"awkward adolescence" link-up with delirious rhapsody!

Gather round, friends – and be merry! for today I share with you the story of my journey from this:

To this:

(@ delirious-rhapsody)

Although I feel a bit fraudulent participating in this sharing of awkward adolescence, since mine doesn’t appear to have ended yet. My skin is still shit, and when feelings happen I am still mystified to the point of tears or sulking or yelling or a snack coma. And I never did get used to my changing body. Huh. In any case, feast your eyes on the photographs of my rise to power. Er, adulthood. Errr, quasi-adulthood.

It's important to note that I dressed mySELF like an old lady. I think I was going for "angst-y poet."

Clearly my brother takes me very, very seriously. 

I'm on the far right, obviously. First girlfriends. Awes.

CLOGS. BAND.

Nailing it, as always, the summer before eighth grade. And those are fake teeth.

Because I felt my real ones weren't tragic enough.

On the way to the eighth grade formal, where I spent the whole night sitting with a boy I liked spilling things onto his Stain Dockers and giggling. He had asked me to be his date to the dance? And I really, really liked him so that was awesome. Then almost immediately stopped liking him and told him I just wanted to go to the dance with my friends. And then liked him again and spent the whole night with him anyway. And then we went to different high schools and I think he's a doctor now. There's a lesson in there, I think. And that lesson is that Stain Dockers are neat and fun.

Freshman year I mostly hung around this girl, who was awesome plus in college so was made even more awesome in my ninth-grade mind. (She lived upstairs from me and ours moms were friends, so wasn't like college-student-creepily-hangs-around-high-schoolers scenario. Calm down.) She taught me all about good music and used to let me come to work with her at a bookstore and do the register and that it was okay to be awkward because it made you more awesome.

Wore a lot of band t shirts? Even though hated going to the concerts. 

Also thought school was boring. The fact that I graduated is a testament to my black magic skills. Which is why I am now taking elementary algebra at twenty-three. THANKS A LOT, ADOLESCENT LINDSAY.

Also wore my brother's t shirts a lot. And spent probably too much time wandering around downtown, which at the time I felt was very glamorous. 

Went to Kansas City a bunch of times? Yeah, I don't know. LOOK HOW LITTLE MY EYEBROWS ARE. WHY. (PS: Valerie, sorry I dragged your awkward adolescence into this. Also thank you because most of these pictures are ones you took.)

Why?

OH. Suddenly remember why.

 "Riding in Vans with Mr. Bestor." 

Being extraordinarily helpful at a food pantry.

Awkwardly had too many dates to junior prom. Showed up with two boys and a girl, both boys thought they were my date when one of them was actually supposed to be for her? Unclear in memory. Anyway was very effective way to make recent ex-boyfriend jealous. He threw up on a fake horse in a stable at the castle where prom was. True story.

Awkwardly dated awkward boys.

Not him though, I think he was gay. Also don't remember who he was. BUT CHECK MY STATE OFFICER PIN. You're impressed, it's fine.

That's enough I think. In other news I scheduled an outfit post for tomorrow (I KNOW EXCITING RIGHT) that I was going to do today but! I thought this sounded like more fun. And so I scheduled it for you all, because while I love you very much I am very busy and important and not the owner of a smartphone. Happy weekend!

I haven't been able to sleep lately. It's kind of awful. Instead of sleeping, I have been taking pictures of myself in the mirror looking vaguely ghost-like (it should be noted that a lot of things can seem vaguely ghost-like at two in the morning): 

Then I spend some time contemplating a push-up regime, decide that it will probably only make my arms look bigger, and continue ferrying something delicious into the hole in my face. Then I write some stuff. I'd say the one plus of not being able to get to sleep, or stay asleep, is that I have been writing more. Which also means I've been thinking more, and the kind of thinking that happens when one ought to be sleeping is either the best or worst kind of thinking, I haven't decided yet. Anyway I've also been reading some Thomas Merton lately, which may be part of the reason why one of the things I've been thinking about is my relationship with Catholicism. (This is probably too long for blog standards and too ramble-y and half-baked for consumption but uh. Too bad?)

