Day Forty One: Patience

I am patient.

Okay, this is one I’m working on. I’m really not all that patient, especially when it comes to anything involving technology and the internet. But this is because media has tricked me into believing that the web and computers are magic, instant gratification machines. They are not. As my boyfriend will tell you, I can get very, very, very frustrated when the internet or my computer or my phone stop working when I need them too. He is a godsend and should be christened a saint for putting up with me.

But I’m patient in other ways. I’ll wait in traffic, wait for parking spaces and wait for people to finish at a gas station. I put up with customers who stare at my case for twenty minutes before settling on cookie dough. Today I waited in Urgent Care with my friend for five hours without complaining (too much.)

Patience is one of those things that we all need to work on. Or we need to at least teach ourselves to avoid situations that make us frustrated and require patience, if it really isn’t your thing. Hate sitting in traffic and worried about getting somewhere on time? Leave early. Don’t want to wait in line at the DMV? Go during non-peak hours. Tired of driving around the mall looking desperately for a space? Get someone to drop you off or park further away and walk in.

So maybe I’m not the patron saint of patience. But I put up with the children I babysit and their parents (who can be just as bad.) I put up with teenagers when I teach. I put up with my employers who don’t really know what they’re doing. I put up with those annoying customers who want me to tell them what they want rather than trying to decide themselves. And most of the time I do it with a smile.

I have plenty of time in my life. I don’t want to waste it, but I don’t need to horde every minute of it either.

Challenge to my Readers:

Today when you feel that itch of impatience creeping up on you, take a deep breath and let it out. If you’re angry at someone for taking too long in the lunch line or customer service counter, make up a dramatic story about them to entertain yourself and pass the time. Got little kids, find apps and games for your phone or ipod that will help keep them calm when you need them to be patient for something.

For those of you who are impatient for my next book to come out, check out my Reddit account where I’m doing some experimental serial sci-fi! 

Day Forty: Lips

Forty blog posts, woot! That is like more dedication than I’ve had to anything in my entire life. Except my boyfriend, who I’ve dedicated five years to and will continue to dedicate my life to forever more.

After yesterday’s extremely long explanation of why Kachi is a good person at heart, I have decided that today’s post will be pretty short. Also, as many of you may have heard, my boyfriend and my best friend and I are going to be moving into a new apartment together! Very exciting.

 Here it is: I like my lips.

I have pretty damn fine lips. They are soft and pink and I like to use them to kiss my boyfriend and kiss my puppy’s little head and to sing and to eat and all that other good stuff. I like them because they are mine and because they are the reason my smile is so pretty.

There you have it, I have nice lips.

Challenge to my Readers:

Love your lips today with some chapstick and lipbalm. Keep them soft all winter long!

Day Thirty Nine: Morals

I have pretty good morals.

Before my friends start screaming “Lies, Kachi, lies!” at their computer screen, let me explain. I have pretty good morals for most things. I don’t steal money from my job no matter how easy it would be, I don’t steal from stores no matter how easy it would be (and trust me, it is very, very easy.) But mostly I have this little story for you:

Those of you who know much about my place of work know that I frequently complain about the Weasel. I won’t use his real name because I’m pretty sure we have some mutual friends on the book of face, so I’ll just call him Weasel. Weasel was the manager at our shop for about a year and a half while I worked there. He’s a right asshole. Takes all the good shifts and leaves the crappy closing shifts for everyone else. Takes all the hours and leaves us begging and scrambling to make paycheck. Makes snarky comments about how we work, overlords over everyone and behaves as though he is naturally superior to all of us. He’s also a creep; he used to use the security cameras to spy on us in the shop, especially the girls.

For a while he left our shop and managed another one. That shop closed and the Weasel came back. We pretty much had the shop running on its own and me and the two boys I work with didn’t take to kindly to the Weasel coming in and pushing us around. Eventually he left us to work for a different company, although I still see him from time to time.

To be fully honest, I believe the Weasel is a morally abject, horrible person who deserved so live alone for the rest of his life, crying quietly in despair. He’s a grade A jerk and will have bad karma for his poor behavior from now until his second life. But what, you ask, does this have to do with Kachi’s morals?

Tonight I was digging through our poorly maintained file folder (it’s a cardboard box) looking for a place to put some cake forms. I accidentally stumbled across the Weasel’s original job application, complete with all his information. All his information. I’m talking social security numbers, license number, his W2, his address, what high school he went to…it goes on and on. You know, all the stuff my employer should probably keep in a safe place but doesn’t.

