To prevent getting older and boring...

...and just get older instead.

I am twenty-four now.  Twenty-four years old.  I have been alive for twenty-four years.  Strangely, I feel like this age is more real for me than twenty-three was.  I seem to fit into this age better than I fit into twenty-three.  I really don't know how to fully explain what I mean by that, but that's the way it is.  Though my time at twenty-four has been brief, it is already more comfortable than twenty-three.  Anyway.

I had some grown-up monotony set in this last year.  Not anything bad, just the slow, steady creep of  getting set into a routine.  I realized it when I was calling my family for phone-updates and found that when they asked "what have you been doing?" I had nothing to report.  My week pretty much consisted of going to work, going to the gym, and going to a friend's house for tv shows and dinner.  That's it.

Yeah, watching this is part of my week.

Some of this is inevitable.  As we become adults and have set schedules and responsibilities, we become a little more set in our ways, what we like and don't like, what we do with our spare time.  However, I don't think being adult or responsible means life has to be boring or predictable.  I spent most of high school and college terrified of becoming a mundane person and the thought of no longer being fun or spontaneous still fills me with dread.  To combat the onset of old-and-boring-itis, I have decided that I will set twenty-four goals of things to accomplish before I turn twenty-five.  Granted, I will be spending most of this year in China, so that will affect the formation of some of the goals.  I will update them as I complete them and be motivated to complete them so I don't face the shame of the internet community holding me accountable.  Anyway, the list!  It's coming!

1 - Learn how to use a camera and how to effectively use photoshop.

2 - Try at least thirteen completely new foods.

 Stinky tofu will not be one of them.  I am not doing it.

3 - Get a new stamp in my passport.

4 - Read thirteen books.
              -"Let's Pretend This Never Happened"

5 - Finally do the gum grafting surgery.
              -turns out, it's unnecessary.  Done.

6 - Learn extremely basic communication in Chinese:
              -how to order food
              -saying "hello" and "how are you"
              -asking for directions

7 - Get rid of anything from my wardrobe I haven't worn in a year.  And anything worn out.  And anything I don't wear but keep around because I think it might be cute someday (every woman in my family weeps for the state of my wardrobe.  About half of it is from thrift-stores and give-away piles or completely threadbare.  I have trouble getting rid of things).

Of course I wouldn't wear this, guys.  I don't even have cowboy boots.

8 - Actually wear my perfume.

9 - Learn to french twist my hair.

10 - Sketch.

This kind of thing should be happening more.

11 - Make and follow an actual cleaning schedule.

12 - Go for walks.  Frequently.

13 - Write.  A lot.  Set aside time for it instead of confining it to "spare moments".

14 - Make at least five new friends that I can hang out with on my own.

15 - Become flexible enough to touch my head to my knees.  Or do the splits.  Whichever comes first.

 This works too.

16 - Sing somewhere.  A coffee shop.  A show of some kind.  But I really want to sing again.

17 - Finish my tattoo design well.  And then decide if I actually am going to get it.

18 - Get a hat that does not look stupid on me.

19 - Memorize three good poems/speeches.

20 - Succeed at Baldur's Gate (meaning, stop dying every second mission).

Yeah, I am not coming out of this alive.

21 - Get a scooter (ok, fine.  It's a dream).

22 - Keep a plant alive for at least three months.

23 - Buy a pair of red shoes.

24 - Be a good pen pal with at least three of my far-flung friends, communicating in short or long messages at least once a week.

Those are mine.  I will keep it updated as I succeed (or not.  I really don't know if I can ever become more flexible).

Until next year, goals.

I'm homesick for not being home...

...strange as that may sound.

I've been getting all wander-lusty.  I find myself reading copious amounts of Bill Bryson (a wonderful and hilarious travel writer, by the way), watching travel shows, and flipping longingly through photo albums from myself and friends in far-off places.  I crave all foods un-homey and unfamiliar.  I look back on old trips with a kind of fond nostalgia and swiftly leap to the defense of any country in which I have been lucky enough to travel (except maybe Hungary.  Budapest in November is bleak, gray, and depressing.  This may have been my fault for going there in November, but I am not a fan).  I need to be gone.

