Ode to Joy

I should be writing a paper, but I'm avoiding it. Which means I am living up to my tagline's promise--I write here when I should be working.

Fall break has officially come and gone. It was, in a word, uneventful. But nice, nonetheless. Friday I went out with my best friend from high school and she let me unload all of my emotional frustration on her over some strawberry margaritas at Chilis. Afterwards, we decided we didn't feel like thinking anymore so we went back to my parent's house and watched Twilight. Absolutely no thinking necessary. Saturday was spent watching football. 11 straight hours of football. I did not even get out of my pjs. Today, I woke up and headed straight to Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, which is the topic of the blog post for the day.

I have mentioned before that Michael (aka eb1, aka "Bagman", aka "Gooch" [a name I will never call him cuz it grosses me out for some reason]) is in Shepherd Spinal doing his rehab after his motorcycle accident. The approximately 3 of you who read this have certainly seen my constant updates and statuses (stati? status'?) over the past month or so in regards to his condition. He is, without a doubt, one of my dearest friends and up until last Sunday, I was in a constant state of emotional wreckage for 3 straight weeks.

Basic picture from my seat on the bench:

Michael is probably the only guy on the planet that I don't have to walk on eggshells around. I can get mad at him for stuff, disagree with him vocally, slap him for being an idiot, cry over something stupid in front of him, etc, etc. and I never have to be ashamed for it. He loves me unconditionally, and I love him for it. He's awesome. He's also the type that I could go for a year or so without any sort of communication, and as soon as we hang out it's like a day hasn't gone by. So, this past year has been just such a year. I was busy working, he was busy doing his thing; we hung out like twice, but our schedules were just crazy. Well, in July he and I found ourselves in a similar post-relationship phase, so we met up at Taco Mac to just talk about our lives and all that. For the first time in about 5 years, we had some time to actually hang out on a regular basis and be honest-to-goodness friends again (not that we weren't, but only seeing someone once a year makes it hard).

So, just when things were all cool and we were making plans to hang out and get big groups together to do stuff...I get the text from his younger brother, Scott, on my way to Athens for the UGA/Arizona State game. I was an absolute wreck from then on out; even though there was nothing I could do to help and I knew it. I kept in close contact with Ellen, his girlfriend, over the next week or so and began praying like I had never prayed before that, though we know it's a very long shot, he may walk again one day.

However, through all of this, I think my biggest fear was that the goofy, ridiculous, totally lame and funny side of Michael would be lost somewhere as a result. And, though I kept in close contact and Ellen said he was fine, I still couldn't believe it until I saw it for myself. He was given the transfer from the tiny hospital in Southern Alabama (he was on his way to Panama City when he had the accident) up to Shepherd's Spinal Center in Atlanta, and we found out that Sundays he was open for visitors.

He is exactly, exactly, exactly the same. I know that if I were in his situation, there's no way I would be able to handle things the way he is handling them. The doctors and nurses have noticed, too- he said today that they say he's in a remarkable mindset: "You seem to have totally grasped this reality but you are still so hopeful." And that, my friends, is Michael in a nutshell.

Last week was spent joking around, and he and his dad has us all in stitches. Today, he was cracking jokes and threatening to run over our toes if we stepped out of line. In the cafeteria, his dad challenged him to an "obstacle course" by pushing tables out of the way and putting random chairs around. Michael shifted his electric chair into 4th gear and whizzed past us and around the chairs in expert fashion, leaving us all in tears we were laughing so hard.

Oh, and when his dad buzzed his hair last week, he definitely cut out a heart shape into the back of Michael's head and is pretending that it happened naturally because he's been laying down so much. Brilliant.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to get across, other than just how awesome Michael really is and how anybody who gets to spend time with him is very lucky, is that he has a spirit that I admire and strive for. It's an infectious, all-consuming, from the inside out kind of pure joy that I can barely grasp, even in the best of situations.

Keep praying for him and his family, and for his rehabilitation. Cuz he says if he's still in a wheelchair for next Halloween, he wants to go as Christopher Reeve and be as unpolicitally correct as possible....Lord help us all. haha

My 2 Cents...

...on the "Balloon Boy."

I don't have too much time right now. Getting ready to head out to Carrollton for movie night with some people from church--"Cheesy" Movie Night to be exact. After the initial contest ended in a tie between Kyle and I, we participated in an intense game of rock, paper, scissors to see who got to pick the movie. My prowess at a game that is based solely on chance won out. So we're watching "That Thing You Do!" Doesn't get much cheesier than that.

