until the last minute to announce my new decision, but the family seemed fine. However, since I did have my blue suit of armor, it had to be returned, because I WASN'T fine about paying a $300- to $800-dollar price tag. So Luke, my sister Donna, and I suffered the drive to the Allstate Arena to return said suit, spending a total of two-and-a-half hours in the car. But when we came back, there was pizza, the bags game, and my family--three things there would have been no time to enjoy had I ended up going to the ceremony. I don't think I will ever regret my decision. As much as I loved my classes and my professors, graduate school was not the life-altering experience that undergrad was for me. As a commuter, I didn't participate in campus activities. I didn't live in a dorm. I was friendly with some students, but the number of long-lasting relationships? Maybe one. I never met the president, so it didn't seem worth it, sitting through a bunch of mumbo-jumbo just to shake his hand.

And now, once again, I'm in the real world. I started my new job as communications director for a toxicology laboratory on Monday, and already I've produced a draft outlining the benefits of therapeutic drug monitoring in pain-management clinics. Who'd have thought I'd ever be interviewing my boss/company CEO to get the skinny on urine screens? It feels good to be working again, though, and wearing clothes that can't double as pajamas. Except for today, as Luke and I both have the day off in order to party it up at the Indiana Dunes for a three-day camping trip. It will be my first camping trip. We'll see how I do.

Bench Pressing

That was the focus last Saturday, as I pressed my parents to make the hour-and-a-half drive from Chicago to Rensselaer under the guise of watching me receive an award for my generous benefactory (?) to Saint Joseph's College, though in reality I was mostly interested in them seeing the bee-u-tee-ful bench and engraved plaque I had purchased in their honor. The unveiling was interesting. My dad's first words: "Why did you do that?" My mom: "My ankle is killing me!" and proceeded to rest on said bench, which I suppose is what it's for. (To be fair, she sprained her ankle a few weeks ago and yet still wore heels for my big day. Plus, I saw tears. Always a plus when handing out gifts.) Halfway through lunch, she hobbled back to the bench to enjoy a cigarette with her new piece of property. When she returned, she said, "I hope I never have to drive back to this place again!" (Any drive longer than 15 minutes is one she'd prefer never to experience.) So, all in all, my parents. Loving the bench.

Since then, I've been trying to love my last week of freedom, as Monday marks the first day of my New and Fabulous Job. Gone are the days of vegging on the couch eating ice cream in shorts I've worn for two days. Transferring vegetation from my place to Luke's by eating Lays and watching episodes of Melrose Place while he was at work. Complaining that I have nothing to do. I'm excited. I've purchased my first "official" (aka "non-Payless") pair of heels, several expensive dress slacks, and enough button-ups to last...five days. Hopefully my new co-workers won't get bored of green, purple, pink, white, and blue too quickly. I have also adopted New and Fabulous Eating Habits, which include eating wheat bread, fresh fruit, fat-free pudding, and Capri-Sun drink packs during my Fabulous lunch hours. My one obstacle to Monday: Sunday, the day of my graduation from DePaul. I took my final exam for editing today, and it still hasn't registered that I'm done. No more homework. No more squeezing reading assignments into soap opera commercial breaks. No more school. Really. I don't even work for a college anymore. Done.

Samantha's wedding is kicking into high gear. The shower invitations have been mailed, my maid-of-honor dress has been purchased (strapless, so upper-body toning is a must), and centerpiece ideas have been discussed. The latest big news: the happy couple putting a security deposit on their very first apartment. The ball is rolling.

Though probably unnecessary, it's worth pointing out that my cup isn't flowing over with snap or sass, so this entry may have been a waste of your time. If only I had written about this morning's 7:30 a.m. test drive to work on less than half of a quarter tank of gas, when at one point I thought I would be stranded near an abandoned Village Pantry most likely held up by a baby's daddy in desparate need of crack in 1992. THAT would've been comedy.

Will Work for Sanity

Today is the last day of the month, which means I've been officially unemployed for half of May and will continue to be until June 13. All of this sleeping late, pigging out, and watching TV is taking its toll. My body is physically starting to reject vacation. I woke up this morning at 8:30 with a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Isn't it time to DO something?" my insides shouted. "I mean, really, don't you have ANYWHERE else to be but in bed?"

I did this weekend, actually. Luke and I had a lot of fun in Indianapolis, where we did more in two days than I've done since I've taken up residency.

 

We spent most of Sunday at the Indianapolis Zoo and White River Gardens, which exposed us to dolphin adventures (real and plush), red panda fun, and joyful butterflies flittering this way and that. Our last time at the gardens was with Maura and David two years ago, during which we witnessed one brave butterfly perch herself on the very middle of a very large woman's behind.

Both Saturday and Sunday night were spent hanging out with Luke's parents and his brother's family, which includes his little niece, now three-and-a-half months old. Her newest accomplishments are sitting up and sucking on her fists.

[Edited 12/11/06 to add: One picture removed.]

Monday was a little more low-key, though we did check out Holliday Park, located right in the city itself. There was hiking, nature-centering, lots of picture-taking, and some attempted (and sadly, unsuccessful) hand-standing.

 

But now it is Tuesday, and Luke and the rest of the world is at work, and here am I, still in my bed shirt, futzing around on the computer, wondering if I will make to the shower before noon. And there are still two more weeks to go. Enough is enough. I've spent some time this morning researching volunteering opportunities in Indianapolis, and two possible contenders are the Humane Society and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana. If anyone has additional suggestions, I'm all ears.

I Don't Wanna Wait

Another week passed, another week spent in Indianapolis. Despite being armed with several movies, I sat on the couch and watched soap operas every day. I had spinach dip for dinner and then lunch (from the same batch, and I still have one serving left! Hooray for me!). I tried to have a peaceful, back-to-nature moment feeding the ducks outside of my apartment, only to be chased back upstairs by jealous, frighteningly-fast geese. I washed laundry. I read this book (which, though funny, is filled with too many typos to ever read again). And I went to PetSmart to look at kitties, because guess who wants a kitty? That's right.

