The Spreadsheet Sickness

So you probably have figured out that I like lists. I love tracking things. Not only do I have a spreadsheet just for tracking books I read, I also have one for monthly rental cars, work expenses, using PTO, and I briefly had one to track the outfits I wore to different clients (can’t be caught wearing the same thing two times in a row!). It’s not like I’m even that good at spreadsheets, I just really, really, really like being able to track things and see what’s happening. Certain friends of mine who will remain unnamed would probably make a comment about how this ties into my alleged control issues, but I really just see it as a manifestation of a family disease.

That disease being the Spreadsheet Sickness.

There are so many things I can say about my family, besides the fact that they’re awesome. But for today, we’re going to concentrate on our obsessive need to track and organize. See, it’s not just me.

Growing up I didn’t initially realize there was anything weird going on. I only saw my extended family for holidays since we lived about 6 hours away. It wasn’t until I was older and more involved in family activities that I started to sense the madness. I already knew that entire half of the family was obsessed on arriving to things early (and this has been a constant issue between my dad and my mom and thus given me warring instincts where I agonize over being late but also hate being early) but I didn’t know they actively planned to do it.

You have to assume for every family event, there will be a spreadsheet. I remember when we were planning a surprise birthday for my grandmother (and that also involved pre-plans on how to get every together secretly for the planning phase) we had a spreadsheet with not only the necessary food & decorations, but also potential gifts that I believe listed not only cost but something like emotional significance?? When everyone used to gather to bake Christmas cookies after Thanksgiving we had a printed spreadsheet that listed every cookie, oven temperature, time to prep, time in the oven, etc. We still have spreadsheets every Christmas to track food, supplies, and who’s bringing what alcohol (because THAT is super important).

I didn’t really think this would ever pass down to my generation, but that was before I became Game Commissioner.  I’ve already discussed the various and ridiculous efforts I’ve put into running games on Christmas day. Well, one of the other duties I’ve picked up for our Christmas celebrations is helping my dad make grilled cheese for everyone. My first time assisting I was called in last minute, so I took orders on a piece of paper. I decided that was HIGHLY inefficient, so this past year, I made a spreadsheet. No, seriously, see:

This way not only was it easier to identify who had what and where the grilled cheese was placed on the grill, it also gives us data on which cheeses were popular and what we probably don’t need to bring next year. And omg if we do it again next year I’ll be able to track trends. You have no idea how excited I get about this!

The next hint that I’ve really succumbed to this family disease was when I went on vacation with my parents this month. My dad kept asking for our plans of what we were going to do each day. My mother was failing at making a list. So, I made another spreadsheet, which allowed me to color code things that we had definitely decided on (green), versus things that weren’t set and depended on other factors (red).

The final nail in the coffin was getting a Fitbit. I’ve had it a little over a week, and DEAR GOD I love it! I’ve been tracking my steps per day, activities, calories burned, calories eaten, water consumed, and sleeping habits. It’s the ultimate gadget for people with an obsessive need to track things. I adore the fact that I can look at my app or log in online and see my best day of activity versus my worst.

I love having visibility into what I’m doing. I had already started tracking my jazzercise classes for my own purposes (35 classes this year as of this morning!) but now it’s very clear to me when I’m doing more outside of class instead of sitting around doing nothing. I feel more motivated to walk around. Not going to lie, sometimes I walk in circles around my apartment at night to increase my step count. I’ve also learned that apparently I drink TONS of water in a day. I drink over 70 ounces of water every single day. One day I had about 110 ounces!

Is it good to encourage my obsessive need to track things? Let’s go with yes, because I said so.

Be Afraid

Almost everyone has a horror story around bringing a significant other home for the holidays. And while we can all agree that every family is their own brand of crazy, I think it’s safe to say that my dad’s side of the family may be a little worst than the norm.

I grew up enjoying tales of the hijinks my aunts and uncles put any potential newcomers through. Some were amusing but harmless – like when they declared it was “weird hat day” or when they went through the house and turned all the photos upside down in their frames. They played a few pranks on girl/boyfriends that were foolish enough to meet the family, but by far the worst shenanigans were whenever someone was engaged. My uncle Dave is still a little bitter about the family vote on whether or not he was allowed to marry my aunt Deb. Of course, it wasn’t a vote in the normal sense. That would be far too easy.

What actually happened was that for Easter dinner, one of my other aunts put eggs full of m&ms at each plate. After the dinner was over, they announced that it was the official vote on whether Dave was accepted into the family, and anyone that ate their m&ms was voting against Dave. Both Deb and Dave are chocolate lovers, so they were dismayed to discover they had inadvertently voted against Dave by eating their candy. In the end the vote to accept Dave passed, but it was a very near thing.

There hasn’t been too much crazy in my generation yet. We like to pick on any significant others with small things, like encouraging them to drink a lot or targeting them when we play games. One Christmas when my brother brought his girlfriend of the time, somebody wrapped a fake diamond ring and stuck it in with the gifts, but thankfully somebody else overruled them and took it out of the pile before madness could ensue.