Once when I was around four, our priest called all the young children up to the altar and told some story about seagulls or pelicans or something. Then we were supposed to fly back to our families like the seagulls; probably it was about our flock, or something, I really don't know. In any case when all the other kids flapped their arms back to their parents, I just stayed there. My legs were crossed, my hands were folded in my lap, and I remember looking at the priest like "You're here, I'm here, we're having a party - go ahead, I'm all ears." He thought it was hilarious, because I am and always have been that, and I think I ended up seeing my grandparents and went to perch in their pew. (Do seagulls even perch? There's too much bird stuff going on in this paragraph, I know. But you're here, I'm here, we're having a party - it's  fine.)

Sometimes I miss Catholicism. Maybe it's the "god gene," maybe it's that my birth made a long line of Roman Catholics even longer, or maybe it's just that I really like incense and candles and chanting in darkened rooms. God only knows. (See what I did there.)

For every Mass I've ever attended, which in the last decade has been almost none, there are about seventeen million decidedly un-Catholic things I have done. "Venial sins," for the sake of our theme. The idea of the Papacy doesn't sit right with me and I disagree with a lot of Church doctrine - I don't think being gay or using birth control is a sin and I think it's silly that women can't be ordained, etc etc yadda yadda yadda. And obviously there are Catholics who don't agree with the church on  everything, so why don't I just shut up and be one of them, right? (Also a ton of Catholics do NOT shut up about the things they disagree with - priests secretly ordaining women, underground churches - it really is a party.) I don't know. I don't know why I can align myself with a company I don't entirely agree with (THIS BLOG IS IN NO WAY A REFLECTION OF CITY YEAR blah bleh) because I believe in its bones but not with a religion. Like, if I enjoy my work but think my company is kind of the worst sometimes,
why is that more okay to me than enjoying a faith but thinking the institution of that faith is kind of sketch sometimes? Why is it more okay for me to disagree with my company's policies than it would be for me to disagree with the doctrines of my church? Either way, I'm part of something that impacts my life. And either way, I'm going to do what I think is right anyway. Plus also, if I tell my boss to F off I'll probably get fired. If I tell my priest to do the same I get forgiven! By God, anyway. I imagine the priest might be more likely to hold a grudge against that one ornery lamb in the congregation bleating curse words at him.

Because, and here's my other thing: the priest is only human. And so are the bishops and the cardinals and the pope. Jesus and the saints were all human beings. Kings and queens and presidents and dictators and sultans and generals and pharoahs and doctors and lunatics and you and me and everybody we know are. all. human. I have a really, really hard time with any kind of thinking that includes God as a separate being. God, to me, is inside of us. For me, that means a lot of things. It means that we're all fallible and wonderful in equal parts. I think the journey to be closer to God is an inward one, not a climb up some holy ladder. (The space for contemplation in Catholicism, not unlike Zen, is one of its more attractive parts for me.) Solitude, searching inward, reflection - all extremely significant parts of my life. (Re:  Hermit-y.) I love and believe in people. I don't want to be around them all the time, because honestly they're exhausting, but I want to serve them. Like a lot of my fellow asocials, I live the seeming contradiction of having chosen and continuing to choose occupations based on a desire to make life better for people. I've experienced the community, the opportunity to connect born out of tragedy. There have also been simple conversations over cups of coffee or seemingly random exchanges with strangers or thoughts that occur to me during periods of fallowness ('fallowness' is a word, spell-check, take it up with the dictionary) that have drastically altered my worldview.  Those moments, those feelings, those times - momentous or seemingly trivial - I don't mind saying that I feel God then. Maybe not a biblical God, but definitely Something. So why, then, if I can feel God when someone kind helps me with my bag on the train or in the space between the palm of a child's hand and my own... why do I need religious doctrine? What use do I have for rituals? What is the point of the church hierarchy, of the whole institution, when leaves on the ground feel every bit as holy to me as the altar?

