Growing Pains of Growing Up

I'm 26. I make no claims that I am an adult. In fact, I sort of detest the fact that technically, under legal status, I am an "adult." I prefer my rip-off line of the CSNY song Southern Cross "looking for that woman-girl." Because somewhere between child and old soul is yours truly.

But here is where growing up takes some growing pains. I'm five years post college. I know who my friends are and who I will maintain to be friends with. Yes, we all had those friends that got engaged their senior year or knocked their girlfriends (usually the highly disliked girls at that) up. Forced into marriage, decided it was a good idea or realized the lack of self-esteem and didn't want to be spinsters or old balls with no action the rest of their lives.

Then there are the singletons. These people flaunt it in the face that they have no one to report to, can sleep with whomever whenever, etc. etc. The singletons fall into two categories. Those who are fronting and desperately want a relationship. And those who don't want to be in a committed anything for awhile, if ever.

I'm not in any of these groups. I'm in the dating someone for a third of my life category. So when the BFF informs me that she is engaged over email, it seems a bit odd. It's better to know than to not know, but an email announcement over a major life event ....? Chalk it up to growing pains of growing up I guess.

The Work Hangover

It's Saturday morning and I've been up since my usual pre-6:00 a.m. And before I jump in the shower and go to work for a few meer hours, I want to discuss the work hangover.

I'm allowing myself to get too consumed with work. Freakin' consumption issues. But here's the thing. This new job that I've had since August, I am slowly realizing that I came at the busiest marketing time. So on the plus side, next year I'll be able to plan things out, but as for now .....the work hangover.

When it comes to drinking, I've never been one to have a hangover. At least not frequently. Instead I was the girl who could pace herself properly, except on the few occassions in which I would make myself throw up during the evening in order to not have a hangover. Classy and sexy, I know.

So here is how the work hangover is worse than that. I know my own work ethic and shit just has to get done. Fine. I get in early and try to make the most of the 7 - 6pm today, knowing full well that I have an amazing life outside of work. Obviously I'm not doing the best with time management because two weeks after the move, all of my plastic containers and tupperware are still in boxes stacked in a pile in my living room. But damn work hangover, when I'm home I'm too damn tired to do anything. I can barely keep my eyes open for Wild hockey games. And last night I feel asleep at 8:15. The last time I feel asleep at 8:15 when I wasn't sick -- third grade.

God damn work hangover. So tired when I come home from work and all my joints are achy, I feel like I am living the life of what I will be living 50 years from now. And this work hangover has been acruing for a few weeks. Jesus Christ on a Cross, I'm done with the crazy hours. I just gotta muster up the endurance for one more week.

And save some I.V. fluid bags for the recovery.

These are a few of my fave things this week

Work has been a bitch. As a PR Bitch, I can usually take it. But since last post until now, it's been utter insanity. But that's no excuse.

Also I've always been a fan of autumn. It is far superior over the other seasons. Activities to do, the smells, the food, the sporting events, the colors, the light, everything is better in autumn, particularly in October. Maybe it's because the World Series used to begin in October, because most leaves throughout MinnE are at their peak, Oktoberfest, whatever the reason October has always been a great month in my world and I'm not even a Libra.

Then this week 10/7 - 10/14, has to be one of the best "activity" weeks in the Twin Cities in a good, long while. First of all it begins with the ending of Design Camp up in Nisswa. The day to hang out on Gull Lake with your own cabin, can't be put into words. Followed by an evening with Pat McGee Band - a great bar band, with a great, loyal following that has remained great even after multiple member changes, etc. Tues and Wed, Malcolm Gladwell in town. He is my "intellect sexy man" and just the fact that he was in town discussing MinnE and our increase for incarceration and other social change stuff, I'll go there, it gives me a tingle. Brent Burns is a scoring machine. Loving it and loving the Wild's dominance over Ed-suck-ton. Tonight Stephen Kellogg and the SK6ers at Varsity. Sunday, the Wild take on the Ducks and I hope Boogey-Man does his thing.

The fact that I am attending most of these and working 65 hours during the same time period, is a test to my insomnia. So after the best week in a great long while, I might have to take a mandatory three-day coma just to catch up on rest. Of course this is contradictory to my "you can sleep when you die" mantra, but let's face it, I'm in mid-20s status and not getting any younger and lack of sleep messes with my immune system and my fabulous wrinkle-free, blemish-free skin.

The Eve of NHL Hockey in MinnE

Happens tomorrow. I'm torn. Second episode of Grey's Anatomy and the first Wild hockey game of the year. Good God. I'm a girl who loves hockey. There will be flipping between the two, but still .....why make a girl choose between the early of both seasons -- Wild and Grey's?

Although the other half piped up this morning -- did the Wild make the playoffs last year? And he was serious. Stone cold serious. That I had to swallow pride and say, "really? You can't remember watching the stalemate series against the Ducks? And that your younger brother took his then girlfriend to the playoff game and right smack behind them were Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Really, you don't remember Wild in the playoffs?"

Seriously it was JV version of what was really going through my mind. Lots of [redacted] nouns and verbs and well it was 7:45 a.m. this morning. Poor lad.