Of course, until this year no one has been engaged out of my group of cousins. This year though, my cousin Kristen was the first Cameron of our generation to bring a fiancée back for Christmas.

There was a lot of texting, and emailing, and eventually it was decided my father was in charge of coming up with the plan to torture Kristen and Matthew, her fiancée. While we were on vacation in November my dad and I plotted all sorts of potential scenarios about what we could do. My mother didn’t contribute much, possibly because she’s too much of a goody two shoe, or maybe because she didn’t have to go through too much to get into the family.

Once we had a really good idea I floated it past my brother, some of his friends, and some of my friends to see general reactions. When my brother thought it was brilliant and friends thought it was insane, I decided we had an official plan. Given that I was (and still am for next year, seriously why doesn’t anyone else want this job) the Game Commissioner for the day (if you’re unfamiliar with how my family does Christmas, click here to catch up on the awesome), I ended up facilitating things.

My cousin Kristen is a lawyer, so what we decided to do was hold a trial to determine whether or not Matthew was accepted into the Cameron clan.

Impartial Judge Jason

I pretended we were running another game at the end of the night, and then directed Kristen and Matthew to their chairs of honor, Matthew as the defendant and Kristen as his lawyer. I left an empty chair across from them, and then wheeled out my brother’s friend Jason who was acting as our honorable judge for the evening, announcing that as he is not actually part of the family he would be the most impartial and could make a verdict.

Then, I revealed that I had tried to gather character witnesses on Matthew’s behalf, but that none were willing to speak, so instead we had secretly put Matthew through a series of tests over the weekend. One by one I called up other family members to the empty chair to announce the results of these tests.

Shooting Expert Witness Dad

First up was my father, who had taken the adorable couple shooting the day before. He sadly discussed how Kristen clearly outshot Matthew, and that he found this to be very shameful and a point against him.

Drinking Expert Witness Aunt Deb

Next was my aunt Deb, who performed wonderfully considering I had roped her in last minute when one of my brother’s other friends decided against speaking (you may wonder why there are so many random people at our family Christmas. Just more proof of the awesome. If you would ever like to come or want a full detailed description of our games this year let me know!). Deb pointed out that Matthew was drinking red wine, something no one else really does, and how he was barely halfway through the bottle. Moderate drinkers do not keep up with Camerons. Clearly another strike against him.

Walleyball Expert Witness CJ

Finally I called up my brother CJ with the results of the walleyball competition from earlier that day. CJ described how he was really pulling for Matthew to do well, but he was a failure on the court and of course our cousin Kristen really deserves better.

Every so often Kristen tried to make a point or respond to some of the statements, but Judge Jason cut her off. She started to question his (and our) impartialness, but finally I announced that Kristen could now make her case as to why we would allow Matthew to join our illustrious family.

Kristen of course did a stellar job, so good in fact that when we asked Judge Jason for his decision, he agreed with both sides and could not make a final judgment. Instead, he proclaimed that the final game of the evening would determine Matthew’s fate. The planned final game? A poker match, with the victory going to whichever team had the winning player. Matthew was on my team, the reindeers. Unfortunately for him, and as I clarified to the family, the elf team had Jason on it, and Jason is an actual poker champ (like he’s made money doing it).

Kristen & Defendant Matthew questioning the proceedings

For those of you concerned about Matthew’s fate, don’t worry. As Game Commissioner I overruled to remove the poker tournament and allow Matthew into the family. After all he had done a pretty good job all day on the reindeer team, was pretty much solely responsible for winning the corn hole competition, and he took the trial in stride.

Some of my family had questioned why we were carrying on the tradition of torturing potential new members, but I believe in the system. I don’t even care that I could one day go through some similar nonsense. Because the thing is, my family is special. If you stick around long enough you are guaranteed to experience some craziness. I think it’s better to make sure you have someone that can accept that straight off the bat, rather than it being a big surprise later on. Also, my uncle Dave was pretty adamant Matthew should have to go through something. Like I said, he may still be a little bitter. This probably means Kristen and Matthew will take a special interest in whoever is engaged next. So take this as fair warning if you ever consider marrying a Cameron. I don’t know what you’ll go through exactly, but it’s pretty safe to say it’s not going to be your average meet the family.

Game of Thrones - One Family's Obsession

What kind of neek would I be if I didn’t talk about Game of Thrones at some point? I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised at how popular it’s become. I don’t want to pull an “I liked it before it was cool” move, but I totally did. Well, at least before the show was cool. There are many others who liked the books before me, as I didn’t jump in until 2009.

Really, I owe it all to my friend Fitzwilliam. He had the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, but he didn’t particularly like it. Being a clever and insightful friend he realized it was probably something more along my lines, as he noted when he gave it to me “Hey you want this book? It has incest and dragons.” Score (although one should note that neither of those reasons are why Fitzwilliam disliked the book, he didn’t care for the constant politics, which I also enjoy).

Seriously we're obsessed, this is my brother's wall.

Eventually my family got involved and now it’s our new Harry Potter -  with everyone reading and discussing and threatening each other if they reveal important plot points.