The thing is - the altar does feel holy to me. Despite the fact that my brain is like, "Uh, why? Because some dude said some words over it? You think there's some magic beans in that chalice? 'Body and blood of Christ?' Ew, and creepy, and ew." And despite my objections to the Papacy, I automatically regard people like priests and nuns with a certain amount of reverence. Perhaps this is a byproduct of catechism classes during my formative years or something, but I tend to think it's more their faith I admire, their willingness to believe in and dedicate their lives to something so fully. Maybe the ritual, the idea of being a 'practicing' Catholic (or a practicing anything) is appealing because I want to know how to feel God at times when I normally feel isolated or scared or desolate or devastated or rejected. Maybe I have felt it, in the form of a kind word from someone when I'm sad or an unexplainable peace settling down around my histrionics, and maybe I just can't always recognize it.

I can't find a way to end this, which is fitting, given the topic. So I'm not going to agonize over it. You are not my English teacher. (Unless you are, in which case hello, and can this count as extra credit?)

and the reason that i do not fall into this street is love

Currently!

Loving: My super-tidy, filled-with-clean-laundry closet. (Finally unpacked all suitcases. Now - someone give me a reason to pack another one!) Old friends getting in touch with me. New friends from unexpected places. Most recently thrifted treasures, including, and I know I always say this but it's because it's always true, the most dreamiest dream dress that Dreamy McDreamerson ever dreamed.

Reading: A book about Catholicism that will probably inspire its own post. I just finished:
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
The Abortionist's Daughter, which I thought said "The Abolitionist's Daughter" and was a little disappointed when I got it home and realized my mistake. Related - my mom and I went on a date to see Lincoln this weekend and I liked it lots. My favorite part was when Abe was all "OMFG you guys. Get. Your. Shit. Together. I AM THE PRESIDENT." That's a direct quote.*

I want/need to start keeping track of the books I read because I keep starting new books only to realize that I've already read them. Which is mostly fine because I like re-reading books, only it happened the other day with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and who forgets reading a heartbreaking work of staggering genius?

*That is not a direct quote.

Watching: Have we met? I don't watch TV. I may or may not be the most out-of-touch person you know. I don't know who you know. But if you know me then it's probably me.

I'm lying though because I totally just watched The Mindy Project on hulu because Mindy would have had hurt feelings if I didn't. And I am dying for the next season of Downton Abbey to show up on Netflix, also Parenthood, also The United States of Tara.

Anticipating: The end of this semester, which will be known in my head forever as The First Semester Lindsay Actually Applied Herself, or maybe as The Semester Wherein Lindsay Realized She is Some Kind of Prodigy and Went Into Hiding in Order to Avoid Being Kidnapped by the Government and Subjected to a Litany of Tests. Le sigh.

Listening to: The daycare babies practicing for what sounds like either a Christmas concert or the end of days. In the case of the latter it'll be the cutest end ever.

Planning: What my life will look like next semester - and beyond! Buzz Lightyear will be involved on some level.

Working on: Christmas cards. And by 'working on' I mean it keeps occurring to me at odd moments that I need to update my addresses. And make cards. And by the time I do those things it will be next Christmas and the whole thing will start over.

Wishing: I could live at The Plaza like Eloise. Speaking of Christmas.

~

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore  

~

Those pictures are about a year old. You don't mind though. 

Here's a recent picture: Remember that two-dollar dress I told you about that one time?

Thankful.

[This is a scheduled blog post. I don't know why I feel the need to explain that, except that I kind of feel like there's a ghost me hitting 'publish' while I'm somewhere else doing some non-computer thing. I guess just in case the ghost-me adds something while I'm not there, like, I don't know. "Cats are stupid" or "Sometimes I poison people when I'm bored" or "I'm going to go on a diet." If you read anything like that, disregard it, because it wasn't me. It was ghost-Lindsay. Unless it makes you think more highly of me or find me more attractive or want to give me piles of cash.]