With this pool of information I could have done anything. I could have opened a dozen credit cards in his name, I could have stolen his identity and bought nothing but gay porn off Amazon. I could have enrolled him in an online casino game and gambled until the FBI caught him. All that stuff that they spend hours talking about tracking down on Bones and CSI and other crime shows.

But I didn’t. Despite the overwhelming urge to finally get payback against the guy who made my life and the life of my coworkers a living hell for over two years, who trash talked me and other people, who behaved as though his life was the only life that matter…I put the file back and left my owner a note saying it was there so she could put it in the actual filing cabinet in her office.

There you go, I have good morals.

Most of the time.

Challenge to my Readers:

Next time the opportunity presents itself, don’t give in against your morals. No matter how easy it is to steal a parking place or someone’s tips, don’t do it. Sometimes being a good person is the only thing that keeps this world turning. 

Day Thirty Eight: Language

Day Thirty Eight: Language

I love languages.

At the moment I speak fluent Italian, passible Spanish and enough French to get me through a summer in Paris. I’m also learning bits and pieces of Farsi, Russian, Aribic, Romanian and German. I can pretty much read liturgical and classical Latin and I can force my way through some Greek.

Even though I’m only really fluent in one language besides English (Italian) and okay at two others, this is still significantly more than most people I know. True, I went to both a high school and a college that encouraged the learning of foreign languages and I was taught Japanese and Spanish from a very young age (I started Japanese when I was five.) I’ve had a little bit of an unfair advantage because being multilingual has been a part of my life since I was very, very small.

A lot of people tell me that they can’t learn a new language because they are too old, but I don’t believe that. I know that when you’re younger, it is easier to learn languages, but that doesn’t mean that just because you’re older that it’s impossible. After all, I learned how to ride a bike properly when I was twenty.

Some people are attuned to languages, some people are not, and I understand that. Studies show that students with learning disabilities often have more trouble with Romance languages (the ones most commonly offered in schools) compared to pictographic languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean.) Sometimes it isn’t that you aren’t good at learning languages, it’s that you haven’t found one that clicks with your brain.

Being able to speak to people in their native tongue is more than just respectful, it’s enjoyable. Not to mention that learning another language is totally hot. Have you ever had someone whisper I love you in French? 

(My boyfriend speaks Chinese, not exactly a romantic language, but still hot.)

Challenge to my Readers:

Learn something in a new language today. It can be a word or a phrase. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever use it, memorize it and be proud of it. 

Day Thirty Seven: Friends

I have very good friends.

I can’t take credit for this one. While I am proud of the fact that I have amazing friends, this is more to their credit than to mine. However, I thought that today being Christmas was a good day to point out just how happy I am and how proud I am of the amazing people in my life.

Once upon a time I thought I knew who my friends were and who would be friends with me until the end of days. That didn’t work out. People I thought were my friends became antagonistic and people I never dreamed I would spend copious amounts of time with would become my best friends. If you had told me in high school that Charles and I would go shopping together or that I would hop on a plane to see Tony graduate, I would have laughed at you. If you had told me that I would be moving in with a very loud, very exuberant brilliant soul of a girl who works in cosmetics and loves Lolita, I would have assumed you were high as a kite.

Some things stay the same. If you had told me my family would adopt Lindsay for Christmas again this year, I would have said “No duh.” Jazzy’s graduation party, no brainer. My sister’s 21^st? Yup. I like to think that I am as good at keeping friends as I am at making them. Once again this is more them than me. After all, they’re the ones that put up with me day after day.

I know that there are some people I have pushed away or who have pushed away from me. I miss them and I still love them, even though they’re far away, emotionally and physically. I know I should be the better person and reach out to them, but I’m tired and scared and just kind of over it. Which isn’t to say that if they talked to me I wouldn’t want to talk to them again; I just don’t know if I can be the initiator anymore. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or makes me a coward; but that makes them a bad person and a coward as well, so we’re even.

I love my family even though the drive me nuts, but my friends are really the people who keep me together. My parents aren’t good at the feelings thing. My friends are. Madison always knows when I’m tired and upset and Charles lets me be bitchy to him when I have no reason to be. Tony keeps me in line and reminds me of how to be a good person. Jazzy and Lindsay make me smile even when I should be sad.

Of course, my bestest best friend everest is Taylor. But he’s going to get his own blog one day.

Challenge to my Readers:

Hug your friends today. Holiday is all about family; we sometimes forget to give our friends some love too. 

Day Thirty Six: Clock

I have no biological clock.