This has not always been the case. My parents hate cats, particularly my mother, who swears that when Samantha was only a few months old, the feline we had at the time tried to suffocate my sister by sitting on her face. I've never cared either way, but since we've had a dog in the house for as long as I've been potty-trained, I assumed my first very-own pet would be a dog. These last few months I dreamed about getting a cute little beagle I would call Buddy, and we would take long walks together and share our hopes and dreams and take adorable pictures and print them on Christmas cards. Because what else would you expect from a dog named Buddy?

This was the fantasy until Luke said that maybe my one-bedroom apartment was too small for a dog and I'd have to let him out all the time and what would I do with him on the weekends I'm out of town? So now my fixation is on cats, as they are less maintenance and still cute and I can get a dog later when I'm in a lovely brick house with two floors and a basement.

So I went to PetSmart. And there were kitties. Cute ones. Ones that scratched their little kitty paws on the glass when I bent down to their level. Ones that almost came home with me until I talked to a pet lady and she said I should wait until I'm in a ROUTINE, because cats like routines and right now my here-a-few-days, gone-a-few-days pattern is too NON-routine to make one truly happy. Thus, I walked away pet-free.

I'm sick of waiting. Waiting to graduate. Waiting for work to start. Waiting to get my precious little companion that will be named Hermione. Waiting to feel like I'm really home. Because I don't yet. I miss walking to Busy Bee to experience the latest Flavor of the Day. I miss hanging out at Julia's to hear local musicians do their thing. I even miss complaining about the lack of food choices there are in town; at least it's familiar. Maybe that's what I'm really waiting for--to regain the sense of familiar.

Oops, I Did It Again

Well, I didn't REALLY do it. Blame the picture below on some punk townie who thought he could make a left turn into my brand-new car. The one I got from the OTHER accident I had THREE MONTHS AGO. Clearly it's not fun to have just one.

Luke and I were on our way to McDonald's on Sunday night when it happened; lucky for me and my insurance premium, the officer on the scene said it was totally the other guy's fault. When I stopped by the body shop to check on the Cobalt's status, I was told the appraiser estimated about $7,500 worth of damage. For a car that's worth maybe $13,000 now, not great. I should know early next week if GMAC will choose to repair it or total it. Because the townie has insurance, and because he'll most likely be paying for it, I'm thinking it'll be totaled. Especially with the airbags damage. I can't decide whether that makes me sad or not, but there's not much time to worry about it. I still have an apartment to move into, a new job to prepare for, and a graduate class to finish up. Plus, my sister Samantha has announced that she and her fiance will be having their July-2006 wedding this August, which, AH! (No, she's not pregnant.) And I thought I'd have nothing to write about.

In other related news, today was my last day at work. Hmmm. Even being the crybaby that I am, I didn't anticipate the heartwrenching sobs I exploded with after emptying my office and coming home to my most precious belongings stuffed into tupperware bins. Tomorrow the movers come, and it's just now hitting me that I'm moving into uncharted territory. When I kiss Luke good-bye on Sunday knowing he'll no longer be a stone's throw away, it'll hurt even more.

Before you start shedding tears of your own on my behalf, know that there's a Super Target, Applebee's, and White Castle five minutes away from my new place. And, despite my crash-prone record, my insurance company had no problem handing me the keys to this. Cuz, you know, I'm such a fantastic driver.

I Have a New Job and Tupac Is Alive!

But one thing at a time, and first things first. Starting June 13, I will be the first-ever director of communications for an up-and-coming laboratory in Indianapolis. Woo-hoo for me! Dr. Job and I had a wonderful Friday together, talking about the details of the position, running through a tour of the company, and ironing out compensation logistics. I met with my boss yesterday morning and gave official notice, and she seemed less thrilled than she was for me two weeks ago, but I suppose asking her to jump for joy is a bit much. Anyway, at least I can shout it from the rooftops that I am FINALLY LEAVING RENSSELAER. I AM FINALLY LEAVING RENSSELAER! My last day will be Friday, May 13 (kind of creepy, but it's a payday, so I'll take my chances), and I'm already wondering how I'll make it that long. Silly thoughts on my part, as there will be more than enough to keep me busy.

But on to the mind-blowing piece of news, according to my sister Ryan. She called at 10:30 with instructions for me to log on to CNN.com/tupac and read the in-depth interview conducted with the rapper just last night, during which it was revealed that he faked his own death nine years ago. But alas, when Luke and I logged on to said site, it didn't exist. "Oh, wait, not CNN.com. Type in BenderBoyz," she said, "with a 'z'."

You know, CNN's other credible news source. That article DOES exist here.

Ryan refused to believe the site was a hoax, even after I explained that it's very easy to copy text and images from other Web pages, AND that it's not likely CNN.com would associate itself with any group that spells "Boys" with a "z."

"I'll call you back," she said.

Crazy millenials.

More Than You Ever Cared to Know About Me

Well, here it is, the night before The Big Day, and there's a hint of that I'm-going-to-wet-my-pants feeling sitting inside of me that will not go away until tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. CST, at which time my next career move should be cinched. I have a quarterly review scheduled with my boss for this Monday, and out of respect for her, I will not announce any news to the Internet world until after our 9:30 meeting. So, to keep myself from going crazy thinking about all the what-ifs, and to give any faithful readers I have something to chew on for the next few days, here is one of the most in-depth lists I could ever create.