Not a black-and-white photo.  I swear, all color and warmth was absent in this city.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not anti-America.  I never quite understood why wanting to be somewhere new made people think I hated America.  It's familiar.  It's home.  And I want something new.  There is a whole lot of world out there and I don't want to miss seeing it just because I enjoy the country I was born in.  I love it here, but I don't want to stay here forever.

Some of my travel-longing could be a little rose-colored.  I know many people who respond to my gushings about the U.K. or Prague with a resounding "meh".  They bring up the wet, cold weather, high prices, and floods of tourists.  My history-major husband brings up their history of imperialism, the latent colonial mentality still occasionally evident, and the fact that they speak the same language as we do (when he wants to travel, he really wants to travel.  For him, it doesn't really count if we are all speaking English).  I understand the points they make.  I do.  But I was so happy there, I can never see it as anything but wonderful.

When I think of the U.K., my mind jumps to four years ago, studying abroad.  I remember chili sauce from kebabs staining my hands red as I wandered through Edinburgh searching for the next play at the theater festival.  I remember the surge of victory I felt when I realized that I knew exactly where I was going on the tube in London.

I even knew to mind the gap (without being told!)

I remember singing together in a packed pub in Galway.  I remember screaming along with the crazed crowd at a football match in Bath (and hearing some of the most eloquent profanity of all time from them).  I remember sitting on cliff-edges, my feet dangling over the sea far below, feeling wind and sunshine and sea-brine on my face at the cliffs of Mohr.

I've got a thing for adrenaline-inducing heights.

I remember running through crowded streets to keep up with my friends as we searched for our next hostel, the packs bobbing on our backs carrying all our earthly possessions for four months and tied with clusters of bandannas.  I remember kissing the husband (then "the crush") for the first time and slipping away from the group with him to wander aimlessly through British streets.

We stared in awe at works of art.  We braved fried haggis and mushy peas (both surprisingly tasty).  We paid our respects to Shakespeare's house (and immortalized the serious experience with a series of jumping pictures).

 

I find this properly respectful, don't you?

We walked through Derry with survivors of Bloody Sunday and cried.  We hiked through sheep pastures along Hadrian's Wall (and later ate their brethren).  We were led over perilously rocky shores and cliffs in Wales by kindly old folks who put us to shame with their stamina.

We explored beautiful, awe-inspiring cathedrals.  We spent hours in pubs, drinking and chatting with locals and calling it "homework".  We invaded Oxford and spent far too long in the hall that inspired Hogwarts.

 "Hoggy, warty, Hogwarts..."

We braved drenching torrents of rain and learned that getting wet is not that big a deal.  We wore our clothes threadbare in those four months and did not mind when we were mistaken for hippies.  We climbed cathedral ruins (and were chastised in no uncertain terms).

In our defense...there were no signs telling us not to climb the ruins.

Traveling is beautiful for so many reasons.  The memories of it can transport you to another time and place.  I can jump back to sitting in front of the astrological clock in Prague with a sketchbook and a hot cup of spiced wine.  I can close my eyes and feel sunlight beating down on my face in Rome as we explored the Coliseum.  I can feel my heart leap in my chest as we finally found the most amazing restaurant while searching for food in Victoria, B.C. (hey, not every travel destination has to be too far away).

Traveling opens you up to new ways of seeing the world.  New languages, cultures, perspectives, people.  It broadens your mind and gives you depth.  It can be terrifying.  It can be intimidating.  But it is worth it.  Because you never come away without learning something new.  About other people.  About the world.  About yourself.

About how much stuff you can cram into a backpack...

I know all of this.  I have never regretted any of my travel experience.  It has just made me more eager to be someplace new, to expand my knowledge of how massive and diverse and beautiful the world really is.

So when we move to China in a few months, I will just need to keep all of that in mind.

If you sniff books, use outdated terminology frequently, and are easily recognized by librarians...

...you might be a reader.

The other day, I was talking with a stranger while we waited in line at the grocery store.  We were looking at the magazines and I brought up the new Hunger Games movies and asked if she had read the book.  She looked at me strangely and said, "I'll just see the movie.  Anyway, how can you read just for fun?"