Most women hit twenty five and have an irrepressible urge to have children. Me, not going to happen. I can already tell you that. I’m not trying to say that wanting to have children is a bad thing; I just don’t have that urge. I don’t think babies are cute, I don’t want to clean up their adorable little messes I don’t want to do the goo-goo-ga-ga crap for the first year of their lives. I’m not a baby kind of woman.

The reason I like this about myself is that it makes me feel like I’m in control. I know a lot of women who hit my age and had this aggressive biological need to produce offspring. Someday, I might actually want kids, but it will be on my time and on my terms. It won’t be because my uterus is screaming at me to get a family started.

As a female in this society, I’ve been raised to think that I have some kind of moral imperative to become a mother. As a child, it was all “you can be anything you want. You can be a doctor or a lawyer.” But the unspoken subtext was that I could be a doctor/lawyer and a mother. Boys don’t get that pressure. When I tell people I don’t really want kids or mention that I might not want them for another several years, I get the “WTF, are you even a woman?” look.

There are some women in the world who are fabulous or going to be fabulous mothers. I love that. The world needs more good moms, so good on them. I am not ready to be a mother by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t want to be a mother, not for a long time if ever. When I’m ready, I’ll have kids. But no societal construct, no raging hormone is going to decide for me.

Babies are ugly anyway.

Challenge to my Readers:

Do your part to stamp out gender stereotypes. Don’t just buy a baby-doll for your little girl, get one for your son too. Get her a Tonka truck to driver her Barbies around in. Screw getting her a pony, go out and teach her how to ride a horse. 

Day Thirty Five: Competitive

I am not at all competitive.

This is the main reason that even though I am significantly athletic, I was never very good at sports. I have no ingrained desire to beat another person, party or team. The only person I concern myself with doing better than is myself. I can only push myself above my own capabilities and challenge myself to set new records. I don’t need to be lauded as the best, better or anything else.

My lack of competition drove my parents nuts as a child. Piano, dance, voice, fencing competitions all went by with good rankings but I never cared about where I placed. I didn’t need trophies or medals as a child, I was never interested in winning awards at school or in sports. Similarly in work I don’t compete to be the best; I share the work and the credit, get things done and feel satisfied with the results of my efforts.

As a child, I watched my father turn everything my brother did into a competition. When my brother played soccer, my dad always bothered him to practice so he could score more goals. Cross country, practice to win more races. Tae-kwon-do; practice to win more fights. My father has always equated practice and effort with winning, which in a way we know is true. But in his world, it wasn’t that if you practiced enough you would win, it was that if you didn’t win, you weren’t practicing enough. There was no moment of reward, no instant of love and consideration. No pride. Just a constant striving for the next win, for the next trophy, for the next game.

And while mentalities similar to my father’s have heralded the greatest athletes of our age, our only goal as children was to have fun. There is a time and place for competitiveness and my father never learned when to push and when to back off. As a result my brother and I ended up hating our activities and neither my brother nor I harbor a competitive edge.

You need competitiveness to succeed, you say? Your definition of success is limited. My brother and I lack competitiveness, but are overflowing with innovation. While the rats of the world are content to compete to see who can run fastest in their wheels, innovation forges new paths. There is no competition in fields that others have never touched.

Challenge to my Readers:

Let someone win today. Maybe it’s your little brother playing Monopoly; maybe it’s letting your wife/girlfriend/friend win an argument. Maybe you don’t press so hard for that promotion; just for today you let someone else take that fight while you take a break. Be gracious about it. Winning isn’t everything. 

Day Thirty Four: Butt

I have a mighty fine ass.

I don’t mean to be crass, but it’s true. It’s not pop-star big or princess petite, its right in between. It serves its purpose well, protecting me when I fall down and keeping my boyfriend’s eyes glued to me when I walk away. I love my butt.

This week has been all about loving my body, so I wanted to wrap I up by talking about a part of myself I still have trouble loving. I used to have a friend who would tell me I had absolutely no butt and would laugh at me about it all the time. This was the same girl who always made me feel bad for being skinny. Now I have a new friend, Madison, and a boyfriend who compliment me on my ass quite frequently. It’s very, very nice to hear since I had been hearing the opposite for a long time.

It’s the end of the week for me (since tomorrow is Sunday, which in this country starts a new week for some reason) and I’ve been giving a lot of thought to that dirty, taboo subject we like to talk about but never actually talk about: body image. I’m not just talking about fat versus thin, I’m talking about the epidemic of people who aren’t comfortable in their own skin.

