The Bucket List...

Okay, so maybe this will be my lamest post ever. Then again, maybe it will inspire one of my 3 readers. Either way, I feel like it's an important exercise for me. So here it goes.  It begins with a single question:

What are your dreams?

Okay, okay. So I bet at least a few of you have already decided that this is, in fact, my lamest post ever. Before you close the browser and vow never to read this blog again, allow me to give just a bit of background.

I don't make a secret of the fact that I am not one of those people who goes around reading self-help books. I also don't read many non-fiction books, period. Recently though, I was asked to read a book for a project I'm involved in for work. It's called "Dream Manager" and it's by Matthew Kelly. Yes, you're probably already thinking "Uh....Laaaaaaaaaaame." Yeah, I don't blame you. Before you start judging me, let me just say that I was with you. I read it anyway to be "responsible".

And man...am I glad I did.

At first, I thought this would be a book written for people who are managers. Not so. It's really about being human. And what makes us human? Our ability to envision the possibilities that will bring us joy...the possibilities that motivate us and bring us hope.

Then I realized something. I didn't know the answer to the question above. Sure, when I was younger, I would dream about the life I wanted. I wanted to go away to school, have a boy like me, get good grades, get a job, move to a new city, make new friends, fall in love, get married, have a nice car, buy a nice house...it wasn't anything out the ordinary. It all seemed acheivable. Good news: It was!

So now what? When did I stop dreaming?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had gotten so caught up with the notion of the daily grind...with going to work, getting a paycheck, paying my bills...that I simply didn't have the time or inclination to think beyond that. What's worse is that I didn't even have any idea what my own husband's dreams were. That actually made me feel pretty bad.

So, in an effort to commit to making my dreams come true, I've decided that I should probably have some. You may have noticed that I haven't blogged in quite some time. There are a number of reasons for that. I've thought about it a lot. I guess I figured that I didn't have many positive things to say these days. Truth be told, I've been downright depressed. There are lots of things that could have contributed to me feeling down. Rather than post the million things I could cry about, I figured I could write about the things that get me excited, that bring me joy to envision, that give me hope...

I've given it a lot of thought. I'm still not done thinking. My goal is to write down 100 dreams I'd like to achieve before I turn 40. That seems reasonable. In the meantime, I encourage you to try to answer the question for yourself. Without dreams, what's the point? What are you living for? I also encourage you to ask the people in your life what theirs are. Sounds cheesy as hell, but you might be surprised. If nothing else, it'll probably make that person's day that you care enough to ask.

Just sayin.

Youth is Wasted on the Young.

People tend to guffaw when I wax-philosophical about getting old at the ripe age of 32, however, I feel like I have some legitimate observations on this topic.  I was reading a book, "Water for Elephants", and the main character talks a lot about getting old and how it's difficult and subtle and before you know it, life has passed you by.  Yeah, pretty depressing stuff...but it made some excellent points. 

When you're young (i.e. before 30) and someone asks you how old you are, the answer pops into your head with surprising speed and accuracy.  The younger you are, the more precise your description of age is.  For example, 28 months, 3 and a half, 12 and three quarters, etc etc.  Sometime after you turn 30, someone asks you how old you are and you start doing long arithmetic in your head trying to figure it out.  I've certainly noticed it now that I'm over 30.

When you're in your 20s, life seems to be limitless and spread out before you.  You think you have all the time in the world to travel, to enjoy marriage, to finally get in shape, to be healthier, to have kids.  It's a pretty rude awakening when you realize that there actually is a ticking clock looming above your head. 

As I was looking through some old pictures of me from college and grad school, I realized something.  What the hell was I thinking feeling so bad about myself back then?  I mean, I spent the vast majority of my time thinking I was too fat, had too big a nose, too flat a butt, too big of boobs, I was too tall, my hair was too frizzy, my skin was awful, etc etc.  Truth is, if I could go back to those days, I would trade the me of my youth with the me of my present any day of the week.  I suppose hindsight is always 20/20 but it would have been nice if someone was smart enough to tell me that it's pretty much all downhill from that point on.

Looking back, my youth was pretty fantastic.  I just wish I would have spent more time appreciating it for what it was instead of always discounting it for what it wasn't.  I look forward and all I see are struggles, to get healthy, lose weight, get pregnant, have a healthy pregnancy, etc.  It's downright depressing.

So maybe, as a sanity check, I will try not to dwell on the past or obsess over the future.  Instead, I'll focus on the here and now...Chances are, when I'm 50, I'm going to look back at my 32 year old self and be pissed that I didn't spend more time enjoying life as it was!

5 Years in the Making...

As many of you know, I do a lot of traveling.  I mean, it's often not to super exotic destinations...it's mainly to see friends and family in locations such as Ridgewood, NJ or Gibraltar, MI or Omaha, NE.  Throw in the occasional trip to NYC, St. Louis, Chicago, and it makes for a relatively busy travel schedule.  I've never really complained much about the fact that we don't take real vacations.  I just say that I love to travel in theory.

In the middle of August, the hubs and I finally did it.  We went to Italy.  It was the thing we had wanted to do since we got married.  It just never really seemed like the right time.  Given our recent plans of having a kid, we figured it was time to get that trip in.

I plan to post a ridiculously detailed account of our trip, more for us to remember it forever than for the reading public's entertainment...however, maybe you'll find it mildly entertaining.  That'll have to wait for a later date when I have the time and patience to be meticulous enough to search through hundreds of pictures to do the trip justice.

Until then, I wanted to leave you with some tips in case you will be traveling to Italy in the near future.  I hope you will find them useful.

Tip #1: Travel with people who are hilarious.
And are preferably miniature versions of you and your partner, are willing to do whatever you tell them to do in pictures, and have similar habits to you.  The peeps we traveled with were basically the travel sized additions of the hubs and I.  We had the same tolerance for heat, walking, got sick of looking at ancient stuff at the same time, have the same affinities for Coca Light, same tolerance (or lack thereof) of alcohol, and most importantly, the same priority placed on eating delicious foods.

  

The pictures are essentially of our travel companions demonstrating their ability to follow instructions in picture taking.  Oh, and our love of Coca Light.

Tip #2: Don't get ripped off.
The cab ride from the Rome Airport to whatever hotel you're staying at shouldn't be more than 45 Euros.  Don't get duped into paying 60 or 70 Euros just because you don't know where you're going.  Also, if a Gypsy asks you to hold her baby, DON'T.  Their posse will just rip you off as you hold their baby.

If you take a train ride from Florence to Pisa, don't buy a first class ticket from the kiosk.  There's no such thing on the train, but they don't mind charging the chumps who opt for it 5 extra Euros each way. On the back of the ticket in tiny print, you'll see that you have to validate your ticket in Florence before you leave.  Do it or they find your ass another 10 Euros on the train.  Sne bit her thumb at the ticket.  Shakespeare would be proud.



Tip #3: Don't expect awesome service.
As a general rule, the servers in Italy don't get tips because the second you sit at their table, they get a service charge of at least 2 Euros.  The food prices factor in a tip so they have no real motivation to make you happy aside from their basic human decency.  Don't count on that too much, though.  I think in the 2 meals per day that we ate out over the course of 8 days, we had 2 servers that were really nice and helpful.  1 in Florence, and 1 in Rome.  Oh, and I probably could have made a tip out of this, but under no circumstance should you eat in an Asian Pizzeria.  You'll thank me for that golden nugget of advice...trust me.

Tip #4: Don't have ridiculous expectations.
Just like anything, it's better to be pleasantly surprised than horribly disappointed.  Case in point, the Sistine Chapel.  For some reason, I was under the impression that this painting would be spectacular, large, and the ENTIRE ceiling.  It turns out, it's relatively small, hidden among a ton of other stuff, and nothing to write home about.  I think these photos speak for themselves.

The Anticipation.                                             The Let-Down.

