Things I’m (Almost) Always In the Mood For May 30, 2008

 

• Broccoli cheese soup (Dear Body, can’t we pretend that this is 100 calories a serving? No? Come on! It’s got veggies! Overlook the whole “cheese and cream laden” thing. Pretty please? Love, Shaba)
• Ice cream (mmm… especially my favorites: strawberry, pumpkin, fudge ripple, cookies and cream, rocky road, mango, raspberry, peanut butter,…ok I have a bit of an obsession)
• Sex (mmmm…sex. Mmmm Boyfriend.)
• Writing (mine or yours, I’m not picky.)
• Comedy (or really bad drama, anything to make me laugh, usually the 700 club does the trick. As does Wife Swap.)
• Izzard (also known to me as God in a Dress. Seriously, so freaking excited to see him in June! Can’t wait!)
• Sex and the City (because really, what’s not to love? Fashion, shoes, men, sex, friendships, cosmos? It’s like Disney World for grown ups. In TV form. Dear HBO, get on creating SITC themed adventure park….include lots of fancy dancer designer wear and cocktails…you may want to buy stock in condoms as well. Thanks, Shaba)
• 75 degree weather
• A cookie
• Shopping: clothes, grocery, SHOES, beauty products. The only shopping I don’t enjoy is anything related to icky areas: i.e. automotives/lawn care/apartments/gynecologists…
• Surprise presents!
• Windfalls of cash! (Dear universe, ask and ye shall receive? Yes? Please?)
• Flowers!
• Even tempered babies and other supercute beings (kittens! Puppies! Old people handing hands!That kid in the Welch’s Grape Juice commercials! Anything “mini” sized! )
• Compliments
• Fun Fearless Feminism

 

Happy Friday!

Things MyBoyfriend Texts* May 29, 2008

Shaba: Dear Boyfriend, make time go faster. Thanks! Love, Bam**
Boyfriend: Dear Bam, I will try, but the force is weak within me since you’ve been gone. Sorry I’m so non-committal. Love, Boyfriend.

Shaba: So any good dreams last night?
Boyfriend: Four, and they were awesome.
Shaba: OoooOO I want to find out all about them! And what I was wearing!
Boyfriend: Wearing? If you could call it that…
Shaba: Did bubble wrap make an appearance?
Boyfriend: For about 30 seconds…then it was gone.

*because Thingsmyboyfriendsays.com is too funny to steal a title from and Boyfriend and I communicate through texts about 60% of the time. For more information on why my relationship is often reduced to a form of typing see A Day In My Life.

**Boyfriend calls me Bam. Duh.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly May 28, 2008

The good: it’s lovely outside
The bad: I’m stuck inside all day.
The ugly: I’m stuck inside all day with a taunting view of the lovely weather.

The good: Free coffee and my favorite bagels at work this morning.
The bad: I already had brunch.
The ugly: I ate one anyway.

The good: I got to the gym last night.
The bad: They took my picture while I was in Gym mode.
The ugly: That picture.

The good: Pictures with White on Friday!
The bad: 7:00am shoot.
The ugly: 7:00am shoot translates to a 5:00 wake up.

The good: I was down another pound this morning.
The bad: Remember that bagel?
The ugly: There’s ice cream in the fridge calling my name.

The good: After the check engine light went on and stayed on, my car is in the shop. Luckily it just needs more fancy coolant.
The bad: I don’t have my car.
The ugly: I’m driving my mom’s no-radio, squeaky brakes car til tomorrow.

The good: the complete Sex in the City collection is sitting in its pretty pink book on my nighstand.
The bad: I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet.
The ugly: I’m not thinking I’ll start season 1 until next week.