100 Things About Frema

1. I love spinach dip.
2. Even though it has negative gaseous effects.
3. My biggest food passion is all Luke's fault.
4. He's the one who took me to TGI Friday's for our first out-of-town date and he wanted to try the spinach dip and I was just trying to be polite.
5. I often try to be polite, but not about food.
6. I despise seafood, beans, squash, eggs, and anything that's not chicken, ribs, french fries, and grapes. And spinach dip, but we've already established that.
7. Babies make me cry.
8. I hope to have three kids one day.
9. I realize this is not entirely up to me.
10. I don't want to have one right this minute, but seeing happily married women with newborns triggers bad cases of baby fever.
11. Current favorite girls' names are Lydia and Charlotte.
12. Boys' names: Peter and Nathan.
13. I am the oldest of five siblings.
14. This means I try very hard to be a good role model and show my brother and sisters what you can achieve if you just apply yourself. Most of the time.
15. My first official leadership role was as president of the Chicago Chicks Club.
16. I made this club up when I was 10.
17. I also made myself the president.
18. I was also a snob. Very Babysitters Club/Kristy Thomas-like.

 

19. I don't always shower on my days off from work.
20. But I always make a bowl of spinach dip.
21. And watch soap operas.
22. For the most part, I lead a very simple life.
23. It will become even more simple once I finish my master's degree in June.
24. The degree will be in writing.
25. The first story I ever wrote was called We'll Never Eat Candy Again. It was fewer than 10 pages long but had a table of contents and "About the Author" section.
26. The longest story I ever wrote, at a whopping 154 pages, was called Love, Betrayal, and a Baby 2, inspired by hours of invested time in All My Children, General Hospital, and Melrose Place at the impressionable age of 13.
27. Yes, there is a part one.
28. Yes, there is a baby's daddy.
29. Yes, I still love it when people ask to read it.
30. I have written three songs in my lifetime.
31. One of them serves as the theme song to the Chicago Chicks Club.
32. Last summer I wore acrylic nails.
33. I don't anymore.
34. But they helped to break me of my nail-biting habit.
35. My childhood role model was Ryan White.
36. Now it's my dad.
37. He's worked at least two jobs for most of the 25 years he's been married to my mother, so she could stay at home with us kids.
38. I think the hardest jobs have nothing to do with sitting in front of a desk.
39. I want to be a stay-at-home mom one day, too.

40. I've always enjoyed taking silly pictures.
41. I have never enjoyed earrings.
42. My ears aren't even pierced.
43. Once, to impress a boy, I jumped from the middle of a going-up escalator.
44. I did not impress this boy.
45. But I did make him laugh.
46. And then went out with his friend.
47. Who was 18.
48. I was 15.
49. I have always dated older guys.
50. My dream wedding used to involve a cruise ship, enclosing my and my husband's wedding vows in a wine bottle, and throwing them into the ocean.
51. My dream wedding now involves fewer than 100 people and a gazebo.
52. I like to keep my life very scheduled.
53. I like to schedule other people's lives, too.
54. I'm organized like that.
55. I love clicky pens, Post-Its, college-ruled paper, and blank journals.
56. I began my first diary on Christmas Day when I was nine years old.
57. It was the same year that I read Paul Zindel's The Pigman. One of the best books ever.
58. I read all the time as a kid.
59. Reading allowed me to believe that mysteries could be solved in skirts, boarding schools were fun, and stories about lab rats could make you cry.
60. Reading Archie comic books allowed me to believe that teenagers never ventured past seventies fashion.
61. I wrote an Archie comic once.
62. They were on their way to a New Kids on the Block concert.
63. I also wrote a New Kids on the Block series.
64. The word you're looking for now is "imaginative."
65. And maybe "dork."

66. I believe in God.
67. I used to be scared of God.
68. My father's mother used to tell me stories about the Devil popping out of the ground and bathroom mirrors and dragging people's bodies into hell.
69. What the hell was my grandma thinking?
70. I still can't sleep with my feet uncovered.
71. The Devil could take it as a sign of my wickedness and drag me down next.
72. Clearly, covered feet are enough to keep me safe.
73. These fears did not prevent me from gobbling up scary movies.
74. To this day, after watching one of them, someone needs to walk me to the bathroom.
75. I'm no dummy.
76. I believe in the unknown.
77. I believe in eating a pint of ice cream in one sitting.
78. I believe this is why I have a gut.
79. It used to bother me much more than it does now.
80. When I was 12 and into self-help books, I read a lot about eating disorders and social justice issues.
81. I also made myself throw up for three weeks.
82. When my parents found out and took me to the doctor, he thought I'd been doing it for five or six. I was that good.
84. I think I did it more for attention than for anything.
85. When you're a teenager who doesn't wear cool clothes, doesn't smoke, has no boyfriend, and isn't allowed to visit friends without parental supervision, what else do you do?
86. High school was a huge turning point for me.
87. I am a big fan of single-gender schools.
88. Green and blue are my favorite colors.
89. If I had to pick one, though, it'd be green.

90. I am pro-life.
91. I still struggle with heels and eyeliner.
92. Nobody would ever describe me as sweet.
93. Or a bad-ass.
94. But I am cute.
95. I love to laugh.
96. I like to scribble when I watch TV.
97. I belt out Lionel Richie and Mariah Carey love songs in the car.
98. I am the twenty-something Angela Chase.
99. I cry at the drop of a hat.
100. And I love the sound of my full name.

Murder She Watched

Tonight Luke and I were hangin' out at the Wal-Mart when I stumbled across the complete first season of this on DVD. Ah, memories. Before there was Monk, there was a sixty-plus-old Nancy Drew fighting crime and fueling her writing with it. When I was a kid and had very little of a life during the summer, my grandma and I spent many a night watching Angela Lansbury in action via reruns on USA. When that wasn't enough, it was Miss Marple. (We also played The Legend of Zelda, held marathon Yahtzee sessions, and devoured Dominicks-brand gummy worms. Who doesn't love Yahtzee, right?) I was so in love with mystery-solving that I seriously considered becoming an FBI agent in high school (I suppose that was also partly due to Jodi Foster's stellar performance in The Silence of the Lambs). The fascination ended when I learned getting in required taking the GRE and picking up a foreign language. Take THAT, the Man!

Because the collection was pushing 40 dollars, I left the store Angela-free. However, I did walk away with Cathy Dennis's debut album for only seven bucks. Because? When a CD has "C'Mon and Get My Love" and "Touch Me (All Night Long)" on it, what else are you supposed to do? Now I can finally chuck the tape.