                  

Tip #5: Be prepared to spend a lot of money on Coca Light.
Randomly on about the 5th day in Italy, I started to really think about the amount of money we had spent on Diet Cokes.  On average, a can of Diet Coke costs 4 Euros.  I drank about 3-4 a day.  We were there for 8 days.  That's just about 128 Euros on Coca Cola Light.  Roughly translated, that's a little over $204.00 on soda.  Yeah, sickening, I know.  Here's the really crappy part; There are no diamonds in the bottom of the can.  RIPOFF!

Tip #6: Take in the local performers.
If you're in Florence, make sure you check out Ken Mercer.  He performs in Ufizzi Square every single night at 9:30pm to 11pm.  He's amazeballs.  Seriously.  Oh, but be sure to participate or he will actually get pissed, pack up and leave, leaving you very very sad.

Tip #7: If you meet really nice people, they're not likely locals.
Locals seem to hate tourists...especially American tourists.  I guess I can't blame them.  The only two things I could watch in English were CNN and the Jersey Shore.  I'd hate us too if that was all I had to go on.  It might also be because we're Indian.  It seemed like the only other Indians we saw in Italy were the annoying dudes selling roses while you eat dinner.  Anyway, we met tons of really nice people while were there.  A fantastic French couple from the Pink City named Alice and Jerome, A nice guy on a bus who was South African, A great couple of girls from NYC who were about to jump a girl who cut the line in St. Peter's Square, and a sweet couple from AZ who got robbed blind on the Metro.  We sure didn't have much luck with any honest to god Italians though.  Oh well, better luck next time, I guess...

Tip #8: Make sure you get a passport stamp in Italy.
You'll thank me for this one later too.  I think it's more of an effort to get a stamp than to walk out of the Rome airport without so much as a glance at Customs or Passport Control.  It's fine and good when you land in Italy and are excited to begin seeing the sights or go to the hotel...however, when you try to leave Italy and you've got some hardass German dude asking you where the hell you came from and how long you've been in Europe, you'll think to yourself "Hmm...maybe I SHOULD have gotten that stamp, after all..."  Learn from our mistakes.

I'm sure there are a million other things that I missed, but these are the things that stick out the most.  I hope it was helpful...

HAPPY TRAVELS :)

I'm not a Mac, I'm not a PC, I'm a victim of my circumstance...

The debate has been raging for as long as I can remember.  I'm sure we all remember these commercials with the nameless nerdy guy representing "the man" and their evil agendas and Justin Long representing the rebellious Gen X/Yer who refuses to conform to business casual standards.

I'll be honest, if I were going to decide what I was based solely on the above image,  it's a no-brainer.  Who wants to be the frumpy corporate schmuck?  Yeah, that's right...no one. However, like most people, I've been raised on the PC.  It was my first experience with a computer in high school, and it seemed to be the norm in college & grad school.  Then once I was a corporate drone, people were all walking around with Dells and Thinkpads.  It wasn't until my first job in NYC that I was given a MacBook Pro that would send most Apple fans into a state of bliss.  I couldn't deny the beauty of it.  It was simple, clean, and much much prettier than the crappy Dell desktop I'd been using up until that point.  Only the design team was given MacBooks and this made the act of sharing files or compatibility with other people's stuff relatively difficult.  In order to overcome this challenge, we all started running VM Ware so that we could have the MS Office productivity software, but still use Creative Suite on the Mac side.

So began my personal hell.

I understand that Steve Jobs has a vision.  I understand that a lot of interactions on a Mac are better than those of the PC.  What I don't understand is how any normal human being can switch between the two without being driven to complete and total insanity.  The interactions are just different enough to make me crazy!  (just as an example, copy & paste keyboard shortcut- Ctrl + C or V vs. whatever the heck that key is called that looks like a swirly square cubey thing + C or V - I mean, the keys aren't even in the same spot on the keyboard!  Cut me a break here!!) 

Not only that, but even their hardware is different (read: EXPENSIVE)  You can't just go to a Target and get a charger for your MacBook.  You gotta go to the Apple store and spend 90 bucks on one.  

After my first job in NYC, I had a PC.  It was an adjustment to switch back, but it was like riding a bike.  At my first job in KC, I was given a choice and I chose the MacBook.  I promptly realized that it was going to be a pain in the ass because the helpdesk didn't support Macs and switched back to a PC.  My next job was a Mac.  Trying to keep up was enough to make my head spin. 

At work, I'm currently using a MacBook with Office for Mac and no VM Ware or Parallels or Bootcamp.  I'm fine at work...but the second I come home and try to use my Toshiba laptop to blog, all hell breaks loose.  I use the wrong shortcut keys, I go to the wrong side of the screen to close or minimize windows, and I keep trying to use hot corners that don't exist.  It's infuriating. 

My point in this rant is to simply say this...

I know a ton of people who are die hard Apple fans.  I get it, people...I really do.  Their hardware and software is beautiful.  However, I'm not convinced that you're die hard Apple fans because it's the best designed stuff or that it's the most usable or makes the most sense. I think it's because it's just too damn hard to switch off of one.  

At this point, I am on my MacBook way more than my Toshiba laptop (mainly because I'm on the computer all damn day and I don't feel like staring at one at home too...)  That being said, I'm pretty much indifferent as to which one I like more.  I can say this:  I'd be 100% okay with never using a PC again if I could just deal with Macs and I'd be 100% okay never using a Mac again if I could just deal with PCs.  I'm not sure if that makes me a fair weather fan of one or the other, or just a victim of my circumstance.  What would be ideal is if everyone could just get along, decide what way is the best, and then EVERYONE does it that way.

The Father's Day Addition

When I first started this blog, I had an idea of what it would be about.  It's sort of taken a life of it's own, and sadly, has been far more about my struggle with weight loss than I originally intended it to be.  However, if you go to my very first blog post, you'll see that the very top of my list was my dad. 

My dad supplies me with a veritable treasure chest of comedic greatness.  I often don't share it because sometimes, the best part of my stories is the accent with which I deliver them.  Well, until I start a video blog, the written word is going to have to suffice. 

This is my dad.

You may notice the resemblance between the two of us.

We both have round faces, are fairly jovial, have lighter than jet black hair that's fine and curly (although I wage a daily war to make it look otherwise) and we have the same "nose of royalty".  My dad says it's a nose of royalty.  My mom has always referred to my nose as a "marble moogoo".  Moogoo is the Kannada word for nose.  She says it's like there's a marble hidden at the end of our noses, should the opportunity for a pick-up game of marbles arise.

I credit my dad, in large part, for making me who I am.  A large number of Indian parents who have daughters have one main goal in life; to make sure she eventually has a husband from a good family who is capable of taking care of her.  I had girlfriends with dads that wouldn't allow them to do anything for themselves.  My dad said I wasn't allowed to drive till I could check my oil and change a tire.  (Luckily, because I've had my share of flat tires...)  I wasn't allowed to seriously date until I could take care of myself because he didn't want me to have to rely on anyone else to take care of me.

Don't get me wrong though, it wasn't like my dad didn't spoil me rotten when the opportunity presented itself.  I don't know many people who didn't have a dime of student debt when they graduated.  My dad always sacrificed for his family so we didn't have to struggle to have the best education, or didn't have to worry about groceries, books, car payments, gas, etc. in college.  There was one point when I was in college where I had a new Accord, my mom had a new minivan (always in denial that she didn't have a gaggle of kids to drive around to sporting practices anymore), my brother had a new Camry, and my dad was driving around a manual 1984 Honda hatchback.  Always so selfless, he never complained once. 

My dad often provides me with Confucious-like pearls of wisdom. I think they're worth sharing.  After all, it's not fair me to hoard all the wisdom, right?

"Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."  
In 2008, I was facing a total nervous breakdown from overwork in NYC.  I had no time to talk to the man I married (and we lived together!), let alone my friends and family.  I was so caught up in the rat-race of making enough money to pay our car payment and our ridiculously overpriced mortgage on our Hoboken condo, that I had lost sight of what was really important.  Good thing I probably have the only dad in the world who would encourage me to resign from the most lucrative job I've ever had (or will probably ever have).  After all, the people you don't want to let down are the people who will always be there for you and if I learned anything, money can't buy happiness.  I'm happy to say that the story of my decision to resign and relocate to the Midwest is one that has a "happily ever after..."