A Day In My Life May 28, 2008

7:40 am Alarm goes off, mmm, what time is it? I can afford to hit snooze
8:00 am Damnit I hit dismiss instead of snooze again! Well, it’s still early. I can close my eyes for a little while longer. I’ll just count to 90 and then get up
8:30 am It seems bright in here. What time is it? Oh shit. I did it again
Gets out of bed, turn on straightener, stumble to bath room, put in contacts. Oh good, now I’m awake. Make all-important wardrobe decision. “It looks warm outside, maybe bermudas? But it’s always cold in the office, remember? Right. Gray slacks, teal tank top, black cropped sweater. Yes. That’ll work
8:39 Boyfriend Text #1
8:40 straighten hair.
8:50 crap. Ten minutes. MMmmm, get drink, grab gym bag, should I pack my work bag now or come back to do it? No, I’ll have to come back anyway. Leave it there.
8:52 Drive to campus.
9:11 walk into building. Say hi to co-workers. Check emails. Check facebook. Open up work files.
9:12 Boyfriend Text #2
11:00 Brunch, mmm Special K.
11:20 More work. Busy busy. Stupid 700 kids graduating. Where the hell is Parkway Center?! Oh, it’s Pittsburg. Why didn’t they just say that. System Administrator hates my life. Message cannot be delivered. Back to the internets to find another bitty-town local newspaper’s contact info. Sigh.
1:00 Woohoo! Done time! Back to the apartment for the switch.
1:02 Boyfriend Text #3
1:10 At apartment, pack work bag, pack lunch/dinner. Back to the car.
2:30 So begins job #2. There are way too many papers to file and way too many stupid people to deal with.
3:45 Boyfriend Texts #’s 4-8
5:00 Joy of joys! Dinner break!
5:15 Back to the grind. I love how 15 minutes is the new lunch hour. Note to future self: QUIT HEALTHCARE UPON COMPLETION OF SHINY MBA!
6:00 Boyfriend Texts #9, and 10
8:30 Fhew. My work load is complete. My fingers ache from filing. Time to do my own work while I guard the door and answer the phones. “Good Evening, Small Town Hospital, Shaba Speaking, How may I help you?” Dear Sales Management class, you’re much better company than Accounting. But I still only half like you.
9:00 Boyfriend Texts #11 and 12
11:30 ANNNDDDD Fin! Another 8 hours done. Time to spend more quality time with the car.
12:30 Gym-y Gym time. It’s about time I get off my ass, I’ve been on it all day. Note to Future self: OBTAIN JOB THAT ISN’T SEDANTARY!
1:30 Shower time, contacts out, Prep for tomorrow morning.
2:00 Beddy Bye.

What’s a day in the life of you?

May 26, 2008

Because I know you’re all wondering what happened with the MBA class schedule, I thought I’d let you all know that I did indeed get to schedule the class. So a May 09 graduation is eminent, so long as I pass all my classes. Knock on wood.

This weekend has so far been a grab bag.
Friday I had to work until 11, a call to boyfriend informed me that he was out and drinking and not wanting to really consume any alcohol, I decided to spend the night at the homestead. I came home expecting (and looking forward) to catch up with the ‘rents and the brothers. I miss them and every once in a while feel the need to adequately catch them up on All Things Shaba. Needless to say I was disappointed to find them working on empting a whiskey bottle and watching Fearless on FX. So much for my plan.
Then came my Great Idea.
My Great Idea that stemmed from a few weeks of relationship centered thoughts, mulling over little things and creating doubts and generally negative energy. My Great Idea was to write all of qualms down in a word document until I addressed every single one and felt better. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And then My Great Idea decided to become a Super Fabulous Idea as it whispered to me “Send me in a message via facebook! Get all this negative stuff out in the open! Boyfriend always says he wants to know if something’s going on, so send it to him! You’ll feel better!”
And My Super Fabulous Idea was right. I did feel better after pushing send. Until about 2 hours later when my confused and devastated boyfriend called me in a frenzy over what was obviously a verbal attack and documented list of “Ways Boyfriend Screwed Up.”
Suddenly Super Fabulous Idea morphed into the Mr. Hyde-esque, Super Stupid In Execution Completely Not Thought-Out Idea. Lovely.
Fast forward through the next six hours of Shaba on the couch trying to unknot her stomach and sleep, wake up and venture to Boyfriend’s Apartment where apologies were issued, and points were made while holding and speaking in decibels of library levels. And the world was put back on its axis.

I spent the afternoon, now feeling reconciled with Boyfriend and able to enjoy warm weather and a completely unscheduled weekend (!), with my mentor. We had lunch, we walked, we had wine. We talked about her life (a whirlwind of romance, new job offers, and new houses) and mine (the constant turmoil of this whole “I’m 21” thing). It was glorious.