Anyways, here I was promising you my take on the balloon boy and I went off and tangentized.

In the words of my mother:

"I would hug his neck, then beat his a**"

While watching the hullaballoo on CNN, I was concerned for the boy. I prayed that he'd be okay, I held my breath as the balloon finally hit the ground.

Oh,wait. He's not in there. I wasted my whole afternoon watching with baited breath and...nothing. Wtf. Then, my concern shifted to hoping that if he had fallen out, it was before it had gotten too high.

Let's face it, regardless- he would not have been able to survive that altitude and lack of oxygen and overexposure to helium. So, now we all hoped that he was okay and maybe only suffered a broken leg or something.

An hour passes.

Oh, wait. The little bugger was hiding in his garage THE WHOLE TIME. Seems little Falcon (yes, his name's Falcon. That's almost worst than Apple. And that's saying something, Gwyneth.) untethered Daddy's weather balloon and felt bad and went to hide in a box in the little attic in his garage to avoid getting in trouble.

Now, I can relate to this child. One of my earliest memories (those of you that know me, know that I retain the ODDEST range of information. I don't know why I remember the things that I do, or how I do it. But it makes me a good history major.) I tangentized again.

One of my earliest memories is this:
In the house I grew up in, we used to have to walk through the kitchen and then through the dining room to get to the living room. My mom would therefore leave the day's mail or anything else of relevance on the fancy dining room table for my dad to pick up as he breezed through the door after a long day of work. She would also leave his medication there so he wouldn't forget to take it.

Well, one day, 5 year old Tiffany got curious about one of the pills. It was two different colors and looked like a mike 'n ike. So, Curious Me decides to poke and prod and see if I can separate the two colors...I mean, what on earth could be in this pill? well...I succeeded and broke the little pill in half and powder spewed on the dining room table. Oops. Me, being brilliant, used my tiny little fingers to push the powder into a little line (I just realized that it could have resembled a line of coke. Um. Moving on.) and then placed the two empty plastic-y halves on top of the powder.

And RAN. Oooh, i hid in my room, confessed my sin to my stuffed Rajah and my fish Posey and good gracious I was sick over it for the next 2 hours. I could feel the sweat pouring down my face as my dad walked through the kitchen. I crept halfway down the stairs, still hidden by the wall, and held my breath. Here is what happened:

Mom: Here's the mai-Oh! Your pill exploded!
Dad: Huh. That's funny. I wonder how that happened?
Mom: Tiffany? Sweetie? Do you touch Daddy's medicine?
*thump thump thump down the stairs*

Me: I'M SORRY!!!!!! I DID IT AND I'M SORRY!!!! PLEASE DON'T TAKE AWAY MY DINNER!!!!
*I then collapsed onto the floor in (if I do say so myself) a perfect imitation of Belle in the dungeon after he drags her father off and she realizes she didn't get to say goodbye to her dad and then cries as the Beast decides to show her to her room*

they laughed at me. But, apparently this was traumatic enough to be etched into my memory.

In other words, oooooh I hope that kid gets an actual beating. Cuz at least I didn't get CNN to track my indiscretions. Yikes.

Also, I can't wait to see which sousaphone shows up at the trumpet party dressed as a big silver weather balloon. Kellyn, please keep your eyes open and report to me.

Off to movie night.

Judgement Day

Yes, I purposely tried to wait until after midnite so that my blogs would be on different days. Like I said, I'm addicted to things easily. Also, I've been meaning to start a blog for awhile now and therefore I have several entry ideas in my head that I'm just dying to spew out. (that sounds disgusting. But I'm writing stream-of-conscious here.)

Plus, I live by myself. In Villa Rica. And it's almost fall break. AKA, there's not a lot for me to do right now.

Ok. One of my constant struggles in daily life is trying not to judge a book by its cover. I would not call myself a judgemental person by any stretch, at least not in a cruel way. However, some people just kind of ask for it.

For example:

• If you walk around on campus with a GT hat and a UGA shirt on, I'm going to think you know nothing about sports, or you do not care the proper amount for either team at least.
• If your pants are practically falling off your body, I'm going to think that you're a bit gross.
• If you spell words incorrectly, especially getting the there/they're/their or your/you're confused...I'm gonna be judging you a bit.
• If you decide to fix something on your umbrella before class, and that entails putting the handle in your mouth and biting something off of it...(no joke, happened today)...there are no words.
• If you try and criticize things I love by saying you know what you're talking about and you honestly don't. (i.e. I'm a huge Florida fan....No, I don't know their QB is, though...but UGA sucks!)
• If you don't think that Edward Cullen is a tad overbearing and psycho, I'm going to be concerned for your future relationship stability.
• If you say the word "supposably" instead of "supposedly"...I cringe.
• If I let you out in front of me in traffic and you don't wave, I'm going to call you a jerk in my head.