"You can come back as bacteria if you're a big enough asshole."  
If you've spent any reasonable amount of time with me, you probably know that I'm Hindu.  Hindus believe in reincarnation.  For those of you that aren't familiar with the infamous "woodchuck story", this one is related to a conversation in which my dad proceeded to tell me why he wasn't upset that the trap he set for a woodchuck in our backyard resulted in said woodchuck's demise.   He told me that he didn't care if the woodchuck died because he had a dream that in it's last lifetime, the woodchuck was a Nazi and it was killing all the Jews.  It stands to reason that the woodchuck deserved to die for such heinous acts against humanity.  However, I had not known that people could come back as animals.  I said so and was immediately chastised for not knowing more about my culture.  He then proceeded to explain to me that you can come back as bacteria if you're a big enough asshole.  Words to live by, dad.  Seriously.  They should probably make bracelets with this embroidered on them, similar to the Livestrong or WWJD bracelets.  I think we'd all be better people if we had that reminder of the consequences of our actions.

"Your education can never be taken away."
School was never hard for me.  I wasn't the smartest kid in school, but I certainly did well.  When I look bad on my report cards, my teachers always said I was bright, but that was always overshadowed by comments about how I was too social, needed to concentrate more on learning over making friends, etc.  In undergrad, during my junior year, I didn't go to class for a solid month.  I showed up for quizzes & tests, but really, that was it*  It was the best I had ever done.  A solid 4.0 GPA that semester.  It wasn't until I went to grad school that I realized how easy everything else had been.  I seriously considered dropping out because I wasn't smart enough for grad school.  Again, dad to the rescue.  He said that it was really important that I continue and do my best to do well because at the end of the day, you can lose your job, lose your money, lose your friends, but your education is yours forever because you earn it.   

There are about a million other things that my dad has taught me over the last 32 years.  Most importantly though, I don't think I say thanks enough.  I've done my share of complaining about getting the short end of the genetic stick.  The best way I can put it is that whatever I lack on the "Nature" side of things, God has more than made up for by giving me a kick-ass "Nurture" side of things.  I'll never be able to repay my dad for all that he has done for me and there aren't enough words to express my gratitude and love towards him.  What the heck, though?...it's worth saying.  I love you, dad.  Thanks for being my hero and the standard to which I measure myself.  I can only hope to be half the parent you have been if I ever have children...

* Sorry, dad.  You probably don't feel so great about that, but I promise I learned just as much as if I did go to class.  It's pointless to go to a lecture hall with 400 other people to have someone talk at you for an hour when you could just read the damn book.

Twitter vs. Facebook

I was in a meeting the other day and someone was talking about Twitter vs. Facebook.  A person in the meeting said the following:

"Facebook is where I avoid people I've known my whole life.  Twitter is where I fall in love with complete strangers."

Powerful.

In 2009, I joined the Twitterverse for the first time.  I was promptly confused by why anyone in their right mind thought it was better than Facebook.  Here's a screenshot of my first few Tweets:

So, as you can see, I tweeted on 8/27/09 and then was totally inactive for a solid half year before I decided to try again.  I was totally baffled as to why anyone thought Twitter was awesome.

Fast forward to March of 2011 (a solid YEAR later) and I'm at a conference in L.A. for work.  Everyone at the conference was Tweeting and there was a hashtag associated with the conference so people could follow the conversation.  I decided that since I had this membership, I'd go ahead and download the twitter app to my phone.  So there I was, I downloaded the app to my phone and it asks me if I'd like to search my address book for people I knew.  I figured, what the heck?  Why not?!

The app returned a list of results and I quickly followed a bunch of people that I actually know.  That's when things changed for me.  An old coworker of mine was one of the people I chose to follow.  Here's a glimpse into what happened (read from the bottom up):

 

 It turns out in order to find Twitter useful, you need to have followers and actually tweet.  So then the pressure was really on.  My former colleague and current friend has a small country worth of followers and when she says something, people listen.

In my time on Twitter, I have truly come to really enjoy what complete strangers have to say.  I wouldn't say that I'm addicted just yet, but I can definitely see things heading down that path.   So, I guess if you're on Twitter, say hi!

Like a caged animal...

Today started out as a relatively good day.  I went shopping this weekend and bought some new duds.  Nothing puts a spring in my step like sporting a new outfit so I was feeling good.  I facilitated a focus group this morning.  I was really nervous about it but it went spectacularly well, thereby adding to my good mood.

At about 1pm, I realize that I'm starving, haven't had lunch, and should probably do so before my 2:30pm meeting.  Typically, I grab my phone, wallet, and ID and head down to the cafe on the 1st floor (I work on the 6th)  Today, since I planned to be extra swift, I grabbed my credit card and ID and headed to the elevator.  I press "1" for the first floor and ride down alone.

The elevator begins its descent.  When I get to the first floor, the doors do not open.  The number 1 on the digital display begins to flash and all the lights on the button panel go out.  Laughing, I hit the door open button (aka the two arrows pointing away from a line in the middle) Nothing happens.  I then scan my badge and hit "7".  Nothing happens.  Then all of a sudden, the lights on the panel come back on and the elevator starts going up.  At the 4th floor, it stops.  Again, the doors don't open.  I play with the buttons for about 5 more minutes...the panic is slowly starting to rise.  Also, I started to feel hot (it's like 94 degrees with 80% humidity today).  I stare at the buttons on the wall.  I don't see anything that says "call" or "emergency" or an icon with a phone or anything.

The only thing that looks remotely useful is an icon of a bell.  I push that.  An alarm clock noise proceeds and remains for as long as my finger is pushing down the button.  I'm not sure what that actually accomplished so I start knocking on the door to see if anyone is outside.  I hear voices...there's gotta be someone out there.  There's a door at the bottom of the wall with a knob, so I try to open that.  It's locked.  Okay...now what?  I'm basically starting to talk to myself and tell myself I'm an idiot for not bringing my phone.  I stare at the buttons for about 10 more minutes trying to figure out what I should do.  I hear some people outside again so I start banging on the door, yelling for help, and telling them I'm stuck.

I mean, I can hear them!  Surely they can hear me too, right?!  But if they hear me, why is no one saying anything back.

At this point, I'm vacillating between this:

 

and this:

Since I had no watch, it's hard to say how long I did this.  After about what I think was 20 minutes, I decided that I should just ring the bell and pound on the door some more.  I intermittently pushed down the button and banged and yelled for a while (maybe another 10 minutes).  Then I started to feel hot, and sweaty, and like the air was being sucked out.  I retreated to the corner and rocked myself like an autistic child, wondering how long I'd have to sit there, wishing I'd used the bathroom before, and wondering if I got hungry enough, would I eat my shoe.  I really hoped not, because these are new kicks and I really like them.  After about 10 more minutes, I heard what sounded like really close talking.  I jumped up, pounded on the door some more, and shouted for help.  Finally, someone heard me.  They said they would alert security.  I sat down and waited some more.

Finally, some dude with a crow bar starts trying to break into the elevator.  I could see his fingers, but he couldn't get it open.  He asked me if "we" were alright.  I told him I was alone and he asked me if I was okay.  I told him I was going to throw up soon.  He said to sit tight and he'd have me out of there "quick as a bunny."  Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like it should be pretty damn fast.  Wrong again.  I sat there, slightly bouncing, praying that the elevator didn't plummet 4 stories where I would most certainly meet my untimely demise.  Luckily, after about 5-10 more minutes, he finally broke me out.  I ran out of that elevator like I was on fire, hiked back up the 2 flights of stairs, and went into the lab where I very promptly had a panic attack.  I was gasping for air, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and even worse, I was still hungry.

