Category Archives: Randoms

Dream grandly. Or something.

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algarrobo, chile.

algarrobo, chile.

I’m fleetingly passionate.

Thinking thinking thinking. Not doing doing doing.

I spent hours last week researching things. Taking some classes. Korea. Hairsytles. Home decorating and shopping sprees (thanks, Pinterest, for that last one.)

I became engrossed in ideas, planning and plotting a future for myself that extends beyond this comfortable little cubicle of mine. That future was made up of the most wonderful things: beautiful words and stories, people I love, places newly discovered, and style. Lots and lots of style.

And now, here I am, back at work. Researching up-coming TV. The coming of a fifth season of Mad Men makes me crave a warm, soft couch, fuzzy blankets, huge sweats, and marathons, all while wearing the reddest of red lipsticks — which I also spent time researching today.

It’s an annoying habit of mine. Research for hours to fulfill the curiosity and spontaneous excitement at the opportunity. Then completely burn out all of your interest when once you’re met with barriers made of practicality.

Two and a half years ago, I was pretty much comfortable with calling myself a writer. I wrote every single day; stories, blog posts, vignettes and made-up scenes that haunted my brain. And the ideas, I thought, were just going to keep on coming! After all, I was embarking on a 10-month trip to the ends of the earth: Chile.

Well, in Chile, I wrote a whopping 22 blog posts for the 298 days that I was there. Roughly,  that’s one post every two weeks — and I wasn’t really writing a whole lot outside of that.

I thought that experience, that seeing something, that going somewhere…I thought all that would give me something to write about. That it would be the thing I need to give me ideas to actually put finger to key to write something worth writing.

So maybe after the experience, I’d have something?

As of now, nope. Nopo. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Cero.

All I can do now is say “there’s nothing” in two languages. (No hay nada.)

