I'm just going to go ahead and say it.

If you name (or address) your female children as...

Billie-Jo

Bobbie-Jo

Crystal

Emma-Jean

Billie-Jean

...do you get my drift?

Or

If you name (or address) your male children as....

Willie

Dick

Billy

Chester

Ronnie

...again, do you get my drift?

...you're going to be raising a redneck. There's just no way around it, and I apologize for being so blunt.

Selfish

Sometimes I wonder what good there is to come of things like the internet, cable, and satellites. I remember first thinking this when I was about 13. I grew up in the sticks. The real sticks, with no real neighbors, cow pastures across the road, and no cable television. When my father would be on the news because of his job, we'd usually go to my aunts house (she lived in an area where cable television was offered) to watch his interviews. But when I was 13, my sister moved in next door (and by next door I mean a quarter of a mile away, but with no other humans living between us), and she and her husband went all out and bought a dish. I don't remember if it was dish network or what it was, but I do remember that all of a sudden, I went from having access to one television station that only worked for about 3 hours a day to having over 100 television stations. It was so wild to me...it was 1993, and I had never watched MTV and I'd never heard of CNN, and then it was all there. A station to watch golf (who would want to?) 24 hours a day, a station devoted just to Disney...over three stations JUST for NEWS.

And thats what I remember most. I remember my sister rushing over to my parents house and talking breathlessly about a toddler missing in Ohio. How horrible it was, how sad it was for the parents. We all rushed over to my sisters place, passing under the apple tree, past the barn, through the field, and up to her living room to stand around the TV and watch the police walking around, rescue and search missions forming, sad, sobbing parents, so lost and helpless. It was heartbreaking to watch.

I didn't realize it at the time, but things were really changing in my little piece of nowhere. I hate to put it this way, but I started to view these things as an intrusion. I was really sad for the missing children, the pregnant wives who somehow vanished only to wash ashore a few weeks later, the escaped convict in Nebraska who lit up our screens for 3 weeks until he turned himself in. Surely all of these horrible things were happening all of my life, but it was suddenly becoming common knowledge that if I went for a swim in the ocean (I was living over 8 hours from swimmable ocean water) I'd be eaten by a shark, if I went to a nightclub (I was under 18 and not allowed) I'd vanish only to turn up years later in a sex-slave camp in Thailand, and if I ever went away to college (thank jesus I finally did) I'd surely ingest the date rape drug at some point and wake up with unidentifiable bruises and an STD with no knowledge of the night before (that never happened).

Then 1999 came. This was another pivotal year for me and the age of information. It was this year that I finally learned what the internet was. I was in my first year of college, and I signed up for email. I turned into a loaf of bread, essentially. Sitting at my computer for hours, really literally hours on end, chatting to people I didn't know. What was I thinking? Why did I care? Suddenly it mattered to me if Ron from Michigan (whose name and location was probably really Amber from Texas) got a job, or if Sally from Rhode Island won custody of her boys. My god, it was really a sad time for me. And it lasted for so long.

Anyway, I feel sort of like a hybrid. I got to grow up without all the television shows and internets and cell phones, but as an adult I'm somehow forced into this world where I wonder what happened to the little girls from florida (who seem to come up missing daily), or what is wrong with the balloon boy's family (and don't even get me started on Octomom). In a way I feel luckier than my parents, who rehash stories daily to me about missing children in Missouri, but who find the internet to be this ambiguous, scary place they can't quite seem to get a handle on.

In the end, I guess I just wonder where all this extra information is getting us. I know it is a necessary evil. If I want to get up-to-minute stock quotes and if I want to apply for a job by clicking a button, I also have to deal with the news ticker about the 20 pound indonesian newborn or the idiot from Home Depot who wore religious buttons to work and was fired for it.

But in the end, I just want to live and not be inundated with information that I can do nothing about and doesn't enhance my day in some way.

I'm selfish, I know.