I had a meeting in 10 minutes so I tried to pull it together as quickly as possible.  When I get to my meeting, it turns out that 30% of the people in the meeting heard the alarm and were annoyed that whoever was stuck on the elevator kept ringing the bell.  I asked them why they didn't help me and they looked at each other and looked at me and had no good answer.  Most of them were like, "what was I supposed to do?"  Uh, I don't know...you're sitting in a conference room WITH A BLOODY PHONE!!!  Call security, dumbass!  Or, maybe...just maybe...GET OUT OF YOUR DAMN CHAIR and walk over to see what all the fuss is about?  It turns out, everyone thought someone else would take care of it, thereby leaving me a sweaty hot mess, huddled on the floor of an elevator for over an hour.

I might write into John Quinones and have him enact this debacle on an episode of "What would you do..."

Who's that girl??

In order for the title of this post to make sense, there are a few things you need to know about me.  I'll try to keep it short at sweet, but as you know, I'm prone to over-explanation.  I can't help it, I'm verbose.

The first time I ever sang in front of people, it was in the 8th grade.  I entered in the 8th grade talent show.  I was too scared to sing by myself, so I enlisted the help of a fellow classmate who was deemed popular at the time.  She happily agreed.  We practiced, I thought we sounded okay.  I actually thought I sounded okay but she was off key, mostly.  Anyway, at the try outs, she was sick so I had to audition all by myself while our algebra teacher (yeah, our music program was cancelled) played the sheet music.  I thought I did okay.  The reaction to it was pretty great though.  People thought I was so good that she actually blackmailed me into singing in our 5th hour Algebra class by telling the class she'd skip homework for the rest of the week if I sang.  It was mortifying, but I did it.

Later that day, I heard someone in my class saying something about how I wasn't "all that".  Whether or not he was trying to hurt my feelings or genuinely believed I wasn't "all that" is irrelevant.  This is what I like to call the seed of my insecurity.  Clearly at the age of 14, in what can only kindly be called my "awkward years", I was deeply hurt and confused and it caused me to have this total lack of faith in my ability.

I sang at the talent show.  It went fine.  People clapped.  People told me it sounded great.  But I had felt such panic before the show due to the comments I had heard, that I felt like I couldn't ever do it again.  It made me feel too vulnerable and scared.  I didn't sing again till 5 years later at my high school graduation.  Even then, it was only because I was voted "best singer" in our class.  I was again, totally terrified.  It possibly took years off my life is stress alone.

Since then, I've sang at a whole heap-load of weddings.  In college, I participated in a few open-mike nights.  I have a debilitating fear of singing in front of people.  It's truly terrible.  It's probably not rational for someone who has sung in front of hundreds of people to have mild panic attacks at the thought of singing karaoke in front of people.  But I do.  I can't help it.

Enough of the background.  Here's the good stuff:

My company just had it's client conference in Kansas City.  They threw an afterparty at the Midland theater and this year, they went all out!  They had dueling pianos, a comedian, and Matt Nathanson performed...

At some point in the evening, there was a huge opening right in front of the stage.  I seized the opportunity to take a killer shot from about 2 feet away from him...right in front of the stage.  I even have proof!  See evidence below:

So I'm standing like 2 feet away from Matt Nathanson and they've been hilarious all night, playing covers and their own music.  I hear this guy behind me yell "Hey, play something I can do the worm to!"  So Matt says "Hmmm...I don't know what I could play.  We don't do a lot of hip hop.  Unless you like Eminem..."  As a girl who is from the 313, I obviously heart Eminem and now all the words to most of his songs.  People start cheering and they start playing the opening riff to Lose Yourself.  Then he realizes he doesn't know the words.  So he asks "Does anyone here know the lyrics to "Lose yourself?"  Being Indian, and being genetically programmed to raise your hand when you know the answer to a question (because that's what our people do), my hand shot up.  I was standing 2 feet away from him so it's not like he could ignore it.  He looked down and started laughing and asked me to come on stage.  I don't know what I was thinking (I had not been drinking) but I quickly googled the lyrics to it (just in case) and brought my phone on stage.  He was very happy to also have the words to the song so we dueted to Eminem's "Lose Yourself."  SURREAL!

So there I am.  I don't look too scared.  I might even look like I'm having fun.  I'm horrified by the sheer number of videos being taken and I hope they never surface in some sort of public way.  Anyway, the point is that I think that what I realized is maybe it's a lot easier to get up in front of people if you don't give a rat's ass what they think.  The fact that I wouldn't be singing (which is something I'm self conscious about because I don't want people to tell me I suck) really helped me get over some of that initial fear.  Honestly, I don't even know what I was thinking...I don't know who that girl is because I've always been so scared of getting on stage.  I even just got a phone call from someone seeing this picture and asking me what I'd done with her friend... 

Maybe I've turned a page and won't be such a freak about it.  To conclude my story, I was able to score a backstage pass to meet the band.  The Indian guy in the band told me I did awesome.  I got a signed CD, talked to Matt Nathanson for a few minutes and got a free t-shirt and went on my merry way.  It was an amazing night.  One I'll probably never forget (hopefully not because the videos surface...)

This is the shot of me and Matt backstage:

Fair warning: This is totally my opinion

And it's probably an unpopular one, at that.  I can't help but express it though. 

With the recent capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden, you'd think that I'd feel secure and feel a sense of relief or even pride.  What I feel instead, is sad.  Don't get me wrong...I don't feel the slightest bit sad that he's dead.  That douchelord most definitely needed to get got.  However, what did we accomplish?  Really think about it...

President Obama said something to the effect that justice had been served.  Well, maybe.  But I'm not so sure.  There's been this war going on for almost a decade now.  There are hundreds of thousands (including 9/11 casualties, civilians caught in the middle, etc etc) that have lost their lives.  We killed this one guy.  Does this one guy being killed change any of that?  Probably not. 

I turned on the news the other night and there was a crazy mob of people waving flags and chanting "USA! USA!" outside the White House.  Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that I was nauseated and horrified when I saw the terrorists doing something very similar after the fall of the Twin Towers.  Sure those killed in the 9/11 attacks were innocent people.  And sure, OBL definitely had it coming...but if you really think about it, are we much better?  Is the violent death of a human being (no matter how badly he deserved it) ever a good thing?  Probably not.


Maybe it's just me, but I feel a little bit like maybe we killed the queen in a hornet nest, swatted the nest with a fly swatter, and then realized we're stuck in a glass case with it. Good idea?  Probably not.  I mean, there are a lot of hornets out there.

Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi once said "An eye for an eye makes the world blind." 

I couldn't agree more.

I guess I'll save my excitement, pride, and relief for when this whole war (and mess) is over with. 

Open mouth, insert foot.

One of my very first posts was something about "it's better to be pleasantly surprised than to be horribly disappointed"  Amen!  I'm not sure why I lost sight of that with my whole "Lose 2lbs a week" declaration. 

I've skipped updating ya'll on the last few weigh-ins.  This is mainly because I'm embarrassed. 

Week returning from Denver: Up 2.4lbs
Since we spent a lot of time at breweries or brewpubs, I didn't ingest my extra 8,000+ calories in spirits.  It was all in really awesome choices like carrot cake, or frozen pizza rolls & taquitos. (Thanks, A. Jill)

Week returning from NYC: Up 2.5lbs
An all you can eat Indian Buffet is just about the worst thing I could probably be part of.  Sadly, I went and it conquered.  The good news, I really really enjoyed every last bite of it.  The bad news, it'll probably take me weeks to undo the damage I did.

Awesome.  Clearly I suck at traveling...

Soooooo. Here's my new plan:

Step #1: Set more realistic goals
Step #2: Refocus
Step #3: Quit hating on myself (it only leads me to want to eat my body weight in cupcakes)

Fingers crossed until the next weigh in...

Pulling the Goalie*

* This post is going to be what we'd label an "overshare".  Consider yourself warned...

I'm 32 years old.  I've been married for just about 5 years.  We've got a solid marriage, we've got a home, we're both gainfully employed, AND....we're childless.  WTF, right? 