 Society builds us to fit the mold and then tells us it’s okay if we break the mold, but we all know that the kids in the MTV ads don’t look like you and me for a reason. We blame television, advertising, music stars, models, movies and just about every other public image to this epidemic. But maybe the answer isn’t the models and movie stars. Maybe it’s us. Yes, Cosmo and Abercrombie give our young people pretty pictures of skinny, proportioned, fine featured people as icons to look up to. But we’re the ones who let little girls get away with calling each other fat on the playground. We’re the ones who let people get beat up for their gender, their sexuality and skin color. Outside sources can plant the seed, but it will only grow if your water it.

Now that I’ve gotten off my soap box, I can go back to loving my butt.

Challenge to my Readers:

Find a part of yourself that you admire today. Tell someone they look nice, even if you’re lying. Don’t let your friends get away with calling another person a name, even if they’re joking. Just for today, hold your tongue about the people at Walmart and just do your part to make the world better.

I could throw hundreds of websites at you about body image and self-image and places to go if you want to talk about those things. You can find them all on google. For me, the most powerful is LOVE IS LOUDER. The organization seeks to help anyone who is feeling mistreated, alone or misunderstood. It encourages people to connect, respect and express their feelings in positive ways.  

                                                                                          

Day Thirty Three: Athletic

I am active.

Today was the first day I got my shots for my Crohn’s disease. While this means nothing to most people, this means something very significant to me. Assuming that I don’t react badly to the medication, I have the go ahead from my doctor to be active again.

This means I can go back into the gym and start training for parkour again with my friends. This means I can weight lift and get back the muscles I’ve lost over the last six months. This means I can go back to dancing, walking, hiking, and all the other activities I couldn’t do while my body was out of my control.

In high school I played softball and fenced as well as danced. When I was in middle school I played soccer and fenced. As a child it was pee wee football, soccer, dance and horseback riding. I’ve always been an active person, but never really an athlete. The closest I came to being really good at a sport was fencing. But after I destroyed my knee, I had to quit.

In college my friend Charles and his incredible, gravity defying hair introduced me to parkour. If you don’t know what it is, move out from under your rock. No, I can’t do a back flip. I can’t even do that much, especially since I had to stop practicing because of Crohn’s. But it is so much more fun than any other sport I’ve ever done. Sports for me aren’t about the competition; they’re about keeping yourself in shape. I’m probably never going to go to a parkour competition, but I will do my best and have a blast while I do it.

So yes, I’m athletic. At least I will be now that I can actually gain weight and muscle again, not to mention eat and keep down food.

Challenge to my Readers:

Assuming the world doesn’t end tonight, take a chance this coming week and go to the gym and try something new. A lot of gyms have rock walls or ball courts. Skip running by yourself and consider working out with a group of friends. Encourage your family and friends, even your pet, to be more active and healthier.

And no, running around the mall doing last minute Christmas shopping does not count as cardio.

Day Thirty Two: Scars

I love all my scars.

I had a pretty rough and tumble childhood. Many of my scars are from being stupid. Some of them are being brave. Courage and stupidity are often the same thing, we just get praised for one and slapped for the other.

When I worked at a summer camp, I once ran down a steep hill after an eight year old girl I thought was in trouble (she was fine) and had a four inch piece of wood embedded in my leg. The scar is light and thin, and you can’t see it unless I point it out, but you can still kind of feel where it went in.

I have dozens of scars from fencing because our club was improperly equipped. Broken swords and poorly aimed thrusts left me bleeding more often than not. When I was a dancer I was notoriously clumsy (for a dancer) and frequently left the studio with bruises, bumps and bloody feet and legs. I have a scar on my thigh from a very bad accident on the monkey bars as a child, a scar on my ankle from jumping a fence without seeing the barbed wire, and a scar over my eyebrow from the chickenpox.

My worst scar is the one on my right knee. Those of you who know me hear of me speak of it with pride quite often. Everyone who knows me knows the story: I was stupidly inline skating at about ten o’clock at night on a busy road when I hit a rock and skidded about thirty feet on one knee. I lost a chunk of my kneecap, tore a tendon and striated the band in my leg so badly that I’ve been recovering for the last five years.

The reason I love this scar in particular, and the reason I believe that we should love all our scars, is because this scar is a symbol of how well I can heal. When I hurt my knee, it pretty much destroyed any hope I ever had of fencing for college or the Olympics. It also put a serious damper in my ballet, preventing me from entering a competition for that year. But because I couldn’t dance or fence and could barely walk, I was forced to find other things to occupy my time. Before my senior year (the year of the accident) I hadn’t given much consideration to writing as a career or life choice. But I started journaling during PE and started writing during fencing practice and stories I previous gave only passing thought to became fully developed in my mind.