Initially, this wasn’t so much an issue with the television series. Sure, the first season I didn’t watch on a regular basis as I didn’t have HBO at the time. Instead every few weeks I’d go to my friend Chloe’s house and we’d have a lovely day lounging around, catching up on episodes, and eating a lot (so basically all our favorite things). My parents and brother were both watching more often than me, but as the first season stayed very close to the books they couldn’t truly spoil anything.

The second season was a bit more of an issue. The second book was longer than the first, but not as long as the third. So it didn’t break down as easily into the television episodes. They had to start making some drastic changes to the material. Not changes on the level of say, True Blood, but enough that I wasn’t always sure what exactly would happen next.

The biggest challenge was when the family first started reading the books. SOOO much can happen in a single book that when my mother would say she was halfway through A Feast For Crows I couldn’t always remember what happened exactly when. This meant that when the family was happily discussing events I generally stayed quiet.

Then the tables turned. I have this thing with reading. I want to read books. I’m still not sold on reading electronic copies. I do it sometimes, but not often. I also don’t like hardbacks. They’re expensive, and they’re giant. I don’t have enough room on my bookcase as it is. So when A Dance of Dragons came out, my entire family what with their lack of book snobbery downloaded and read it while I impatiently waited for the paperback release. Then for months they tried to talk about it without giving anything away. My mother isn’t particularly good at that (a trait I inherited) so eventually I just gave in and read it on my iPad.

Because by this point, a large portion of the conversation in my family revolves around Game of Thrones. We discuss our favorite characters. My mom, for instance, has a huge crush on Jon Snow. We talk about the characters we don’t like. For months one of my brother’s chief joys was to describe Tywin Lannister to his friends. He calls him the ultimate troll dad.

My family both does and does not identify with the characters from Game of Thrones. Like I said, my brother now calls Tywin Lannister the ultimate troll dad. For many years we thought our father was the ultimate troll dad. In fact my brother even created a comic depicting how our dad got a bit confused on the definition of “trolling” after we kept saying he was “trolling” all the time.

Based on real events!

Now if you’ve ever watched Game of Thrones, or read the books, you probably know that Tywin Lannister is a cruel person, and a horrible father. Don’t be confused and think my daddy is anything like that. Tywin Lannister trolls as a way of controlling those around him, and doesn’t care who he hurts. My father trolls in a more good natured way that doesn’t hurt anyone. He’s probably got much more Ned Stark in him, but with a more realistic way of viewing people.

As for me? My brother has called me a Lannister (which I’m a little insulted by). My dad thinks I’m a Sand Snake (which you haven’t seen on the show yet, give it time, and more seasons). My mother thinks I’m a Targaryen. Probably the best of the lot, considering how much I love Daenerys.

We talk about Game of Thrones so much because we care about the characters. It’s a big deal when they kill someone off. And the problem is based on the newest episode, I’m starting to question if they’re going to kill off more characters in the series that are still alive in the books. You can’t do that to me! I thought they were safe!

This is madness. THIS IS CHRISTMAS!

My favorite of our pose series (none of which were normal)

My family is a bit different. It should thus be no surprise that we do the holidays our own special way.

Typically we spend the designated day (never actual Christmas. It used to always be Christmas Eve but now is normally the Sunday before Christmas) together - eating, drinking, and at the end of the night doing Steal-a-Gift. Gifts are wrapped up, people are given numbers, and on your turn you can either steal a gift from someone else or open one from the middle.

Last year, things got a little more exciting. My brother suggested that in order to determine who got best choice of the Steal-a-Gift numbers, we turn the day into a competition between two teams. I think most of my relatives were hesitant at first, but we gave it a shot. My brother, my cousins, and I made up the game committee responsible for selecting the games and rules for the day. My brother led the games for the day and everything went remarkably well until he broke his ankle playing walleyball. We stuck him in a chair and I took over.

Somehow this translated into me being in charge of the games this year as well. Actually this was probably more the result of my obsessive need to plan and organize. Every time my brother asked what he needed to do I told him “don’t worry about it.”

While our games last year were fun enough, they were randomly selected and poorly organized. I was determined that this would not happen again.

To start, about midyear I sent my family a survey. I had them review what they liked and disliked about the games, provide suggestions, and rate their favorites from last year. I used this information to update the games for the day and change the points the games were worth based on a combination of skill and interest. I tracked this information on a spreadsheet which also listed the games and points from the previous year.

Then I assigned tasks to various family members. Who had to bring what, who needed to select the teams… I also made a change to how teams were recognized. The previous year we had the team assignments before arriving and you had to wear your team’s color, either red or green. This year I determined we would have Team Elf and Team Reindeer, and provided festive hats for both teams. My grandfather got a Santa hat as he is the default impartial judge. This way we didn’t need an exact number of attendees ahead of time. While my father and I set up lunch, my brother randomly selected the teams and handed out the hats. There were some quick switches. The elf hat didn’t fit my dad’s big head so we traded him for my uncle. Then after lunch, I announced the games and schedule.

