Dear Claire,

I know we looked fantastic yesterday in those special shoes you bought. And I know we felt great last night after a few beers, but today we've got some issues. Please take it easy on us today.

Love,
Claire's feet

Can'tSleepClaire

I hope none of you have ever met Can'tSleepClaire. She is the worst. She will wake you up in the middle of the night and tell you horrible things so you can't go back to sleep. She often goads me about friendship issues and serial killers. To fully understand just how terrible she is, you need to imagine everything that she says sounds like a mix of a sing-songy, teasing child and that that possessed kid in the Shining. ("Danny's not heeeerrre, Mrs. Torrance")*. If she weren't invisible (and you know, fake), I'm sure she would use the accompanying finger gesture. Last Thursday, she was out in full force.

Can'tSleepClaire: Claaaaaaaaaaaaiiireeeee...hear that noise in your apartment? Guess what. It's a seriaaaaaaal killer. He is coming to get you. And you have to pee. Make your decision: pee your bed or get killed in the bathroom. Your decissssiooooon.

Hey Claaaaaaaire. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants to be your friend. Remember when that mean girl called you fat in middle school? Everrrryybody thinks that. Everrrrryyybooddy hates you. Remember that thing you said to your friend last week? She told everyone because she haaaates you. No one will evvverrr be your friend agaaaaaaain...

She is the WORST. She is way worse than LackofSleepClaire, who alternates between hysterical crying and hysterical giggles.

*Please see 8:38 on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv3_bla90L0&feature=related

Today I am using one of the laptops at work (I usually use a desktop, but our bookkeeper uses it on Fridays) and it has an audio program on it which controls the volume and effects. There are various options you can select to make the music sound better. For example, there is a "living room" option, as well as a "carpeted hallway" option. I guess the program will adjust the echo and other musical importance to make it sound better. Here are the 5 default options (you have to go to another menu to select other options) on the laptop:

-Stone Corridor
-Bathroom
-Sewer Pipe
-Arena
-Auditorium

Sewer pipe?! Why is a default "Sewer Pipe"? Also, Stone Corridor? Like in a castle?

Technology is ruining my self esteem. I mean technology is great; I love being able to stalk girls I went to high school with on facebook and simultaneously think "Her baby is the cutest!" and "I can't believe she has a kid (or two or three)." But it also allows us to stalk people in ways we never could have imagined and to the detriment of our well-being.

So I write on someone's wall or send them a message and I wait and wait for them to reply...and they don't. Ok, fine, they haven't been on facebook for a while and then I notice that they have most definitely have been on facebook, and have taken the time to post a link, write on someone else's wall and like someone's status. This turns me into a middle school girl and I think "OMG, why doesn't she like me more than this person? WHAT did I do wrong? Does she think I am fat? AM I FAT? What if she NEVER writes on my wall!? Fine. FINE. I don't need her as a friend - I have enough friends...nope, untrue. I NEED HER BACK HOW CAN I WIN HER BACK?" I do this far too often with too many people than is really healthy. It's actually worse than middle school, because there was no news feed that told you "Carrie wrote back to Samantha at 2:45pm via oragami note."

Eventually, whether or not they ever write back, I just feel like a crazy person.

I love when you hear a song on good headphones and you hear details of the song you have never heard before. It's like there are fun little surprises in the song just for you!

Listening to: "Death or Glory" by The Clash and the background vocals really stand out.

"cal-i-fornia girls, we're unforgettable, daisy dukes, bikinis on top"

So, I have developed a really bad habit: listening to Kiss108.

I've always been a classic rock fan, so when I would put the radio on, it was a classic rock station. I watched MTV (remember TRL?!) in middle school and was really into popular music then (I had Korn with the backwards R written on my 5 Star binder in silver Sharpie just like everyone else), but at some point I just stopped watching MTV and listening to current music. I didn't dislike popular music; I just mysteriously stopped listening to it. I was never into Indie music either and I was content to listen to my Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Usually it would take me 6-12 months to hear a popular song and I would hear it, love it and tell a friend about it, only to have her tell me that the song came out last year. I thought Flo Rida was pronounced like the state.

Anyways, the same mysterious force behind my shift away from popular music has recently prompted me to start listening to the radio, mainly Kiss108. I come into work every morning and put the station on on my computer and hear the same 7 songs all day. And I kinda love it. I could probably quote you all the lyrics to "Alejandro" and "OMG".

So my wonderful boyfriend, Joe, hates most popular music (not without good reason, a lot of it is terrible) and will avoid listening to it if at all possible. Recently, when we have gone out, I have been screaming out the lyrics to these terrible, terrible songs and he has sadly realized that I have abandoned the anti-pop music club. It's pretty amusing to see the mixture of emotion in his face: shock, confusion, embarrassment, betrayal and sadness.

I don't know what has caused me to be more connected with my music generation and I don't know when I will slip back into my classic rock bubble.

bad sock week

So Monday, I opened my gym bag to find I had packed Joe's socks instead of my own. Today, I opened my gym bag to discover that I had packed no socks. Sock fail.

[EDIT] Still not as bad as the time I forgot my pants.

"The dictionary defines wedding as the fusing of two metals. Well, I think you two guys are two metals; gold metals."