This year I graduated with full honors from my graduate program. The Dean of my school actually told me that he doesn’t normally read the final paper the graduate students are required to do, but my reviewer raved about mine, so it was the first one he had read in almost ten years. I’m not going to say that my injury put me on the right path, this isn’t a freaking Lifetime movie. But if I had spent that time dancing and fencing, I would be in a very different place today.

I certainly wouldn’t be writing some lame blog.

Challenge to my Readers:

A lot of girls I know cover their scars with makeup. Try skipping the cover for a day and celebrating your adventures. If the story is lame, create a better one. Share your stories and laugh about your mistakes, your victories and your dog bites.

This is your body, love even the imperfections. 

Day Thirty One: Hands

I have nice hands.

I know I didn’t pot this yesterday the way I was supposed to, but I had a big party I was planning and was busy all afternoon. Remember my previously mentioned planning obsession? Well, couple that personality trait with a blizzard and a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in a while and you had one girl with nothing but a party on her mind.

Back to the blog: I love my hands because I can do a lot with them. This seems really stupid because, well duh, that’s what hands are for. But I’m not like normal people. Over the course of my lifetime, I have taught my hands to play the piano, the guitar, the bahoran (it’s a type of Irish drum.) I’ve perfected the art of cake decorating, candy making, baking and sculpting. I paint, I draw, albeit poorly; I write frequently and have been told I have interesting handwriting. I have used my hands to stitch up wounds, fix my car, build houses and replace plumbing.

Hands can tell you a lot about a person. They can tell you what they do for a living, how hard they work and how often they bathe. We use them to heal and to hurt. We use them to flip people the bird for driving like assholes in traffic. We use them to carry our boxes and books and bags, we write, read, wave and wrap our Christmas presents. You would be hard pressed to find a job or activity that doesn’t involve using our hands.

Maybe it’s a silly thing about myself to love, but I do love it. Think of how much harder your life would be if you didn’t have hands or if your hands didn’t function the normal way. Our world has been designed to accommodate those with developed hands and fingers. Sometimes we forget that not everyone in the world is as lucky as we are.

Challenge to my readers:

Love your hands. Give them a nice bath in the sink and put on some lotion. Paint your nails, get a manicure. Pay attention to how often you use them, even without thinking about it. 

Day Thirty: Voice

I have a very nice singing voice.

A lot of people wouldn’t assume that the voice is part of the body and therefore doesn’t belong in my “I love my body” week, but those people would be wrong. Those are the same people who tell me that the voice isn’t an instrument. Sure, it’s not an instrument like the piano or a guitar, but it still takes years of training, careful maintenance and rigorous exercise to become a master of it. Sound familiar: it’s an instrument and a muscle. My vocal chords are part of my body and are also my instrument of choice when I want to perform.

When I was in high school, I trained as an opera singer. That’s pretty much the only thing that you can train to be because no one worth their salt trains you to be the next American Idol. I did a few competitions, but like my ballet and fencing career, it was more of a hobby than anything else. But like any serious singer, I didn’t drink caffeine, I never smoked anything, never drank (for various reasons) and during shows and competitions abstained from dairy, chocolate and spicy foods all for the sake of my vocal chords.

I stopped singing after high school. I didn’t fool myself into thinking that I could get a degree in music or that I belonged on Broadway. Some people, like Mackayla, do belong on the stage and are going to kick ass at it. Some of us do it recreationally. I’ve lost a lot of my skill because like any muscle in the body, if you don’t work out your vocal chords you’ll lose strength.

 I really, really miss singing. I do.  So, if anyone wants to get a little quartet together or something, let me know.

Challenge to my Readers: 

Sing today. Even if you just do it in the shower or in your car to your Taylor Swift CD (do people still use CDs?) or whatever. Sing to your dog or your baby. Even if you aren’t any good (or don’t think you’re any good) sing something that makes you happy. 

I was going to include a clip of myself singing, but I'm kind of sick right now, so maybe I'll give that to you later. You know, if you want to see me embarrass myself like that.

Update:
I sucked it up and sang a song for you. In honor of Les Mis coming out, I decided to sing a song from the musical. Enjoy:

Day Twenty Nine: Curves

Day Twenty Nine: Curves                           

I have nice curves.