I've been blessed with parents who (whether from repeated conditioning or the kindness of their hearts) have never put pressure on me to procreate.  However, society as a whole sets expectations upon women.  When you're little girls, they ask you what you wanna be when you grow up.  When you're in high school, the questions are around what college you're going to or what you're going to major in.  Then in college, it's all about if you're dating anyone, or found a job, or are going to grad school, etc.  Then, you can't even be happy with dating.  It's more about whether or not it's serious.  Let's say you then get engaged.  One might think you can just enjoy that for a while, right?  Uh uh.  Not so.  When is the date?  What are the colors?  Who is in the bridal party?  What's the Venue?  Where's the honeymoon???  It's exhausting, really.  So, finally...all that nonsense is over.  Then it starts...

"When are you guys having kids?"

Okay, first of all...why is that an assumption?
Second of all, why is it your business?
Third of all, aren't you going to feel like an ass if I can't have kids and it's a sore subject for me?

I could probably go on.  You might be able to sense that I'm a little sore on the subject.  That's probably due, in part, to the fact that I've been told on numerous occasions by numerous gynecological experts that having children is going to be difficult for me.  I even went on that scary starvation diet for a while in order to get my hormonal and ovarian issues in check so that it would be a possibility.

Mission accomplished. 

So why, then, have I been stalling?

Allow me to elaborate:

• Lack of maternal instinct: I told Sudhir when we were dating that I didn't want to have kids.  This is because I just never cooed at babies or had some picture or goal in my head of having one.  He claims that  he thought I was joking.
• I think I'm really selfish:  I once said that the reason I'm scared to have kids is because my parents are a tough act to follow.  They would literally do ANYTHING for my brother and I.  They put our needs ahead of their own at every possible turn.  I like my things.  I was worried that if it came down to Junior getting braces or me having a nice car, my kid was going to have a snaggle tooth.
• I had a really sheltered existence:  Seriously, I did not do anything bad growing up.  The only things I lied about to my parents were the things that I felt I would be able to do if my parents weren't foreign (i.e. going to school dances, staying out past 8pm, etc)  I didn't know that people drank, did drugs, had sex, or went to parties in high school.  I had a good group of friends, and we played sports, went to the mall, or to Denny's.  Cool? No.  Safe?  Yes!  Seriously, have you seen MTV Skins?  I'm truly horrified that this show depicts people who are 15-16 years old.  When I was 15 or 16, I didn't know what "69" meant.  Christ.  These kids are having Orgies and shit.
• I'm not stoked to pass on my genetic material:  I have had a myriad of losses as far as the genetic lottery goes.  I'm chubby, am insulin resistant, and have either had surgery or problems with all my major reproductive organs.  Oh, and the hubs has issues of his own too (diabetes, asthma, etc.)  Obviously, if we have a child, we will love it unconditionally.  However, it's kind of terrifying to think of having a child that you have to watch go through some of the things they might have to go through.  I've seen my cat (Chai) get sick repeatedly, and I can barely stand that.  And obviously, I didn't even give birth to Chai and he's not a person.  Just sayin'.
• I want to travel with my husband:  Truth be told, Sudhir hasn't done a whole lot of oversea traveling.  None, if you don't count the obligatory trips to India.  Let's face it, even those were over 10 years ago at this point.  However, as you may know, I love to travel in theory.

 All this aside, I've been making a list in my head of reasons why I do want to have a child:

• I love Sudhir:  I can't imagine denying anyone that I love so much of anything that they truly want.  I also think he will be an AMAZING dad.  To not facilitate that kind of awesomeness would be a real tragedy.
• The cute factor:  I really think that if Sudhir and I had a kid, it would be unreasonably cute.  Sudhir says that our child will be 80% eyeball at birth because we both have really big eyes (he, more so than I)
• My parents: My parents deserve to have a grandchild, dammit.   They are awesome people and even though they don't pressure me, I can see that desire in their eyes.  Also, if I am to have a kid, I want my parents to be a vital and active part of their life.
• Me: Finally, I've given a lot of thought to this.  I'm still totally scared that I'm not going to sprout maternal instincts overnight.  However, as my friends & family start to have kids, I've noticed that I do coo at babies, and I miss them when I don't see them.  So, maybe I'm just like Miranda from SATC...  Maybe I don't like all babies.  Maybe I just love the ones that I love.  And maybe, that's okay.

All that said, I think it's time.  I'm too old to wait for the right time because "the right time" is a mythical creature that doesn't exist.  If I wait till we go to Italy, it may never happen.  If I wait till I'm ready, it might never happen.  I imagine that it won't be easy for me to get pregnant...

so...instead of saying that we're "trying" to have a baby, we're just going to say that we're not trying to prevent it.  Pulling the goalie, if you will.  What will be, will be.





Wish us luck...

In all fairness, I told her I'd blog about this...

A lot of people who blog are cautious about mentioning friends or family.  Heaven forbid that you say something that they get upset about you sharing.  I try to be as respectful of my friends and family's privacy as possible*

As you can probably tell by the title of this post, today's blog is more a story about a friend.  We'll call this friend "S" for the sake of her privacy.  S is a perfectly delightful human being.  We've been friends for the better part of a decade now.  In the last 8 years we've been friends, our friendship has yielded some pretty fantastic and fun memories.  Not to mention, I give her credit for bringing some of my favorite people into my life (you know who you are :)

The story I'm about to tell you is not one that is fun or fantastic.  It was downright scary.

S is a perfectly delightful human being, as I mentioned before.  However, she should come with a warning label (not unlike the one that came with Gizmo of the movie "Gremlins" fame)  Instead of not feeding her after midnight, we need to remember to not let her get hungry.  When she gets hungry, she get's angry.  I'm going to call this phenomenon "Hangry".

So let me back up a bit.  S was planning a baby shower for our friend who's due at the beginning of May.  As many of you know, I have a reputation for being crafty.  Since I'm at the age where most of my friends/family are having babies, I've gotten a reputation for making diaper cakes.  For those who are unfamiliar, it's just a bunch of diapers rolled up and put in the shape of a wedding cake.  You then decorate it with ribbons, toys, onesies, or whatever else you think will make it cute. If you go online and try to buy one, you'll find that they're kind of unexpectedly expensive.  You wouldn't think you'd have to pay $150-$200 bucks for a really simple one.  I enjoy this kind of stuff so I decided I'd try to make them myself.

Here's an example of the one I made for another friend so she could give it to someone:

S knew that I was planning on making one for the baby shower she was planning for our friend, so she called me up and asked if she could get in the action.  I assumed she meant she wanted to pay for half of the goods.  S doesn't exactly have a reputation for enjoying things that require patience.  I was pleasantly surprised when she said she actually wanted to shop for the goods together and then help create it.

She arrived at our house before I even got home from work.  When I got home, I was starving because I hadn't eaten a ton during the day.  I changed, and immediately went to the fridge.  This was not my first rodeo.  I knew that we'd need to make a couple stops and we'd be out for at least an hour and a half or two.  I asked her if she wanted a snack.  She said she was fine.  I downed some pineapple and we were on our way.

It all started out just fine. I did get the distinct sense that she was hungry when we walked into Target, she saw some sugar cookies at the register and screamed "O.M.G!!!!  I LOVE THOSE SUGAR COOKIES!!!  THEY'RE SOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!"  I mean, I haven't seen her get that excited about much of anything lately.  In fact, I'm trying to remember the last time I've heard her so excited.  It escapes me.

Anyway, we head immediately over the baby stuff.  It was clear that we didn't have the same artistic or creative ideas.  Our friend is having a girl and I wanted this thing to be girly (think: pink...very pink.)  She starts picking out lots of weird stuff (i.e. breast pump equipment) and I proceed to explain to her that all we need are diapers and some cute toys and ribbons to decorate it with.  In other words, breast pumps are not cute.  She then asks about shampoos and lotions and what not.  While you can hide some of that stuff inside the center of the diaper cake, again, it's not so cute to decorate with.  I was hopeful when she headed over to the bows and headbands... but she was immediately drawn to the Gothic baby colors (red, black, gray).  I think this is when she started to become "Hangry".

