My New Year’s Eve was fun. I hung out with two of my sisters - Andrea made us dinner, we drank wine and champagne, we listened to Kings of Leon, we laughed so damn much my abs hurt, and we watched the ball drop at midnight. We were all flying solo for the night, so when 2009 hit we kissed each other.

The next night I babysat my little brother and sister so my dad and his wife could have a night out. It wasn’t an entirely peaceful evening, but here is one of the more calm moments:

Two good nights in a row. I like 2009 so far.

It’s been one hell of a year. But in the end, I have to say, a really good year. One glaringly significant event stands out, but looking beyond that I have some pretty good memories from 2008. I visited Minneapolis, New York City and the Caribbean. I successfully completed three semesters of graduate school. I spent a lot of time with my family and friends, which really, that’s the biggest blessing of all. I helped elect a new president who will hopefully do a lot of good for this country. And I turned 28, an age which I believe will serve me well.

I quickly pulled together a little photo collage of the year - one photo from each month. This is just a snapshot of the many things I did and enjoyed in 2008.

It was about the middle of the year that I experienced the worst heartbreak of my life so far. When my relationship with Brad ended, I was miserable and depressed for months. I hate remembering that feeling, but I know the experience made me stronger. It has been five months now, and I can honestly say that I am happier and that I feel better than I have in a very long time. Sometimes it seems so recent that I was curled in a ball on the laundry room floor, alone, unable to control my sobbing. But five months is a long time and I’ve come a long way.

This last month has been the perfect way to end this year. I spent my birthday with a large group of friends and family; I spent the holidays surrounded by so many of the people I hold dear; I’ve been having fun with someone new; and I’m spending tonight, the last night of the year, wearing pajamas, drinking champagne and hanging out with two of my sisters.

Despite learning the hard way what heartbreak feels like, I have to say…

It’s been a damn good year!

I hope you all can say the same, and I wish everyone a wonderful new year!

For lack of better blog material, I’m going with the holiday wrap-up. Though I had quite a few christmas parties this year, they were all low-key and casual. Just my style.

It started a couple weeks ago with an extended family get-together where I lost miserably at a beanbags tournament and only hung out for about an hour. The next evening was a dinner party slash christmas party with friends. We did it potluck style and exchanged white elephant gifts. I walked out with a new photo frame and a hideous orange Aztec-y ceramic vase (which I have already managed to re-gift (thanks Amber!)).

The Saturday before Christmas I was at my dad’s, celebrating with more extended family. It was at that party that my little (half-)sister received this scary robotic cat:

I swear it’s possessed. She tried to name it Whiskers, but her older sisters shot that down and forced her to come up with something better. Aren’t we lovely? In the end she settled on Winter, which is only a slight improvement over Whiskers, but sometimes you just have to let kids be kids. I received a t-shirt that says “You have died of dysentery” and shows the image of a covered wagon. Get it?

On Christmas Eve, I went over to my aunt’s house to celebrate with even more extended family. At this party we had a Euchre tournament, games, pizza and snacks. For gifts we each brought a $5 red gift and played a game to exchange them. I ended up with a pair of red Coke boxers. I also won the “Spirit Award” during the card game. Apparently I’m a good sport (meaning I lose and don’t give a shit).

It was for that same party that I made this lovely cherry pie:

There was so much food that the pie was still about 75% intact when I took it home. No matter, I’ve been enjoying the rest of it myself over the last few days.

On Christmas day, we first went over to my brother’s to celebrate with Mom. We drew names and did $15 gifts, so I got a sweet red hat and a movie. Each year my mom gets the girls an antique gift, and this year we all received mirrored perfume trays and two glass perfume bottles. I didn’t get a picture, but they’re very cool. Also, it must be the year of creepy gifts because my niece was playing with this all day:

Her arms, legs and even torso were detachable. I don’t get it.

Later we headed over to Dad’s for the evening. We did Goodwill Gifts - I got two old purses, a laptop cushion and a nail grooming set. What I gave was a giant wooden fork. I haven’t uploaded those photos yet, but just know that it was pretty awesome. Dad also gave us all a $50 gift card to JCPenney, and best of all, he is starting a family account at kiva.org so we can all help alleviate poverty through microloans. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.

Finally, I got an mp3 player. As we were all packing up to leave the last party, my sister Andrea asked if I had an iPod. Nope. Next thing I know she’s throwing a gift bag at me that contains a 2GB SPI mp3 player. She had bought it for someone else who apparently already had one, and for some reason Andrea couldn’t return it. So she gave it to me. Don’t you love her?