Hard at work puzzling

Some games were open for people to work on all day. Those were games like the Sudoku puzzles, and the gingerbread village decorating. There was also a puzzle for each team to put together. While they could technically work on it all day, only the team that completed it first received the points.

 

 Now as I mentioned some games were worth more points than others. However, I neglected to tell everyone else the point values. It became necessary at points to choose what to focus on. Who would finish the puzzle? Who was going to play walleyball? How many people would be left to work on the gingerbread village? I thought it would be interesting to see how they prioritized the games without knowing the points. While I was on Team Elf, I let others decide who was doing what without any input (besides saying I wouldn’t be playing walleyball. I loathe volleyball like you wouldn’t believe). The rest of my team went to play walleyball. When they got back and realized Team Reindeer had created the most amazing gingerbread village ever, the rest of the team decided to abandon any attempt at points. My poor cousin Ian was the only one that set ours up.

CHUG!

After walleyball we had a few games that were at set intervals. Teams choose their representatives for these games. There was a corn hole toss and a chugging contest. While my team ended up winning the chug as both team members had to finish in order to win, my uncle Jim surprised us all with his chugging abilities. My mother did poorly. The best part of this game? I didn’t tell anyone what they were chugging when they had to volunteer, just that it wasn’t alcoholic. It ended up being a combination of mountain dew and red Gatorade (red & green!) While I was totally amused, and the onlookers enjoyed it, I’m pretty sure all of the participants are going to vote against the chug on the next survey.

The last game for the night was a team Name That Tune. Keeping with the holiday theme we did Christmas music, and they only had to guess the artist. This was a new game for the year and I think the most popular. Also the scariest. I’m glad the teams were sitting separately. It may have turned violent.

Team Reindeer sits defeated.

In the end, Team Elf won for the day and got the better gift numbers. I was reelected as Game Commissioner, something that I want included on my epitaph. The family was entertained and still had a chance to reconnect with those of us spread across the world. It might not be the normal holiday celebration, but it’s some of the most fun I have all year!

The Penis Mightier

The end of November is quickly approaching. We are right in the midst of the holiday season between Thanksgiving and your December holiday of choice (Hanukkah, Yule, Christmas… whatever your flavor) where people eat and shop a lot. This is also when I start my yearly debate over whether or not to send out a holiday letter.

Now on another topic, before we move into December, November is National Novel Writing Month. It also has a lot of random holidays for writing such as “I Love to Write Day.” This wonderful emphasis on writing, combined with my internal argument over sending a holiday letter, has made me realize that I have never yet explained to you folks WHY I am occasionally (I swear I’ll get better) writing a blog.

I do love to write. I’ve been writing fanfiction off and on since early high school. I’ve written quite a few short stories, and started quite a few novels that I will probably never finish. During college I had my assignments to write personal essays, David Sedaris style, and I realized those were my new love. Because there are two big problems when it comes to me and writing:

1. I have absolutely no discipline when it comes to writing. I like to write. I can write short things. However, when it comes to writing anything too long I don’t have the focus to come back, make myself sit down, and just write. I could complete stories for college because they were due for a class. Now I have nothing due, and it doesn’t really matter if I finish something or not. I really hope to work past this at some point. I have ideas I’d really like to get out there someday.

2. It may seem strange, but I have no confidence in my voice as a writer. In fact, I had the fear for the longest time that I did not have a voice at all. I felt like anyone could write what I wrote. They were just sentences on a page, with no life or meaning.

Considering my dream was to become a decent, semi-famous author, that was totally quotable and eventually had a movie or HBO series based off my books, I should have a good writing voice. Think of the “Pen Is Mightier” category on Jeopardy. You recognize quotes from books not because you memorize the entire book (unless you're lame and have no friends), but because the voice of the quote or character stands out.

This issue with my writing voice is why I write this blog, and why I used to send a family Christmas letter ever year.

The Christmas letter was a huge issue in my household growing up. It was something my parents decided I should do, and thus something I fought bitterly against. It normally ended with me being confined to a chair in front of the computer until I typed one out.

They weren’t long letters. Just one page announcements about my family and what had been going on for the year. Of course I felt like we had fairly stagnant lives. There’s only so many ways to say we’re all working excessively at our various jobs that haven’t changed. It was with the Christmas letter that I first started to feel like I had a bit of a writing voice, because I tended to write it different ways to keep myself amused. And the response was overall positive. Everyone in the larger family started clamoring for the yearly letters and said how much they loved them. I have to admit when I moved off on my own and my mother started writing the letters, it just wasn’t the same. I then decided I should continue to do letters for my own adventures, and have done 2 so far since moving out.

However this year, I’ve been blogging. I started blogging because I was impressed with my friend Erin’s witticism and thought this would be a good method for continuing to improve my written voice. This was a chance to write short entries (good for my attention span), but write consistently (good for building up writing stamina), and discuss whatever I want. So far, it’s been mostly a success. There are certainly posts that I enjoyed more than others, but if my goal is to further develop my voice I think I’m starting to get there. One of the best complements I’ve gotten so far is that my friend Callie has told me whenever she reads my posts, the whole time she just hears me speaking in her mind because it sounds so much like how I talk. So perfect!!

