So Apparently I'm a Bride

And I don't 100% know what that means except that I tricked a wonderful boy into marrying my particular brand of crazy and now I get to pick out pretty colors (hello blush and bashful!) and dresses and everyone tells me 'Yes.... of course that is beautiful' and 'This is YOUR day' all of the time.

So it's pretty great and I'm pretty sure Beyonce's everyday existence is just like this.

The other part about being a bride is that you're expected to plan an actual wedding.

If you've spent any amount of time on Pinterest these days, you know that weddings are a real BEAST.

I listened to this podcast once about an organization that teaches refugees that come to America about how to function in America.... topics in class range from 'how to use a debit card' to 'how to shop for groceries'.  They interviewed a number of people who had successfully transitioned to life in America about what they remembered from their first months in America.  Most of them mentioned being overwhelmed by the amount of choices.  One recounted a particularly traumatizing venture to the store to buy deodorant.

Have you guys ever thought about how many different kinds of deodorant there are?  All of them variations on the same theme: don't have smelly pits.

So Pinterest is like that except for brides.  And I didn't come to this Pinterest Bride Party completely unprepared.  I have been dreaming about throwing this epic party for years.  I'm coming to the table with actual opinions about color schemes and centerpieces, and I still feel overwhelmed.

But the great news is that the wonderful boy I've tricked into marrying me is also a great co-planner, and much better at pulling the trigger and making decisions than I am.

In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to document the planning process as we stumble our way through it right here on my blog.

And, who knows... if we can't reach a consensus about one of the myriads of decisions we're being asked to make over the next several months, we might just poll you and then blame you when it doesn't turn out perfectly.

Sounds like an ideal plan to me!

Spiritual Pizza Party

Riotous pizza joy!

I’m not good at celebrating myself.  I bet you aren’t either.

But I also bet you’re super fantastic at berating yourself for your tiniest failure.  I sure as shit am!

You wanted to work out 3 times this week, but you only did it once?  What an ASSHOLE.

You weren’t going to eat any cake at the birthday party, but you did anyways?  WOW… you’re a real DICK STICK.

You decided to watch The Bachelorette instead of reading War and Peace?  You illiterate SON OF A BITCH.

Why are we such nit-picky assholes to ourselves?  Why is it so much easier to dwell on the things we haven’t accomplished than to celebrate the things that we have?

I’ve done a really bad job of celebrating something that I totally deserve to celebrate.

Three years ago, around this time of the year, I decided it was time to be healthier.

 I have lost 130 lbs.

Killing it at Lady Gaga karaoke and killing it in general.

It was so hard and frustrating and I thought I would never get to where I am today.

I am so damn proud of myself.

I’ve accomplished something so crazy huge, and I actually find myself hiding it… I delete old photos of myself and untag myself in photos on Facebook.  It’s really hard for me to even casually mention it in conversations without adding some qualifying bit of information to make sure people know that it’s not that big of a deal.

I recently found myself getting jealous of someone on Facebook because they were featured on a  weight loss page for losing a similar amount of weight.  And I had to stop and remind myself that the only difference between the two of us is that she acknowledges and celebrates herself.  SHE BRAGS.  It’s AWESOME.

I think we have a real problem in our culture with people acknowledging how awesome they are.  We tell them that they are arrogant.  We tell them that they are not a special snowflake.
 
It’s weird.

When we stop acknowledging our own special snowflake-ness, it makes us really bitter about other peoples’ special snowflake-ness.

You are a SNOWFLAKE.  You are a SKYSCRAPER.  You are BEYONCE.

And I think it’s okay to acknowledge that and throw ourselves a very special snowflake party every once in awhile.

So this is me bragging, and reminding everyone that I am Kanye West levels of awesome.

Love yourself, you guys!

Today I challenge you to celebrate yourself for something cool you've done.   Maybe folding a fitted sheet perfectly or eating 5 cupcakes in one sitting!  It all counts!

Riotous Springtime Tingles

Here look at these things while I try to find time in the chaos of my current lifescope to formulate thoughts and organize those thoughts into a blog entry...  jesus h christ.

This sculpture:

This quote that I can't find accredited to anyone inspite of my exhaustive research on the internet machine (I searched on google once):

"And kid, you’ve got to love yourself. You’ve got wake up at four in the morning, brew black coffee, and stare at the birds drowning in the darkness of the dawn. You’ve got to sit next to the man at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation. You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower. Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store. You’ve got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black sky. You’ve got to compliment someones crooked brows at an art fair and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid July. You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years. Sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop over thinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Fuck it. Love yourself, kiddo. You’ve got to love yourself."

Tina on Bob's Burgers is my heart's twin:

And this sentiment:

Also my shit-tastic diet is over and now that I can eat all of the cheese and candy that I want to I'm kind of okay with not eating it.  It's like I've joined some kind of cult.

How I Gave Up Joy (and Cheddar) and Started Hating Life: An Essay on the Whole 30 Plan

Hello, you beautiful strawberry muffin-like human beings! 