Oh I forgot to mention. The morning of Christmas Eve someone gave me some Oregon Chai Tea and made me homemade cherry pancakes. Smiley face emoticon.

Happy Holidays everyone!

My sister, an intelligent and excellent college student, got a C on a speech she wrote for class primarily because the professor didn’t like the topic she chose. The topic? Feminism.

The assignment was to write a persuasive speech, and there was one primary rule: no controversial topics. Emily asked me if I thought feminism was too controversial, and I said no. I know not everyone agrees with feminism, but I don’t think that makes it too controversial. Any topic will have those who disagree. That’s why it’s a persuasive speech – because you’re trying to persuade people to agree with you. So I loaned her some books and helped her craft an overall message, and she spent weeks working on this thing.

When she finally had to present the topic and outline to her professor, the professor expressed some discomfort with the subject matter. This woman, it was clear, was not a feminist and was not comfortable with the idea of one of her students talking about feminism in her classroom. Emily persisted though and convinced her that she was well within the “no controversial topics” rule.

As expected the speech, when delivered in class, was met with some uneasiness. Em started out by saying something like “I’m a feminist and I bet, even if you don’t know it yet, you are too.” Which I think is genius, but that was only one of many things that the professor ripped apart.

I suppose it is possible that it was just a bad speech and she got a C for that reason alone. But common sense tells me that’s bullshit. Em spent almost two months researching, writing, rewriting and practicing this speech. She knew the professor would want to hate it, so she had to make it great. She has gotten an A on every other speech she has written for the class, and she is an incredibly intelligent girl and a good student. Plus all the comments on past speeches have been of a technical nature; this time she got a lot of opinion. Instead of “poor sentence structure” it was more like “I don’t like your attention-getter.”

Emily thought it was important to mention that this woman is an outspoken conservative. Not that political or social conservatives are automatically anti-feminists (who knows?), but it’s just another clue to what’s really going on here. Em has decided not to fight the grade - she’ll get an A in the class regardless. However, I did strongly encourage her to alert someone to what happened. The integrity of grading is important in academia, and somebody should know that one professor is letting her personal opinions on an issue overshadow a clear demonstration of a student’s ability to do the work.

It’s too bad that the very idea of feminism can be so divisive. And it’s too bad Emily’s grade had to suffer as a result. But I bet every student in her class that day heard something they had never heard before and learned something they had never learned before. I think that’s more important than a silly grade. Emily agrees.

In my excitement to plan my Single and Lovin’ It birthday celebration on Saturday, I neglected to make plans for tonight, my actual birthday. Luckily my grandparents called and want to take me to dinner. Sounds good to me! Then maybe a drink with my sister.

Despite only getting a short two hour nap last night, I’m feeling pretty good today. All the happy birthday wishes are pouring in, which I love about birthdays. Everyone comes out of the woodwork. Thanks for that by the way.

This is actually going to be a really good week. I kick if off with this birthday, then I get to go to my final classes on Tuesday and Thursday and finish out the semester (I am giddy about this!). Wednesday I’m hanging out with some friends, Saturday I have a family christmas party, and Sunday I have a casual dinner party. And I can actually enjoy all these things because: LAST WEEK OF CLASSES!! (At least until January.)

Oh and one more thing. I have a date Thursday night with a guy I think could be really cool. So far things look really good, but Thursday will be our first time meeting. I hope email/chat/text chemistry translates into real live chemistry.

I realize I was being pretty selfish the other day. Sometimes you get upset about something and you think “Grr…I’m going to blog about that!” And then you hit publish and later you remember that people actually read this thing. Oops.

Sorry friends if any of you felt guilted into coming out Saturday night. That was not my intention. I was just being a big fat crybaby.

My Single and Lovin’ It birthday celebration actually turned out to be really great. Five people couldn’t make it, but I was still amazed by everyone who did. We had an awesome dinner, then hung out at my apartment for a couple hours. We were laughing so loud that when my friend Erica left, she called me to say she could hear us at the other end of the parking lot. It was a good night.

So thank you to Andrea, Blake, Kelli, Josh, Megan, Michelle, Angie, Erica, Brooke, Rob, Amber and Andy for celebrating with me. And thank you to Emily, Drew, Mom, Jess and Melissa for trying to make it.

You may have noticed the time stamp on this and wondered if there was an error. Why would I be posting at 2:45am on my birthday? That would be because my body hates me and refuses to sleep. Again. However, I spent almost three hours chatting with someone interesting. So it’s not all bad.