Of course there’s still more work to do in my voice training. Once one gets a voice, you then need to be able to change the expressions and tone to achieve different results.

I think I struggle with this so much in writing because I DON’T have this issue talking. I know I’ve discussed before that apparently I cannot tell a good story. Well the truth is: I suck a bit at conversations, but actual story telling? I excel. I have a very expressive voice. The voice itself still sucks, but by god when you hear me speak there are emotions and nuances and funny voices all over the place. I want that in my writing. I want to keep the reader involved and entertained. And I know I can get there eventually if I finally just knuckle down and practice.

So that, my friends, is why I write this blog.

Of course how is this tied into this year’s argument over whether or not to send a holiday letter? Well, if I’m writing the blog, I don’t really need the practice of also sending out a holiday letter. Plus, I feel like a large portion of the people I would send it to are actually reading this, and they know a lot of what’s been going on this year. But I do so like sending out pretty cards with the letter… hmm.

To end though, I thought I’d give you a little early holiday present. If you haven’t ever watched the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skits (we watched them A LOT in college, you have no idea), here’s one of my favorites where Sean Connery isn’t quite clear on the aforementioned pen category. As Sean wisely says, what matters is, "DOES IT WORK?" I think this is an excellent mindframe for writing as well. Does it work? The final result should be - yes!

It’s Just a Flesh Wound

My views on illness and injuries are practically from the middle ages. I generally do not go to the doctor. I don’t believe in personally being sick (because it’s all mental, so mind over matter, right?). I’m very much part of the “walk it off” group.

However in other ways, I verge on acting like a hypochondriac. I actually do have some general knowledge of the body and the various systems that make it up. We had this totally awesome computer “game” when I was little where you had Adam and Eve and you could pick something like lymph nodes or the cardiovascular system and they had fun little videos explaining how it worked. I took all the bio courses offered in high school, and way back in the day had quite a few toy medical kits. I also had my dad’s old travel medical bag. All of a sudden my dolls and teddy bears were suffering horrible injuries and subject to all kinds of emergency surgeries. My mother was quite distraught when she realized a real scalpel had been hidden at the bottom of Dad’s bag. Oops.

This just means that I like to use my slight knowledge to diagnose myself. Now I know lots of people do this through internet research. I like to just make random guesses and then come up with what I feel are appropriate treatments (face hurts? Probably sinuses. Must drink tea and take baths. Excessive vomiting? Have some sort of mint stuff and make sure to keep fluids down. Headache? Drink something with a bit of caffeine). Thus why I am convinced I’m dyslexic, and also suspect I have some sort of clotting/circulation issues.

Back in college this drove my roommates insane as I was obsessed with attempting to staple a wound closed. They sometimes use staples instead of stitches for bad cuts in the ER. I mean sure, they have their own medical staples, but I felt like the idea could be applied with normal staples. When I worked at The Meadows we once stapled ourselves. The boys were trying to out man each other which led to Nate stapling his arm. Being of the if-you-can-do-it-I-can-do-it mind frame we then stapled me, and one of the other guys. Not a big deal. However the staple couldn’t really fully imbed in the skin, which made me curious to see if it would work better elsewhere and with an actual injury. Which is why whenever somebody in college had any sort of cut, I ran around imploring them to let me staple it.

I can’t say I’ve ever had any serious injuries where it would matter that I tend to ignore real medical treatment. The one time I broke my wrist we did actually go to a doctor (I was only 12, and rather hysterical for a whole lot of other reasons than just breaking my wrist). Otherwise I’ve made it through things like food poisoning, chemical burns, broken toes, and some sort of ankle injury.

Now that one might have actually not been that bad at first. It’s hard to say. We were heading to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. I was wearing very thin shoes, and stepped on a rock which then caused me to twist my ankle in some direction I don’t think it wanted to go. I breathed for a minute while I determined whether or not it was broken. Since I was driving, and it was my left ankle, I told everyone we could continue on. I figured it was a long drive and it could rest. Once we got there I ignored it. All was fine and dandy until we were back home at the end of the day and I decided to actually take a look at the stupid thing. I pretty much had half a baseball sticking out of my ankle. It took a month of ice and wrapping it until it seemed back to normal.

The Toe, several days after breaking.

When I broke my toes, I was yet again running around on them all day and laughing here and there while announcing “I think I broke my toes, guys.” I’m not sure anyone really believed me until we were getting mani-pedis and I declined as my entire pinky toe, part of my foot, and the next toe over were the most interesting shade of purple. But really, they’re toes. I taped them up later and wore flip flops for a month.

I just don’t find most external injuries that big of a deal. Generally you know what caused them, and you can see and fix them.

Illnesses should really be a whole other story. What I hate about illness though is it’s generally not as visible. You’re just going off what someone says they feel. Are they overreacting? Are they underplaying symptoms?? Who knows. I’m probably one of the worst offenders. I don’t mention anything that I don’t think is relevant. I only go to the doctor once I feel it’s necessary, which is how I managed to be sick for over a month in college with who knows what. A virus? Mono? A blood clot? No one’s really sure.