What Is It About The Green Ones?

While that line has nothing to do with my post for today, I didn't want to join the group of gazillion bloggers going with a "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" headline (no offense, Luke).

This is me and my youngest sister, Donna, stirring up some crazy at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in downtown Chicago last Saturday. Since I've lived in Indiana for the last seven years, and she was five when I left for college, I try really hard to make sure that we have a lot of sister-time weekends. She just turned 12, which makes it even more important that the lines of communication stay open. When she born, I was 12, and I remember begging my mother to let me hold her, and my mother saying, "I'm warning you, once you start helping out I'll want you to do it all the time!" and me not caring, just getting so excited about having the grown-up job of caring for a baby. Donna loved movement, and there were many days where I swayed back and forth, back and forth, all afternoon, in the rocker Mom got as a gift when she was pregnant with me, rubbing her little back, kissing her little cheek.

These memories are doing nothing to reduce my baby fever. On to something else.

Last night I dreamt that I was in charge of a second-grade classroom while the permanent teacher was on a week-long vacation, and at the end of the week, I gave a spelling test featuring words that are a staple in every burger-lovin' American's vocabulary, like, "Ilain" and "relid." Turns out the teacher made me take the same test and I got a big fat "F." I'm going to assume this dream was brought on by the nervous feelings I have about switching careers and not God's way of saying "Don't quit your day job."

On a parting note, I wonder what He says about this. Poor lassie.

Nothing Says Classy Like Perfume From a Stall

What a weekend! From Friday through Sunday I had something exciting to do, including occupying a restroom that featured one of the oddest contraptions I've ever seen:

I suppose if you're on a date and realize you forgot to swipe yourself with deodarent, such machines are a woman's best friend. Or maybe you could just keep a trial size of Secret in your purse? Whatever.

Anyway, exciting weekend. On Friday I took the day off and observed the highs and lows of kindergarten life in Samantha's classroom. I played sight words bingo, watched Alice in Wonderland, and sat at a desk no higher than my kneecaps. Children laughed and cried, Samantha laughed and yelled, and I was wishing I'd brought a notebook so that I could record all of the priceless gems thrown around and share them with the rest of you. But I didn't, so I can't, although I do remember the song the school counselor (an 80-year-old nun with an English accent and no understanding of childhood development) taught the kiddies as part of her weekly feelings lesson.

(To be sung to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down)

I am precious, so are you
So are you
So are you
I am precious, so are you
We're all precious

Since then, I've seriously been toying around with the idea of teaching. It's always been intriguing, but I've never thought I was a good enough public speaker, smart enough adult, or patient enough person to handle it. Has any of that changed? No. But I'm definitely more willing to learn. And if I continued to work for my current college, I could move through their "Transition to Teaching" program for free. Of course I'm getting all of these ideas two and a half months before I graduate with what could have been my final degree. Maybe I'm just afraid to be away from school? Or maybe I'm sick of dealing with pointless meetings and grown-up politics and want to read picture books aloud to five-year-olds all the livelong day. We'll see. In the meantime, I've just finished up my winter class and have a few weeks of "recess" until April, when my Saturday editing class in Naperville starts. I may spend that whole time doing laundry, as the pile is almost taller than me.

Anyway, exciting weekend. Saturday I marched in Chicago's St. Patrick's Day Parade (I'll save those pictures for this Thursday) and Sunday Luke and I visited his brother's family in Indianapolis, home to his new niece, who is so adorable she brings tears to my eyes and baby pangs to my heart and makes me want to abandon the idea of higher education altogether and make babies for the rest of my life. She's THAT CUTE.

Lydia Beatrice

This is the latest name for my first daughter, who has yet to be conceived. One of my Valentine's Day presents was the centennial anniversary edition of the complete tales of Beatrix Potter, and while I'm not crazy about having the letter X in my child's name, a prettier version is Beatrice, though Luke and I both agree that it's much better as a middle name than a first. (Well, Luke thinks so, and I'm reasonable enough to see he may be right. Plus, I'm not crazy about the possibility of "Bea" as a nickname. But I digress.) Lydia comes from a book I read when I was little, about a rich girl who bestows that name upon a porcelain doll she received from her grandmother, a name I then used for the first porcelain doll I received from MY grandmother. (I swear, once they were all the rage.) She lived a long and happy life until I brought her to college and my sister Samantha accidentally dropped her off my bed. So. Lydia Beatrice. Yeah.

Once she does materialize, how on earth will we pay for her? In between car payments, student loans, a mortgage, utilities, short-term savings, IRAs, 401ks, emergency funds, grocery bills, and if The Powers That Be see fit, a road trip or two?

Maybe I'm freaking out because nobody's responded to my resumes - all two of them. Maybe because I just received my first Cobalt payment that's 60 dollars more than the one for the Cavalier. Maybe because I see Samantha and her fiancé worrying about the exact same things as they plan their own future together, which officially begins next July.

I normally don't get caught up in things like this. I look at how my parents scrimped and saved and had five(!) children in between. They didn't worry about eating out or taking vacations. They didn't care about the year their car was manufactured in or whether or not they could afford name-brand groceries. I remember that, and I think, Of course it can be done. There's always a way.

Sigh.

I think I have properly regained control of my senses. A normal woman might worry that her boyfriend will read an entry like this and take it as some sort of hint. But not mine. He knows I'm a loon. He also knows I'm not getting any younger. Not that anyone's counting.

P.S. If anyone in my circle produces a princess named Lydia Beatrice, there will be blood. I've already lost Elaine.

Comings and Goings

Last Saturday, I held Luke's niece for the first time. Last night, I learned that my aunt is in the hospital. She has brain cancer, so she's in and out a lot, but now, according to my uncle, it's bad. How amazing the world is, breathing new life one moment and exhaling it the next. Although not in that order.

