WOW! That’s a Great Bud Light Poster

For reasons unnecessary to explain, we’ve ended up at my brother’s college apartment for the weekend. It’s a three-bedroom and we get the room that’s been empty since the third roommate was kicked out of school at the beginning of the semester.

It’s all three of us, daughter, husband, and me. It’s nearly 11:00 p.m. here and we just arrived (and yes, I’m posting to make sure I get something online for the day, call me sick–but at least I’ve been 100 percent consistent).

Chris and I decided that we’d stay the first night here and probably get a hotel tomorrow night if the guy’s college apartment conditions were uncomfortable. (Uncomfortable defined as untidy, unsettling, and smelling of stale cigarettes and beer.) So far, it’s not so bad, but I’ll leave final judgment for the morning after we sleep on the extra bed that’s really just a mattress and box springs on the floor.

There’s something foreign about staying here. Maybe because I’m nearly thirteen years out of college and have my four year old daughter and husband with me. It could also be that the home decor of two 21-year old males is slightly different than our own home.

It feels like when you were young and had to spend the night at a relative’s house who you didn’t know all that well. It felt like you were in an entirely different country. That’s where I’m staying tonight

This One Is for My Hubbie

Today my husband accomplished something he had been wanting to do for years. It’s a huge accomplishment and the start of something really great for him.

I LOVE being married to someone who is ambitious and has dreams and includes me on his journey. It makes my journey all the more fun and keeps me focused on my ambitions and dreams.

My husband and I fight, usually about cleaning. We disagree a lot. We disagree about what movie to watch, what restaurant to go to, and when the floors need to be mopped. We yell and one time I even threw a cheeseburger at him in our living room. That same day, we had to drive for two hours to Indianapolis together and NEITHER of us said one word the entire trip. I promise there was not one word spoken between us. It was the longest trip of my life.

We also laugh our asses off together. Sometimes, when we’re in Value City, we go to the women’s hat section and try on every single one, both of us. And every now and again, when we have a babysitter and are enjoying a dinner that does not come with a menu you can color, we have these great conversations about our future.

Today, my husband took one giant step towards a future we’ve both been talking about for a long time. I love him.

Why I Love My Sisters

There are a million reasons why I love both my sisters…and my brother. But right now, I’m especially loving the eldest of my younger siblings.

I’m still in Orlando, still without Internet access in my room. My sister who lives in Orlando came to my hotel tonight to hang with me and have dinner. We walked, hung out and are now sitting in the Denny’s parking lot laughing our asses off while I steal a little wifi from the home of Moon Over My-Hammy.

Yep, she and I sitting right outside the restaurant watching an elderly couple eating breakfast for dinner. She’s made a story up for everybody in there, “That couple’s not talking much. She’s got that permanent pissed looked going on. Pursed lips. What do the waiters’ shirts say? Get Your What On? I bet that waiter’s name is Guido.”

I’m wondering what everybody in there is thinking about the two us: two women sitting in a lexus. One staring in the restaurant, the other typing on a laptop. Both laughing like we’re high. (We’re not, but my hotel neighbors still are.)

“Get Your Crave On.”

“What?” I ask, still typing.

“That’s what their shirts say, Get Your Crave On.”

An Inconvenient Trip

To start my rental car, you have to turn the key twice. The first time you turn the key, it sounds like the battery is dead. The second time usually starts it. There have been a few occasions where I’ve had to turn the key three times.

This is the perfect metaphor for this trip. Nothing seems to go as it should and most things take extra effort to get accomplished correctly—or at all.

I have to go to Denny’s to get online. Yesterday, I worked from Denny’s just fine, sipping my sucky decaf coffee. Today I decided to really enjoy my Denny’s work office and ordered a vanilla milkshake before logging on. The milkshake was yummy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get online with my laptop. I spent thirty minutes searching through work emails on my cell phone. That was dandy.

So to stay positive, here are five things I am thankful for today:

1. Hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law
2. Having a milkshake
3. Internet access at my sister and brother-in-laws house
4. Getting a very, very close parking space at the show (illegal, but close)
5. Google Maps (how did I ever find anywhere before it)

Serenity Now, Serenity Now

I’m typing this in a Denny’s restaurant that is has two male servers who keep asking me if I want something beside coffee. Nope, just your wifi access.

My number one goal this week: STAY POSITIVE

On my list of things I like about my job, traveling for trade shows doesn’t show up. It’s on a whole other list.

So what can I appreciate about this trip? Well, the people in the room next to mine were enjoying a cheech and chong Oscar party last night. The entire hallway smelled like my high school sweetheart’s car any Saturday night during our senior year.