While when I talk to others I tend to push the “walk it off” philosophy, on the other hand I am very likely to tell them to go to the doctor whenever they have weird symptoms. You never really know what’s going on in your body. There’s so much they can fix now, as long as you catch it early. It’s much better to swallow your pride and talk to the doctor over ignoring something until it’s past being treatable.

Yeah this makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I can live with that. To be fair, while I don’t actually go in to the doctor I do talk to doctors, which is practically the same thing as a regular consultation.

As you may or may not know, November, besides being NaNoWriMo (which I’m still not doing. One of these years it’ll happen by god), is also Movember. Men across the world are growing some very fun mustaches to earn awareness for men’s health issues. Since some men have a tendency to ignore preventive health measures (they treat it like asking for directions…) I think this is brilliant. While we can’t all grow amazing mustaches, we can all do our part to support them. If you have a spare dollar or two you can head over here to my friend Marc’s page and donate. Make sure to vote for the Hulk Hogan. The Cop scares me.

Keep in mind that all the things you can be doing at any point to promote your own health. Be somewhat active. Eat healthy-ish. Wear a seat belt. Everyone has their own version of being healthy (for instance, I only eat a half pound of bacon at one sitting rather than a full pound) but it’s important to just keep these ideas in mind. You don’t want to end up dying at The Heart Attack Grill (fascinating place I found in Vegas).

The Day the Metabolism Died

“We're women. There is nothing above bottoms on the crisis scale. Bottoms are our natural enemy.”

-Sally Harper, Coupling

Today is Gorgeous Grandma Day, and you know how I love me some random holidays. Today I want to start by talking about my grandmother on my mother’s side. She was totally a dish back in the day. Obviously I didn’t know her back then, but I’ll say that she looks like quite a bit of a vixen too. I’d bet you $5 she would have had you wrapped around her finger and begging to carry out her every wish. Of course she probably was also a bit of a tease, as she’ll tell anyone sitting with her no matter what age range that she hates sex. Does not like it. No thank you, sir.

Anyway, so not only was my grandma super sexy back in the day, she aged really well. I would never dare to say her actual age (I want to live!) but she has always looked much younger. And this despite a totally unhealthy diet avoiding all the essential things doctors think you need. Go, Grandma!

Of course, as much as I wish for this genetic legacy, I’m pretty sure it’s going to skip me and go to my brother. The lucky duck. But he has far more of the other traits from that side of the family than I do. Including the butt. Yes, the butt.

My mother’s side of the family tends more towards voluptuousness. These are all hot, curvy, sexalicious women. Now for some of us it’s more bust. For some, like my mother, it’s all in the rear. My mother has quite a butt on her. And when she was a young, sexy thang, she showed it off. Short shorts, boots, and dresses that are ridiculously short. This is why over the years she’s earned nicknames like Buns and Mrs. Lumpy Bottom.

My father loves to tease her about her butt. Being impressionable children at one point and then turning to habit, my brother and I totally picked it up too. My dad sometimes hinted that I might expect the same thing to happen when I got older, but genetics loved me for once, and while I got a little butt at some point, I never got a rear quite like my mother’s. But to my endless delight, MY BROTHER DID!!

Yes, it’s as funny as it sounds. Sadly, I can’t find a really super awesome photo to demonstrate, but here is one example. My brother is to the left. Even in this picture you can see the curvature. Notice the huge difference from the random person on the right with saggy jeans, the guy norm. My brother’s got some junk in the trunk. Baby got back. And it is GROWING. This is an older picture. I’m fairly certain his butt is larger now.

I spent years cackling over this fact of life and telling almost anyone I knew about my brother’s butt. Unfortunately, I think karma caught up to me.

You see, in the past month or so I’ve become convinced that my butt is starting to get bigger.

Love this show.

Seriously, it's awesome.

Just to clarify, I am NOT one of those girls that constantly obsesses over their behind, like Sally from Coupling. My butt isn’t too big, or too small. It’s just there, so I ignored it. I didn’t dress to show it off, I didn’t worry about it looking too large.

All of a sudden though my clothes started fitting differently. I pulled out pants that used to fit fine, and now they’re unduly tight in the derriere region. I throw on skirts I used to love, and the hem’s a little too close to my unmentionables for comfort. Even my underwear is fitting differently.

But it’s a subtle change. That’s the problem. I’m not entirely sure if my butt is really larger, or if it’s all in my mind. After all, I hardly look at the thing. I don’t have it memorized. Maybe it was always that size. Maybe my dryer went rogue and shrunk all my clothes. I keep asking people I know if they’ve looked at my butt before and can verify, but they just think I’m crazy (story of my life).

There’s a legitimate reason for why I need to know if it’s getting bigger. I need to identify the cause.

See, I jazzercise now. Someday I might do a whole jazzercise post, but let me just say it’s amazing, and I love it. My tummy is firmer, my thighs are becoming bricks, and I have arm muscles for the first time in my entire life. So my cute lil bum should NOT be getting larger. Unless it’s muscle, which is what people have suggested. I think it might be perkier, but is it muscle?? I can't tell.