Here is something I know nothing about: bitcoins.

And here is something I know plenty about: dieting.

I’m officially in the midst of week 3 of this crazy mishegoss, and I’m feeling a little bit more steady and little bit more like a champion.

But last week was R-U-F-F.

Actually the first two weeks were an experience like what I imagine it would be like going to an S&M dominatrix and paying her to beat the hell out of you and then realizing 10 minutes in that you are not a masochist or submissive in any way but also realizing that you’ve forgotten to establish a safe word and also you can’t speak anyways because of the ball gag plus you’ve paid for this so now you’ve just got to endure it because god forbid anyone ever call you a quitter.

Yeah… kind of like that.

Thus far I have endured dinners at Red Lobster (I ate plain cod and broccoli while everyone else lobster-fested) and Old Chicago (I sullenly ate nothing), a cocktail party during which I could consume neither cocktails nor the accompanying appetizers, a pub crawl during which I could not consume beer or the accompanying greasy appetizers and sandwiches (and also had a fit of lightheadedness), and made a birthday cake that I also did not get to partake of. IT HAS BEEN DEE-FUCKING-LIGHTFUL.

At this point I’m pretty sure I’ve started several hundred pregnancy rumors or people think I have some sort of eating disorder.

But keep in mind, that I have chosen all of this. This is all my doing. I have no one to blame but myself.

And all of this is to build up to this: I HAVE THE GREATEST BOYFRIEND ON THE FACE OF PLANET EARTH AND MARS AND VENUS AND PROBABLY URANUS TOO. His face should be emblazoned on a million trillion gold medallions for all eternity.

Last weekend when I was just completely downtrodden and hungry and miserable, he spent the entire weekend making me things. He bought this great cookbook that I can’t recommend enough called Nom Nom Paleo (and the corresponding food blog too!) and performed all sorts of kitchen wizardry to stock me up with Devils on Horseback (made with prunes, prosciutto and faux ricotta), prosciutto crisps (deloish), the craziest most delicious kalua pork you will ever eat, cauliflower “rice”, and strawberry banana ice cream.

I’m feeling much more even-keeled now and, dare I say, like some kind of 5th level diamond star paleo vision master from the darkest side of the moons of Saturn. Or like this tiger:

Focus. Determination. Meat.

Important side note: The tigers at our local zoo apparently love the smell of Lady Stetson so the zookeepers periodically douse areas of their enclosure with it for the tigers’ entertainment. 

Life Tip: Never douse yourself in Lady Stetson for any reason, but especially for tiger reasons.

Anyways...  I'm feeling pretty confident now about my ability to finish up this horseshit strong, but I also already have my elaborate post-Whole 30 celebration meal planned which is a tedious progressive 4 course meal across the sprawling metropolis of Wichita, Kansas with a miniature golf interlude.

It's going to be the Super Bowl of cheat meals.

Cheese you later, Cool Kids!

Does Heaven Smell Like Pizza?

Let’s get deep… and then get really shallow

Life is weird.

That’s the most important thing I can think of to say to anyone reading this after my nearly 6 months of radio silence.

And because life is weird, the roads you find yourself rambling down are sometimes unexpected and beautiful and terrifyingly cool.

I’ve been really scared a lot lately, which is a weird thing to experience when you’re also really incredibly happy. It’s like a brain can’t just allow happiness to exist by itself. It has to send some other companion feeling to make it more interesting and bizarre. So my brain sent fear. And my theory is that it sent fear because the happiness is so good and because I finally for once in my life have something very real to lose.

That is fucking scary as shit. Who voluntarily signs up for this level of vulnerability? Apparently we all do. What is the matter with us?!


I will also say that love is weird. It takes you down the scariest and weirdest and still even more terrifyingly cool paths. And I think maybe it is because it’s so unexpected BUT at the same time it’s the thing you spend so much of your life looking for that makes it SO WEIRD. It feels like an out of body experience sometimes. Like you’re hovering above your body sitting next to the body of someone else thinking “Okay so this is what it’s like to cherish someone else’s existence and be cherished for your own existence. That’s kind of cool.” And the warmth and happiness you feel is like curling up in a giant velvet bean bag chair and covering yourself in cocker spaniel puppies.

John Steinbeck explains it a little bit better in a letter to his son in 1958:

There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

It’s pretty rad.



And now on to something completely ridiculous… MY TERRIBLE DIET.


I decided to give this Whole 30 nonsense a try. Basically you give up everything delicious for a month and it’s supposed to make you feel like a million trillion solid gold medallions.

It’s the worst. I’m on Day Something or Other (probably 11, but I don’t have the energy to look at a calendar… probably because I haven’t eaten cheese for days) and my body is legit falling apart. In the first week I caught a cold (my 17th of the season), got my period 2 weeks early, and started obsessively thinking about cake and tacos and pizza (my GAWD the things I do to pizza in my brain). I also whine a lot (more than usual).

I’m swiftly wearing out my ‘Complain About Your Diet’ pass with people in my real life, so expect to catch some more of that here! Huzzah for you!!