I am not curvy the way some women are curvy. I have one of those hourglass figures, wide shoulders, tucked in at the waist and hips. Actually, I don’t really have hips. I mean, biologically I do (I should know, having dislocated one of them in a very painful accident) but I don’t have hips the way some girls have hips.

The reason I’m proud of my curves is because I like the way I look in a dress. It seems like something silly to be proud of, but I am. I have met some women who should never, ever wear dresses. I have met many women who shouldn’t wear the dresses that they are wearing. And while this sounds rather berating towards my fellow (wo)man, the truth is that I like that I know how to dress myself. How to dress my curves.

I’ve had a lot of girls tell me that I’m skinny and that they wished they could be skinny. I’ve also had a lot of people assume that I am weak and defenseless and either take advantage of that or needlessly try to assist me. I once had a friend who would say all the time “I hate you, you’re so thin.” She was joking, but her tone implied that she viewed herself as overweight and therefore my figure was an object of jealousy.

Every time she said it I hated my body a little.

I have a very nice figure, curves and all. But I don’t want to make other people feel bad because of the way I look. I know that this isn’t my issue, this is their issue. And it seems so stupid to worry about, all things considered. But I feel the way I feel and my feelings cannot be denied just because someone else doesn’t agree with me.

Having curves is what makes me feel like a woman. Which is not to say that men can’t have curves, but that they’re a sacred part of my femininity. That’s why I love them.

Challenge to my Readers:

Appreciate your curves today. Wear something form flattering and feel good. 

Day Twenty Eight: Body

I love my body.

I love my body even though it seems to hate me. Suffering from Crohn’s disease has made my body at war with itself even on its best days. But even still, this is the only vessel I’ve been given to do good in the world, so I have to love it.

On a good day, I have a stomach ache that makes it hard to want to eat. I usually don’t. Even though I’m starving, the thought of eating makes me feel sick, so I just don’t. On a bad day I spend most of my time in the bathroom become reacquainted with what I previously ate, I fight through migraines without being able to take anything to ease the pain and apparently I can have hallucinations from acid imbalance. (Ask my boyfriend, it was a weird night.)

Long story short I love my body as a whole. I’ve already talked about how I love my eyes and my legs, possibly my two favorite features. I’ve talked about how I love my hair, although I don’t think of it as part of my body; it’s more like an accessory. I really like having a body that functions (as well as it can) and I thank the powers that be every day that it isn’t worse.

I know a lot of people, mostly girls, who hate their body. They think they’re fat, they think they’re too pale, too skinny, too ugly, too wrinkly, etc etc etc. Society has taught women that the bodies we’re born with aren’t good enough. We must mold and sculpt them to be more than human, we need pastes and creams and injections to perfect ourselves. We have to watch what we eat, not because we suffer from a medical condition but because we suffer from the condition of being women. We need to take yoga classes, jog, bike and swim, not because these activities are good for us, but because they justify the sugar in our morning coffee.

This week I want to talk about my body and how much I love it. I want to go piece by piece and tell you what makes me wonderful on the outside and what makes me happy on the inside.

Challenge to my Readers:

Look in the mirror and give yourself an honest compliment. Maybe you can’t say you love your body yet, but I bet you love your hips, your knees, your calves or your nose. Maybe you just need to tell yourself that you’re lucky to have a body that lets you get up in the morning. 

Day Twenty Seven: Planning

I am an excellent planner.

I actually hate planning things. I would much rather let anyone else in the group handle dinner reservations, contacting friends or arranging party trays. I am not and never have been interested in planning weddings, bachelor/ette parties or even birthday parties. Recently a friend of mine told me that I should start a party planning business.

I wish.

I’m very good at details: number of guests, who likes whom, who is allergic to what kind of nut. Is Aunt Morgan going Vegan this year or was it Cousin Lacey. It’s not so much that I keep track of these things; I don’t have a written record or anything. I just know.

On the downside, I strongly dislike it when someone whacks with my plans. I hate it when someone shows up uninvited, brings an extra guest or behaves badly. I don’t like it when the restaurant loses the reservation, can’t keep track of our checks or gives us rude wait staff. Nobody likes it when their plans go astray.

I’m proud of the fact that I’m good at planning because it is something I’m known for. I get a lot of people who ask me to help plan things. I don’t mind (except weddings and funerals, yuck) because I happen to be good at it. What drives me crazy is when people say “Hey, we should….” and then look to me to handle all the details. Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I want to do it all the time.

So the next time you need someone to help you find balloons at three in the morning or need someone to find a way to corral your cat during a visit from your parents, look to me. I’ll do my best.

