what's love got to do with it?

Get it, Tina.

This is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. The first concert I ever went to was Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi proved to me at a young age that girls really do JUST want to have fun: She had bright purple hair and was rocking out in front of an audience of thousands in stilettos and a 7-months pregnant belly. She was awesome. But Tina Turner changed my life that night. I remember the bass beating so hard in my chest that it almost hurt. I kept putting my hand over my heart and feeling the rhythmic thuds as I watched my dad and the rest of my family dance to "Rolling on the River" out of the corner of my eye. I can't listen to her music without recalling vivid memories of that night. I remember playing in the sand on Long Beach waiting for what seemed like hours to be let into the stadium. I remember wanting a $20 program so badly and being refused it all the way to our seats. I remember that feeling in my chest so vividly that if I put my hand to my chest once more at the age of 22, I could probably feel the beat of "Private Dancer."

I guess I've got my own personal love dilemma going on right now. I'm transitioning from the high-school, idealistic, romantic version of love to a world where being madly in love with someone isn't always good enough. There are so many more pieces to the puzzle. You're worried about bills, future financial security, kids, religious beliefs, political affiliation... It's all so confusing. And, it's hard to know if you making the right decisions about who to be with, and who to leave behind.

I guess the best part is we don't have to figure out everything RIGHT NOW. I've always been one of those people who wants to fix a problem as soon as it comes up. I can't sleep on an unresolved argument. I want to know that everything is going exactly as planned. I hate trying to figure it all out. These "big adult problems" can't be resolved overnight. But, sometimes, figuring it out is the best part. In the words of my eternally-missed grandpa, "what's meant to be will be."

Home

I'm leaving for Wake Forest tomorrow morning to visit my parents, meet up with a friend I haven't seen in way too long, and visit someone in the hospital. Depending on who I'm talking to or the mood I'm in, I'll either say "I'm going home," or "I'm going to visit my parents," or "I'm going to Wake Forest." I've moved around so many times during the past two years that I have many "homes." I lived in Asheville from 2005 until 2007. Then I moved to Chapel Hill, only to move to Lebanon, CT, for three months during the summer of 2008. My wandering feet took me back to Chapel Hill, where I finished school, then to Dallas for another short period of time while I interned with The Dallas Morning News. In August, I "moved" back into my parents house for a few days, only to learn that I got the job in Roanoke, VA, where I moved in September of last year. It's been a little insane.

Roanoke is slowly starting to feel like home. With every small thing I buy for the apartment, every picture I hang on my walls, every connection I make in this city, it's starting to feel more like where I belong. But, North Carolina feels like home, too: Wake Forest AND Chapel Hill. But North Carolina feels like home in a different way. I'm always happy to come back to my friends and boyfriend in Roanoke, but I'm usually left with this emptiness inside of me upon leaving NC. Everything is changing, mostly for the better. I'm losing old friends, some out of circumstance and some just because we've outgrown each other, and making new ones. I could see Roanoke being the place where I get married and raise my kids. Maybe this emotion smoothie is just a by-product of having too many temporary homes in such a short period of time.

Either way, I AM going home tomorrow. My parent's house will always be my home. And, when I come back to Roanoke, I will be coming home, too. Home IS where the heart is, and who says my heart can't defy the laws of physics? Who says my hear can't be somewhere that I'm not? It's definitely done it before.

Twenty Ten

Happy New Year (I know--kinda late)! I hope everyone had a fabulous and safe NYE. I've heard quite a few horror stories, from friends getting drugged to receiving DUIs. I got front row tickets to some of the NYE drama. I started out my night at work, where I usually am from 4 until midnight on Thursday nights. I got off fairly early, so I headed to a restaurant across the street from where I live. They were having a "private party," although it wasn't technically private due to some ABC regulation that requires you serve food (or something like that). I met up with one of my best friends, Rebecca, and my boyfriend who works there. I greeted some enthusiastic friends who were clearly already in the mindset that I had wanted to be in two hours before arriving and took a seat at the bar. We LOUDLY counted down to the new year--I had arrived just in time. We spent another hour there before deciding we wanted to check out how downtown was despite supposedly outrageous cover charges at most of the bars. We walked a half of a mile downtown because we knew Roanoke would be swarming with cops. As we rounded the corner to go into our first bar stop, we hear a girl screaming hysterically (re: front row seats to NYE drama). There's two guys crawling drunk all over the ground and attempting to swing at each other. Supposedly, the girl screaming hysterically started the whole mess by kicking the guy in the face with her high heels a few good times. I'm assuming the guy who was fighting the other poor guy was her boyfriend doing his "man duties." After all that, we finally get to the bar entrance and I realize I forgot my ID. They wouldn't let me in regardless of how many times I looked at them with my sad eyes. We moved on to 202 where my boyfriend knows a few people hoping we would be able to get in there. He checks my friend's ID,. She is a few years older than me, so I KNOW he's going to check mine. We'll skip the details, but I managed to get in and we had a GREAT time.

But, I've been thinking a lot about the things I want to change in 2010. As far as I can tell, 2009 wasn't a great year for a lot of people; in fact, it was pretty terrible. There were some parts of 2009 I really regret. I made a lot of mistakes and trusted too many people that I shouldn't have. But, when I really think about it, there were many truly amazing things that happened last year. I graduated from UNC despite a few things that set my progress back (the transfer, specifically). I moved to Dallas and lived on my own for the first time in a very big city. I had a great internship with The Dallas Morning News as a features designer for Guide Daily. I got a fantastic job AT A NEWSPAPER in a withering economy. I started over, moved on, and forgave. I met an amazing guy and made a lot of new friends. I also weeded people out of my life who brought nothing good to it. For me, the bad and the good things that happened in 2009 made it a year of substantial progress, and I do not look back on it as a "horrible year" as many people do.