News, Love, Marriage

I got new specs! Just kidding, I mean glasses. I will take a pic eventually...but as a preview, I'll just say that they're basically the same as my old ones, just a little darker-I wanted essentially the same ones (I'm a creature of habit and a hater of changes), and this was the closest I could get. I don't much care for the fact that they're darker than my previous ones, and am considering darkening my hair to match my new frames. Yes, I am that crazy!!!

Also, I know at least three people who are pregnant and have had at least five different people hint that maybe I'll be next...as if I don't pop a little pink pill every day just to make sure that won't happen! My mother (bless her) even suggested that I stop taking the pill just to see what would happen...really. To that, I had only one response. "Mom, maybe first we should hop out of an airplane without a parachute just to see what will happen." She giggled like I was funny.

Really, is it any wonder that she gave birth to seven of us!? And she's not even Catholic. Just frisky and all sorts of daring with the contraceptives, apparantly.

Anyway, just for the record-I think I need to work on the savings account thing, the living in a 1 bedroom apartment in one of the most expensive counties in the country with my boyfriend thing, and oh yeah--he's just a boyfriend thing.

On that note, I was asked my most favorite question EVER today, after the "is there a reason you're not pregnant yet?" question.

Today my most favorite person (cough) asked me, "so when are you and Jeff going to get married?"

When I ignored her rude question with ruder silence, she pressed the issue.

"Julie, is it that he doesn't want to marry you?" She asked.

I answered with even more dramatic silence before washing my hands and exiting stage left, which I hope she took as the worst possible answer...meaning I hope she thinks that I'm some kind of evil wretch who no one wants to marry.

Really, I could use some good snarky replies to those kinds of questions.

For the record, neither of us wants to get married, and until my fertility is in danger of nose-diving off a cliff (I'm 29, so I give myself five more years), I don't want to feel pressured about the baby thing. Saying "it's none of your business." Isn't a sufficient answer anymore. People take that to mean "poor julie can't have kids." or "aww, jeff doesn't want to marry julie."

Honestly, its 2009. But even if it were 1959, wouldn't it be OK if I just said no to drugs, marriage, and babies?

Mornings

Lately, I've been having no problem waking up at 6:15 am (coincidentally, this is my "professional people" hour-I have this idea that all of the professional people in the world with lives that I secretly aim to attain wake up between 6 and 6:20 every M-F). It doesn't seem to matter when I fall asleep, I am able to open my eyes (sans alarm clock) every morning at that time, no problem. The trick then, it seems, is actually getting up after I've woken up. I usually lay in bed and have full on gloves-off debates with myself and all of my other personalities*.

Ambitious Julie says "get up! Don't you want to be professional? Don't you want to pay off all your student loan debt so you can go back to graduate school or law school in three years? GET UP!"

Sleepy Julie says "dude, don't even effing think about taking that blanket off your shoulders. You work insane hours as it is, there is no reason to add to it by letting your feet touch the ground before 7am."

Rational Julie says "I don't give an eff about anything [that is how i rationalize, don't hate]. My eyes are scratchy and it is ohh so nice under here, no way am I going to get up right now-besides, if I did get up now, I'd just think that I'd have enough time to cook breakfast, and then that'd still make me just on time and not early."

"But you have STUDENT LOAN DEBT!!! Do you want to have the noose of student loan debt weighing you down forever!?" Screams Ambitious Julie.

"Shut up Shut up Shut up!!!!" Chants Sleepy Julie

"I'm only going to be on time! I won't even be early if I get up early!" Wails Rational Julie

Usually there are several cycles of this behavior that continues to whirl around my side of the bed before the alarm clock (on Jeff's side) goes off at 6:45. At which time I groan, jump out of bed, and moan "Now I'm late!!!!!" before turning into Crazy Julie, who is the only Julie that poor Jeff knows anymore.