Challenge to my Readers:

The next time your friends want to do something, jump in and offer to arrange the activities. You’ll be respected and loved by your friends, and you’ll be proud of yourself when it turns out well. 

Day Twenty Six: Teacher

I am a teacher.

Even those of you who live under a rock of nonchalance have probably heard via your facebook news feed, the radio or television about what happened today. The tragic passing of twenty seven people, many of them young children, would be horrible in any circumstance. The fact that their lives were brutally taken from them, especially so close to Christmas, just compounds the heartbreak of this situation.

I’m a teacher and I cannot fathom the day I have to stand between my students and someone with a gun. Every time I hear about one of these attacks, of which there have been many, all I can think is that the next time it might be my classroom. It might be one of my kids. As a high school teacher, I have the added fear that one of my students might even be the shooter. It’s a terrible thought to imagine, but with each passing tragedy our world becomes more and more terrifying. As the safety and comfort of malls, movie theaters and brightly colored kindergarten classrooms become unsafe, I cannot help but feel that the conversation we need to have now is one we have been needing for a long time.

I know exactly how the next few days, weeks and months following this tragedy will play out. After all, my home state suffered both Columbine and the Aurora shootings, so we have been covered by a dark cloud of violence since I was a child.

Over the next couple of days, the politicians are going to be screaming about gun control laws, mental illness and violence in video games/tv/movies and just about anything else they think might have caused this. The shooter’s life will be turned inside out, trivial facts will become part of the investigation and his home and family will be slandered, slurred and slighted. Westboro will plan to picket a funeral that hosts far too many tiny coffins and everyone will be offended by what they say. We will all be equally offended by everything our president says, we will be unsatisfied with the efforts of police, fire and emergency responders.

That’s the next few days. That’s not tonight. Tonight we all get to go home and hug our parents and our children and our grandchildren. We get to cuddle our puppies and talk to our friends and family. Tonight we gather and pray for peace and love over hate and violence. Tonight we promise our little ones that they are safe and they are loved. Tonight we watch their favorite movies, our favorite movies, listen to our favorite Christmas songs and thank any deity or non-deity that it wasn’t us, that it wasn’t here.

I think that my friend Kyle put it best when he posted: “Tomorrow will be the day to decide what to do about the tragedy in Connecticut. We will talk about politics, religion, society, et al. But today, those involved in the shooting are not just victims of violence, hate, or mental illness. They are our daughters and sons, our sisters and mothers, our fathers and our friends. Let us not extend a finger to point blame or cause, but a hand to help those who are suffering through the unthinkable. Today, let us love and support those who lost. Tomorrow is another day.”

Kyle is right. Tonight we go home to love and full hearts, heavy with sadness ready to be lightened with joy. Tomorrow we can argue about guns and mental illness and everything else. Tomorrow we can begin the uphill fight towards justice or whatever we perceive as justice.

Tonight I’m a teacher and I stand with all other teachers praying that this will never be our school, our classroom, our children on the news. Tonight every parent and every educator begins to plan what we will tell our children and how we will teach them love and understanding.

Tonight we love.

Challenge to my Readers:

Watch a youtube video with kittens or puppies. Watch baby sloths getting a bath. Do something you enjoy and revel in your joy for it. Do something nice for someone. Give someone a hug. Smile. It’s been a hard day for all of us; remember that when you see people today.

Anyone who wants to help those who have been effected by the tragedy today can go here to help. If you can’t donate, please say a prayer or have a kind thought towards the families and victims. 

Day Twenty Five: Reliability

I am hell-a reliable.

I have this freakish obsession with being on time. I really do. I leave way too early for work, for parties, for movies, etc. I try really hard not to be late to things most of the time because I was always taught that being late is next to being a sexual deviant in my family.

People count on me. My boss counts on me to keep track of our cakes and catering and knows that I won’t let a customer slip through the cracks. My family counts on me to help them around the house and to be there when they need me to be. My boyfriend counts on me for his support and love. My puppy counts on me to feed him and take care of him and love him. My friends count on me for four AM rides to the airport, trips to rural Kansas and emergency wedding preparation, among other things.

Being reliable is something that I love about myself because it makes me feel like I’m a part of something. When someone trusts you enough to drive them to the hospital because they aren’t quite sure what was in those brownies their roommate gave them, it means something important. It means that they trust you not only with their life, but also with their secrets and the knowledge that you will be there without asking too many questions.

