My First Half Marathon

LOOK HOW BADASS THIS PICTURE IS. I feel really cool (even though it looks like a squirrel is sitting on my head).

Kooky Spooky Half Marathon
Golden, CO
October 25, 2015

Coming Your Way Soon--hopefully.

A pretty sunset last week...probably after a flash flood or something...

Here's an itsy-bitsy update since my mother might have mentioned people are getting a little antsy about my lack of posting.... I don't know who you are but thank you for noticing I've been off the grid...and thanks for reading :) --it makes me feel real warm and fuzzy. 

First of all, I am alive and well. Really well, actually. Yesterday, July 6, 2015, marked my One Year Coloradoversary (as my friend Lora called it). That's what I really want my next real hearty post to be about...but I don't exactly have time for that. At least not yet. 

Wanna know why?

1) I've been working 50 hours a week the past 3 weeks.

2) I'm in the process of moving out of my house and into my first solo apartment.

3) I'm applying for full time jobs.

4) It's summer in Denver and I'm obviously trying to have fun, too-- duh. 

Hopefully I'll have some enjoyable writing time soon (because NO, I don't consider writing cover letters and editing my resume to meet the needs of every job description enjoyable).

It may still be a few weeks til I'm officially back at it--but until then, send me productive mojo vibes!! I have a lot of adult-y things I need to get taken care of. 

:)

"You look like Britney Spears...and NOT in a good way."

Bullying, luckily, was never a very big issue I faced when I was growing up. I witnessed it from time to time with friends and tried my best to serve as an advocate--but fortunate for me, I was rarely the punch line to some bully's joke-- at least not to my face...

Well, except this one time. 

It was a late-start day in the 7th grade, I had just bought a new skirt, and it was warm enough to wear it since we started school later in the morning. I was SO excited for my outfit! I wore a white shirt, my new black and gray layered skirt, my white knee high socks, and my Jack Purcell shoes. I thought I looked adorable...and my mother let me out of the house...so I couldn't have been looking too sleazy or dumb or mis-matched, right?

Wrong-- according to this bully. 

In typical "mean girls" fashion, a group of three 8th grade girls with arms linked came strolling up behind me and the middle girl decided to say this to me (I am 99.9% sure this is a direct quote):

"What the hell are you wearing? You look like Britney Spears-- and not in a good way."

These girls didn't miss a beat. They just kept on walking. To say the very least, after that, my day was ruined. I remember pushing my socks down the entire rest of the day, avoiding eye contact with as many people as possible for fear they had the same judgement, and my 1st period English seat-neighbor asking, very concerned, if I was okay over and over again.

Ugh-- bitch (Pardon my French)...I will never forget this girl.

Tomorrow is an event called Totally Tennyson which is a 70s-80s-90s themed street/bar/restaurant crawl that benefits the Denver Public School system. Dressing up, drinking, eating, and benefitting the children?? Be still, my heart--I'm there!

And guess who I'm dressing up as? Oh yeah, you guessed it, BRITNEY EFFING SPEARS, knee-high socks and all. I have pretty severe anxiety about wearing this outfit tomorrow...mostly because of what hurt me when I was a kid but I'm doing it anyway. I am going to rock it. And if anyone has an opinion I'll just say "HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME! I can take it!"

Happy Friday, all. Have a safe and wonderful weekend. I promise I'll do the same :)

Nothing-Too-Crazy November

I guess I’ve gotten a bit behind on the monthly updates again huh? Well here’s to going back in time and writing them anyway. I am a stubborn little lady…so even though this stuff isn’t particularly relevant in the middle of April…it still happened and I’m still going to write about it. Cheers to stubbornness!!

November was a relatively anticlimactic month…in that nothing Earth shattering happened. Emotional turmoil occurred as per usual…and I had to drive in the snow for the first time which was the most treacherous thing I’ve ever had to do in order to commute for work…but besides that, it’s all run-of-the-mill.

