I've moved.

You can now find me at jopickle.wordpress.com. Blogger has been great, but Wordpress has a ton of features and they're easy to use, so it was time for a change.

Chicago first

I thought I had been cold before. I've lived in Pennsylvania and New England. Walked home through woods and snow and ice. I was once even encased in snow while waiting for a ride during a snow storm in Boston. And I was born in a blizzard. So you see, I have plenty of reasons to think I've been cold. But I was so wrong. So, so wrong. I have never been cold like I was cold in Chicago. I wasn't just shivering, my whole body was shaking. Chicago does not joke around. It was 12 degrees out.



And it was snowing. Big white flakes to catch on your tongue (believe me, I tried) and brush off your nose.

All in all, Chicago was wonderful. I spent my time playing with a dog, sleeping, watching tv with Patrickmybrother and of course, catching snowflakes.

...and I don't feel any different?

Things have changed. It isn't the year I graduated in anymore. It's now 2007, and while I'd like to say I've grown up into an uber cool adult, I haven't. Mostly, I've been the same as I've always been. If anything, I have only become one of the worker ants. Office all day, sleep at night, repeat.

How did I notice this? Facebook. No longer am I tempted to join the crazy college groups like 'I heart 80's Dance Parties' and 'I went to public school, bitch!' Those groups don't describe me anymore.

Instead, these are the types of groups that might best describe my social life:
What part of 'out of office' don't you understand?
If you need me I'll be in my office sorting through email b/c I was
away all last week traveling for work.
...Instead of a group like 'I party all night' I suggest an alternative: 'I wear jeans on Fridays.'

And this is the kind of event I'd get an invite for:
Keg party at 4, and by 'keg' I mean water cooler, and maybe some Swiss Miss if I'm feeling fancy.
location: 5th floor kitchen

And my interests might be:
jiffy bags
my expense account
my office luvvvrs!!!1!
invoices
multi colored post-its

In the immortal words of Blink 182, "I guess this is growing up."

You're Simone de Beavoir, as you get out the car

This is how it happens: You are standing on a bus, listening to music and wondering why you can't put words together like that. You are acutely aware of the stranger's hand brushing yours on the pole. At the next stop you are sitting. You are sitting and listening to the music, and looking between the rows of seats through the front window. And much like a future musician who first picks up his instrument, you click. And you know that you will write. Your internal monologue organizes itself into sentences instead of stray thoughts, and you hope, you wish, you believe that maybe this is it. Maybe you can be a writer, even though you'll never be able to make it sound the way it does in your head. Even though for now (and possibly for years to come) there are bills and loan payments and responsibilities and rents to be paid. Someday, there will be novels to be written and lines to be jotted down and rushing home to get it out on paper before it leaves you forever.

This is how your life is decided. In the middle of the mundane, on a bus home from work after an entirely un-noteworthy day, your life will be different forever. At this point, the crisis has occured, and the climax becomes inevitable. And we all know that after the climax, nothing is ever the same.

That annoying match.com commercial

If I hear Dr. Phil tell Judy that she just "needs a little Guy-Q" I might scream.

The one with the guy isn't any better. I don't know any guys who get distracted from playing sports because they're thinking about finding the perfect girl.

In other sports news, you may have seen the Eagles kick some Dallas ass on Christmas day. It was a Christmas miracle...beating Dallas (and TO) in Dallas, on Christmas day.

Keeping busy

Wrapping presents, writing cards, making peanut butter fudge and peppermint bark, tying ribbons around wreaths. These are the things keeping me busy of late. Christmas snuck up this year, and I am out of breath trying to get ready. And because I have no thoughts to share, I'll leave you with a song:

It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace,
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

Joni Mitchell - River

Romance: a retrospective

In elementary school, romance was getting picked first for soccer, matching nicknames, sitting next to each other in art class, letting me use the purple cray-pas first.

At summer camp, romance meant splashing in the pool, blushing at each other across the hall at lunch, and playing cards together at the back of the rec hall on rainy days while the 'little' kids watched a movie.

In middle school, romance was listening to him play 'Satellite' on his guitar over the phone, awkwardly holding hands, dates at school plays, diary entries, slow dances, stuffed animals, seeing him ride off into the sunset...on his bike, and hanging out behind the bleachers at football games.

In high school, romance meant knowing my name even though I was the new girl, playing me 'A Thousand Miles' on the piano (even though his arm was broken), goofing off at work, long conversations backstage, tying the ribbon in my hair while telling me he liked it better down, wishing me sweet dreams every night, playing with my hair on a sunny day in the grass, hiding together during ghost in the graveyard (so close we're breathing the same air but our lips never touch), and, in a moment of weakness, curling into him during a scary movie.

In college, romance was confused. It somehow lost it's innocence and became a rarely seen ideal. But still, it meant studying side by side on his bed, correcting his papers, telling him his writing was better than it was, noticing when I wore a skirt, having 'deep' conversations over coffee, posing for pictures (because if we don't take them, we won't remember), pulling me close without thinking, letting me pretend I didn't make a fool of myself, and then, (the most romantic of all) breaking my heart.

And now (a mere seven months post graduation) I'm not sure what romance will mean. I think it might have something to do with eating my burned cooking, telling me I look beautiful when I don't, letting me whine without saying a word, walking through the park in silence, dancing in my living room, taking the train home with me and loving my family, and most of all -- loving me. Because even though there's been all that romance in the past, there has very rarely been love.