It seemed like she was racing up and down the aisles like a crazy person just trying to find stuff so we could be done and she could leave and eat. The major source of disagreement was the stuffed animals.  She wanted to get a lot of not pink stuff (a yellow giraffe, an easter chick, a really dark brown bodyless monkey security blanket) whereas, I was on the hunt for pink elephants or bunnies or puppies. I settled on the giraffe just to compromise.

We moved on.  We were in the party aisle looking for ribbon and I couldn't find the right stuff.  This meant that we would most certainly have to make another stop.  I took a look in the cart and realized that I couldn't settle for the yellow giraffe and headed back towards the baby aisle.  The Hangry One was on the phone and mindlessly followed me.  Once off the phone, she realized that were back in baby aisle abyss and asked what were doing.  I told her I didn't like the topper and she told me that I was being crazy.  I tried to figure out how to soothe the savage beast.  I even asked her if I fed her a sugar cookie would she stop being mean.  Instead, I thought maybe narrowing the options would help.  I gave her a few options that I thought were okay, she picked one, and then I got mean.  I said "My gut instinct is to do exactly the opposite of what you say." I guess Hangry breeds Hangry.  Afterall, you reap what you sow...

To cut to the chase, we got what we needed at Target and moved onto the party store, found some awesome ribbon, and the cake tray. S found some sour patch kids that got her blood sugar balanced and she became halfway rational. We went back to my house and the Hubs fed her.  She rolled diapers like a champ, and to her credit, she did find a killer bib and some awesome stickers.  She had to leave and left the rest of the assembly to me.  In the end, the diaper cake turned out really well.  S even thinks that we could go into business together & have a local diaper cake company. I told her I wouldn't go into business with her unless she's well fed.  I think it would destroy our friendship, otherwise.

At the end of the day, here's the end result:

So there it is.  On a side note, if you need a diaper cake, let me know.  I have fun making them.  Plus, S has volunteered to be my chief diaper roller if this business gets off the ground :)

*My dad recently said he was going to start being careful about what he says, because it might end up in my blog...  I sure hope that isn't the case, dad.  Comedic genius like yours would be a travesty not to share with the world.  Seriously.

WW: Week 1

So in the spirit of starting with a clean slate, the update from this week's weigh in is that I'm down 1.4 pounds.  I really wanted to be happy about it, because let's face it, it's a loss!  However, I was really hoping to stick to 2 lbs a week.  Oh well, better luck next week. (Which P.S. will be hard because this coming weekend is Girls' weekend in Denver.  I have a bad feeling that eating well will not be high up on my list)

Wish me luck...

It's time to come clean...

I really didn't want to have to post about this, because let's face it...for the better part of a 4 months, the majority of my blog posts were about my ridiculous battle with weight.  However, it has come to my attention that I have a serious problem here.  I tortured myself to lose weight from April to September of 2010, and managed to lose a little less than 50 pounds while essentially starving.  Sounds absolutely crazy, but hell...it worked!

I got my insulin resistance under control, broke up with my bariatric doctor, and figured that I could go it alone on Weight Watchers.  I figured that if I could have enough restraint to not eat for 4 months, I could probably handle eating reasonably within a set daily points value.  Here I am, a little more than 8 months after rejoining the normal human beings who eat, and I've gained 20 of those almost 50 pounds back. 

I wanted to blog about this for a number of reasons:

1. Putting it in writing makes it real.  I think that I kept shrugging off the pound here or there thinking "Oh, it's okay.  Of course I'm going to gain a little weight!  I went from not eating to eating...it's totally natural!"  I don't think 20 pounds over 8 months is normal or natural.  I am not, afterall, with child.
2. Putting it in writing makes me take responsibility for my actions.  At first, I thought that I deserved to give myself some time off from dieting.  I deserved a slice of cheesecake, didn't I?  I mean, I worked SO hard!  I think that the problem was that I told myself that I would indulge on special occasons.  Well, let's just say I interpreted the meaning of "special occasion" extremely loosely.  I'm fairly certain that no one else would consider the last day of aunt flo's visit a "special occasion."
3. I need some serious accountability here.  I thought that doing Weight Watchers would be enough.  I didn't think I needed to go to the meetings.  Again...WRONG!  Apparently, my crazy mind works such that I require the accountability of standing on the scale and having someone judge me if I gain or don't lose.  Thus, I have started going to meetings.
4. I have every bit of support that I need, so what's the freaking problem???  Not only do I have several friends who are doing Weight Watchers, I even duped my fantastic husband into doing it.  Not only is he doing it, he's coming to meetings with me, and he's kind of a point counting nazi.  I've almost created a monster.
5. I think that saying all of this publicly (even if only 4 people read my blog) will hopefully help me recommit to this.  I firmly believe that I can do this.  If I could survive 4 months of starvation, I should be able to do this with my eyes closed!  I should be able to do ANYTHING!

So there it is, my recommitment to doing this.  My goal is to lose the weight that I've put on in 10 weeks.  That means that I need to lose an average of 2 pounds a week.  That's a pretty aggressive goal, but I think I can do it.  I also commit to telling you all about my progress.  I've noticed that when I have a good week, I'm eager to share it.  When I have a bad week, I keep my fingers crossed that no one asks.  I guess it'll be good for me to just own it (good or bad)

So here's what you've missed since I started the WW journey again:

Week 1: down 2.7
Week 2: down 2
Week 3: up 7.6 (thanks a lot, VEGAS!...)
Week 4: down 4.6 (thanks mom, for making me eat nothing but veggies for a week :)
Week 5: down 2
Week 6: up 4.6 (Thanks a lot L.A.)

For those of you keeping track, that means in 6 weeks, I'm roughly nowhere.  Might as well start with a clean slate.

I'm about to kick it into high gear.  Wish me some luck!

My Favorite Mistake.

Many of you may be familiar with the song that I got the title of this blog post from.  It's a pretty well-known Sheryl Crow tune.  Since most of you know that I'm happily married, this blog post will not be about a filandering, cheating man (namely Eric Clapton)  In fact, my favorite mistake isn't a person at all.  It is, instead, an unhealthy relationship with a home furnishing store.

Perhaps you've heard of it?

Yes, it is that Swedish gift from God (and perhaps, the Devil), IKEA.  Most people know that I pretty much have a joygasm when I have the opportunity to shop at this place.  You may also be aware that I'm woefully located a whopping 7 hour drive from the nearest IKEA.  It's kind of unfair, really.  If I had to pick a major con of living in Kansas City, it would be the brutal winters, followed closely by it's sad lack of IKEA anywhere in the vicinity. 


Since we've purchased a home, we've really only had the opportunity to hit an IKEA twice.  The first opportunity was during a trip to Michigan.  Sadly, we could only buy some light fixtures and cabinet hardware because we had to fit it into checked baggage.  The second opportunity was during a roadtrip with our pals to Minneapolis.  The major holdup here was that there were 4 people in the car, all of us are obsessed with IKEA, plus we had our bags with us.  Don't worry though, we managed to cram as much as we could into the car.  See evidence below.

The third and final trip to IKEA took place last week.  I had just about a month off between quitting job #2 in KC and heading back to job #1.  Since we hadn't been to my parents house in over 7 months, we decided we'd drive to Michigan to visit them. Sure, sitting in a car for 12 hours sucks, however, there were a plethora of pros:

• Sudhir and I played "would you rather" and I learned a lot of interesting things about my husband.
• It was 400 dollars cheaper than both of us flying
• We drove so we could go to IKEA and fill the beast full of fun stuff.

Obviously, some of the pros were cooler than others. 

Anyway, I went shopping with my bestie and her two adorable children.  I found the desk that I wanted to get Sudhir pretty quickly.  It was a very simple kidney-bean-shaped, glass-top deal with a couple of locking file cabinets on either side.  Nothing too extravagant or fancy but it was beautiful and I loved it.  I dutifully wrote down all the info I thought I would need to collect it from the self serve area. 

Uh, wrong. 