Boyfriend and I met up for a movie and ice cream (The Aristocrats and Rocky Road was probably not the best combination, but eh) and spent 12 hours intertwined in wonderful “we don’t have to get up at any particular time” bliss. I met up with my cousin Tristus and a slew of other female relatives and my cute, but snot-ridden 3 year old twin 2nd cousins. A-dorable. We played play-doh and I completely won them over with my renditions of a snow man, a turtle and the ever popular hot dog. Tristus, art history major and creative person extraordinaire is building fruit baskets and lifelike dogs, giraffes and kitty cats. Pshaw, I was asked by my 3 year companions to make more snow men and turtles. I win.
Those kids are so cute. So. Freaking Cute. They sing wheels on the bus and the muffin man and have small little voices that make my ovaries hum. I think my uterus cried a little when they looked up at me with open arms and said, “Hold you?” (They’re a little confused, “Hold You” really means “Hold Me,” but my uterus knows no grammar and cried just the same when I lift them up to carry them around.) Sigh. Someday. In the very, very distant future. Because I like having a kid on my hip, but I also like sleeping for 8 hours straight. And I’m 21. Yea. Hi, Birth Control, I love you. Love Shaba.

After that it was a  phone interview with a total stranger. An experience that must go down in history as the most composed/non-neurotic Shaba’s ever been in any non-friend phone call situation. Seriously, I freak out on the phone. I HATE HATE HATE calling people I don’t know. I’d rather do almost anything. I’d do 4 hours of mindless alphabetizing and filing than make one phone call to a stranger. I HATE making phone calls to strangers. I put it off. I dial slowly. I feel my heart pound and I stop breathing. I have phone anxiety. Today though, my interview went brilliantly. No freak out. I dialed only once. I was amazing.

Following the phone call, a nice dinner with boyfriend, some mindless tv and many hours of internet surfing and ta-da, here I am.

Tomorrow brings Zach time and White time, and hopefully something made on a grill that I can pour condiments on.

Happy Memorial Day!

I’m No One’s Wife, But I love My Life May 24, 2008

and all that jazz…

To clarify my last post…

I am not anti-marriage. Or anti-wedding. In fact I think the idea of marriage is beautiful and I intend to one day experience it myself.  I like the idea of committing oneself to another person and inviting friends and loved ones to celebrate it. And I’m all about any occasion that lets me wear a pretty dress and dance the night away…

What I dislike is the lemming approach to marriage that my peers (the twenty-something, fresh out of college demographic) follow. I hate watching ill-matched pairs plummet to their proverbial deaths because it’s “what you do after graduation”.

It’s even worse to witness when these individuals have not been together very long.  In her book, “Anatomy of Love” anthropologist Helen Fisher remarks that the average amount of time various “monogamous” members of the animal kingdom spend in pairs is four years. This is the amount of time it normally takes for the infatuation and attraction phases of a relationship to end. Also it’s the same amount of time it takes for a baby animal (or human) to grow out of the very dependent, infantile stage.

Guess what year 4 of the marriage or relationship is known as in the human kingdom?

Yup. It’s the peak year for divorces. Especially in young marriages.
Of course, not every couple faces this fate, and often those pairs who  seem most likely to end in divorce end up reaching their silver and golden anniversaries. Like my high school sweet heart parents. Or my married-his-first-girlfriend cousin and his wife.  Or Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe. Perhaps even Zach Morris and Kelly Kapowski*, hell even Topanga Lawrence and Cory Matthews.

But they are the exception to the rule.

The truth is that most of the weddings I’ll be attending in the next few years will end in divorce. I blame wedding culture and happily ever afters and 27 Dresses, Made of Honor, Father of the Bride, Cinderella and every other rehashed chick flick that ends in a wedding. Let’s not even talk about the travesties of A Wedding Story, Platinum Weddings, Buff Brides, Bridezilla and all the other reality tv shows.

Weddings should be magical, they’re Your Big Day, they’re the point when two become one, the first day of your new life. You know, the one where your boyfriend/fiancé/husband still doesn’t take out the trash.  But he does wear a shiny ring and call you “wife.”**

Your wedding is when you can justify spending 1,000 dollars one a piece of clothing you’ll wear once in a color that’s been predetermined for you. It’s when you have the honor and privilege of spending the equivalent of a Ford Focus to let family members you haven’t seen in years dance to YMCA and eat Cornish game hens in a banquet room.