*I am not actually a sufferer of multiple personality disorder, paranoid schizophrenia, or any other sort of mental issue (ha! at least thats what I say!). I do talk to myself all the time, and I even answer myself. But at no time do I think that those two lines of conversation are actually two different people. Anyone with children or small animals should not be afraid to bring them near me, you really have nothing to worry about. promise.

I was wrong

I was very wrong yesterday when I wrote that there isn't really all that much to relay to the world about my summer so far.  Actually, what I'm about to tell you hasn't really started this summer, but it all works anyway.  Call it a true confession, if you will.

For the last six months, I've stopped brushing my hair on a regular basis.  By regular, I do mean weekly, or even monthly.  Actually, since July 4th, I haven't touched my hair with a brush or a comb one single time.  I didn't consciously make the decision to stop brushing my hair on independence day-on that particular day, I actually did my hair really nicely so that it looked good for the Candor Village Parade, on the off chance that I might bump into an old high school buddy.  After that day though-nothing.  I consider myself lucky, I have obviously evolved light years beyond everyone around me who believe such tools as the goody ouchless brush or the conair infinity nano spiral brush are an essential part of their morning.  Instead, I use my finger tips, usually just after dragging them across the corner of my eye to release the evil eye booger from its sleepy dream-state, to do the job.  a little bit of water and a couple pumps of paul mitchell's round trip, and I'm good to go.

I won't lie and tell you I look like a model with my new do, but I will say that the whole process takes me just under 75 seconds.  And I don't even have kids yet, so just think of all the extra time I have for myself in the mornings now.  I was telling Jeff about my new strategy last night.

"I've noticed," he mumbled without looking up from his computer where he was preparing his defense, "your hair has taken a turn for the crazy-just like you."

"Thanks sweetie." I cooed, smugly noting he was as jealous of my primp-time as my female colleagues would be when I let them in on my little secret.  

Rockefeller Park and riding in cars that are mine.

By far, my favorite place to run in Westchester County is Rockefeller Park.  I will write a more thorough review of this place later, but for now-I'll just say it is amazing, open, expansive, and beautiful.

Having said that, I have had probably the least active summer since I started on my quest for a healthier me.  I feel bad saying so, but what is a largely anonymous blog about if not complete  honesty?  There are a lot of supposedly good reasons for my laziness-first, Jeff is defending his thesis in a few weeks, and the summer has been totally swallowed by thesis writing and defense preparation (he did the same for me last year when I was finishing mine, so it is only fair and not really a viable excuse at all).  

Second, adjusting to a "grown up" life, where I can't just throw on running shoes and go for a jog anytime I want and having to restrict myself to very early mornings, or after-work evenings has been a challenge.  In any case, those aren't really good excuses.  I am an adult.  I don't have children.  There's no reason I can't do this.  So with that understanding, and my firm grip on my own reality, I'm sure I'll be hopping back on the wagon and exercising my butt off real soon.

In other news, this summer has been of a couple of firsts, which I will put in list form below.

For the first time...

I am 29

I own my own car

I pay more than 50% of my paycheck in rent (thanks, Montrose Management and Westchester County!  Oh how I love you so!!) and dream of buying a home and living in a location where I can even afford taxes after the home is purchased.

I guess that isn't that many firsts, but the car thing is pretty huge, right?  

Fortune Cookies and other biz.

I found a fortune on my kitchen table this weekend.  I'm a little embarrassed, because we haven't had chinese take-out in awhile so I have no idea how long it has been shuffled around, but it was there, nonetheless.  

It said "you don't get out of life what you want, you get out of life what you are."  I like that.  I am not one to find meaning in fortune cookies (but please don't tell Jeff I said that, he'll laugh at you for believing me!), but when they offer little words of wisdom like that, I can't help but hang on.  So, because I was cleaning the apartment when I found the little piece of paper, I opened up the miscellaneous drawer (I don't like calling it the junk drawer...if it were really junk, I would throw it out, I swear) and slipped it in next to the batteries that may or may not work and all those keys that never unlock anything.