Remember when I told you I googled "Thanksgiving desserts for kids"? Whatever, you're a terrible listener. This is the shit I'm talking about. Honestly. You know what? I'm changing the locks and when you get home you can collect your stuff from the pile I'm going to make of it outside. WHO NEEDS THAT MANY VACUUM TUBES? I am a[n occasionally] beautiful [in the right light], mostly well-read woman of [some sort of mystery] substance and I don't need you to feel validated. Mainly because I have oreo truffle pumpkins now. AND WHAT.

...well. I think we can both agree that we let that conversation get away from us a little bit. Probably holiday-related stress. Also, I'm feeling a little pressured right now, you know? because I have to give this speech in about twenty minutes and I haven't really gone over it at all.* And, yeah, the pumpkined truffleos are going to be an important part of my life from now on but I know if you give them a chance you'll grow to love them too. Let's hold hands while I tell you how to make them.

(NOTE: If you really want to make them "correctly," or whatever, I suggest you go here to where I found them. If your adventurous spirit just got its CPA, or something.**)

YOU WILL NEED:

oreos
cream cheese
pretzel sticks
white chocolate chips
food coloring
a pot of water
a metal bowl to put over the pot of water for (SPOILER ALERT) chocolate-melting
(or i guess a double boiler if you're fancy)
(why do i have a wok and a crazy apple peeling/core-ing contraption but no double boiler?)
butter or vegetable shortening or something
wax paper
tube of green icing

NOW TAKE ALL THAT STUFF AND DO THIS:

Mash the oreos and cream cheese together. (In a bowl. I guess you could just do it on the counter or the floor or wherever you feel comfortable, though. The important thing is that you're having fun.) I used an 8-oz package of cream cheese and a tube of oreos minus some that I ate. I broke the cookies up a little before I started mashing, but when I make them for real I'll probably use a rolling pin before to make smaller pieces. This was just a test run to make sure these things weren't gross before I got too invested in the idea of contributing tiny cute dessert pumpkins to Thanksgiving. I needed time to design a back-up plan just in case because I really can't just go to social gatherings without some sort of offering to take the edge off the social anxiety. Except hold on, I just remembered I don't have a rolling pin. Oh my gosh, PAY ATTENTION. Now roll the oreo/cream cheese mixture into balls. Put the balls on a sheet of wax paper, stick a pretzel stick into each one and put them in the freezer for 20ish minutes. This will give you enough time to make your mom listen to your speech and tell you if it sounds objective enough even though you aren't going to change it anyway, make a cup of tea, read all the texts you didn't notice getting today, wash the dishes, and read some of your book. Now leave them in the freezer for a little while longer because it's time to melt the chocolate. Now, the lady on the website said she used melting chips or magic baker chocolate or fairy dust or something but I couldn't find any in the two seconds I was willing to spend looking in the grocery store. So I settled for white chocolate chips plus some food coloring. Anyway, melt your chocolate. If I need to describe how to use a real or rigged double boiler to you then you really should under no circumstances be following any of my directions about anything because you're probably definitely going to burn yourself. Melt a little shortening in with the chocolate to make it smoother and more magical. Oh, yeah, and remember to sprinkle the actual magic over everything the whole time. I forgot to mention that. I also forgot to add the food coloring to make the chocolate orange before I started getting dip-happy with the balls, so I had one white pumpkin. I suggest you do the same because it will make you think of Charlie Brown for almost no reason and that's always nice. Then put them back in the freezer for a few seconds while you wrestle the tip off of the tube of green icing. When the chocolate is pretty hardened you can start drawing leaves and vines and things on the balls, and if you squint real hard or perhaps if you are actually competent in the kitchen they will look sort of like little baby pumpkins.

And even if you didn't do that great a job (like some of us typing these words named Lindsay ahem) or, for instance, if you got sort of bored halfway through or your hand started to hurt from squeezing the icing tube, they will still taste like what I imagine James Franco tastes like.