Wedding culture encourages excessive spending to continue old, sexist traditions. Like the engagement/wedding rings. Those pretty diamond encrusted rings are symbols that you “belong” to each other. Which is kinda creepy in of itself. Not to mention the whole bloody diamond trade and the upped price of what’s really just a piece of coal due to fancy monopoly footwork in the industry. (Don’t let me fool you, I still like ‘em, I just wish some little African boy didn’t have to lose a finger so Tiffany’s could make 42,000 on a rock.***) Pick up a copy of “The Meaning of Wife” by Anne Kingston for more info.

I think people get caught up in the lights and sirens of the wedding and lose sight of the marriage. A marriage is a legal contract. It’s like going into business. When you get married you have legally bound yourself to another person. You now share credit, share property, share everything. It’s not just an excuse to have a party. It’s not just a pretty, happy, love fest.

So I’m sorry if I don’t sound overly enthusiastic on your “happy occasion,” but I just feel that at 22, well, you’re just not ready. Most of you. But I truly hope you are the exception to the rule.

*jury is still out on these two.
**I hate the word wife. How come Bride is so much more positively connotated than Wife.? Note to Future Fiancé: never call me Wife. Or “my wife”. My name will do just fine. If you really feel it necessary, “My bride,” or “My better half” will serve better.
***seriously. I like diamonds. I think they’re pretty. I want one. But I don’t want a new one. And I want an engagement ring, but I think my fiancé should have one too. It’s not fair that I get to broadcast my “takenness” with a ring and he can appear to be single. I never liked that.

Take Two May 21, 2008

Dear People I should have graduated college with,

Stop getting engaged.

Thanks,

Shaba

Sigh.
Is it bad that all I hear in my head everytime I see an engagement is a chorus of cherub-like lawyers singing “50% divorce rate, 50% divorce rate” jubilantly with harps and lutes?

Fever Pitch. May 19, 2008

I swear to goddess I’ve been ill more this year than I have in my entire life.

I woke up at 8:00 when my alarm went off and managed to turn it off, take some tylenol, and debate emailing in sick before I gave up completely and burrowed under the blanket.

I woke up at 2:00, realized my fever had broken, took more tylenol, and watched 2 hours of Super Sweet Sixteen.

I have my night class online tonight, which is both a blessing and curse. Nice that I don’t have to leave my bed or Steve-the-blanket, but sucky that I have to do accounting.

Speaking of which I found out today that because I’m dumb and didn’t go over my class schedule with the MBA advisor, I may have accidentally put myself behind a semester. I thought I’d be graduating in May 09 if everything worked out correctly, and I still could if the prof of a marketing class will let me into her class. Apparently this one course is offered only in the summer. I didn’t realize this. And I need to take the course.

So I’m at the mercy of this woman. If she says yes everything is hunky dory and I’m done in May, if not I’ll have to stay around for an extra semester to take 1 class. So not cool.

Cross your fingers for me.

Check. May 17, 2008

After I graduated with a degree in English last May I finally had time to read for fun again. No longer did I have to read 30+ novels in a semester (yes, this happened once. Sparknotes is my homegirl) no longer did I have to suffer through Dickens or re-read Ginsberg. It was a thrilling part of the post-graduation experience.

At that point I decided to embark on an literary adventure of sorts. I set a goal to read 50 books in a year.

Today was my deadline.
Yesterday I turned the final page of my 50th book
I win.

Here’s the list of titles I’ve read since May of 07!
I’ve bolded the books that I loved

Two May 16, 2008

Setting: This morning as boyfriend leaves for work.

Boyfriend: Goodbye love.
Shaba: (Groggigly opens eyes) Do you love me?
Boyfriend: Hugely.
Shaba: I dreamt you didn’t.
Boyfriend: I love you forever. You are amazing.
Shaba: Promise?
Boyfriend: Promise. Now go back to bed and dream something better.
Shaba: Can we not name our child George?
Boyfriend: How about Jorge?
Shaba: Can we not name our child any derivative of George?
Boyfriend: Alright. But Jorge Dick has a ring to it. Or Deek, to keep with the french side of the family. *kiss* Bye bye.
Shaba: Bye bye boyfriend.

He’s my favorite.

Also I just sprayed Coke Zero everywhere after Zach sent me the following text message:

“So the philosophy section of {our hometown} library consists of 10 books seemingly written by 5 year olds and the religion section should be renamed the Christian section. “

Two minutes later:

“They also have books by Tim Allen and Drew Carey in the ‘Plays and Classic Fiction’ section. Brilliant.”

Carry on.