bouncy OB/GYNs on a plane

Among the list of the many irrational fears I harbor (including getting killed by a serial murderer, thanks a lot CSI), flying is somewhere in the top half.

I was never afraid of it when I was little. As long as I had some Jolly Ranchers to help with the change in ear pressure, I was a happy camper. I loved to sit in the window seat and stare out the window – I thought it was marvelous that we were so high above the clouds.

Nowadays I think it's basically insane. To be sealed up in a large metal craft and hurtle through the air at a very fast speed tens of thousands of feet in the air? No thank you ma'am. I think it's because there is some part of my mind that simply cannot fathom how a giant metal box doesn't just fall out of the air. Yeah, yeah, I know its got physics and aerodynamics and all that in play, but this is an irrational fear, remember?

Regardless, I get pretty anxious, which I have learned to combat two ways. 1) Drinking (the preferred method), or 2) Keeping my mind firmly planted on something else so I don't freak myself out.

Flying home from Jackson last weekend, I had homework to do on the plane/once I got home, so option #1 was out. Instead Brian helped distract me by playing Mad Libs. Last year on an all-day train from England to Scotland we fought boredom by writing and playing our own Mad Libs. Trust me, they so much better than the ones you buy.

See for yourself. This one, a touching wedding story, was written by me with words provided by Brian:

And here we have an expose about where Penny goes after we're asleep, written by Brian and words provided by me:

"underage" and engaged

Being 22 and engaged in Boston kind of feels like being 16 and engaged in the south. A lot of people here seem to think I'm crazy and young and crazy young to be getting married. Sure, I know a few married folks and one engaged folk in my BU program, but they are all either a few years older or from Texas.

On the other hand, there is this:

Out of the seven things on our fridge, four (FOUR!) are save-the-dates for weddings this upcoming summer alone and one is a thank-you note from a wedding we attended on New Year's Day. Plus, last summer Brian and I attended no less than three weddings in four weeks. Every single one of these nine couples are people we know from Millsaps, all who hail from below the Mason-Dixon line. The brides and grooms are all between the ages of 20-26 and the weddings are scattered across Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana.

Welcome to the south, y'all.

Marriage, and the age people get married, is a huge cultural difference between the south (and other parts of the country, like the midwest) and the north. And obviously there's no hard and fast rules here, but there are definitely geographic trends. In big cities here up north, it's completely normal for people to date ten years or more before deciding to tie the knot. A thirty-five year old woman is by no means an old maid like she might feel in the south. Everyone up here is so busy working on their careers (and paying sky-high rent) that getting married often gets put on the back burner for a while. 

Whereas southern people loooove to get hitched. Or at least feel that it is more important to do earlier in life. There is more of a family focus in the south, more of a traditional (although some probably say old-fashioned or backward) family structure and lifestyle. Senior year at a college in the south is like proposal-palooza. One year, a sorority at my school had over half the girls in its graduating class either engaged or married. 

Of course, both of these trends lend themselves to stereotypes – the frigid Yankee workaholic vs. the Southern sorority girl who came to get her MRS degree. 

As someone who has lived in both worlds (plus partially grew up in Utah*, a world of its own when it comes to family structure and marriage), I find myself appreciating aspects of both. I would never have thought I would be engaged at 22 years old, but now I can't imagine it any other way. It should be all about the right person and the right time – not rushing to marry simply because you've been together the allotted amount of time (southern people!)** and not staying unmarried because you feel too young and/or just want to make a bunch of money (northern people!). Sometimes I do feel young to be doing this, but usually it feels just right. 

When we are married, Brian and I will have been together over five years (and known each other almost six). We will have survived a year of long distance and a couple years of living together. We have a cat! We share all our financial responsibilities. Marriage will just be a little bow on the life we are already living. 

A shiny little bow with diamonds, of course. 

* I'm not Mormon. EVERYONE asks that when they find out I'm from Utah. Literally. Everyone. 
** I'm definitely not saying any of the aforementioned weddings are doing that, but I've seen it happen. And probably had it wondered about me up here in the north. 

life imitating art...

imitating life?

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I told y'all I was going to buy those capsacs. 

a weekend at Mother Millsaps

It's funny what lends itself to a good blog post. We just got back from one of the best (albeit shortest, in Brian's case - thanks a lot, airlines) weekends in a long time. I laughed so hard I nearly peed. I did possibly irreparable damage to my body in the form of a Cool Al's cheeseburger, Julep chicken, OEC fried rice, two Cabot free happy hours and more. In fact, I am literally scarred from the amount of fun I had this weekend.*

But trying to blog it up is nearly impossible. There's too many things that, while hilarious in real life, don't translate well to reading off the screen. Or they only make sense to such a small group of people it would just sound weird to put it out there to the rest of the blogosphere (like that list of foodstuffs in the paragraph above that anyone not familiar with Jackson probably stopped reading after). Blogging about extremely fun, personal things is weirdly self-indulgent. Actually I think all blogging is pretty self-indulgent, but writing about something fun is even more so. It's enjoyable to the writer, but perhaps not so much to the reader.