It did get me to thinking, though.  I spend a lot of my life looking forward.  I keep telling myself that I'll do something once I've lost another 10 pounds, or I'll go out with friends and justify a night of indulgence once I'm a size six and won't feel like the fattest girl in the group.  Really.  Those are the things that I think to myself, and I realize while writing this-that its absolutely self-abuse.  I guess what I'm saying is that my entire life, I've felt overweight.  There are a hundred million reasons that I could cite to speculate why I've always felt like that, but they wouldn't really add to the conversation here.  The fact is that there was a time in the not so distant past that I was truly obese.  257 pounds of obesity, depression, and sadness (go to the first ever blog entry if you want to see pix).  I have come a really, really long way from that.  But in my head, I still feel like that girl at her dad's retirement party.  I still feel huge, and it is really really difficult to reconcile that feeling and realize the reality-that I'm now a healthy, happy (well, relatively) adult who is in the position and to enjoy my life.  I am this person, not the 125 pound ideal in my head, and certainly not the 257 pound girl of 2005.  So what is keeping me from enjoying this moment?  Why must I keep planning to enjoy things in 3 months, or in 6 months, or however long it takes me to finally reach that stupid goal?  And what if I never do?  will I be unhappy at 145?  Because that might be the best I can do.  I say that because I'm only about 20-30 pounds from 145 and it somehow sounds so much more attainable than 125.  I guess I need to put myself in the position to be happy for myself more often.

Agh, all of this self-analysis really makes me crazy!

This weekend, it rained something like a trillion gallons on us.  Late on Saturday, Jeff and I were sitting out on the patio/porch thing (its a cement slab and we live in a complex on the ground floor.  so whatever you call one of those) and he talked me into going for a walk in the rain.  He said to me as we were putting on our shoes "I don't remember the last time I went for a walk in the rain because I wanted to.  Probably not since I was a kid."  

I started to wonder the same about myself, and I realized that it was definitely on the last day of school of either my junior or senior year of high school.  I was at my friend Beth's house.  Beth Veech was then and is now my greatest and best friend.  We have one of those connections that comes along maybe once or twice in your life, if you're lucky.  She and I were happy that day...happy because the school year was over and the summer was upon us.  Happy because we were young, and even with the hang-ups and the problems we might have thought we had at the time, they paled in comparison to the ailments of our future.  

I like to think now that in some way, on that day we played in the rain, we did it because we somehow knew all of this.  We knew in our hearts that we were still kids.  Mentally teenagers and physically women-but children in a way that was far more important.  The weight of years, of time and of responsibility were barely upon us.  Our biggest concern was scraping enough money together to buy us enough gas to galavant around in one of our cars for the evening, and only one evening.  We never thought too far beyond the fun of the day we were living in at the time, laughing and yelling out the window of her plymouth or my chevy while cruising around and talking about our lives and our futures and our boy obsessions of the moment with so much hope and excitement it puts a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat to think about it today.

On the day we played in the rain, I remember being at her house.  Beth at the time lived in the house her parents had transplanted her and her older sister to when they moved to Newark Valley, NY from East Stroudsburg, PA.  They moved there the summer before we started 8th grade, and I met Beth at 8th grade orientation.  Anyway, beth had this grand side yard with a gentle slope that eventually ended up at her pond.  I don't remember all of the details of our rainy escapade, but I do remember sitting in the rain at the top of that hill, laughing and laughing.  I remember feeling weightless.  I can't say for sure, but I feel like I remember us rolling down the hill over and over, pieces of recently-cut grass sticking to our clothes and hair.  We had no shoes on, and grass and squishy earth were definitely sinking through between our toes.  I have no idea what clothes I was wearing, but I'm sure I destroyed them that day.  I can remember dancing to the Dave Matthews Band songs we were singing to each other.  But most of all, I remember the endless laughing.  We had, in essence, not a care in the world.  

Really-can there ever be a better feeling than that?