Update: In fact there was a mistake. It says 3:44am. Hopefully I’m sleeping by then.

I hate having a winter birthday.

For about a month I have been planning a big birthday dinner with friends and family for this weekend. I invited close to 30 people, selected a delicious restaurant, made a reservation and grew increasingly excited as the “yes” responses poured in. As it stands, there will be 19 people gathered around a huge table to celebrate my birthday with me on Saturday night.

I did something similar last year with a much smaller group, but this year I decided to have a Single and Lovin’ It Birthday Dinner and surround myself with all the many people whom I love. This is the worst weekend for a birthday celebration because it’s serious crunch time with the homework right now as everything is due next week Tuesday. But I wasn’t about to miss having a kickass 28th birthday party just because of some silly assignments.

However, it looks like something else threatens to stand in my way. The mother effing weather. This morning several people casually mentioned the huge snow storm that we’re supposed to get today and tomorrow. As in nonstop snow and ice for the next couple days on top of the several inches that fell last night. This does not bode well for my guest list.

I have people coming from other parts of the state to celebrate with me. I even wonder if those in other parts of the city will want to make the drive. I wouldn’t blame anyone at all if they had to cancel due to weather - I definitely prefer my friends alive and safe. So I won’t be mad at them. But I’m fucking pissed at the snow.

I hate the snow. HATE! THE! SNOW! Hate it hate it hate it. I really hate snow. A lot. I mean I seriously, really, very much hate it. Snow, you better not ruin this for me you little bastard. I swear I will hunt you down and make you regret the day you were born.

Today I am incredibly thankful for my family. I stayed up late last night having fun and interesting conversation with many of them, and I spent all day laughing non-stop with them. The whole time I thought about how lucky I am. I know some people aren’t very close with their families or don’t relate well to them. I know some people don’t have much family at all. I try to never take the special bond I have with my parents and my siblings for granted.

I don’t think I could ever write anything that does justice to how awesome I think my family is and how lucky I feel to be part of it. If you don’t have a family and you want one, we have plenty of love to go around in ours. Seriously, you’re welcome anytime.

The Rockettes show was… wow. Pretty cheesy. At one point I leaned over to Erica and said, “This is a little more cheesy than I bargained for.” It was the point when there were about 15 people in giant teddy bear costumes dancing around the stage. Yeah. The Rockettes themselves were pretty impressive - it was everything else that made me barf. Like the 30 dancing Santas. Gross. We had fun though.

At least it was a good break from all this other stuff on my mind. Mostly it’s the daunting task of researching and writing that is occupying my thoughts lately. But other stuff too. I am having fun right now, but I always feel like it’s not enough. Maybe it’s because there is so much I want to do, but I never feel like I have time. I don’t like being a super-busy person with plans every night that keep me out late. I like to balance busyness and relaxation. So if I start to get too busy, I cut things out in order to have time to just sit and read or watch tv. I need that down time.

But right now I have two huge school projects hanging over me, I have about 12 friends I keep saying I will hang out with but never do, I have family things I want to go to, I have other people I want to see, and I have about 73 thousand projects I want to start or finish. I realize everyone has this problem, it’s just life, but I feel particularily frustrated by it right now. I know the things I want to do, but they never seem to match up with the things I have to do.

I had such a good time Friday through Wednesday, but the last couple days I’ve just been in a bad mood. I feel like kicking the crap out of something. I wonder if Robin would let me hang a punching bag in our dining room.

Wow I need to just be fired from nablopomo. I missed it again yesterday, and like last time, it didn’t even occur to me once throughout the whole day. The last two years I was so energized about writing every day, and this year it’s like I completely forget it’s even November. I’m not sure what the difference is.

I had a decent weekend. Friday night was very fun (if you want details, feel free to ask because that’s all I’m writing about it for now), and despite having to work, Saturday was okay too. I ended up giving up on the paper about two pages in and going to bed. I spent most of Sunday finishing it up and starting on the next one.

My dad called me Sunday afternoon and when I asked how he was doing, he said “Better than you it sounds like!” He thought I was getting a cold. I had to explain that no, I wasn’t getting sick. I had just been home alone and hadn’t talked to anyone all day so my voice was still warming up. At 3pm. Maybe next time I have a home-alone homework day I should sing scales in the morning so I don’t sound like a frog when someone finally calls.