The "stems" should probably be shorter, but um. I really like pretzels, so.

*Yeah RIGHT, my steel-plated ladyparts never feel pressure. Ever. I'm going to nail that speech, and then I'm going to nail your mother an I'm-sorry-we-fought picture I painted for you onto the wall over the shrine I made of your precious, valuable things.

**I don't actually think accountants are boring. I don't actually know any accountants. And if your spirit did in fact just get its CPA then congratulations because isn't that kind of a hard test?

So, to preface this and the rest of what I say to any of you for the rest of my life, I am going to be twenty-four on my next birthday, not twenty-three as I said in my last post. I miscalculated because sometimes I don't know what year we're in. 

This song is stuck in my head:



Grizzly Bear is fun to search on YouTube because, obviously. "Grizzly bear devours trainer," etc. Also grizzly bears make me think about Dwight Shrute. (Who IS Justice Beaver? Do any of us really know?)

And also this song:

Over Thanksgiving break, I will: 
-Bake some stuff.
-Read a lot, but
-NOT check out dense Russian literature. I will leave it on the shelf for people who will actually read it.
-Take long walks to balance out the baking.
-Buy a new supportive undergarment. (I need a bra that doesn't poke me, but I didn't want to just write bra? So I wrote "supportive undergarment" instead, only that's worse, right, because now it sounds like I'm going girdle shopping. And now you're picturing me in girdles!! Or, you weren't, but now you are because I said that. Probably should just take this whole part out but I feel like I'm invested now since I've been typing it for almost a minute.)
-Not be on the internet and
-DEFINITELY NOT get on any trains to go do things I shouldn't want to do with people I shouldn't want to do them with. Ugh.
-Maybe might actually though.

I know I keep saying this but I'm so glad it's not hot outside. The frost this morning made me nervous for winter, though, because I really don't enjoy the feeling of bone chill. Anyway cooler weather is just so much easier to get dressed in. Mostly because of pea coats:

EVERYBODY looks good in a pea coat. And no matter what you have on underneath I always think you look fancy. (I also think name-brand Velveeta is extremely fancy though, so, you might want to consider that.) Speaking of fancy, I bought a pair of tights at Rite-Aid the other day. And as an extra-special bonus, they matched my beverage the day I wore them:

 

There is a vat of sweet potato casserole sitting in my refrigerator right now and I may or may not keep daydreaming about it. I just googled "Thanksgiving dessert recipes for kids." Do you guys think prostitution should be legalized? Call me/email me/come wake me up in the middle of the night to discuss it. I have to write a paper and I already know how I feel but I'm kind of interested in what other people think. You know, so I can correct them if they think the wrong thing. 

I hope you all enjoy your break if you get one, think of fun tricks to play on your boss if you don't, and have lots of nice things to be thankful for. xo

You guys. Thanksgiving is like, tomorrow. I feel like if there weren't holidays I'd forget that time was passing. I legitimately cannot remember how old I am ever. I just worked myself into a mini panic because my birthday is in January and I can't remember if I'm turning twenty-three or twenty-four. (Twenty-three. And I had to use a calculator.) And the only reason I thought about my birthday was that my brother's is on Thanksgiving this year which means it's cake-baking time. (That was a trick, nerds. It is ALWAYS cake-baking time.)

I'm thankful for so much.
My cats, my mom, my Darryl, my friends.
A place to live. Free places to pretend to live in sometimes.
That I get to vote and go to school and that I am not persecuted for the dumb things I say.
Straight A's (JUST SAYING.)
And so so so many little things that make my life happy every day.

Kindergarteners. 

Fuzzy, ugly robes and comfort reading on sick days. Little Women for the 100th time.

(Who else cries when Jo cuts off her hair? All of you? Yeah I know.)

DENIM DRESSES, and being a supermodel. 

Sneezing and pressing the shutter button at the exact same second.

I like to think of this as a reminder from the universe to BE HUMBLE, IDIOT.

Warm chai on cold nights.

The moon, the sun, the tides, the stars.