But then I began to become quit a tart and asking him who won the world championships of the four-US-considered-major-sports:

Me: World Series?
Other Half: (94 second delay) St. Louis
Me: Superbowl?
Other Half: (Looking for stuff in fridge, 20 seconds later) Colts
Me: Stanley Cup?
Other Half: (Immediately) Sabres.
Me: WTF? Seriously. They didn't even play for the Cup
Other Half: yea, but they were playing well. Are you sure?
Me: We need to stop co-habitating. Flower chamber closed for a lifetime (Not to be confused with the God awful Firehouse "Finally Found a Love of a Lifetime")
Other half: But the Pistons won the NBA
Me: Now you're just messing with me. Ohmigod, you're not. Take the lunch I packed you and have a good day. (I'm left shaking my head)

But secretly, while I was disappointed in the other half, I'm giving him a mulligan. He is not a morning person. And he didn't have coffee. He usually needs a pot to get started in the world. And it did feel good to have sports supremacy over him. Granted he can kick my butt in thumb wrestling, drinking beer and if I ever did play, he would crush me in fantasy football. But remembering facts, figures and all other useless info, I'm still Master of our Household. And it's good to start a Wednesday being Master and Commander of your own domain.

But that doesn't make easier to decide between Grey's Anatomy tomorrow and Wild vs. Blackhawks?

The Sporting Life in MinnE

We has sports fans have been spoiled in Minnesota the last five to seven years. Playoff bound, small ball Twins teams, KG, Wild making a trip to the Finals, back-to-back National Gopher Hockey teams, even the upsets against #2 Penn State and Final Four Women's Hoops teams.

And now it's 2007.

No playoff bound Twins. An inept Vikings offense, rebuilding T-wolves, rebuilding Golden Gopher Hockey, but then there is the Wild. And I'm clinging to the notion, that my Mrs. Robinson crush on Burnzie for the last few years was worth the investment. I'm expecting some ROI on this harboring crush ...... Not really, but I have to have some sporting optimist. And I think it could be the year for the Wild. Something has got to make a MinnE loving sports girl cling onto hope. Now I know what it's like to be a Kansas City sports fan or a Raiders fan. Really, Oakland is prolly a better example. The A's are similar to the Twins in size, payroll and how their GM manages, the Golden State Warriors terrible forever, the Raiders underachieving and run by an owner who doesn't know what he's doing anymore and then they have the Sharks.

This all just occurred to me on a Monday morning. My sports loving life is similar to that of an Oakland fan. That's just f*cking depressing.

Tell me again why I don't like Mondays. Thank You Boomtown Rats. And the "it's so bad it's funny" unintentional tactic in this video, is fantastic. (I wonder if 25 years from now, people will say that about my work? oh geez, the legacy factor ....it's not like I'm Sandra Day O'Connor, but there are moments where you question your legacy, particularly with work or your family.)

I digress. And I'm tangled up in my own tangents .........and relishing in "I don't like Monday's 80s bliss."

Why Music Will Always Be Adored

Music. As most teens you become obsessed with music. What else is there to love, besides sports, movies, underage drinking and music? Exactly.

Then you become college-aged are able to go to nearly every show you want to, become segmented music lovers. You hone your tastes in a certain direction (indies, locals, jam-bands) what have you.

So it is with great delight I bring you the CD memory of today. It never occurred to me that music helps restore your memory. I can hear New Kids on The Block song and instantly I can remember things about 3rd grade that I haven't thought about in 18 years. Or like today, since I've moved, everything is in a box. So in my true WTF fashion, I grab an unmarked, unlabeled CD.

Stereophonics and Minnesota bands. Instantly I think of my former roommate and how obsessed we were with the UK band, because her friends from Wales turned us onto Stereophonics. Followed by Iffy, Faux Jean, 12 Rods, Soul Asylum. It is an overall fantastic CD and I can tell that I made it, gave it to someone, who either didn't take it from me, left it at my house, or I took it back because it was that good of a mixed CD. (I am notorious for doing that, eventually replacing, but yeah, call it an "unfavorable characteristic.") And then because I am a dork, or because I am who I am, I email this friend saying "stereophonics ...do you remember?" of which she will prolly email me back in a few days, because she is uber-busy. But yeah .....

A happy day music day in Speechless land ....

Greetings from my cubicle space

I'm swamped. And it does feel like I am wearing duct tape on the bottom of my shoes and walking around work, I feel like I am sinking. Of course not in the quicksand way, but in the sense that as soon as I complete one project, I can seventeen more dumped on me. And it should be like this until the end of the year.

Sweet Jesus Christ on the Cross.

But outside of that, all is well in Speechless in Mpls land. I wish I had more to let people know about. But I'm blinded by the light, that shining, glaring, light or blight is work. And while I am happy with my projects and the success of stuff, it has clogged up my ability to notice the finer details that happen in my everyday life. I'm not as "in tune" with the world, which is also why my RBall picks have been mediocre at best the last two weeks. No time. Hardly any time to read Sports Guy. Listen to NPR or The Current. or search the web for other things I enjoy. Seriously, I haven't checked my personal email accounts in a week. And to top it all off, I'm on call for the Red Cross the remainder of the week ........

So enough from my office space. I do in fact have an office, not a cubicle, but I realized this post and given my working condition, I could not muster the strength to reference lines from The Office. Which BTW has anyone else been closed to The War like I have been? Already my fave show of the season. Damn good documentary, and there have only been two episodes.