5 yr college reunion

i was out with....smokers smokers smokers last night and i did not, repeat, did not even want one! they say the urge will come back and HIT me every once in a while so i gotta watch out.
i came home very stinky. my roommate is leaving today. i will have an echo-y two bedroom to myself for 7 days before i move into my glorious one-bedroom next week! busy busy tonight is the official gathering and i am curious if talking about "what i've been up to for the past few years" will get annoying in the first hour or the 5th....we'll see how many people have become lawyers and doctors. How many have babies!

BTW, I was on Mteam in highschool. Seems as though I have always been a school spirit type. And you know what? I am not one bit ashamed. I still know the school fight song.

Go U Northwestern break right through that line
with your colors flying we will cheer you all the time
U ra ra
GO U Northwestern fight for victory!

Spread far the fame of our fair name
Go Northwestern win that game!

da da da da da da
Go Northwestern go
dadadadadadadadad
Go Northwestern go
hit em hard, hit em low
Go Northwestern go.....

ok

I spent the entire day yesterday with a friend in need. She wears her sadness like an evening gown, elegant and graceful- men were drawn to her like a moth to a flame. We were all over the city of Chicago, running from her misery. When night settled in she lit up with a fury, smoking cigarette after cigarette. And I didn't want one! I was actually kind of grossed out by it.
Now it is morning and my laundry remains unclean, my hair disheveled and I am at work. Tonight I sign the lease to my new apartment! In Lincoln Square! Half off first months' rent. Yay! Also I have a new assignment for the magazine, also I am cocktailing at this fancy roof top designer party in a week, professional make-up artists will be doing me up all 40's style, for a 150$ and that will help me in my brokeness......good things. But my cat cried when I left the house at 9am in the morning yesterday, and hopped into bed with me at 1am when I returned. She very much misses me. Life is feeling very busy right now....

stubborn

Hey stupid man,
Why do you stand?
There’s some seats back here open,
Back here by the fan

Why must you stay
Up there blocking the way
Of other commuters
So it takes all day

For people to get on
Swipe their Plus card and move on
To the back of the bus,
So we can all just get gone

Because of you they think
That we’re full to the brink
The front is all crowded
And probably stinks

Hey Macho man,
I don’t understand
Your aversion to sitting
Next to a strange woman or man

Don’t you know, by the way,
Every second counts in a day
That every red light
is another delay?

You’re making them wait, honey
And making me late
I don’t wanna work,
But I gotta make money

So please come back here now,
And sit your ass down,
And then maybe then,
You won’t see me frown

bare naked

The thing about smoking is that it's oddly comforting. Nonsmokers have no idea. Think teddy bear or security blanket. It's something we smokers have in times of sadness or frustration or awkwardness, an object on which to focus when all else seems awry. The physical effect is deceivingly calming, but more than that, the act of smoking, of clutching the long thin strip of paper and tobacco in hand, putting it to your lips and inhaling, is a consuming act of doing that almost feels meditative. And when you've had this 'comfort' in your life for years, being without is...unsettling.

I became aware of this once unsuspected aspect of dependency the first time I tried to quit smoking. I would be walking to the bus stop and some guy would be leering at me and as I got closer to him, dreading the moment he might attempt to 'holla' at me, I would reach into my bag for a cigarette, only to remember I was quitting. I would panic and try to take a deep breath. He would 'holla' and I would chew my nic gum faster, as though this would make me feel less objectified. Then I would spend way too long dwelling on what an asshole he was all the while trying to ignore my craving.

Other times I noticed this strange dependency were during those uncomfortable lulls in conversation with people I was not quite good enough friends with yet for lulls to be comfortable--or with people I just knew I wasn't gonna like or be friends with anyway but I still had to try and be amicable for some reason or another. I would be sitting at a table, we would have exhausted the whole, "So, what do you do for a living?" thing, maybe even talked about the weather, and then we would be just sitting. Before, I would pretend my silence was about the cigarette. Now I have to bravely face these situations alone.

Before, if I was walking down a street and some man would get all leery, I could 'fumble' in my bag, pull out a cigarette and take my time lighting it. By the time this was finished, I would have walked past him, and sure, he might be checking out my backside, but of this I was at least, gloriously ignorant. I could somehow pretend that I was invisible to him, because he was invisible to me. The only thing in the world, in fact, was me and my cigarette. (I do have an iPod, now, so at least when some guy says 'Damn girl, (fill in the blank), damn!' now I can pretend I didn't hear him.)