Working with them High Schoolers

Multiple times a year, Mi Casa has students take surveys so that we can get funding through certain grants and just to track their progress. During November, we had our first meeting regarding a couple of the survey’s results. Most of the information told us that the students don’t feel much peer-to-peer trust. We have since been working hard to create a peer-support-system amongst the students. Despite that pretty big glitch, we did find out something pretty cool. Our students responded to the survey with information that showed they feel heard, supported, and safe with all of the Mi Casa staff. We were all very happy about this.

A student stepped up and helped me run a program she planned called “Fear Factor”—yes, like the show. It wasn’t icky gross stuff like in the show (mostly because I can’t have students eating spiders on my watch) but we did do fun little timed challenges. The best one was a thing we called “The Slimy Search.” The day before our little event, we made spaghetti noodles and Jell-o and hid 10 little licorice pieces in each container. We let the Jell-o solidify overnight and then everyone had to just dig in. It was messy and fun and the students really liked it J

The Slimy Search!

A Long Island Thanksgiving

I bought a ticket out to New York for Thanksgiving 42 hours before my departure time. I’m not a super impulsive person…but I’m glad I was this time. I got to spend about 5 days with Doug and his family during the holidays. I love being with people I care about at the holidays—don’t you? Doug and I made gluten free cheesecake (holy crap it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever had…or maybe it’s just because I hadn’t had cheesecake in a long time), I found pumpkin cider that ACTUALLY tasted like pumpkin, I watched my favorite movie/musical “Rent”, played lots of charades, and was made extra special gluten free stuffing and gravy at Doug’s family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone was so considerate and welcoming and warm. It was a great last minute trip.

Awesome pictures from our photoshoot with Doug's Mom for her
new line of men's hats! And girls ones too :)

Attempting to be Social

Tennyson Street is a happening place these days. Downpours is poppin’ and there are lots of restaurants opening almost every day (slight exaggeration). My absolute [now] favorite restaurant is a little place called Block&Larder. I went over there on their first soft-opening day after I got off of work at the coffee shop. It’s the first not-café-type-place I’ve ever been to alone. I chatted with the bartenders and the other people sitting at the bar enjoying the food. I’ve never been so brave socially in my entire life! Although now I wish I never discovered this talent…I find myself trekking across the street more than my pocket book likes…

The Simple Serendipities

The Race Exhibit. Ah, yes. My roommate Sam and I went to the Colorado History Museum and checked out the Race Exhibit that was there for the season. It was amazing and so educational. We went to a “special event” there so they also narrowed racism down to Colorado and Denver alone…which was out of the ordinary for the exhibit. It was really neat.

My first drawing :)

New Hobbies. After watching Doug’s mom crochet so many things while I was in Long Island (you guys should definitely check out her stuff here), I decided I wanted to try out the hobby myself. I went out and got crochet hooks, yarn, and a fun little drawing-start-up-kit. I love crafting :)

My New Writing Game

My parents got me the most adorable and dorky birthday present a recent novelist and brand new writing group member could ask for...

They got me a "game" called The Writer's Toolbox and yes, we did play it at our writing group last night. And this is why I write to you today.

April is National Poetry Writing Month. Ideally, I hoped to write one poem a day during this month...but let's be real, that hasn't been happening. But lo and behold, because I had writing group last night, I wrote a poem. I have never ever ever published a poem on the internet so please be kind. The following poem is what was created as a result of The Writer's Toolbox and National Poetry Writing Month. 

Untitled

I put tulips under all the pillows and then I set the house on fire

The pink petals billowed

Cotton Candy

The toddlers from across Sherman Avenue crawl slugglishly toward it

I try to wave them away

But each word out of my mouth is green petal after petal

I pull leaves from my eyelids

Brush dirt from my kneecaps

She found a diamond bracelet in the back of the car-- little baby Peyton

That's the last I saw of her before she was swallowed

Choking in the thickness I created

I used to plant tulips at the Foster House garden

I lived there from twelve to eighteen before I got the fuck out of Dodge

Dodge, Arkansas-- really

I see the foster parents' judging eyes and I am peaceful once again drowning in this smoke

The lemon sherbet that melted all over the counter is what lit the match, I'll tell them

Its yellow ooze dripping slowly like the children crawling

With each drip

          Friction

          Friction

          Friction

          Spark

Good thing I had the flowers ready

The slightly purple words are the sentences from the game. You pick a "First Sentence" stick then you write for 6 minutes. You pick a "NonSequitur" stick and write for 6 minutes. Then you pick up a "Last Straw" stick and finish up. So there ya go. If you want to write something, anything, even if its terrible, I seriously suggest picking up this game. It is/was fun :)

My Denver Stay-cation.