And lastly, when I got into work this morning I had a new office! I had been working at a cubicle of sorts for over a year, begging them to move me into this vacant office. Finally all the red tape was cut and I’m officially in! It’s a shared office, but I have plenty of space. And the best part? Huge windows! I can see the sun! Okay so it’s snow today, not sun, but I can see daylight during the winter which is an amazing thing for me.

I spent a lot of time with my sisters this weekend. I can’t say it enough, I love having sisters and I love living so close to them all. Friday night I went to Andrea’s for dinner. We played MarioKart, did homework and hung out with the dogs.

Saturday Kelli and I drove up to see Emily. Em made us dinner and we all watched Sex and the City while I worked on some homework. We spent the night and hung out for awhile Sunday before leaving.

One bad thing about this weekend: I slept on Em’s couch and effed up my back. I can barely move. Everytime I tried to roll over last night I whimpered in pain. It better fix itself soon because I have crap going on this week.

One good thing about this weekend (among many): I laughed a lot. I laugh more with my sisters than with anyone else. Brad used to be tied in this category, and I really hope I find someone else someday who will make me laugh that much. It’s something I consider essential. Anyway, my sisters and I share the same sense of humor so we spend a lot of time cracking each other up. For instance, on the drive home I said something quite on accident (it won’t be funny in the retelling so I’ll skip that detail) that had Kelli and I in tears. Most people probably wouldn’t have laughed; a few might have chuckled and moved on. But Kelli and I were laughing so hard it was silent. You know that silent laughter? It’s a really good feeling to laugh that hard over something so silly. And to have someone to do it with.

I went to my last counseling appointment yesterday evening. I was last there only a few weeks ago, and even then I was still wondering how I was going to get out of the mire. I felt better for sure, but I also felt like I had to work really hard at it. I worked every day to feel good, but I could remember a time when I was just happy without all the effort. I felt good without thinking about it and trying at it all the time. A few weeks ago I wondered if I would ever feel that way again.

Something happened since then. Maybe the Celexa took full effect, maybe the counseling helped, maybe enough time has passed, maybe all my “trying at it” paid off, or maybe it’s a combination of all those things. But I actually feel good. Happy even.

I’m in a good place with Brad too. We have emailed a few times and I think one day we might even be able to form some sort of friendship. I think we both feel good finally, and hopefully with enough time we’ll be able to figure out what it means to be friends after a break up. I still stand by my statement that Brad is too good a guy to not have in my life at all. Eventually I think we can figure it out.

After my appointment last night, I still had one more free session available to me. The counselor asked if I would like to schedule something and amazingly I said, “No I actually think I’m doing pretty well now.” Long-term counseling would definitely not hurt, but since that’s not an option right now, I didn’t feel like the last session was necessary. I think I can do this on my own now.

(Except not really on my own. I still need the support of all of you – friends, family, readers – so don’t abandon me okay? You guys got me this far, for which I’m incredibly grateful, and I’m not done with you yet.)

Yesterday was incredibly long. I was running on only a few hours of sleep, my professor not only failed to let us out early but actually kept us five minutes late, I had a pounding headache all evening, and I had the beginnings of a cold. But I stayed up until all the Obamas left the stage. I knew that later the fatigue and the headache and the cold would mean very little, but seeing history happen in real time would mean a great deal.

There were a lot of really important things going on last night, and I, like so many others, was amazed and moved by the results. I’ll let better writers tell the big story, but there is something that stood out for me last night on a personal level.

Four years ago, around election time, I was hounding my sisters to exercise their right to vote. One of them was still too young, but the other two were pretty apathetic about the whole thing. I sent them information on the history of women’s suffrage, I pointed them to the places they could find out if they were registered and register if they weren’t, I talked to them about the issues, trying to get them interested and informed. In the end, I think only one of them voted, and with little enthusiasm at that.

But this year was completely different. My youngest sister voted for the first time, and she made a point to be informed. She described the experience as “exciting.” Another sister was even more excited and involved than I was. She volunteered for the Obama campaign, making cold calls, knocking on doors and driving people to the polls. She voted first thing in the morning, and she cried during Obama’s speech. My third sister happens to have a different opinion than me, but even she got out and voted this year. And the most incredible thing? She texted me last night to say, “I have to admit, I was grinning from ear to ear listening to our new president speak.”

I think those stories, especially when compared to the stories of four years ago, say a lot about this election and what it means. I’m really proud of my sisters.

Edit: Turns out none of my sisters voted in the last election, making this year even more amazing.

Edit (again): Turns out one of my sisters did vote, it just wasn’t the one I thought it was.