I randomly got an ironing board delivered to my room. When I told the maintenance guy that I didn’t ask for an ironing board, his response: “No Englais.” I checked to make sure I had one before I took it back down to the front desk, while carrying my laptop. I looked like I was headed to a garage sale.

I do have phone service today, which is great—I’ve gone from 1991 to 2001 (i’m still at denny’s to be online, which is kind of ironic in a time-space continuum kind of way. i can’t find a starbucks, but there are a zillion denny’s around here).

And Diablo Cody! That’s my saving grace for the past 24 hours, watching her walk off the stage with the little golden statue. Hooray, hooray, hooray. If you want something good to read, pick up her memoir about being a stripper. It’s Candy Girl, and it will probably be a lot easier to find now.

Alright, enough with my hodge podge of ramblings. Send all your positive vibes my way.

It’s 1991 in My Hotel

Seriously, I have no internet connection in my hotel room because my laptop won’t be friendly with the hotel’s free wifi.

And, luck of all luck, my cell phone has no service in these Orlando-parts.

I’m a mess. Right now, I’m typing this from a computer in the hotel’s “business center” which should be called the business closet. The computer I’m typing on is purely for surfing the net, something I hear the kids like to do these days. It only lets me use 50 percent of the screen. The other screen space has the Extended Stay Deluxe Hotel button selection:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Book Your Next Stay
• Discount Magazines
• Jen Rae Music (WTF?)
• MSN
• Advertisers (in case the running ads at the bottom of the screen for Olive Garden, Busch Gardens, and Dolly Partons Dixie Stampede Show aren’t enough for me)

I can’t remember the last time I was unable to use my cell phone or get online. I’m pretty sure I was married, but I forgot to whom.

Obviously, tomorrow’s priority will be to find a somewhere to logon and get my fill. Until then, wish me luck…you may never hear from me again while I’m stuck in Orlando.

I Pack Like a Hack

Tomorrow I’m leaving at 6:45ish a.m. for the airport. My suitcase is stuffed with nearly every piece of clothing I wear on a regular basis because I have zero packing skills. How do you choose what to take and what to leave behind? I can’t do it.

My big triumph this time was not packing two pair of tennis shoes. I have my casual new balance gray and pink tennis shoes that I wear to Kroger and then I have my solid white sauccony tennis shoes that I wear on my treadmill.

I want to exercise while I’m away, but I’m also going to be running errands. Do I wear my exercise shoes for everything? Guess I’m going to have to for the next week.

The thing is, I like my life. I like my house, I like my clothes and I like what I have surrounded myself with. My books, my magazines, my journals. I even have several pairs of pajamas that I like to wear (I’m taking two—they really don’t take up that much space in the suitcase). So when I have to go out of town, especially for work, the idea of only picking a few select things to go with me causes paralysis by indecision. So instead of deciding, I take everything.

When I read over this, I get the sense that I’m a bit addicted to stuff; but, I don’t feel that way. I’m not really a stuff kind of a person. Or am I? Is this one of those things about myself that I’m 100 percent blind to? Good Goddess, I hope not.

I like to think of it more like this: I’m comfortable at home and I hate having to leave it and my husband and daughter for work. The one way for me to feel less anxious about having to go away, even for a couple of days, is to take whatever I can to make me feel at home.

It never works, though. I can’t pack my two favorite people with me.

Brain Drain

I’m tired and all filled up on yummy, yummy sushi with sweet thoughts of dinner with really good friends. I laughed so hard my cheeks started to ache from smiling. How great of a night is that? These are the kinds of conversations we have:

Friend #1: What is that girl wearing? Is that a black and white checkered tie?

Friend #2: Oh my God! That’s the babysitter who brought a sword with her.

It was an especially good night and now my brain is drained from all bursts of laughter I made it through. Thanks to my friends who I love dearly. Thanks to Caviar who makes sushi that makes me want jump up and down on a trampoline. Thanks to Ellen, my best babysitter who, I’m pretty sure, does not have a sword!Good good night.

Back in the 90210

I was singing that to back in the, back in the, back in the USSR…You don’t know how lucky you are folks, back in the 90210—while I was typing…just in case you want to be in the same place I was in a Beatles kind of way.

Sooooo…channel 75, the Soap Opera Channel, runs 90210 episodes every night at 6:00. For me, this is like when Joey and Chandler were getting free porn.