I mention this season once again because it’s more important than ever to be reliable. Our families and friends need us more than every during this time a year. Even surrounded by people we can still feel so alone; it’s vital for us to show everyone we love just how much we love them. The best way to show someone you love them is to be there for them.

And be on time.

Challenge to my Readers:

The next time you are reliable, take a moment to enjoy that. Be proud of the quality that makes your friends call you for shopping help or your kids call you for homework help. Be there for someone you care about and be happy that you have someone who is there for you.

Day Twenty Four: Baking

I am a good baker.

Seriously, I am. I’m very excited for the day that I get to open my own café and get to bake everything for the store. In my dreams I have a nifty little café bookshop that is like a secret local place (probably in San Fran) and everybody loves it. In reality I know that 87% of small businesses fail in the first year, but if I can just make it past that first year I’ll be good.

I’m a really good baker. Every year for Christmas I bake sugar cookies using my grandmother’s recipe, which I will probably be doing tomorrow. I also recently found a recipe for biscotti that Victoria’s mom put in the cookbook we made our senior year of high school. I fully plan on spending the next several days baking my ass off in preparation of my Christmas party.

I’m pretty awful at making pies so I usually let my father handle those ones. I actually got my love of baking from my father; some of my earliest memories are of standing on a chair next to him while he made apple pie or cherry pie or baklava. It’s something I’ve always shared with him and treasured. The only difference is that I tend to bake at one in the morning while he tends to bake at reasonable hours of the day.

This season is an especially big season for my baking because my family always ships baklava, cookies and caramels to each other. A big part of my family is military, so we also always send some to the troops overseas. One year my cousin called from abroad asking us to send him more because the senior officers had confiscated his baklava and ate it all before he and his buddies got any. It’s hard to imagine being away from your family for the holidays, which is why I always think that we should support our men and women overseas during this season. I mean, how many country songs are about soldiers spending Christmas on the battlefield? A lot.

Baking is a great thing to bring friends and family together. I ‘m really excited this Christmas to bake with my boyfriend for the holidays because I love sharing everything with him. So look forward to getting some yummies this season while I go on my crazy baking spree. Hopefully this year I won’t burn down the kitchen or anything.

Challenge to my Readers:

Make something today. Be proud of something, any activity, that you’re good at. Revel in the fact that you took the time and practice to be good at something.

Also, consider baking as a holiday gift this year. Even if you don’t actually want to bake, you can always assemble the ingredients into jars and decorate them to give as gifts. Something you make yourself is always special.

Note: If anyone feels inspired to send stuff to our troops for the holidays, be aware that the military no longer accepts “Any Soldier” or “Any Wounded Soldier” as a viable delivery option. Your best bet is to use one of the sites listed at Support our Troops to give them stuff. 

Day Twenty Three: Refined

I am a classy girl.

Those of you who know me also know that I am a little bit of a goofball. I love zombie movies and fart jokes as much as the next person. But I am actually a very classy young woman and I have been told so on many occasions.

Despite what Madison and Taylor think, being classy has less to do with manners and more to do with attitude. (I consider them both to be very classy people.) If our classiness was determined by how well we could set the table when the Pope drops by for a visit, then the classiest people would be those women who spend all day memorizing the Miss Manners Handbook. Which is not to say that these people are not classy, but rather that their classiness probably stems from something more than the ability to properly iron and fold a shirt.

Personally, I think that my class comes from my ability to communicate with people. I can clearly and concisely explain complex ideas; I can portray myself as a diligent and intelligent human being without getting steak sauce on my dress. Really I think all it comes down to is treating other people well and having a vast understanding of the many ways you can make yourself look poised in stressful situations.  

People who are unclassy are easy to recognize. They’re the people who are rude to the girl at the fast food window. They’re the person who screams at other people in their cars. They’re the person who gets angry too easily and lets it show. People who are unclassy are to be avoided at all costs, because telling them that they aren’t being classy won’t help them or you. We all have our moments, but it’s pretty easy to tell who is really a dick.

For those of you who wonder about the classical origins of classiness, I did spend five years in cotillion. (Lady classes, for those of you who don’t know what cotillion is.)

 I don’t remember the fancy dances or all the ways you fold your napkin or what it means when I hold my fan over my head and bat my eyes at you, but I do remember the first rule of being a real lady:

“Real ladies never bend, they squat.” ~My cotillion teacher.

And honestly, what else do you need to know?

Challenge to my readers:

Be classy today. Hold a door open for someone. Pull out your friend’s chair at coffee. Let someone ahead of you in the line in the grocery store. Being classy is all about attitude; once you’ve been classy, never brag.