There are many more. That ended up just being kind of a list of pet peeves. My bad. But wait! There's a lesson in this! I promise!

So, on a quick other note, when it comes to trends and fads, I usually fall behind the times. For instance, I didn't like the song "Single Ladies" til it was on Glee, and it was on the charts like 5 months ago and I didn't care for it. I got into Vera Bradley about a year after everyone else did, along with Twilight, The Office, and So You Think You Can Dance. So, imagine my surprise when my dad got me this really cute giraffe print computer bag for grad school- and when I get to campus, the print is EVERYWHERE!! Half the girls at UWG are walking around with these bags! So, a part of me is kind of excited-YES for finally being on time for SOMETHING (Congrats, Tiff, you're just like the rest of them! Normalcy!) Hah.

This was not a major life moment like I am making it out to be. It was really just a split second amusing moment where I kinda went "heh" to myself and smirked, and then went about my day in the Library.

However, last week, I was walking to class and saw this group of sorority girls (I have nothing against sorority girls. I was apart of an all-girls organization for 5 years, I know how awesome they can be). But these were those obnoxious, overly stereotypical sorority girls. Kinda broke my heart for them, cuz I'm sure they're all nice girls-they just walked by me and squeaked and giggled and they all had the same bag as me. Oh, giraffe print. I love your apparent appeal.

I continue walking to class, scolding myself in my head for judging these girls as some brand of bimbo and sit down with my latte and comment to my friend that my new boots kind of hurt my feet. And she looked at me and said "Were you in a sorority at UGA?" And I coughed a bit and said "No, why?" And she looked me up and down and said "well, I mean, you've got the bag, the heeled boots, and you're sipping your latte before class...I just assumed."

Whewwwwwwwww I felt JUDGED. I shook my head and said vehemently that I did not have anything against sororities, but that they were just not really my scene.

And it totally taught me a lesson. Yes, there may be some misguided sports fans and people who can't spell, but they're probably really awesome people who deserve a second look and to be seen beyond some silly label. So, don't judge people. And don't sell out. They just might end up being your best friend. (Thank you, Joey Potter)

The more you know *shooting star*

The Power of Positive Thinking

So, in my 23.9 years of life, I have fallen victim several times to being "that girl." This title can fall into countless different categories. The girl that boy's girlfriends hate, the girl that makes herself feel better by purchasing a new pair of jeans, the girl that screens her phone calls, the girl that watches sappy chick flicks and compares them to real life, the girl that gets a crush on her male best friend, the girl that doesn't know when to let go, the girl that gets way too excited about childish things like new Disney movies, the girl that will cancel plans to watch a movie on tv even though I already own it on DVD....etc, etc.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I am quite frequently "that girl."

I know that you all probably skimmed that and moved to this one-liner. And I'm totally okay with that; I would have done the same thing.

With that being said, there is one way that I am not "that girl," and that is when it comes to my ex-boyfriends - at least in long-term thinking. Initially, after a break up, I am totally the ice cream eating-chick flick watching-crying over them-can't believe it didn't work out-kind of girl. Can't lie. Phish Food and The Holiday are extremely therapeutic; I dare you to deny it. However, once this phase passes, I consider myself extremely fortunate because I am on good speaking terms with all of my exes and I pride myself on that fact.

There are only 3, but still. My lack of dating experience has left me very lucky- I've never once had a bad kiss. Nor have I ever woken up and thought "Holy cow, that was a mistake." It's also left me lucky because I choose to focus on the positive aspects of my former relationships. They didn't work out for specific reasons, and I'm not really one to double-dip in the dating pool unless something drastic has changed the circumstances, but all 3 of my relationships have taught me something and that is pretty cool.

So, since I have had positive interactions with all three of these guys in the past 72 hours, I've decided to funnel some positive things into a blog post so that when "that girl" comes out, I can point to physical evidence as to why I am lucky.