Here’s one thing I miss about having a boyfriend: having a bug-killer around. I’ve been fine with taking over most of the things Brad used to do. Like getting my oil changed, taking the trash out, cleaning the toilet. But I miss having someone to rescue me from the bugs. I do not do well with insects and spiders. In fact, I’m a downright crybaby when it comes to the creepy crawlies.

My biggest bug battle right now is the spider who has taken up residence outside my garage door. One day I noticed a small web gracing one corner of the door frame. I didn’t pay it much attention until later when I noticed it had grown and now held a smattering of insect carcasses - a spider’s dinner. When my sister Emily was down visiting last month, she bravely (well not bravely really since she’s not a wimp like me and isn’t bothered much by this stuff) pulled the web down with her bare hands.

Well, by the next morning the resilient spider had not only rebuilt its web, but it built ANOTHER web too just to piss me off. So for the last few weeks I have had to walk beneath two giant spider webs every day to get to and from my car. One morning the damn spider was dangling, yes dangling!, from the web right where I needed to walk. I ducked, squealed and ran beneath it as fast as I could.

All I really want is for someone to kill the spider (or transport it if they’re the humane type) and remove the webs. But Robin’s just as frightened as me, Emily lives two hours away, my other sisters are no fans of spiders either, and my dad and brother both live too far to make a trip just to save me from a little (HUGE!) spider. I asked Robin’s boyfriend to help me out, but he lives out of town and is only here a couple times a month. Last time he left before we got around to Project: Spider Removal, so the the nasty bastard remains outside my garage.

This is when I really miss having a boyfriend. I know not all boys are fearless spider-killers, but most of them would be willing to help me out if I explained how not cool I am with the whole spider thing. I know Brad, at least, would have been out there long ago taking care of this matter for me. I should probably just buck up, grab some bug spray and a broom and get rid of this problem myself, but it’s one thing I haven’t been able to bring myself to do. Getting my own oil changed? Fine. Wrangling scary spiders? Just can’t do it.

Robin suggested I start dating and hook a guy at least long enough to come over and kill Mr. Spider. I’m thinking it’s not a bad idea. Do spiders die in the winter though? Maybe I can survive until the weather does the deed for me.

Okay no fucking joke you guys. As I’m writing this, a little spider just crawled down the windowsill near my desk. I’m not really sure what to do, so I’m going to stop writing and run away.

I have the coolest long-distance friends in the world. This time my good friend Jess made a two-hour drive (actually it was more than that because of road construction – I’m sorry friend!) to visit me on Saturday. She was staying over night, but she couldn’t even carry her overnight bag up to my apartment because she was lugging a giant tub full of my favorite things: candy, Pepsi and cereal.

Whenever I have an out-of-town guest, I feel the need to show them all that GR has to offer, but the truth is I’m a terrible host. Good thing Jess was totally cool with sitting around my apartment most of the time. We did go out for dinner Saturday night, but then jammied up and hunkered down (hi Jen – did I get that right?) to watch a movie at home. Sunday she got to meet the whole family when we went to breakfast for mom’s birthday. Then since it was an incredibly beautiful day, we went for a walk in the park and sweated our asses off because it was so hot. In October. I’m not complaining!

Some of my awesomest friends are people who live far away from me. I can think of at least seven people who I would love to convince to move closer to me. Several of them are single too (unlike ALL my friends here who FALLING IN LOVE ALL OVER THE PLACE!), so I know we could have a lot of fun doing single girl stuff together. Can you guys all move here please? Or maybe we could find a central place and relocate there together? How does Denver sound?

In addition to my visit from Jess, I had a very busy and very fun weekend. Friday night my sister Emily came down to have dinner, hang out and see a movie with me. Since she moved, we get very little Brownie time together (she and I are the Brownies because we have brown hair, Andrea and Kelli are the Blondies because, well, they have blond hair), so it was a nice evening. Soon after she left, Kelli came over and we stayed up talking until almost 3am. Saturday we both got up and met the whole family at an orchard to do the pumpkin/apple/donut/cider thing, then she and I went out for a drink. My baby sister is 21 as of a few weeks ago, so I did the big sister thing and bought her a beer. Then we stopped at the mall before getting home in time for Jess’ arrival.

After breakfast on Sunday, I strapped myself down at my desk and worked on homework for a couple hours. School is kind of kicking my ass this semester. I was planning to spend this Saturday doing hardcore research for two big papers I have to write, then I remembered I have an all day seminar to attend. So it looks like Sunday is research day and my weekend is shot. Not cool, school. Not cool.