Mama J!

My friend is having a baby, AHHHHHH!!!!

Sunday night I received two messages from my dear friend in Boise, Idaho! Yes, I do know people who live in Idaho, please don’t ask me why. She has been married for almost three years, yes we do live in different worlds. However, for three years every time I talked to her I asked her if she was pregnant, half joking and half serious. Well ladies and gents, my question's finally been answered. My dear “J” is expecting a little bundle of joy this August. While I’ve been asking the question for years, I apparently wasn't prepared for her to say yes. I was in the kitchen making dinner and I dropped both my knife and my jaw. A child!!!!!!!! A teeny little baby!!!!!!!!! A kid!!!!!!!!! Are you F*ing kidding me???

This is serious, people!! This isn’t like, whoops I got knocked up, what do I do? This was a pre-meditated act. They discussed having a kid, she went off birth control and then BAM, impregnated! She is a little over three months and can feel the little bugger moving around in there, yikes!

Once upon a time when we were fresh out of HS, not a day older than 19, "J" and I were roommates in beautiful Eugene, Oregon (ahhh, we’ll save that for another time. Before Miami of Ohio spit me out, I did dabble in some other activities). We shared a house right on the edge of campus with four other girls and had the time of our life, bitching about the rain and how much we hated Oregon. She was obsessed with pink, smoked more than Snoop and we spent our days sitting on the front steps drinking rum and coke, somewhere in between we did manage to make it to class. One night I broke her window, by accident, and she was a little over-served, that it wasn’t until the next morning she realized she had no window and had slept with glass all over her floor, whoops!

SHE was having a baby, never mind already married, with her Masters, teaching elementary school and living in a 3-bedroom house in Boise!! My world literally had flipped on its axis. How were we the same age? Why was I starting to feel like I was so behind the game? In August, my oldest friend in the world is getting married, “J” is having a baby and I am turning 26!!!! Was it time to hang up my dancing shoes and start leaving the bars before last call and the lights came on?

Tonight I was at work until 7:30, I ate a can of Healthy Choice light soup for lunch and let’s be real, I’m probably going home to watch the stupid Grey’s/Private Practice “cross-over event.” I’m painfully single, not even sure I could pay someone to take me out on a date, have an allergic reaction to children and anything related to pregnancy, I’m not clean or tidy, I don’t do my dishes or laundry often. I’ve been known to buy new socks when I run out rather than cleaning them. Who on earth is going to marry me? Will I be Katherine Heigl, always the bridesmaid, never the bride? Maybe I have Peter Pan syndrome, and I’m doomed to NeverNever Land to live with the lost boys and defeat Captain Hook.

Either way, get ready for the next few months. August is going to be a big, BIG month and we’re going to have to do some recon work.

Attraction is not a choice,
flats

Bill-do the Weirdo: The Final Farewell

Well fellow bloggers, we have reached a point where we must say farewell to our dear friend "Bill-do the Weirdo." As many of you must have assumed, after last post, BW was on his way out the door after his spazztastic email confessing his love (or whatever the F that was) to me. After circulating the email around my office, since material that good can't be kept to oneself, I really couldn't figure out the best way to respond to him. I was torn because part of me did genuinely feel bad for this kid, but the other part of me was legitimately freaked out by him. So I enlisted the help of S&S, one of my fellow colleagues, who helped me write the most excellent response that I pasted below...

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the email. I appreciate the kind words, but I struggle with what to say as I really don't want to lead you in the wrong direction. While Friday night was quite the experience, I don't see this relationship or friendship (whatever you make of it) going any further.

Please don't think this had anything to do with me just wanting to hang out with my friends on Friday (I live with them and see them daily), it is more a function of who I am and who you are. I just don't see us as a fit. Sorry if this is blunt, but I don't want this to carry on any further.

I wish you the best.
Heels

So I guess to all you guys out there who read this blog there are a few lessons to walk away from this with:

1) Berating females with multiple mediums of communication without any sort of reciprocation tyyyypically indicates that, "She's just not that into you."
2) Disclosing personal family emails does not endear women to you, it creeps them out and makes them go out to Home Depot and buy extra locks to install on their windows.
3) Writing a persuasive style email to a love interest enlisting the "reasons" you two should be together based off the ONE conversation you two have had is UNACCEPTABLE. period.

As I close the Bill-do the Weirdo chapter on my life, I'm starting to think that maybe I should start weeding out some of these guys and start focusing on the ones I actually like? Ahhh, I don't care what flats says, 23 or not, quarter life crises are hard to figure out! I guess only time will tell, maybe I have another 15 Bill-do the Weirdos headed my way?! On the bright side, I'll have new material for the next 3 years, on the down side my butt might become perma-clenched in an effort to stomach dates like these.

No one's getting out alive,

heels

Excuse me!

I hate to burst heels bubble, but she has two more years until the real quarter-life crisis happens. As someone who recently turned 25 and experienced a mild panic attack and threw herself out of a plane at 14,000 feet, let me tell you the quarter-life crisis is REAL!!

All of a sudden you begin to analyze your life through a different lens and ponder the choices you continue to make. Unlike heels, my two roommates are in some super duper serious relationships. One is closing in on a year anniversary and the other is jetting off to Australia with her beau next month. I often find myself alone and flying solo on the weekend. Aside from them a lot of my friends in Chicago are coupling off pretty quickly, with more than half of them part of a “we.” And last but not least, my bestest friend from childhood is getting married this August!!!!

I am in the wedding and the last few weeks have been filled with emails about dresses and shoes and bachelorette parties. When are you ordering your dress? Are you ordering two to see which one you like best (yes, because I’m made of money)? Do you like these five inch heels (remember, I’m flats)? When can you fly in for the bachelorette party? Can you put the limo on your already maxed out CC? This Saturday while writing my response to her email I had to stop for a second. K, the bride, just turned 26, is in grad school and has been living with her fiancé for three years in domestic bliss. They have a cat, two cars, an adorable clean condo, a guest bedroom (for me) and structure. I, on the other hand, was currently lying on the couch, hung-over from staying out until three in the morning watching “Grey’s Anatomy” and wishing I had chicken nuggets for lunch. How different our lives were! Why did I feel like the immature 12 year old who refused to grow up and get her life in order. One of my favorite shows, “Party of Five,” places Charlie, a 24 year old college drop-out into a responsible roll. He cares for four children under 17, manages a restaurant and is engaged.

I on the other hand, have no boyfriend, haven’t been to the gym in over a month, went to the dentist today and was so numb I was drooling on myself at work, my room is currently under quarantine as I haven’t unpacked from my 10 day business trip, have mail that hasn’t been opened since December, am late paying the cable bill and owe my 18 year old sister $150.

Yet, after all of this, I am quite content with the way my life is. If I want to pick up and move to Park City and become a snow bunny I can. Nothing is holding me back or standing in my way and I am only responsible for myself. In fact, this morning in the Red Eye, my horoscope was dead on:

• Jupiter is opposite your sign for a whole year. This means that you'll be doing lots of soul searching. "Should I move to Paris and be an artist?" "Should I date three people at once?" "Should I become a lumberjack?" Keep asking questions.

One of my favorite articles is from Newsweek – “I can do anything, so how do I choose?” I keep it tacked up at my desk as a daily reminder to the limitless possibilities that are out there. Maybe my life is sometimes in shambles and spinning out of control, but at the end of the day it’s my life and I can’t complain! Who said when you turn 25 the fun is over? Please, the fun is just beginning!!

Attraction is not a choice,
flats