A random moment or two might float up through the crawfish-filled memories the weekend that will hit the blog, but in general I'll suffice it to say that a) it was extremely weird returning to a campus that is more my home than anywhere yet I haven't stepped foot on since May, b) I have the best sistah family in the entire universe, THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OKAY, c) the weather in the South is epically beautiful right now and it was especially cruel to return to a 20 degree day, and d) I love my friendys so much and don't know what I would do without them.

We are all so spread apart now, across so many cities and states and even countries. But no matter the distance or the time, some great things never change.

ANYWAY, if you made it through this self-indulgent post (especially if you don't know me, Millsaps or what in the world I've been talking about), I have a reward for you:

That is ED HARDY BEER.
It exists. And surprisingly doesn't taste as much like Jon Gosselin as you'd think.

please excuse my heinous posture, which is giving me
an awesome physique in this particular shot

*Don't operate a hot straightener while under the influence, kids. 

Erin Go Braugh!

That's "Ireland forever!" in a very (very) Anglicized Irish. Happy St. Patrick's Day, y'all. I miss Ireland (where I studied for a semester of my undergrad) more than ever today. At least I'm in Boston rather than Mississippi this year, where I can celebrate with beef and Guinness stew and green beer!

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite images (just a handful of the hundreds I took) from my time on the Emerald Isle:


If I get really proactive I'll go back and caption them so you know what you are looking at, but for now just look at the pretty!

get un-funky now

I haven't posted much in the past week or so (except for yesterday's blog title crisis). I've been in a funk. A seriously funky funk. And I wasn't sure if I should write about it because a) it seems incredibly selfish and insignificant considering the turmoil so much of the globe is in right now, b) I'm not sure if anyone wants to read a "woe is me" post, and c) it's scary to say – and write – these things out loud.

But I want to write about it. And I want to post it. And who knows, maybe someone can relate.

I've been feeling remarkably insecure lately. Not the typical girly insecurities like feeling not thin or pretty enough – although I have to say I have those moments as well. In general my insecurity comes from school and work.

I've never really been unsuccessful at school. In college I was honored with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. In high school I never got a B. I was valedictorian.

I don't say all this to brag - really, I don't. I never talk about these things. I never tell anyone unless I'm asked directly. I'm only saying them now to give context to how I feel and why I shouldn't feel that way.

I never felt smarter than other people in school. Sure, I realized on some level that I must be, or at least that the teachers thought I was. I did my best in school because I wanted to and I liked learning and because my father would have killed me if I didn't. And my best was always good enough - more than good enough. I wasn't really afraid of failing.

Now I think about it all the time.

I'm not completely sure what the difference is. Maybe its because the stakes seem so much higher in grad school. Maybe partially it's because if I failed in high school or college, well, so did lots of other people. The pressure was off, I suppose.

Not so in grad school.

Everyone else seems older, more experienced, more serious. They have read the New York Times every day for the past five years. They have opinions on what's going on. They are excited to get out there and do it, real reporting, real interviews. They intimidate me.

I, on the other hand, would rather spend my day blogging about Glee or what some starlet wore on the red carpet or Slankets than the revolution in the middle East or the tsunami in Japan. Not because I don't find the revolution interesting or newsworthy or important (and I realize Slankets are the opposite of all those adjectives), but I think because I so desperately want to put off the real world for a little bit longer.

I do love writing. I believe in writing. I love and believe in the power of words. I think you can express things that are hard and complex and scary through writing in a way you can't with speech alone (this post is proof - I have been trying and failing to verbalize these things lately).

And I honestly love my classes this semester. I love talking about current events, learning about online news and social media, analyzing writing, coming up with creative ways to say things... My professors are really inspiring and I feel like I'm learning a lot. It's just when I go out to the real world to actually implement what I've learned that I freeze. It's like have a mental block. I get overwhelmed and stressed and just retreat.

I don't know if this is the career for me. I don't know if I'm wasting my time and money in journalism school. But I also don't know what, if anything, I'd rather be doing. I want to write and I want to be successful and I just can't seem to figure out the path that takes me there.

This is the most conflicted I've been in a long long time. And it might be too serious and too personal. I feel kind of weird putting it all out there. But there it is.

mixed metaphors

So call me a nerd, but I'm obsessing over the name of my blog. I know I JUST changed it, but it still doesn't feel right. Brian is the scientist around here. I'm more of a book person. So while I like how the title lends some cohesiveness and I DO feel like I am continually experimenting with adulthood, I also feel like I'm mixing my metaphors here and I would feel more at home on a blog called the Library or something... except that isn't a very good name for a blog. For a bar, perhaps, but not a blog. The whole reason I started this blog was to have an outlet to write creatively (almost) every day. So again, writing not science.

Am I just being crazy and neurotic? Does anyone that reads this even care what it's called? Would changing it again be more trouble than it's worth? IS THERE SOMETHING BETTER FOR ME OUT THERE?!?