Here are 5 things that still make me smile about each ex. I will call them eb1, eb2, and eb3. Though they know who they are, and may even be reading this (Hiya!), it just seems more blog-y. So that's what I'm gonna do. Sue me.

eb1:

1. As far as 1st boyfriends go, he did nothing wrong in the "Firsts" category. I mean, he "asked me out" by asking me to turn my back to him and close my eyes, where he then placed his class ring around my neck and asked me to be his girlfriend. After I said yes, he gave me my first kiss by saying "Can we seal this moment with a kiss?" Come on. Cutest thing ever? Indeed.
2. He never ONCE made me feel bad about myself. In fact, even after we broke up, he would always encourage me and never look down on me or criticize me. To this day, he still does.
3. He wasn't afraid to cry in front of me, and actually told me how he felt when he felt it. He was an open book- which allowed me to fall completely in love with him and vice versa.
4. He has one of the most resilient and joyful spirits I've ever encountered. He was recently in a motorcycle accident and is now paralyzed from the chest down- and he is already putting up statuses making jokes about it-he's so much stronger than he'll ever know.
5. He is one of the few best friends I have that I know I can say anything to him and we'll still be friends. I can yell at him, call him out on his crap, he can call me out on mine- I can 100% be myself and he'll still love me anyways.

eb2:

1. If I were ever to post a facebook status saying I needed to go to my "thinking spot," he is the only person on the planet that would know exactly where to find me.
2. He's probably the only person who fully understands why I feel the way I feel in regards to anything related to Disney.
3. He still remembers the little things that always went right in our relationship; like specific days, dates, anniversaries, outfits, etc.
4. He could actually get away with calling me "baby" every so often, and it didn't get on my nerves like it does with other people.
5. He thought I hung the moon, and always let me know it, and made me feel appreciated when I felt like I didn't deserve it.

eb3:

1. He challenged me- he didn't feel the need to agree with me on everything, and vice versa. He makes me think about things in different ways.
2. He could break into song at any moment, anything from a rock song to a Disney song, and it would still be the most awesome-sounding thing. I think one of my favorite memories is when I went to visit and just laid my head on his legs while he played acoustic guitar and sang little snippets to a bunch of random songs for over an hour.
3. Good morning and good night texts. And how he used to wait at his front door until I got in my car and drove past him on my way home.
4. Best first kiss (of a relationship) ever. Seriously.
5. Even when I felt gross-looking, he knew exactly how to make me feel pretty. It didn't matter where or when, he always made me feel like I was the only girl in the room.

Now, bear in mind that these aren't necessarily the top 5 favorite things about each guy...that would involve lists and spreadsheets and prioritizing and, basically, things that I just don't have the drive to pursue. Nor are these the only things- trust me, there are many more.

So, while sometimes it's fun to bash exes and say you're better off without them- sometimes it's just as fun to remember all the things that made them awesome and remind you why you dated them in the first place.

And that, my friends, is my life lesson for the day. The power of positive thinking.

I promise I'll be good...

Let it be known that I have an addictive personality. No, not in a sense that once you meet me, you can't get enough of me. (Though I'd like to believe that's true to a point) I mean that once I find something new to enjoy, I get very quickly and very easily hooked. Cinnamon Sugar Mochas? Thanks, Jittery Joes. I now have to include a weekly coffee allowance in my budget because I can't make it without my caffeine. Harry Potter? JK, now I can't help but mutter "accio" under my breath and attempt to summon the remote when I'm too lazy to lean forward 2 feet to pick it up. Twilight? Oh, dear God, I didn't even have a chance.

I even hated Twitter to begin with, and now I'm totally that girl that feels the need to tweet when I stub my toe or even (God forbid) decide to "sit...on the...patio..."

So, new thing. Let's try blogging!

I re-read some old xanga posts this week (No, really...one day I'll post about a typical day at work for me, and you will feel my pain and boredom.) "Blogging" for me used to be "and then I did this, and then I hung out with so-and-so,and then this funny thing happened, OMG, BFF, LOL, etc etc"

Not to pull the whole "post-adolescent idealistic phase" holier-than-thou bit, but seriously- Present-Me got really annoyed with Past-Me. And I'm allowed to be holier than my younger self, I've experienced more life and earned the right.

Not that I necessarily know more than that giggly girl (Cuz, let's face it, I'm almost 24 and in graduate school but still listening to my New Moon audio books on my iPod)...but I do feel like I've at least grown up a BIT since my last xanga post (which I think had something to do with watching America's Next Top Model in Snelling? Ugh)

So, in this new attempt at blogging, I can update people on my life but hopefully in a more interesting and less "look at all the cool people I get to hang out with and maybe you might think I'm cooler because of it" kind of way.

And seriously, sometimes (just sometimes), my musings can actually be amusing.