Back to things I want to change. I want to stop trying too hard to please everyone around me at the expense of what I really want and need. I especially want to stop looking for acceptance and friendship in people I don't actually like (as silly as that sounds). This includes stopping caring what people think about me. I need to be more patient, more forgiving, and less quick to anger. don't want to be an "epic grudge-holder," as some people might call it. I must become more appreciative of the blessings in my life and the nice things people do for me. I REALLY have to be more careful with money and my shopping habits. I want to eat more salads and fewer hamburgers. I want to learn to cook--really cook. I plan on going to the gym more often. I'm going to stop obsessing about Maxine. She IS just a dog, and she can handle more than I tend to think she can. I AM doing a good job with her, and she's going to be a great companion.

I'm going to live one day at a time, and stop planning so obsessively for the future. As John Lennon would say, "life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."

Graduation Day (Me, my brother, and my sister)

Dallas friends

Jeremy :)

Christmas (Me and Tommy Frato)

How awesome is this dress!?

Really...freaking...awesome. It's from one of my favorite Web sites: Modcloth.com. It's only $53, too, which makes it even more tempting. If I know this site as well as I think I do, it will be sold out soon, so I need to make a decision ASAP. I was thinking some navy tights and boots with it? Any thoughts?

I'm getting into a leggings/tights craze. I used to make fun of the trend so much, but now I really, really like it. It's a way to keep the awesome wear-a-summer-dress-every-day feeling of summer going throughout the winter.


Speaking of shopping. I have a problem. Has anyone ever seen Confessiongs of a Shopaholic. You know, in the beginning of the movie when she is buying the green scarf, and she has to divide the purchase across several different forms of payment....

I DID THAT THE OTHER DAY!!! (at Wal-mart...it was embarrassing)

Maybe I need to consider Shoppers Anonymous, or something--anything.

"You know that thing when you see someone cute and he smiles and your heart kind of goes like warm butter sliding down hot toast? Well that's what it's like when I see a store. Only it's better."

Stupid, selfish, stupid....

I'm starting to get really frustrated by people who only want to be a part of your life when they have something to benefit from it. Call me crazy, but I thought real friendships and relationships were about sacrifice and compromise. Maybe it's true that men and women can't really be friends--the sex thing always gets in the way.

It's not even the boy friend thing. It's the girl friend thing, too. It's funny how people can throw away 10-year-old friendships like they never even mattered just because you did or said one thing wrong. As if the hundreds of wonderful, great, selfless things you did were erased in one fell swoop.

What's really awesome about my life is that all the bad, annoying things are always canceled out by the other amazing people in my life. My mom is hands-down the most caring, understanding, smart person the whole world. She's my best friend. I'm so lucky to have her when I need cheering up or the advice that I can't help but listen to. I've made some of the most awesome friends in Roanoke. My boyfriend is freaking fantastic. He amazes me every day. It's as if he knows exactly what to say and when to say it. I can't get enough of that I'm-the-only-girl-in-the-room feeling. It's something I've been waiting for, for a while.


What I'm really saying is that I hate, hate, hate selfish people.

I hate winter

So, now I have a cold after telling Jeremy how I NEVER get sick, especially since they took my tonsils out. Colds are so wimpy. They're just bad enough to make you feel like crap, but they last for-ev-er. I'd rather have the swine flu, honestly. I could wear one of those cool face masks and get quarantined and shit. It would be epic. But, no, I'll have to deal with a lingering cough and leakage from every orifice on my face for a week or two.

Good news is I'm going back to Wake Forest tomorrow night, and my bratty princess of a dog is coming with me. She wouldn't listen to a thing I said today. That's probably because I left in the crate all night and immediately left in the morning after letting her out to run errands, but that's an entirely different story.

And, now I'm at work. She's still in the crate...


I hate how depressing everything is during the winter. Everything is dead. Nobody congregates outside the apartment building. It takes a fucking hour to get bundled up enough to take Maxine out so she can use the bathroom--or stand there whimpering that SHE'S cold, really. In retrospect, leather seats aren't that exciting. They're predicting it to be the coldest winter Roanoke's had in 10 years: great. But, then again, who doesn't love snow.

On top of my depressive state, Mod Cloth emailed me to tell me the cardigan they sold me is out of stock. WTF!?

Positive sidenote: Jeremy is awesome. I wouldn't want to deal with me when I'm like this, but apparently he doesn't care.

No Descenders

As many of you know, I'm a graphic designer for The Roanoke Times. One of the biggest challenges for a designer is descenders. A descender is any letter that drops below the baseline of a font. The letter "n" lies directly on the font's baseline, while letters like "y," "p," "g," etc. are all descenders.

Excited yet?

No...?

The problem is lot of words have descenders. So far, twelve of the words in this post have descenders. So, as a visual communicator, I have to learn to deal with them. Life is kind of like that, I guess. There's things you'd rather not deal with: listening to your neighbor have loud sex at 3:00 a.m., puppy mills, last call, Hitler, bump-its. But, they happen a lot. Suck it up and drive on soldier.


But, yeah, this is my new blog. I used to blog. Then college, internships, work got in the way. And, I like to talk--a lot. Some of it might not interest you at all, but I don't really care.

Enjoy!