I died a little inside.

 Um...this is exactly what I want to be doing.

I have been reading for fun since I learned to read when I was three by following along as my parents read aloud.  In school, I would sneak books out to recess and find abandoned corners of the playground to read them.  Sometimes, I got so absorbed in the book that I wouldn't hear the bell ring to bring us back in and would scuttle back to my classroom late.  In middle school in Montana, where you go to recess unless it is ten degrees or lower, I made friends with the librarians so they would give me passes to spend time reading inside while my classmates played "avoid the frostbite" outside.

I got in trouble for reading under my covers on school nights, hours after I was supposed to be asleep.  I would sneak away at friends' houses and be found later in a closet with one of their books.  I would spend parties going through bookshelves.  Wait, why am I using past tense?  I still do that at parties.  Just in a more clandestine way.  I hope.

Would have married whoever did this for me.  On the spot.

To those of you who don't understand compulsive readers, let me try to explain.  When we read, we become something else.  We enter worlds that exist nowhere else.  It sounds like metaphor, but seriously.  In those hours that we are reading, our minds and hearts are not sitting in a coffee shop or sprawled over a couch.  They are slaying monsters and exploring new landscapes.  Reading takes us from lives that are predictable, normal, or mundane and lets us be heroes, friends, champions.  Our hearts are pierced by sorrows not our own and lifted by love not ours while we read.   Also, we may start talking or writing as if we don't sound ridiculous.  Because, in our minds, we don't.

It carries over into our regular lives.  After reading, we feel things keenly.  We are acutely aware that everyone around us has a story unfolding around them.  Life becomes more vivid.  Surroundings take on a new dimension when viewed through the lens of a story in progress.  There is color, light, meaning in everything.

Does that sound romantic?  Ridiculous?  Dramatic?  Silly?  That's fine.  We are all those things.  And we're not afraid to be.  Because when you read, there are far worse things than being thought odd or eccentric or strange.  We fear being boring.  Expected.  Common.  And reading takes us past all that.  So that even if we are office workers, teachers, waitresses to others, we know we are more.  We live a different life with every book we read, every character we get pulled in by.  It shapes who we are, what we want, and what we believe we are capable of.

Reading makes us more open to looking ridiculous.  We learn to accept that there could be a lot out there that we don't see, that we don't know everything.  And I think that's beautiful.

I swear I'm not a murderer...

...but I am slowly killing Lucille.

Lucille is the name of our car, by the way.

Now, I contest that Lucille was angry and resentful before I ever came into contact with her, but others seem to disagree.  I mean, I am not a bad driver.  Really.  I swear.  Just...absent-minded?  Occasionally oblivious?  Easily distracted?  Yes.  That last one.

Of course I am watching the road...road sounds like toad...Neville had a toad!  Why was Ron allowed to bring Scabbers?  The letter said "owl, cat, or toad".  I should buy an owl.

 

Take, for instance, the events of a recent road trip.  I was in the driver's seat and my friend was filling up the tank.  When he got back in the car, I figured (completely logically!) that he was done getting gas.  Never mind that it had only been about a minute.  So you can imagine my surprise at his panic when I went to turn the car on.  See, what I saw as continuing on the journey, he saw as my attempt to blow up a gas station and kill us all.  Turns out the car was still filling up.

I would like to remind everyone that this did not actually happen.

 

I would like to point out that I did not, in fact, set anything on fire.  However, this is just one in a series of small mistakes that have convinced the men in my life that I am not to be allowed behind the wheel of a car without serious supervision.  Despite all my protests that I am a perfectly good driver when they are not stressing me out and making me all nervous by WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE, they remain skeptical.  This is probably not helped by the car's obvious resentment of me.

I may have bent back the side mirror of the car by driving too close to the drive-through pick-up window, causing a chain reaction so the driver's-side window refuses to go up or down without forceful assistance.  I may have rear-ended another car when Lucille decided that sliding across the snow would be much more fun than obeying my frantic punching on the brake pedal.  I still say that was the fault of Lucille and her accomplice, unplowed roads.  And the fact that the passenger's side door requires yanking for both opening and closing really has nothing to do with me.  That's just Lucille being spiteful.