I only wrote the aisle and bin numbers down.  I thought that combined with the name of the collection would be enough.  Not so.  It took about an hour to get the info I needed and get the stuff loaded onto the cart.  At this point, with one full shopping cart and one full furniture cart, we head to the checkout.  My godson was hungry (who could blame him?  We'd been at this place for 3.5 hours!!)  We get everything rung up and I reach into my purse to get my wallet to pay the nice lady her $488.00.  I realize I have no wallet.  I almost burst into tears.  To make an already long story short, my bestie totally saved my ass by charging everything for me.  Then my mom totally saved my ass by writing her a check because I had no check book or way to give her the money so she could pay off the card (short of giving her a ton of cash.)

We hauled our extremely overstuffed car home 12 hours, cringing everytime we hit a pothole since the table top is glass and could crack into a bazillion pieces.  We made it home, and thought, "Hmm, how hard could this possibly be?  It's a top with 4 legs."  Again, we were seriously mistaken.  After over 6 hours of sweating, cursing, assembling, realizing we did it wrong, and disassembling and reassembling, we finally completed the task.  The whole beauty of IKEA is how beautiful and simple, and most importantly, how insanely cheap their stuff is.  the desk was about $200.00 total with the file cabinets and all.  It took 2 pretty well-paid individuals almost a full work day to assemble that bad boy.  I figure that probably puts the price of this thing over a grand.  After all is said and done, I still love IKEA.  However, boy, do they need to work on the experience of shopping there, transporting their stuff home, and assembling it. It's so bad that a group of people who love their stuff, but hate their instructions and how complicated shopping there is, put together an entire website dedicated to helping people out:  http://www.ikeafans.com/the-ikeafans-story.html

Here's the product of all our hard work.  Not sure it was worth it, but Sudhir sure likes it.

In conclusion, IKEA isn't exactly like Eric Clapton was for Sheryl Crow.   For me, the pain and agony of going to the store, getting the shit home, and putting it together is horrifyingly awful.  It's almost enough to make me swear off the store all together.  *ALMOST*

I sure do like the outcome though.

The Pursuit of Happiness

I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately.  This is probably a result of the last several weeks that I spent at a new job, in a new industry.  It was a lot like going to war for the second time.  It was intense, it was familiar, and it gave me flashbacks to a much unhappier time in my life.  Most people who know me know the whole story.  Indulge me however, in pretending that maybe one or two complete strangers read my blog.  Unlikely, I know...

In 2005, I picked up and moved from Kansas City to NYC for love.  I worked for a a small company in the financial industry.  That company was wildly successful.  As a result, I made a lot of money.  More money than I thought possible, in fact.  One might think that such success would bring about a great deal of happiness.  Instead, it took a toll on my health, brought me stress beyond belief, ungodly work hours, and a strain on my marriage.  Not exactly what I signed up for.  After 3.5 years of overwork, I came to a really unsettling conclusion as I was waiting to cross the street to get to the train station.  The sign said "Don't Walk."  A bus was coming.  You know things are bad when you consider stepping out in front of the bus so that you don't have to go to work that day.  Don't get me wrong, I wasn't suicidal or anything.  I just figured I'd get a week off at least if I was maimed by a bus.  It dawned on me:  I was wasting what should have been the best years of my life busting my ass so that I didn't disappoint a bunch of people who didn't really care if my marriage was okay or not. 

My dad is a really wise man.  He said "Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."  Genious.  Anyway, to make a really long story short, I decided that in order to reclaim my life, I needed to quit my job, and try to leave the god forsaken east coast.  This was no small task.  We had bought a condo at the height of the market.  If anyone recalls what life was like around 2009, that was pretty close to the pit for real estate.  It didn't matter.  I wanted out.  As a result of quitting my job, and not selling the house for 6 months, plus selling it at a price that caused us to drop all the cash we had in our savings, we moved to KC with nothing but our belongings, cat, and some debt since we had to pay for our move with credit cards.  We also were armed with a valuable lesson:  money does not buy happiness. 

The job I took was for less than a quarter of what I was making in NYC.  It didn't matter though.  I worked with awesome people, the work was easy...and on most days, I'd get home, work out, cook dinner, and eat dessert before 6:30pm.  I almost didn't know what to do with myself.  A year and a half passed and all was well for the most part.  Enter a new job opportunity.  It was everything I had ever hoped for in a job.  Way more money, the potential to hire my own team, it was in an exciting industry...and in one that was accessible to everyone.  I let myself be lured away because it seemed too good to be true.

It, of course, was.

I just wrapped up what can only be considered a 30 day experiment.  In that 30 days, I worked every evening, every weekend, and accomplished more in 30 days than in 4 months at most jobs.  I pretty much knew on day 3 that I had made a mistake.  I should have known better.  I'm smart enough to know that if a company has kegs, pool tables, and fooseball, they're trying to make it fun because you live there.  And boy, did I.  Like anyone has time to play pool or ping pong.  Christ, I barely had time to correct people when they called me Arty.  So while maybe I made the same mistake I did at my previous company in NYC, I give myself credit.  It took me 3.5 years to get out then.  It took me 30 days this time.  I'd say my average is considerably better. 

At first, I was so horrifically embarassed.  I left my old company on a euphoric cloud of excitement, basically shouting from the rooftops how awesome my new gig was going to be.  I felt like such a failure.  Then I realized something...if I hadn't tried it, I would never have known that it was completely the wrong fit for me.  I would have always wondered what it would have been like.  Now I know.  I also have to say...I'm so glad I did this just to remind myself how happy I was before with what I had.  You don't know how good you have it until it's gone.

I have a friend who said something really profound.  She said, "At some point, you just have to be happy with what you have because it's enough."  Deep, huh?  If you really think about it, people always seem to be striving for more.  There was study out there that claimed that everyone always thinks they'd be happy if they made 15% more than they currently do.  That's a vicious cycle because you're always just out of reach of happiness.  If the last 30 days have taught me anything, it's that my arms are tired and they're tired of reaching.  Life is too short, and frankly, I've got a lot to be happy about already.  Why continue to chase the rabbit?

So here's to lessons learned, to being happy with what we have, and for working to live and not living to work.

Let's hope that the reduced work hours will lead to an increased frequency of blogging :)

I'm so very back.

The Birthday Recap: Maturity is seriously overrated.

Don't get me wrong, anytime I can spend a day with friends and loved ones is a good one!  However, I had some seriously epic plans for this birthday.  It was going to be a day of relaxing, fine dining, and cocktails.  Sounds awesome, right?  Yeah, in theory it was awesome.  However, things didn't go quite as planned...

My friends flew in from Michigan on Friday night and we headed to the Flying Saucer to partake in their ridiclous beer selection.  That part went well.  It was one of my friend's birthday celebrations so her crew met up with us there.  It was a good group of people.  We happened to be there on a night were the UFO club celebrity had his red plate unveiling.  In case you're unaware, having a red plate means that you've consumed 1400 unique beers.  The guy was wearing a tux (no joke) with red accents to commemmorate the momentous occasion. 

Also noteworthy; near the end of the evening, I see the hubs talking to some seriously sketchy looking individuals.  I should have known by the cowboy hat, tattooed necks and arms, and sunglasses at 12:30am that these were most likely celebrities of some sort.  I ask my friend who those guys are because the hubs had a look of pure joy on his face that paralleled the look of joy he had when we got married.  Turns out, he's talking to the drummer from Pantera.  My friend's husband turns to me and says, "how the eff does Sid know the name and face of the drummer from Pantera??"  My only response was that if he could use his powers for good instead of evil, he could probably be a surgeon or something.  Anyway, it made Sid's night. The entire ride home, in a haze of 13% alcohol beer, he kept saying "OMG, I can't believe I met the drummer from Pantera.  I feel like a 13 year old girl!"  I can only imagine that sentence could be completed with "...who met Justin Bieber for the first time..."  My favorite part of the evening was when my friend CF asked me who Sudhir was talking to and I said that it was the drummer from Pantera, and she responded "What's Pantera?"  Ah, to be young...