[Edited 12/11/06 to add: Baby picture removed.]

The Accidental Student

Remember this?

"Oh, what a diligent student I will be this quarter. Straight A's to prevail all year round! I will walk across stage in June with magna cum laude status and seize the world!"

Yeah. Instead, I'm placing my hopes into this trusty equation

(easy class + busy work schedule) x just wanting to be done = revising undergraduate assignments to fulfill graduate needs

I've only done it once or twice, but it's like I've been kicked in the gut five inches from the finish line. If all I have to do is stretch out my hand to win the race, why go through the pain of dragging my entired battered carcass? Or something like that.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Lots of TV. Some job searching and even applying. (Brookfield Zoo, here I come?) Lots of interest in my financial well-being. According to the Primerica rep that visited me on Monday, it doesn't look so good right now. No renter's insurance (does anybody really have this?); a savings balance of $20; no IRA; $82,000 combined debt for my post-secondary education; and a near unhealthy obsession with New York and Company. (OK, he didn't say that last part, but who are we kidding?) It's all good, though - admitting you have a problem is the first step. He's coming back in two weeks to give me a complete Financial Needs Analysis and a plan to get me out of the red. Very good stuff.

I also have a visitor. My sister Ryan's been with me since Sunday; by Monday, she had locked herself in my bathroom for three hours. "Help me! Help me!" she screamed, using my plunger to disengage the doorknob, and eventually catching the attention of my next-door neighbor. The poor guy thinks he's coming home for some R and R, only to find a woman trapped in the next john, for God knows what reason.

"Miss?" he said.

To his credit, he did attempt to save her; finding the front door locked, he snuck around the back and "broke into" my bedroom, which apparently wasn't. He then proceeded to throw himself against the door in an attempt to break it down with his manly track-and-field muscles. Sadly, it did not work, but he was able to contact our landlord, whose wife set Ryan free. Happy 19th birthday!

I have a lot of energy for working out my finances, looking for new career opportunities, and catching up on two weeks of soap operas. Thus, I do not have much left for school and work. Or, by the looks of the last two entries I posted, blogging.

Happy Birthday, Frema!

Lots of people think that, no matter what a baby looks like, he/she automatically qualifies as "cute" simply because of said baby status. I'm not so sure I agree. And when I look at this picture, I bet most others wouldn't, either. For though my dress is quite frilly and my booties quite fluffy, I clearly bear the face of a 50-year-old man.

This is me now:

All likeness to the 50-year-old man is gone, though this hat gives my noggin the shape of a conehead. I wanted to post a picture from today, the day of my birthday extravaganza, but it's late and I'm tired and my smiles are coming out kind of forced. Sometime soon, I'll show off my new 'do, sans hat.

It really was an awesome day. Luke made banana pancakes for breakfast and gave me some very thoughtful presents, my favorite being the complete collection of Winnie-the-Pooh's stories and poems. Then we went to Chicago, where my I-love-them-so-much family had cake and presents and signs announcing that I am "da bomb." All of my siblings were there, a special treat since we scatter around as we age, and I cried when I opened my mother's gift: my baby book, jam-packed with pictures, cards, letters, and descriptions of my earlier years. We stopped by my friend Brooke's house, who herself recently celebrated a 21st birthday, and was having a party for her little son, Matthew, who turns one tomorrow. After a home-cooked dinner back at home, Luke and I were off to Merrillville, where we had a nice visit with his parents. It was a wonderfully relaxing, slow-paced day, filled with the people I care about. And, may I just say, I was having an awesome hair day, making it even more depressing that my photo shoot didn't work out.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to turn 25.

Pleats? Really?

That was the thought running through my head when I came to Chicago on Wednesday and was promptly presented with a pair of "designer" J. Crew pants from Grandma, who bought them for 99 cents with me in mind. God love Grandma. However, all was forgiven when she threw in a rose-colored nail polish from Revlon for good measure.

I've been in the city since yesterday, and I think it's gotten me sick. I went to bed last night and woke up this morning with a horribly sore throat, although I'm feeling a wee bit better now. Most likely will not attend the holiday party being hosted by one of my co-workers, especially since I hear she's under the weather herself. Am so close to holiday cheer! My transformation will be complete as soon as I wrap ALL presents, coax Luke into touching up the trim I can't reach in my bathroom (otherwise I painted the actual room all by myself, including the ceiling. Hooray!), and make it to a nice, relaxing shower. I don't mind being sick now, but next week, when Luke and I use some vacation days for Christmas fun, would not be good. Keep your fingers crossed. Also try to keep your lower half away from pleated khaki pants, but understand this cannot always be helped.

One little shout-out: Happy Birthday, Steve!

A Quandary

Does orange have a long "O" or a short "O"?

Samantha, my darling younger sister slash fabulous kindergarten teacher, asked me this interesting question tonight, as "O" is the letter of the week and she's afraid it's going to come up at school. I say, a little bit of both. Any thoughts?

Terms of Engagement

Tonight, after Thanksgiving dinner, Samantha's boyfriend of seven (!) years popped the question. He did it in front of both their families, down on one knee, with a beautiful ring and teddy bear to boot. He even talked to my parents to officially ask for her hand beforehand. A lot of people think that's old fashioned, and even Luke said he'd prefer to tell me before talking to my family, but I do think it shows a certain amount of respect. Anyway, she bawled, said yes, and there you go: the first sibling to get engaged. They've not discussed a wedding date yet, but knowing my sister, she won't want to wait longer than a year. And I'm going to be a bridesmaid. Another excuse to shop!

Am extremely happy for my sister. A little envious, but overall, extremely happy. (Sniffle.) Upside: I have two weddings to go before I'm considered a lost cause.

And So It Begins...