She takes after her namesake.

 

Despite all of my accidental abuse (and occasionally life-threatening absentmindedness), she still functions, carrying us many miles with only minor spurts of obstinancy.  So, Lucille, thanks for all you do.  I promise to do my best to take care of you.
Until I finally succeed in destroying you.  By accident, of course.

Dear Gym: if you were a person...

 ...I think I would round-house kick you in the face.  What?  IT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TAUGHT ME!

So, in a previous post I detailed my feelings about my occasionally abusive, on-again off-again boyfriend "Jim" (also known as "the gym").  Ah, Gym (I am going to capitalize this so it's more like a person that I can justifiably yell at rather than an inanimate object.  Because yelling at objects makes me a crazy person).  Things had improved so much since the last time I posted about you and then what do you do?

You sucker-punch me right in the muscles I didn't know I had.

You make me love you and then you make me wish I never knew you.  I get all dependent, going to you several times a week, and then you just turn on me.  I will probably go back to loving you soon, but right now I just think you're a jerk, Gym.

Just look at those smug little machines and condescending mats.

 

I guess it's not totally your fault.  I wouldn't need you so much if it wasn't for my love-hate relationship with Food (both best friend and arch-nemesis).  I truly love food in nearly all of its forms.  Melty.  Crispy.  Gooey.  Frosty.  Cheesy.  Sweet.  Crisp.  Juicy.

What can beat a cold, melty ice cream cone on a hot day?  A hot slice of pizza oozing cheese and delicious sauce over a crispy crust?  A fresh cookie with still-melting chocolate in it?  Cupcakes!  Tacos!  Shepherd's Pie!  Pasta!  Milkshakes!

Don't even get me started on milkshakes.

Sweet lord, I want you.

Food, I was unfailingly loyal to you in all your tastiness for years.  YEARS.  And then, right after college, you threw a wrench into the works.  You ran off with my metabolism.  And you still haven't returned it.  Suddenly, all my normal foods and normal portions were doing markedly abnormal things to my body.  What, you thought my hips were SUPPOSED to be that size?  You thought that since I ate pears so much I would really appreciate being gradually turned into one?  You realized that what every girl needs is thighs that make it look like two hams are having a battle to the death in a pair of jeans?

This is what came up when searching "ham death-battle".  It is awesome and I'm keeping it.

You drove me to Gym, Food.  You did this to me.  My pain is your fault.

But I still can't quit you, Food.

Gym, I thought we were working things out.  We accepted that I will never in a million years enjoy running around outside and moved on from that to stair machines, bicycles, elliptical machines, and even the occasional treadmill (turns out running sucks less when there is a television in front of you).  We were taking classes, Gym.  Kickboxing classes.  Core classes.  That one yoga class that we quit because the incredibly sweet instructor had a breathy little voice that kept making me fall asleep.  All was well.

But this week, you turned on me.  You decided that getting into shape deserved punishment and so, for no reason, you made me sore.  Not just worked-out-hard-yesterday sore.  You gave me can't-find-a-position-to-sleep-in-because-everything-hurts sore.  And seriously-it's-been-three-days,-why-does-this-still-hurt sore.  And HOW-CAN-THAT-BE-IN-PAIN?!-IS-THERE-EVEN-A-MUSCLE-THERE? sore. 

 Muscle in front of the shin?  O, it's there.  And it's angry.

And you know the worst part, Gym?

I can't quit you either.

And it's not just because the membership was expensive.  It's because for all your abusive ways, I like you.  I like feeling sore and strong and sweaty after a workout.  I like feeling healthy and powerful.  I like fitting into clothing that had been relegated to the bottom of my dresser drawers.  I like being back in a shape recognizable as female human being and not amoeba.  I even like you when it hurts.  And now I sound like a masochist.

I am not putting up a picture to go with "masochist".  Just...no.

So, Gym, even though I think we may need counseling or something, our dysfunctional little relationship is still going strong.  I am going to miss you while I am away this week.  And I know you are going to punish me for my absence when I get back.  But I am looking forward to that too.

Just, please lay off the soreness.  Just a little bit.