A beautiful thing is happening these days-- I have some time off. Outrageous, I know. I was planning on being in New York City for Spring Break...but because of not-totally-forseen circumstances (hah), I am instead having a little bit of a "stay-cation" right here in the Denver area. It has been and will continue to be in the 70s until tomorrow-ish so I am participating in all my out-doorsy, sun-dressy activities until the snow starts on Thursday. Oh Denver, how you confuse and excite me. 

Since the start of my vacation which also doubles as my last week of being 23 (gasp!), I have done a lot of really cool shit-- pardon my French. I have gone on a Harley ride to gorgeous Golden, went to a poetry slam at The Mercury Cafe with my roomie, went on a great hike in Mount Galbraith Park, beer tasted for the first time ever at Odd13 Brewing, cider tasted at The Old Mine Cidery and Brewpub, stayed the night with one of the best friends I've made since moving to Denver, and connected for the first time with my mom's cousin. Life has been really really fun the past couple days.

The next couple days, however, are a little less "fun" and a little more about planning my future. I'm staying in Denver for at least another year-- yay, seriously. This means, though, that I need to find a full-time job (cue depressing, exhausted music). My time with Mi Casa's Neighborhood Center at North is coming to a close the end of May...and I need to replace that fulfilling job with another one. I don't think making espresso drinks is going to make the "I feel like I'm making a positive difference in people's lives" cut. Luckily I have made some incredible professional connections that have been passing along job openings and I am so grateful.

But despite these awesome connections, I still have to go through the struggle, pain, disappointment, elation, and rigor of applying for all these jobs. Life is fun and busy today...Life will be (hopefully) motivated and busy tomorrow. 

This is Lisa's new puppy in a bag.
We thought it was hilarious-- naturally.

A cool little flower cactus ball on my Mount Galbraith Hike :)

Gluten-reduced (<10ppm) beer at Odd 13 Brewing!

Until next time... :)

Hope in my Back Pocket

I've been really angry lately. I mean, uncharacteristically so. I think this has to be my least favorite emotion. I feel guilty for feeling angry. Does that make sense? Like-- I CAN'T rationalize myself out of sadness...but I CAN rationalize my way out of anger. So why don't I? I feel like when I'm angry (for more than a couple minutes) I'm just unnecessarily stewing on things that don't really matter. It's all the would have's, could have's, should have's. It's regret. It's mixed with sadness. It sucks. I feel angry for being angry. Have you ever felt that way? It's this vicious cycle that I know will end soon but I wish I could end sooner. I feel lost. I feel exhausted for expelling such powerful energy. I want to be happy again-- or at least a smiling version of neutral. I want to be okay. I just want to be able to mean it when people ask "how have you been?" and I say "fine". It's been a rough couple weeks. It's been a rough month. It's been a rough 2015 so far. I'm ready for things to turn around. 

So now I will turn things around, even if the universe isn't ready for me to be "okay" yet. I'm ready and that is all the permission I need to move forward with a smile on my face and hope in my back pocket.

So here are my (new) goals for the rest of 2015. 

Run a half- marathon. 

Write and perform a spoken word poem. 

I run a lot and write a lot when I'm sad and angry anyway. I might as well set some goals to focus my exasperated self. 

Below is one of my favorite TED Talks of all time. The part that focuses on "the dark side of the subjunctive" is actually one of the most healing concepts I've ever wrapped my head around. I feel regret because the English language allows for it. I do not have to feel this way. Not everyone feels this way. Something about that gives me immense relief. I highly encourage you to watch.