Tonight’s episode: Steve is all hyped up on steroids while Brandon helps Andrea write an expose for The Blaze on the rampant use of steroids by the BHH track and field team (yes, the track and field team were the abusers, not sure where the football team was in all of this). Meanwhile, Brenda sides with the woman she rear-ended when her father insists they let the insurance companies go to court over the woman’s whiplash claim. It’s an early one. Dylan and Bren are sweetly in love, Brandon hasn’t hooked up with anybody noteworthy, and Steve is sporting a mullet. Can you feel how happy I am right now? It’s like an hour of cinnamon toast with extra sugar.

Can you believe that when you look up 90210 on IMDB.com, they have Joe E. Tata listed before: Dylan (gasp!), Andrea, both Jim and Cindy Walsh (Brandon and Brenda’s parents for those of you not in the 90210-know), Valerie? Wait a sec…they’ve listed people by the number of episodes they were in. I can’t believe Nat was in more than Dylan. Must of been all those years Dylan spent roaming around Europe after his father died. Poor guy…and then to find out that he wasn’t really dead.

Alright, enough already. I’m happy, you’re bored. But please, like I’m going to write something everyday for over a month and not mention 90210.

You Can Blame Tonight’s Ramblings on the Lunar Eclipse

A friend of mine has this thing with the nature of dualities. He reads a lot more high-minded stuff than I do, but I’m still fascinated with the idea. And as of lately, I’ve experienced somewhat of an Oh-Yeah Moment with it (similar to Oprah’s Aha Moment, but a bit cooler and more cosmic if you will).

So here’s what I’ve got. The nature of dualities is that for everything there is an opposite. And that both can stand as truths. Our last conversation was the duality of multitasking. I thought that the very opposite of multitasking would be doing nothing, being zenlike. He thought it would be single-tasking, just doing one thing.

The entire conversation was me trying to convince myself that loading the dishwasher went against the human experience. While I was loading my dishwasher, I had also been making a cappuccino with my Mr. Coffee Cappuccino maker–a process that dirties, at least, six different things. So, I was simultaneously dirtying and cleaning dishes at once. My multitasking was causing me to maintain two opposite thoughts and actions at the same time.

I could never quite put my hands around the entire idea, and if you’re still reading, you probably are having the same thoughts. Maybe not the same thought, your’s are probably more in the area of WTF are you rambling on about now. But, recently I’ve gotten it. I’ve had a moment of clarity with dualities, and I’ve come to a place where I see how it can serve me. Which may sound a bit selfish but F it, that’s the nature of dualities.

In our lives, we are constantly reacting to the world around us. Parents, school, friends, teachers, neighbors, work, bosses, colleagues, the person driving too slowly in front of us—all of these things can cause us to be happy, angry, frustrated, hurt, sick, lonely. There are millions of different reactions that we have.

And for the millions of interactions and events that we encounter, the only thing we can affect is ourself and how we think about any given situation.

So the duality would be that for every reaction we have, there is an opposite reaction we can give. If someone hurriedly pushes past me in the way too tight Kroger cereal aisle and bumps my heel with their cart, I can give them a look that says, “God damnit! WTF is the hurry? Why don’t you chill out and wait your turn?” (You know that look.)

But, my other option could be, “Gosh, I hope whatever your hurry that you make it on time,” and give them a slight smile to let them know that my achilles tendon is fine.

Or even better, I can take a moment to feel the grace and gratitude that comes with knowing I’m not the one in that hurry. That I could stand in the Kroger cereal aisle for hours if I wanted to.

So the duality of reactions is that whatever you’re saying or thinking or feeling, there’s an opposite or alternative path you could go. And that the true reality is that this is the ONLY thing you have the power to affect. I’m sure this has been written and preached and blogged before. No matter how often you come across something, until it ‘clicks’ for you, you just don’t feel it.

I feel it now and am making a conscious effort to engage this power.

It’s put a real crunch on my complaining. Whenever start, even with a slight roll of my eyes, about someone doing something I think is ridiculous, I have to catch myself and make a note: me rolling my eyes is only about me. Me complaining is only about my lack of joy.

How do I get more joy? I see the good in whatever it is I feel the need to project on or about.

It’s hard. And in my new world of dueling emotive dualities, I’m not even crawling. I’m still in the laying on my back holding my feet in the air stage, rolling around like a newborn babe. Who knows if and when I’ll ever walk through this world.

I had a thought today about life and the evolution of our intellect and emotional well being. For me, it’s a lot like walking into this huge beautiful home that’s grandiose in size, style, and color. As soon as I walk in, I’m shocked and awed and inspired by it all. I wander slowly in a circle as if I’m dancing by myself looking at the ceiling many feet above my head. At times I think, “Wow, look at this amazing house I’ve found.”

Then at other times, when I fix my gaze straight forward and look to take more steps, I realize that I’ve only been standing in the foyer. There are hundreds of more rooms for me to discover.