In which case, is this a sign that my metabolism has finally started to die!?!

This is what I need to know – the state of my metabolism. This is crucially important to my continued existence.

I’m not saying I have the best metabolism in the world. It wouldn’t win gold medals. However, my metabolism is totally a beast. I’ve never been super skinny, but on the plus side I’ve never been plus size, which I completely owe to my metabolism. Until jazzercise this year, I didn’t work out regularly. I disdained physical activity.

Not to mention the things I eat fairly often would probably cause someone with a normal metabolism to gain 5 pounds in 5 seconds.

Don’t believe me? Ok well, let’s give some concrete examples. I will eat cheese sticks (the fried kind, not that stupid string cheese stuff) several days in a row. I once ate enough icecream in a single sitting to give my tongue (mild) frostbite. Now that I’m older and trying to be slightly healthy, I limit myself to only a half pound of bacon at once. Yeah.

So if this is a sign of the times, and my metabolism is starting to die off, I need to know STAT. Then I might have to do crazy things like limiting how much I eat and believing in calories. Oh the horror… I’m not ready for this. I’m too young! I have too much to live for!!

Steal My Sunshine

Happy Father’s Day to all the proud papas of the world!

When I think of my mother, I think of movies we watch together. Probably because my mother is one of those people that frequently talks during movies (“what’s happening? Why did they just go in the creepy building!? What do I know that actor from?”). If she wasn’t so adorable I’d be afraid to take her out to see movies in public. But when I think of my dad, I always think of music.

I’m a little weird on music. I grew up listening to my dad’s music, so I was probably the only 6 year old running around singing Pink Floyd and George Michael. Mixed in with that was some Paula Abdul, which I particularly loved. I have no idea why my father had this CD, but I’d make him play Forever Your Girl over and over again, belting out each song. I liked it much better than some of his other music, like The Alan Parsons Project.

My dad seems to have my same strange trend in music choices. Not that we always like the same things, but just that we have very eclectic tastes. I already mentioned that he liked Paula Abdul. Well when I was 11 he got the Shania Twain CD. We listened to that CD so many times as he drove me to school…. And just to make sure you get the full mental picture, we’d go in his miata convertible, top down, my hair blowing in the breeze, me singing my little heart out as usual… yeah, I’m sure it was a bit of a strange sight. In fact Shania Twain songs remind me so much of my father, that for a while I had That Don’t Impress Me Much as his ringtone. Initially I had it set to Man! I Feel Like a Woman, but my mother protested.

After that I started to find music of my own, but my daddy was more than willing to add it to our car tunes during road trips. Which is how we ended up listening to Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls countless times. It takes a special kind of man to listen straight through 2 Spice Girls CDs without going insane on the preteen girl next to him, hogging the front seat of the car as usual.

But the song that absolutely stands out in my mind when I think of my father, is Steal My Sunshine.

SEE!

Generally I think my dad’s genes made my mom’s genes their bitch, as I am remarkably like my dad in looks, skills, temperament… you name it. In fact when I dress up as a guy (for themed parties or events!) I could be his younger doppelgänger if my head was just slightly more round. My brother is the opposite. He takes way more after my mother, although his personality is the exact same as my dad’s.

This drove me insane when I was a teenager, for various reasons. One being that I absolutely hated having brown hair & eyes. And I don’t even have exciting shades of brown for either one. No, I’m like absolutely middle-of-the-road-completely-average boring. This gave me a lot of self-esteem issues.

The other problem was that where I had been a happy child, I was an ANGRY teenager. Yeah, yeah, I know everyone has teenage angst, but it was waaaaaaaay exaggerated for me because my parents moved us around the same time. I was angry. I was bitter. I was withdrawn. I was an evil devilspawn that any second might go off and make you fear for your life.

My poor mother actually bore the brunt of my evilness, but I think my father, sharing my temperament, understood it better.

So when I became angry and withdrawn, my father revealed that he had gone through the same thing, and believe it or not it would get better. Of course I didn’t believe him, so he would use any occasion to give me helpful little tips to get me through it.

The one that really sunk in was when I was watching the Steal My Sunshine video on MTV. Ya know, back when they actually played music videos the majority of the time. I was sitting there watching it, probably pouting as usual, (as I’ve said, it’s like my default response to life), and Dad came up behind me.

“Look at that girl, and how she smiles all the time. Do you see how much prettier she is when she smiles? Why don’t you try that?”

Simple words, but it was a lightening strike. I won’t say overnight I stopped being completely horrible to my poor parents, but those words sunk in.

Every parent contributes in some way to their child, whether genetics, learned traits, or morals. When we become adults, we have more opportunity to choose our own paths that take us away from what we learned. But I have based my life off those words.

Because it wasn’t really about being “prettier.” My dad’s a smart man. He said what would grab my attention. It’s about being happy. It’s about your outlook on life. I was choosing to mope, to be miserable. I could just as easily choose to be happy. I could make the best of a bad situation. And that’s what I’ve decided to do.