The day before Thanksgiving - a day of working, driving, cooking, packing, and other various -ings. For me, it means eating, sleeping, and napping, as we're being released from work at noon today and I'm not driving home until early tomorrow morning. I'm gearing up for The Day After Thanksgiving Shopping, which I truly love, even though it wears me out after only a couple of hours. A day off from work and full of shopping. What could be better? NY&C sent me some fab coupons in the mail just for This Day, and you better believe they're gettin' used. I told myself that last month's spree would be It until after the holidays, but really, why waste perfectly good discounts when you're most likely going to buy the stuff anyway?

I love this time of year - all the running around, wrapping presents, catching corny movies on TV (or ordering them on Amazon.com so you can enjoy them all year 'round. I own A Very Brady Christmas for that very reason.) The only thing I don't like is working out family get-togethers. By the time the season is over, I'll have celebrated Christmas five times, and half with people I don't really care for. On top of THAT, my grandparents are flying in from Arizona to spend Christmas in Chicago, and as usual, they've told my parents they're staying with us. This is the same grandmother who, last month, sent my sister a pamphlet highlighting the Church's stance on sexuality for her birthday. I love Grandma, but if there's anything even remotely related to chastity literature waiting for me under the tree this year, there's going to be words.

College is Fun!

Right now I'm feelin' pretty cool in Ryan's dorm room at Columbia College. We had lunch in the University Center cafeteria, and I took care of some work e-mails while she fixed herself up for class. The rooms she shares with her roommate is awesome; they each have their own computer, their own desk, and they share a private bathroom (also huge) with two other girls. It makes me think about when I was an undergrad and skipped class to play Nintendo and watch Kevin Smith movies. Those were the days....

It's been a rough week. I had to drive to Chicago on Monday night to hear Julia Alvarez speak at the Chicago Public Library, which was wonderful, but I had to drive back to Rensselaer in time for work on Tuesday morning, only to leave again at 3:00 for class last night. I've been pretty tired, but there's only three weeks of class left, so I think I can keep it together. Once done, I plan on celebrating with a weekend of sweat pants, spinach dip, Soap Net, and Sex and the City. (Love those ladies!) My mom calls it "that nasty show," but seeing as she watched the premiere of He's a Lady and is waiting patiently for the second season of The Swan, she has no room to talk about what constitutes as trashy programming. "But those ugly girls needed it!" she said. "It changed their lives!"

Welcome to the new millenium.

Mi Familia Loca

It started yesterday, as members trickled in and out of my parents' house in Chicago to celebrate my father's 44th birthday. Ryan, our newest college freshman, comes home with a various assortment of overnight bags, even though she's not staying the night. As she shows off a recent purchase--a cute little pair of Bebe sneakers--her toothbrush falls out from one of the shoes. Unwrapped. Uncapped. Unprotected from potential foot fungi. "But they're brand new," she said, as if the idea of unsanitary people trying on the sneakers before she did were a foreign one. Gross, but whatever. I move on.

An hour later, my brother wants to know if I'm going to his junior ring ceremony tomorrow morning. What junior ring ceremony? I ask. Well, the one that's taking place tomorrow morning, of course! And to rejoice in the fact that all five of "the children" are in the same zip code at the same time, plans are made to go out to breakfast after the ceremony - a very big deal for us, as the only time we share meals together outside of the home is after a graduation. So what could I do but say yes? Even though I have no change of clothes. Even though I had originally planned to hit the road by 9:00 a.m. to finish the ton of homework I have due this week. I'm supportive, right? And I want everyone to be together just as much as my parents do. The rest of the night was spent watching a Growing Pains reunion special with my mom, washing a load of towels, and knocking out 50 more pages of the Julia Alvarez book I'm reading for my personal essay class. (My new Limited handbag can hold just about anything!)

Sunday: the big ceremony, which is actually incorporated into an hour-long Mass, takes place in the gymnasium of my brother's high school. Half-way through, someone's phone starts to ring to the tune of Halloween, and during the offering of the gifts, my youngest sister decides it's the right time to reapply her very, very, VERY grape-smelling lipgloss. Afterwards, we hit a nearby restaurant, and the fun continued as Geo dribbled eggs onto the crotch of his good pants, Ryan burped twice, and Samantha produced a laugh not unlike Pee Wee Herman imitating a horse.

Now I'm home, and I still have that homework to do, so I better wrap this up. To close out, here's the chorus to a song that I've been infatuated with the last few days and relates to the subject of family (althogh bears no relation to this particular entry):

John Mayer, "Daughters"

Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Where Have All the Pretty People Gone?

That is the question as I scramble to find attractive male students for a photo shoot at 4:00 today. By mandate of the president, they must be "manly men," so I'm trying hard to fill the order, all the while cursing the admissions department as they've canceled the photo shoot that would take this whole situation off my plate, and hating that a great group of kids is more than willing to volunteer their time but physically not good enough to "use." I'm just going to tell the unusables to come anyway and try to find more people to add to the mix. I really hate this part of my job. Hate. it.

In funnier news, my 16-year-old brother picked me up from the train station after class last night, so I got to ride around in his pimp-@$$ car, one that my dad actually got for free. It's about 15 years old and has its weak points - a broken speedometer, noisy seatbelt mechanism that sounds like a car fart, and until this week, a missing driver's side window. It lived for three weeks with a white garbage bag fastened to it like a ghettofabulous eye patch. "Isn't that distracting when you drive? How do you see through the garbage bag?" I once asked naively.

"I don't actually drive with the bag ON" was his reply.

Of course.

Laughter is the Funniest Medicine

Tonight I was flipping through the channels when I noticed that Rescue Me was on FX. This is a relatively new show starring Denis Leary that deals with the ins and out of life in a New York firehouse. I didn't discover this program on my own; on Tuesday nights after class is over, I walk into my parents' kitchen in Chicago and see them at the table, glued to the television, laughing themselves silly. That is, unless my dad's at his own firehouse; then it's my mother, snickering alone.

I was thinking about this tonight and remembered that, even as a child, I've always loved hearing my parents laugh. I was never a huge fan of I Love Lucy, but my mom was addicted to it, which was reason enough to park it on the couch and submit myself to Lucyisms she couldn't get enough of. As for my father, he enjoyed impersonating Michael Jackson, telling jokes about the King of Pop's faded skin color and disappearing nose and faking embarassment about being a former president of his local Brady Bunch Fan Club.