And when the lulls in conversation came, I could be all like "Yo, it's not like you bore me, or I'm all uninteresting and have nothing funny or witty to say to you, it's just, I got this habit, and, well, it's calling my name right now, so if you will excuse me while I light up..." Without a cigarette in moments like these I feel bare naked.

Today I got to deal with another one of those moments--I suck at shit-talking. I don't like to lose, who does? But when I am playing a game and losing, I try to make the best of it. But I will never ever be that stereotypical black woman who can tell a person off. I just can't do it. Likewise, I can't spit game. Or whatever the term is. So when the other 'team' is shit-talking up a storm, AND my team is losing, I just feel kind of, well, shitty. But more because I know my silence (i.e. lack of ability to shit-talk back) will be taken for some sort of poor sportmanship. They start to think I am upset if I say nothing, but I'm not going to laugh it off because being teased and then laughing at my teasers seems sort of, masochistic, so I stare at them dumbly, and make feeble attempts to 'talk shit' back, but it feels pretty false to me and the whole thing puts me out, and then there you have it, I truly am being a poor sport man. This happened today and made me want to SMOKE.

I didn't, by the way, but I am not sure right now about this whole quitting thing. After I sat out a game or two a friend came over and was like, 'Man, I need a cigarette.' He was upset about something as well, and there was nothing I wanted more than to light up with him, our mutual lung poisoning an unequivocal vein of support between us. Which brings me to another thing, the fact that the tendrils of smoke that waft between smokers, is in fact, a bond of sorts, between humans who have become outcasts in society. We love our cigarette. And we understand each other better because of it. That is a grand feeling of camaraderie that I will also miss. I tell myself I will form new bonds, but out of solidarity, I will not form those bonds with people who are nonsmokers. Not like that, anyway, maybe other quitters, I don't know.

What I do know is it is bearing down on 3am and I have to get up at 6am for work. I have spent entirely too much time not sleeping. Tomorrow is day 7. We shall see where the day takes me!

beating the subject to death here

I feel like between me and Kari that the topic of age has been definitely killed, but let me kill it some more..... This weekend, one of my best best best friends was in town. She is a soul mate, for sure. We met junior year of college. She was a philosophy major and I was a journalism major. I can't tell you how many nights we spent smoking and philosophizing, how many hours we devoted to figuring out ourselves in the world we lived in and the world we thought we wanted to live in.

We went to the campus this Sunday and walked around at night. We saw a fox. An actual fox. Just chilling in front of a bush by Kresge. We visited our old haunts and felt................a weird sense of longing combined with utter relief-that it was not our life anymore. I have fond memories of the horror and joy college was. I have been thinking a lot about that time in relation to how satisfied I am with where I am in life now. I am not pleased with my career. I certainly thought I would be further along there. But admittedly I have made great soul headway, but when people ask you what you have been up to lately, you can't usually say, " Well, I spent the last five years dealing with myself. We-myself and I, that is- have come along way in terms of spiritual and emotional health.." My friend is a lawyer now. Making 6 figures. I am so not jealous. Another is in China, another three bestest of best friends are getting their doctorates, and my last best friend owns a marketing research company and is editor in chief of this great nationwide Latino publication. Like I said, so not jealous.

But what I want to get to, is that now, not at 23, not at 25, but now, am I aware of some actual change and growth in me. Significant. A certain part of life is over now. I take note because I don't want to HAVE a mid-life crisis. I want to acknowledge, love and appreciate life at every stage. I don't want to look back and realize I didn't notice! Or look back and regret. Just know where I am and figure out what I need to do to get to the kind of tomorrow that works for me.

I am noticing. I like to be alone now, I used to hate that. I am not afraid to go to a movie alone, stay in on Friday, or go out to eat with a good book. I am, for the first time, friends with people both older AND younger. And it's beautiful. Once, I could not have done it--My mother instilled me with the iron belief that adults and children are not friends, she was not my friend, and would never be. She sings a different tune now, but all through school I remember having a certain amount of awe for people more than 2 years older than me, and slight contempt for people more than 3 years younger than me. Don't ask me why those particular boundaries. I don't know. Not everybody feels or felt this way, but that too, was something I had to come to realize. I don't want to keep saying, "I am going to go do things." Because rather than say that, I am just gonna do. There are other things of course, more personal realizations. It's all good.

I am contemplative.


That is all.

(no more about the age thing. until my birthday when I fully expect lots of parties and love)

in my life

There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all
-The Beatles