So now, I am actually known for my smile. I am known for being happy, perky, adorable… you get the picture. And honestly it’s not that I’m happy all the time. It’s because when I get stressed, after a little internal freak out, I breathe and remember those words. And then I smile, because I choose to do so.

My daddy is amazing, and I love him. But when I think of him what comes to my mind first is not all the times of the past when he demonstrated his awesomeness, but the fact I know my future will be a bright one, because he taught me how to make it happen.

Neek Pride Day

Today is Nerd or Geek Pride Day, which I have also converted into Neek Pride Day. Happy Pride Day to all my dear nerds, geeks, and neeks!

To celebrate, I’m going to visit my brother, a fellow neek if there ever was one. It’s always interesting when I visit my brother. Sometimes we stay in and do totally awesome neek things like have an anime marathon & drinking game, or play magic cards. Sometimes we go out and party, or go be active and play something like ultimate Frisbee (which I fail at). I’m not sure what we’re doing this time. He promised we’d go play laser tag though, so I’m pretty psyched about that.

On the other hand, I am not at all excited about my layover in Chicago. It seems like my flights ALWAYS go through Chicago. I’m getting sick of their food options. And really, how do they not have a Starbucks in the airport?? Don’t get me wrong I normally appreciate local coffee places, but right now I am desperately craving a mocha cookie crumble frappuccino. How dare you deny me, Chicago!! I don’t want to get one after finally landing… that’ll be way too late in the afternoon. I don’t process caffeine the same way I used to. Curse you, Chicago Midway!

That was a rather large digression. I apologize, those cookie crumble frapps are just sooooo good.

Today I actually want to talk more about pride. I’m very happy there is a holiday devoted to nerd/geek/neek pride. Interestingly enough, I used to think I wasn’t the type of person that had a lot of pride.

I’m not sure why really. I certainly wasn’t the opposite either; it’s not like I was ashamed of myself or anything. Pride just wasn’t a word I really connected with myself.

When I was in college, I took a class where we converted a medieval play into a more modern version. Everyone in the class had different jobs to get it set up, and then most of us also acted in the play. I was part of the crew that actually wrote it. Our medieval play was the Castle of Perseverance, which we turned into Fast Times at Morality High. It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Honestly no idea what I'm doing in this shot.

The Virtues became cheerleaders at the school. The Vices became a gang. I was cast as a Vice, Pride. My friends and I thought it was a bit odd, because again, I don’t identify myself as particularly prideful, but I figured I didn’t really match any of the other roles either. Plus I had a lot of fun with it. We were doing it 80s style, so I threw my hair into crazy curls and got some jellies. I went looking for pictures of us Vices in our full 80s glory, and stumbled upon the website we created for the play. Too bad we don’t have the full video up! You’d be in for a treat.

It really wasn’t until this week that I started to rethink my stance on what it means to have pride. I was reading Divergent (which is super awesome and gets 2 thumbs up from me) and the main character was talking about how she had too much pride. She identified it as the weakness for a group, as their pride kept them acting tough and doing crazy, dangerous things just so they wouldn’t lose face.

Seriously, it was like a light bulb moment. Unbeknownst to myself, I have always been INSANELY prideful. It just blends in so well with some of my other more obvious traits (stubbornness, defiance), that I never realized it was part of the problem.

Take for instance, one of my mother’s favorite examples of an early childhood moment that confirmed I would be a handful. My mother had surgery on her foot, so my grandmother was staying with us for a few weeks to help out. Now I already had my mother trained on how to dress me for kindergarten, but apparently my grandmother missed the memo because she tried to make me wear pants. So what if it was the winter?? I wore fluffy dresses. Everyone wore fluffy dresses. I absolutely refused to put on the pants, and would not go to school in anything except one of my dresses.

Don’t worry, I won the argument. I always thought this situation was just because I wanted to wear a dress, but in reconsidering, the whole reason I wore fluffy dresses (besides liking them) was because I was proud. It was a status symbol in our class. Sure, no one would really care if I went one day without a dress, but I had faaaaaaaaaar too much pride to hold myself to the lower standards of people who dressed according to the weather. I was one of the few girls that sat at the top of the jungle gym damnit, and by God I would not lose face be being relegated to the lower half with the pants wearers!

And this was when I was in kindergarten. Imagine how much worse that pride has been getting without me realizing it.

But pride is not a negative thing. Sometimes it might lead to some extreme reactions, but in general I think it’s important to have pride in yourself.

Now that I think about it, there are several areas where I’ve always had a lot of pride. I’m a proud Steelers fan. I’m proud of my Scottish heritage. And we all know how proud I am of my epic reading abilities.

So let’s all celebrate the fact that what were formerly belittling traits are now cause for pride. Celebrate your neekness! And while you’re at it, celebrate and be proud of all the other things that make you, well, YOU!

I’ll finish with good news as well! I just realized I’m flying through DALLAS on my way there, not Chicago. That’s on the way back. Now as long as Dallas airport has a Starbucks I will be one happy neek!