When I was little, laughing reminded me that my parents weren't just parents. They were people who had likes and dislikes, bad days and funny days, with funny bones to match. We still get hysterical reminiscing about old Brady Bunch episodes, cracking jokes about the infamous house of cards and the charm bracelet that almost ruined it for Carol's girls.

Good times.

A Kiss By Any Other Name...

So there I was on this quiet Sunday, lounging around in my comfy PeaceFrog pajama pants, catching up with my family via telephone back in Chicago. When my 16-year-old brother gets the phone, we talk about school, home life and, at my prompting, his love life. I asked Geo if he had a girlfriend: "Not a girlfriend...." After some more coaxing, I finally get out of him the fact that while he's not courting any special lady, he does have lady friends. For, you know....

"For what?" I said."Making out?"

"Making out?" he cried, and had a hearty laugh at my ignorant expense. "That's from like the fifties." And laughed again when I told him I didn't kick it with a homie until I was 15.

"But he was 18, so that made me cool, right?" I asked.

His reply: "What's with you and all these old guys?"

So, peeps, in case you don't have the 411 on current lingo trends, know that if there's a boy or girl in your life that you kiss often but do not officially date, the two of you are kickin' it. When I was 11, I referred to it as "necking" because that's what Jeffrey Osborn called it in "Baby, Stay With Me Tonight." (And I was denied access to rap because it was dirty. I mean, do you hear some of the stuff they play on the Lite?)

While I may be out of the language loop, my parents have had at least one teenager in the house since 1993, so they're on the up and up. Mom closed our time together with "Word to your mother." ("You know that's you, right?" I told her.)

My dad? "Represent."

I so love my family.

Book It

I finally finished Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (a true masterpiece, by the way) and began a new book. I've decided to tackle The Chronicles of Narnia series, so I'm reading the first installment, The Magician's Nephew. After the first line, I was hooked.

"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child."

By the end of that sentence, I could already feel myself floating out of my body and into C.S. Lewis's world, which I just knew was going to be wonderful. And I'm 24 - imagine reading that as a child!

As I think about what kind of values I want to impress upon my future children, it's overwhelming. But when I think about the insights I've gained from books, the task seems a wee bit easier. Here are just a few.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
From religion to menstruation, there's a time for everything. Plus, those handy "We must, we must, we must increase our bust" exercises.

Flowers For Algernon
Ignorance is bliss.

The Pigman
Creepy old men aren't always what they seem.

Fear Street series
Sometimes there are monsters in your closet.

Nancy Drew Files
Women can do anything...

Sweet Valley High series
...but some things should still wait until the second date.

Archie comics
Threesomes are cool!

The Baby-sitters Club
Duh, I learned how to baby-sit.

Flowers in the Attic series
Reading this at 12, I didn't learn a thing - in fact, I was left with even more questions. "Mom, what's an orgasm?" (You think I'm kidding?)

I love being a writer!

It's Just the Way That You Love Me

My mom called tonight with exciting news: my dad bought a brand-new 2004 GMC truck! He just picked it up today, so it'll probably take a while for the novelty to wear off. Or maybe it'll never wear off. The last new vehicle my family owned was in the early 1980's. Mom said he was grinning from ear-to-ear.

These days, people are so concerned with having the "perfect life" before they start a family - sometimes before they even start a life (is that a good example of ironic?). Make sure you finish college before you get engaged. Pay off your credit cards and get the big-money job before you marry. Buy a big house and drive an SUV before you have kids.

When my parents had me at 19, I was the ONLY thing they had. They struggled. My dad joined the Marines right before I was born, and my mom stayed in Chicago with me for almost a year before the three of us moved to Tennessee, then North Carolina. And they always needed money. Once, when I was four and Samantha was barely two, they received a coupon for a free family portrait from the gas company. When Mom went to pick it up, she found several different shots, but only one was free. After picking her favorite, she watched in horror as the receptionist threw the rest away.

As I got older, my family grew. We still struggled, but things got better. My dad went from taxicab driver to Chicago firefighter. My parents went from renters to apartment owners. And after I graduated from a middle school where students carried guns and threw books from the third floor, they worked even harder to keep me in a well-respected, private high school.

Today, two out of my parents' five offspring are college graduates, and a third just became a freshman. But there's still one in private school and another on her way. The only time my parents get new clothes is during the holidays, only it's less about money (though it's still tight) and more about them putting that money into other things. So when my dad got this new truck, it was hard-earned. If they had waited to have "the perfect life" before starting the future, where would they be today? Where would I be?

This entry isn't as concise as I'd hoped to make it, but I'm so proud of my parents for trusting each other, dedicating themselves to each other, and paving their own way. I believe they are the best example that "perfect" has nothing to do with status and everything with love.

And in case you're wondering, yes, the title is a tribute to Paula Abdul.

A Semi-New Me

Since returning from my writers workshop a couple of weeks ago, my morning routine has changed drastically. Before said workshop, I woke up after 7:00 a.m., procrastinated in the shower, and then frantically fixed my hair before rushing out the door at 8:00 a.m. What a way to begin the day, right? One look at me and you knew the only reason I was up and about was for work.

But while in Muncie, I put my best foot forward and actually got ready FOR THE DAY. I was up around 6:45, had a nice shower, put on a little make-up, worked my hair a bit. It felt good. I felt good. Better than that, I felt ready to face whatever came my way. If I'd had a little beret, I would've thrown it in the air and done a little twirl, Mary-Tyler-Moore style.

On the last day, I resolved to stick to my new routine. And I have. And it's great. My hair isn't sopping wet, I'm not running from my car to my office, and according to my mom, I have a new glow. (I told her it was due to my "natural glow" blush, but she wasn't hearing any of that.) For the first time, I actually feel like a 24-year-old.