It’s not for a lack of ideas. There are those. They’re just lacking focus. Like everything in my life.

~~~~

Last week, I was talking to my GTT (Google Talk Therapist) about my new job. I like it, my new job. I like that my job is to think about words and people, images and messages. These are things that I love, even if the industry is one that bores me a bit. I’m learning a lot. But, coming from a background in politics, where things move a mile a minute, and that press release needs to go out yesterday, I feel like I have a lot of downtime because  I tend to get things done with that same mentality.

Anyway, here’s what GTT said:

 GTT: you know what you need?
me: whats that
GTT: a grand dream
me: what mean you
GTT: you know. you need some big deal goal to work toward
  to give your life some shape
me: agreed. i just have no idea what it should be
  my focus has always been the people around me, rather than the things that i do
GTT: start daydreaming!
So I did. About taking classes, about Korea, about travel. I haven’t come up with a grand dream just yet, but when I’m putting words to screen, I at least feel like I’m getting there.
What is a grand dream, anyway?

Oh, hey guys, I’m on a “diet.”

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I sold out. BUT! Before you judge me for being all diet-y (wait, are you doing that??), remember my 30 before 30 list?

I sorta do. A whole big list of things that I wanted to do before the big 3-0 hits in a little under 4 years. I crossed some off recently, and we’ll get to those when we get to those, but in the meantime, I want to talk about number 15:

Feel completely comfortable naked

OK. So that’s why I’m “dieting” and have been for two weeks now.

The problem is, I’ve never been one to take things like “dieting” all that seriously.

“I don’t believe in diets, man. Life is short, food is good, and grabbing a beer with friends is way more fun than hitting the gym.” -Jami, circa 2 weeks ago

Well, you all know that it’s true.

Secretly, though, I may have agonized a bit over things like, you know, my weight. I was always thin, up until I started hitting puberty at the ripe old age of 8. Then my hips started to curve outward, my slender legs started to fill out, and my breasts — ha, no, not really, not my breasts. Flat, those stayed, while my lower half began to curve and bulge in ways I had no reason to understand.

I went through high school and college with an expanding ass and thickening thighs with enough self-esteem to get me by and enough humor to laugh off the comments of my critical family.

Interestingly enough, though, it was when I started gaining confidence that I began to see weight loss in a more realistic light. These past few years my mid-20s have had me splitting at the seams with happiness, strength, and so much self-love that I’ve begun to think that maybe I’m a little narcissistic.

Well, until I looked at myself in the mirror next to my friends.

I’m lucky enough to have made some pretty awesome friends these past few years. Three girls from three different places. They do different things, have different passions, and all live their lives totally differently.

What do they have in common? They’re all thin little pieces of beauty. Standing next to them feels like being the penguin trying to be one of the flamingos.

They’re encouraging, wonderful, and they all love me dearly. “You’re not fat,” they’ve all laughed at me in one way or another. “Look at your ass!” they cry. “You’ve got rockin’ tits!” they point out. (At 26, it would appear that I finally grew some boobs.)

And they’re right, of course. I’m not fat. I carry most of my weight in my hips, ass , and legs, and even at my heaviest, I still fit into a 13 in Juniors. Not that big really.

But I want to be totally comfortable naked. In fact, that’s on my 30 before 30 list.

So what would that take? Slimming down, dipping below that high-school-low — that mark I haven’t seen since high school.

Toning up. I took lots of yoga classes while I lived in Chile last year — I want to take more of those. And beyond that, I really want to start running. Ever since I was a kid, I watched my dad walk out the door, no matter what the Northwest weather is doing, and run step after step on his thick, strong legs that I so ungraciously inherited. I want to follow after him, and I want to run beside him.

So WEIGHT WATCHERS, huh? Yup. I’ve done it before, lost 15 pounds by following it half-heartedly for a few months. So what happens if I really follow it, and start doing my yoga and my running?

I get over this weight hump, I’m hot, and I don’t agonize internally about having to be seen in shorts or a swimsuit.

Here’s why I love Weight Watchers: I’ve been doing it for two weeks now. I don’t starve. In fact, as long as I’m conscious about it, I still have plenty of points for hanging out with my friends and grabbing that beer — very important, given that I live in a completely beer-centric corner of the US and I love it so dearly.

“I don’t believe in diets, man. Life is short, food is good, and grabbing a beer with friends is way more fun than hitting the gym.”

It’s all still true.

Woot.

So this is normal.

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I have not, in my adult life, lived in the same city as a boy I’ve been seeing.

What? That can’t be right.

Right. Let’s examine this statement a bit more.

Let’s define “adult life” as life beyond high school. Let’s define “lived in” as being in a city with no immediate intention of leaving for extended periods of time. For the purposes of this study, “same city” actually means “same area code.” And let’s define “boy I’ve been seeing” as just that — any boy that I have seen, in any type of romantic setting.

That means in eight years — around six of which were spent in relationships — and over the course of a few different boys, I’ve never, ever lived in the same city as one of them.

It was an easy win in “Never Have I Ever” because almost no one can leave a finger standing and a drink untouched.

Welp, cross that one off the constantly decreasing “possible ‘Never Have I Evers.’”

I’m living in 425/206 area. My boyfriend is also living in the 425/206 area. I have no intention of leaving. Not school, not a job, not a raging desire to leave for the sake of leaving.

And it’s occurring to me that I have no idea how this kind of relationship works.

How often should we see each other? Is it okay to hang out at home doing nothing, when instead I could be hanging out with him? What do you do when it stops feeling like a special treat to be able to see him?

I hope I’m cut out for this.

Also, things are good so far. So don’t worry. More updates to come.

finding myself all over again.

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what it takes to make me feel like me.

It sounds silly, but in trying to find myself here it appears that I’ve lost myself. In the effort to adjust, assimilate, learn, teach, etc, I have somehow lost touch with myself.

Not in any bad way, really. It is just that I spend so much time thinking and doing that I havent spent any time in the blog world, which was something really important to me a year ago. The blog world is what gave me the support and push that I needed to do this in the first place, and now that I’m here I seem to have disconnected myself completely.

I spent an embarrassingly long stretch of time going through old Tweets last night. Afterwards, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned until three in the morning before finally falling asleep.

Then I woke up this morning, threw some clothes on, and made myself a cup of real coffee. This is the first time since being in this country that I’ve been able to make myself real coffee before going to work, and, truth be told, I am completely startled by the difference. As opposed to life with Nescafe, the staple here in Chile, I find myself unusually perky. I feel ready to take on the day. It almost feels the same as when I was working with HROC.

I feel like myself for the first time in a while. I miss the blog world. As such, I’ve started three different posts today. I’m hoping to catch up with it, to put myself back in there.

Risha posted to Trickster Syndicate. Her absolutely beautiful writing aside, she made me remember Karen. Karen has been stuck in Vegas with my self-induced writers block for months now. It is time for me to find her again. Im plotting her course, trying to find her a way back to herself. I’m writing her story again.

I feel like myself now. An X-Files watching, black coffee drinking, staying up too late-ing, constantly enamoured with something new-ing, Tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, 20sb-ing wannabe writer.

Now if I could just find some bitter-as-hell beer in this country, I would be set.

lend me your hand and we’ll conquer them all

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We were going to make tacos. We’s been simmering black beans all day, and everyone was on the way with their assigned ingredients.

Perfect day for tacos, too. A friend’s birthday. Recovering from a weekend of celebration. A touch homesick. What we all needed was some homemade tacos…like the ones Mel used to make.

And then the stove stopped working. And the TV, and the internet. Two of the main outlets and our electric stove stopped working.

After a little banter, seven girls ended up sitting around two boxes of pizzas, drinking wine and playing some of the most ridiculous games of MASH.

As I get older, I’m finding that I like almost like the things that replace foiled plans better than the original idea. They’re messier, sure, but with the right people around, disaster turns easily into perfection. The only times we ever talk about are the ones that were ridiculous.

The time I grated cheese by cutting it into tiny strips because Brad’s new place didn’t have a cheese grater.

The time the cops busted us on Sara’s 18th birthday.

The friends I made because I fucked things up and had to stay away from Portland for awhile.

The boy I started seeing because that other relationship didn’t end the way I thought it would.

Something wonderful seems to always come from the broken ideals. Sides sore from laughing, a closer connection, new relationships. When plans unravel, it leaves me exposed and open. I’m finding, though, that that’s not a bad thing — it leaves me open for something better.

Like seven girls, a couple of pizzas, and a lot of laughs. Tacos can wait.