Fast forward to Saturday morning:  Em and I head to The Cafe for brunch.  Brunch was fun, the food was delicious.  We head over to The Spa Tuscano for the official start of Arti Gras 2011.  In my head, we were going to have this awesome space to hang out in, with cupcakes, champagne, and snacks.  We'd be able to come and go from this room at our leisure.  They have a room with 3 large hot tubs that we would also get to use (come and go) at our leisure.  Not so much what happened in reality, though.  First thing is that I'm almost 100% sure that I found this spa off of spafinder.com.  Come to find out that they don't even take spafinder gift cards!  Lame.  Then it turns out that they somehow accidentally cancelled my friend SS's facial and could only fit her in an hour later, rendering her lonely for an hour. 

Then there was our event coordinator.  She was a perfectly lovely gal aside from the fact that she kept incessantly telling us what to do and when.  I feel like we spent a grand total of 25 minutes in the room all together.  In that amount of time, we were expected to spend quality time together, shove some cupcakes in our mouths, wash it down with 3 bottles of champagne, and open gifts.  Uh, unlikely.  I felt like I was constantly being herded from one space to another.  I haven't even gotten to the truly unfair part.  Let's get to that now, shall we?

For my spa services, I chose to have a 90 minute massage and a spa pedicure.  This place was expensive, but I thought, "hey, I get to spend a lot of time there hanging out and spending quality time with my friends."  Uh, psych!  Not so.  I was still, however, holding on to the hope that 90 minutes of massage was enough to make up for anything else.  Well, I wasn't counting on my massage being so violent that I was left with bruising, nausea, and a wicked headache.  I started out face down.  At first, it was pretty good.  Then it started to feel really tender.  Like my skin was starting to hurt.  Then it felt like my kidneys were being crushed.  BUT, I didn't want to seem like a total wuss, so I bit my lip and kept quiet.  As I was asked to turn over, he said "So how is the pressure?"  I decided I couldn't deal with another 45 minutes of torture, so I said "It was actually horrifically painful."  At which point, I expected an apology and a change in the pressure...

Again, my expectations were totally shattered.  Instead this is what I got: "Well, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most tense back I've ever seen, you are a 9.  You need this.  You'd be doing yourself a disservice by getting a 'frou frou' massage.  You need this.  It'll suck now, but you'll feel awesome in 72 hours."  Uh, gee.  Thanks.  I love being told what to do when I'm getting an incredibly expensive massage the day of my birthday celebration.  I didn't protest and continued to be beaten for what felt like an eternity.  I literally had bruising on my arms, back, and neck.  I don't often expect a "relaxing" day at the spa to leave me looking like the victim of domestic abuse.  What was worse, is that I didn't drink enough water after this deep tissue massage and it left me feeling horrible for the rest of the day. 

I managed to enjoy my delicious dinner at Ruth's Chris, but by the time I got to the bar, I mostly wanted to go home and crawl into bed, and pray that the pain/nausea would stop.  Every single hug I received made me quiver in fear because just a simple squeeze or tap made my muscles scream in protest.  It was horrific.  It was even more horrific that I was having debilitating stomach cramps at a bar with 3 stalls in the women's room and only ONE with a door.  Awesome.

In the end, I couldn't take it and I made Sudhir drive me home at an ungodly rate so I could make it to a bathroom in time.  It was a humiliating end to what was supposed to be an epic night of celebration.  I still had my actual birthday to look forward to.  Sadly, that was overshadowed by snowpocalypse 2011.  What was supposed to be a farewell/birthday happy hour turned into a smaller gathering of 15 coworkers and friends.  The good news was that I had a blast anyway...

So in conclusion, my birthday wasn't what I had planned it to be.  But then again, when has it ever been?  Life is what happens while I'm busy making plans, right?

Right.

The Facebook Dilemma

In many ways, I'm super thankful for the wonders of Facebook with all its social networking goodness.  In other ways, it often annoys the crap out of me and causes me tons of stress.  The other day, I was watching some weird news special on "The Facebook Effect" on CNBC and it struck me how much this website has changed our lives.  Some of it is good, some of it is bad, and some of it is downright ugly.  Let's explore, shall we?

The Good...
Facebook has reunited me with tons of people who I would have otherwise forgotten exist.  In many cases, that's a good thing.  I often see a status update on an old friend and smile to myself because it reminds of me of them and their hilarity.  I may even see some news that I feel lucky to know (i.e. they bought a house, got engaged, got married, got divorced, are pregnant, etc.)  It seems like Facebook is a great way to get advice on something, to advertise something that you're trying to get rid of or sell, and to communicate to the masses important things about your life.  At first, the number of "friends" I had made me feel like I was pretty cool.  Oh, you only have 67 friends?  I have 429.  Snap.

The Bad...
While it's nice to have an outlet to the important people in your life, sometimes I'm offended that I have to find out something important from a good friend via Facebook.  I know for a fact that there are people who get ticked when they find out things about me via Facebook.  Case in point, the fact that I quit my job (that's a pretty recent example). 

I feel bad turning down someone's request to connect with me on Facebook.  As a result, there are people on my list that I have no desire to be in contact with.  I didn't like you in jr. high...why would I care to hear that you're hungry or whatever your mundane status updates are going to tell me about you?  Also as a result, people I barely know or care to know seem to have the ability to see lots of information about me.  In fact, I think I might go ahead and lighten the number of "friends" I have on FB.  If I haven't seen or talked to you in over 2 years, you might get axed.  Sorry.

Another one of my FB pet peeves is that it seems like I can't have a conversation with a person in real life (face to face - sharing air space) without them having to check FB at least twice on their mobile device.  Maybe I'm just uninteresting.  I'll try to work on that.

This probably isn't a problem for most people.  However, I do not like having to deal with the fact that a large population of my family is my friend on the FB.  I can't control what people say on my wall, and I personally don't like have to censor what I want to say.  This seems to be a necessary evil though.  You can't control that I'm friends with my 12 year old neices or my aunties in India. 

Lastly, I hear that it's downright impossible to extricate yourself from the web of Facebook if you decide to leave it.  You have to face the social blackmailing of seeing which of your friends will miss you.  You have to delete all your photos one by one.  You have to confirm your decision not once, but thrice!

The Ugly...
I've had some of my friends lose jobs over things they've posted on FB, thinking no one was ever going to find out.  FB changes their security settings more frequently than Lindsay Lohan changes her hair color.  One of my friends thought that since she wasn't friends with anyone at work, she could say that she was going to Key West (instead of being sick...which is what she told her manager)  What ensued was a convoluded mixture of strange security settings, a devious coworker, and a print out of my friend's profile page with status included.  Eeek. 

More recently, I've had a bit of an issue myself.  I have a friend from High School that I've slowly drifted apart from over the years.  I'm not particularly close to her husband.  I barely know the guy.  Through being his friend on Facebook, my perception of him is that he's socially inept and somewhat judgemental.  He said something recently on my wall that was super offensive. I deleted the comment, obsessed over whether I should unfriend him, resigned myself to the fact that unfriending him would be "unkind", and chose to send him a message to ask him to please not post offensive things on my wall.  I basically said that it was awkward because I'm friends with coworkers and family and I know he's just trying to be funny, but I'd rather not deal with it.  Instead of writing me back, or apologizing, or just saying nothing and altering his behavior...he unfriended me!  It seriously upset me so much, that I had trouble sleeping.  Not because I'm particularly torn up about the fact that he no longer wants to be my friend.  Hell, we weren't really "friends" in real life.  It was more that the act of unfriending me felt really personal.  And especially odd, because I thought I handled it pretty well. I was friendly, straight forward, and personable.  Also, I'm confused because I'm still friends with his wife. How awkward is it gonna be when I go over to their house?  Why does someone who doesn't know me at all have such a pointed disdain for me?  Upsetting.

Conclusion:
Facebook is good sometimes.  It's bad sometimes.  It's downright ugly sometimes.  However, I can't imagine life without it.  I guess it's just a necessary evil, and I'll have to alter my usage in order to minimize it's negative impact on my life.