Entering into a (heterosexual) engagement is like playing a strange game in our society. There are weird, unspoken rules that men and women are expected to play by, and most do. Women are not supposed to talk about marriage, or bother their boyfriends about proposing because there is a belief that the more women talk about marriage, the less their boyfriends will want to marry them. To me, this is a very strange social phenomenon; marriage is considered the ultimate partnership, yet the power is put into one party’s hands. I understand that years ago, women didn’t own property and men really did have all the power. Additionally, I respect the tradition of getting down on one knee with a beautiful ring; I just think the pre-engagement game we play is so strange. Shouldn’t both parties have equal say in whether they get married?

Cosmo (my favorite magazine ever!) constantly reminds us of the rules we must play. In the most recent issue I read, Cosmo allowed us a peek into the secret thoughts of men, one of which said (paraphrasing, as I don’t have the magazine in front of me right now) “The more my girlfriend bugs me about getting engaged, the less I want to marry her. I want the decision to be mine.” My mother and stepfather are also hardcore believers in the rules. I have started talking about marrying my boyfriend recently, since we’re getting older and also for practical reasons (he may have insurance through work before I do, so it may make sense for us to marry so I can go to the doctors!) and both my mother and stepfather have chided me for talking about it with him. My mom told me that the more I discuss it with my boyfriend, the less likely that he will marry me and my stepfather echoed her concerns. My mother also told me that she got my stepfather to marry her “by waiting and letting him make the decision on his own.” But marriage is a joint decision, right? Is it really so weird to sit down like adults and have a discussion about getting married and then become engaged? If I keep saying the “M” word to my boyfriend, will he run? Do real men think like this, or just the fake ones in Cosmo?

There is also weird terminology thrown around when talking about marriage. Women are expected to prove to their men that they will be good wives and partners to show that they are “marriage material.” Cosmo often publishes guides educating women about how to show their men that they are, in fact, “marriage material” and you can sure bet that one of the lessons is “don’t talk about marriage.” Language like this solidifies the idea that engagements are one-sided and that the men make all the decisions.

Again, I think the tradition of the man proposing is nice. And I would not object to a shiny, sparkly ring. The whole pre-engagement game we play just confuses me. I have talked to my boyfriend about marriage and he hasn’t run away or thrown a fit. And if he had, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be in a partnership with him anyways.

[EDIT] This is really only about serious relationships. I don't think it's a good idea for either party to go on a first date talking about marriage.

open letter

Dear Claire,

I know that you love cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. I do too. But next time you eat it, please remember that you will wake up the next morning feeling terrible and drink Diet Coke for breakfast, because you are convinced it is the only thing that won't make you vomit. It will actually just make you feel worse. Remember also, that because you only had Diet Coke for breakfast, you will be hungry and grab a muffin on the way to work. That will also make you feel worse. I'm just looking out for you, Claire.

Love,
Mr. Stomach

the mile run

So, I have started running recently. I am training for a 5k on Halloween in which we dress up as superheroes! It should be awesome and it is a run/walk, so if I really cannot run the 5k, NBD.

This is a huge personal challenge for me because I have NEVER been capable of running like a normal person. I have never been particularly thin, but I was never so heavy that running should have been a huge problem. But it was; my lungs and legs and stomach and head all joined together to create intense discomfort and pain. And death. Remember in school when we had to do the President’s Physical Fitness test in the fall and the spring? And we had to run a mile? I thought of the mile run day as the worst day of my life. And we never had advance warning or practice. One day, I would head into gym class and the teachers would say “Okay, head out to the track, time to run the mile.” All the normal kids would be like “This sucks, I might actually sweat in gym today and have to bring my gym clothes home to be washed for once. Lame.” The running-phobic kids (kid? this may have just been me) would immediately panic and launch into a train of irrational thoughts: “OH MY GOD THE MILE WHAT AM I GOING TO DO???? I didn’t know it was today, I would have broken by ankle, or at least sprained it…or at least pretended! Can I do it now? If I trip going down to the track and claim my ankle hurts, will the gym teachers believe me and let me go to the nurse? What if they make me make it up next gym class? If I sneak into the woods, will they notice? Will I get punished? Is the punishment worse than running the mile?”

Before I knew it, I would be down at the track, on the starting line with all the kids who looked WAY less panicky than I felt, and I would be running. Usually beforehand, I would desperately try to find a buddy of equal or less running stamina so I wouldn’t be dragging my dying body alone for the last 3 laps (out of 4). I usually failed at this endeavor; I’d run like ¼ (or maybe a ¼ of a lap?) of a mile, die a little, and try to get my buddy to walk with me. My buddy would leave me and I would be on my own.

Eventually, the gym teachers would just wave me in after 12 minutes because that was the point where you failed that portion of the Fitness Test. It was humiliating and painful. One time I ran the mile in 8 minutes or so, but only because I skipped a lap and the gym teacher didn’t notice. It feels good to finally come clean. After my freshman year of high school, I made my mom write me a note excusing me from the mile because I had exercise-induced asthma. The gym teachers usually told me I needed a note from a doctor, but excuse me anyways because it wasn’t worth their effort to argue.

Anyways, I have been running for a few weeks now and I am noticing serious improvement. In fact, on Tuesday I ran for an entire mile (I forgot my stopwatch) and last night I ran a mile again in …. TEN MINUTES! I know this isn’t a good mile time, but for me this is a REALLY BIG DEAL. Just running the entire mile in any amount of time is an accomplishment and I feel so proud of myself. I stagger into the apartment after running and feel like screaming “I AM KING OF RUNNING! NO ONE IS MORE AWESOME THAN ME!!!!” (Sometimes I actually do scream this.)

Gym teachers, you would be so proud of me now.