This afternoon, the semi-new me will drive to Chicago so I can accompany my family when they pick up Samantha from O'Hare. It'll be good to have her home, especially for my mom - she's been playing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on her record player every one of the 10 days Samantha's been in Africa. You've gotta love my mom.

School Daze

At 9:00 tonight, my parents will drop Samantha off at O'Hare airport so that she can make the big trip to Africa with SJC Habitat For Humanity members. Everyone's a little nervous to see her go, but I admire her so much for going to a place outside of her comfort zone in order to experience something new.

Meanwhile, as Ryan prepares for college life at Columbia and Saint Joe welcomes another freshman class, I can't help but remember what that time was like for me. The memories are fuzzy, not because I can't recall them, but because it feels like they happened to somebody else, not me. I think about my first roommate and clinging to her as we traveled from Chicago to a little town whose name I couldn't even pronounce. I hated the bugs, the lack of public transportation, the absence of a mall. I missed my family and friends. I missed feeling confident in the person I was. Thinking about that makes it even funnier to me that, almost seven years later, I'm still here.

While I certainly wasn't a wild child, there were definitely a few crazy times that I like to think about and laugh about; getting drunk for the first time; receiving out-of-town visitors at 3:00 in the morning; going to parties, throwing up, and then partying some more. Staying up late to play cards and eat Little Debbie snack packs, the mother of all food groups for broke teenagers. I can't say I had a bad time.

Some people say they don't believe in having regrets; because we have free will, we should embrace each choice we've made because it's our own. I don't think that's true. Having free will doesn't mean having full understanding of ourselves and our actions, and I sometimes wish I had branched out a little more in college--made a bigger effort to know more people, go out on a limb, try new things. As I see Ryan saving up money for dorm furniture and picking out her fall classes, it's hitting me harder than ever that I can never go back to that place again. I will never be 18 years old again. Never again will my life revolve around school. Gone are the days where 20 bucks could last me two weeks because all I needed was money for Grandma's pie. No more waiting for 3 a.m. visitors. I'm just too damn tired.

The upside: I'm glad I can't go back. I was too insecure, too dependent on the people around me, people who couldn't even get their own act together. It's only now that I truly feel confident in who I am and who I've become. But if I could capture those days on video, the good times and the bad, I'd happily watch them all.

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

For the last couple of weeks I've felt trapped in a state of inactivity. It begins the minute I walk in the door after work, drop my keys on the kitchen table, and turn on the air conditioner. After changing my clothes, most of the time I end up sitting on the couch flipping through TLC design shows and reruns of soap operas until a phone call or visitor stirs me into action. Sometimes I read, sometimes I don't. In any case, my motivation level is extremely low.

I'm not sure why this is happening, but then again, I can probably guess. I've been pretty broke lately, paying for my writers workshop, paying off credit cards, paying, paying, always paying for something. Then there's Rensselaer, a place that I really enjoy most of the time and then get angry at when I want to browse through the aisles of Barnes and Noble without making an hour-and-a-half round trip just to get there. Then there's my job, which I like most of the time but right now feel pressure to complete projects my heart can't get into. All of these factors make it even more exciting that I'm supposed to leave this Wednesday for my workshop, to start my first actual vacation of the summer, thanks to the president's emergency priority list; to flee to a place where new ideas will be in the air; to a place that's anything but work. I've also entered one of my short stories into a contest and am anxious to learn the results.

I'm thinking about all of this because on Monday, Samantha told me that my Auntie Debbie is in the hospital again. My aunt has been fighting brain cancer since I was a junior in high school and is getting steadily worse. However, as concerned as I am for my aunt and her family, I started thinking, "If she dies now, there goes my workshop. There goes the break I've been waiting for." For that reason alone I've been too scared to call and ask how she's doing.

I know, I know - it's horrible.

After a statement like that, I don't think a positive ending is possible, so I'll just stop here.

I'm In Love With My Dentist

No, not really, but he is pretty great. I had my post-opp (post-operation) check-up yesterday, and he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder and a smile before asking how things have been since my extraction. I have never had a dentist I've felt so comfortable with. If I'd had care this good in Chicago, maybe I wouldn't have taken a three-year break from professional oral hygiene. Anyway, my stitches are out and I'm healing nicely. Next step: my crown from March is still pretty sensitive to hot and cold, which isn't a great sign, so I need to schedule an appointment up north with some kind of -ontologist to see if the nerves need to be killed; then I can stop wincing every time milk hits the left side of my mouth. More dentist adventures for me - woo friggin' hoo.

For the last couple of nights, I've been plagued by dreams that seem pretty damn real while I'm in them. Thursday night, in a dream inspired by watching an episode of VH-1's Driven, Ashton Kutcher called me at home (which happened to be Chicago with my family), and we had a marathon phone conversation that ended with us making plans to get together. (Evidently I have much more sex appeal than Demi.) Last night, I was in my high school auditorium (which, of course, really wasn't my high school auditorium), complete in my old Catholic-school-girl attire, which fit surprisingly well. We were all gathered to hear the news that an old school friend had died (who I don't even think actually existed), and I was crying hysterically. Then suddenly I'm walking down Archer Avenue (still in Chicago) and bump into another friend from Maria High School, still crying. She and her father gave me a ride home, but I think it was in a shopping cart, and then suddenly we were by Lindy's Chili, right across the street from McKinley Park. Then I woke up.

I'm not sure what these dreams mean, but I am sure that I miss Chicago. I miss reading on the train ride to work and getting to the mall in 15 minutes. More importantly, I miss my family. I miss seeing them every day. I miss joking around with my dad and hashing out gossip with my mom before going to bed. I wish I could attend Donna Lyn's assemblies and help Ryan with her college registration without having to take a vacation day. And I miss my friends.

Oh, well. There are certainly many good things about Rensselaer, things that I plan on discussing in a piece for my writers' group meeting this Thursday. But I think I've almost had my fill. Almost.