Please hold while I tend to my empty soul

I can hear your collective groan and the utterance of something along the lines of "oh Dana and her overly-dramatic philosophical titles."

Quiet down, haters. I mean this one in the most literal way possible. What I an trying to say, in the least disgusting way possible, is that I emptied my soul into a toilet on Virgin America flight 780 (twice), and spent the rest of the day on the couch, mostly unable to move, feverishly sleeping on and off.

I have a lot to write about my trip (music, some music-related metaphors, and some self-realizations that occurred during the trip), but I'm going to hold off until I regenerate my soul (with water, Gatorade, Propel, etc.). Here's a photo as a teaser

Just Say No!

Tonight I feel compelled to share my thoughts on flaky people. Why? Because I structured my entire weekend around visits from potential new roommates who were coming to check out my apartment. The problem is, only one of them showed up. Another cancelled the night before, and a third texted me an hour before she was supposed to arrive saying she wouldn't be able to make it until much later, and when much later arrived, was nowhere to be found and didn't answer any of my texts. Yes, this particular instance was annoying, but the point I'm really trying to make is that flakiness has become an epidemic and we need to stop it.

I've come to the conclusion that at the root of each flaky person is a deep-seeded fear of people getting mad at them if they say no to anything, so they say yes to everything.

Here are my questions (I just want to understand you!): If you know deep down that you have no intention of following through on whatever it is you just agreed to do, why don't you just say no to begin with?  Does delaying the rejection make any difference in how you feel about yourself or perceive that others will feel about you? Who are you really fooling here?

Flakes, I promise you, saying no is not that difficult (I do it all the time), and adopting this skill will actually make people like you more because you won't constantly be creating a sense of false hope only to ultimately let others down.

Bed time.

Four score and one year ago

Exactly one year ago was a momentous day. I woke up, saw a crazy, swollen, peeling alien face staring back at me in the mirror, went to the doctor, got a shot in my butt, and spent the day drugged up with vaseline and bags of ice on my face.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that I graduated from college that evening.

It took 90 minutes of skillful makeup application to salvage my poor face (and the Oscar for best makeup artist goes to me - for my own face!)  I still think I looked pretty scary close-up (think of a shedding snake), but somehow managed to get a few decent pictures.

My sister told me I would look back on this day and laugh. One year later, I'll admit I cracked a smile. Maybe next year I'll finally laugh, just because something like this would happen to me.

Retrograde

After a weekend of relaxing at home, visiting all the old haunts, and looking through pictures, I've realized that, given the chance, I'd trade in my current life to be a carefree little kid again. But, since time only runs in one direction (and often much faster than I'd prefer), this isn't going to happen. To make myself feel better, I spent today listening to this and this and wishing I wasn't at work.

I've also decided on a name for what most post-college 20-somethings go through:
Life Puberty. Think of awkward body changes of regular, teenage puberty, but this time its your whole life. Just like regular puberty, you have no idea what your life will look like once Life Puberty wreaks its havoc. Hopefully, it will look better, but some aren't so lucky.

 *this is actually little me, not a google image kid

Settling Soulmates

Any watchers of 30 Rock out there? This is where the term 'Settling Soulmates' originated. Pretty self-explanatory: if you don't find your perfect person, you eventually settle on someone who's 'good enough.'  Liz Lemon tried it, and the result...well, look at the picture.

I've gone home twice in the past few weeks, spending time with my parents, and inevitably running into their friends. I've noticed that they all ask me the same question: "Do you have a boyfriend?" (and some continue with "Then are you dating anyone?"...and some feel it necessary to ask "Why not?")

I was recently informed that a friend from college is now in a relationship. When I saw her a few weeks back, her lack of excitement while telling me about the guy made me downright sad. Here they were, at the very beginning of their relationship (the honeymoon phase...aww), and she didn't seem the least bit excited. She's not attracted to him, and she doesn't like him that much. So why did she agree to be his girlfriend? Because she's lonely, he's someone to talk to, and when people ask her the question (see above), she can answer "Yes."

What scares me about my friend is that we are nearing the age where these short-term settlements could become permanent (the proposal will be something along the lines of 'we've been together such a long time, we might as well get married, I guess.' How romantic).  I want to shake her by the shoulders and yell "hold out for someone better!" But, since I'm writing it here, I won't.

So, older generation that pities single people: I am not broken. I am just unwilling to settle. And I would rather answer "No" to the question and have you think I'm a loser than answer "yes" because I settled someone I don't really like.

End of rant. Here's a lovely song to make you feel better.

Feliz

Happy Cinco de Mayo. I also have something else to celebrate - I PASSED BOTH TESTS!
So I went from 50% to 100% done with these monsters in the span of...1 second. #heartattack

As my dad said, "well now you don't have to throw up your celebratory dinner from last night."
Touché. And that flashcard bonfire I've been fantasizing about - it's totally happening.

Limbo

No, not that kind of limbo - although I'm quite impressed by the man's ability to bend that far while wearing a suit.

I've been constantly refreshing the webpage of the CPA forum where other people post when they've gotten their scores (or that they haven't gotten them yet). I learned that California is not a part of the national score release, so we get our scores separately (ie. after everyone else). People from many states are getting scores today, just not my state.

So I guess the celebratory dinner that my parents planned for tonight will be a limbo dinner.

I'm Riding An Invisible Roller Coaster

My test scores might be released in three days (or any time between Friday and Monday). Every time I think about this fact, my stomach drops about 30,000 feet.

I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to will myself to check my scores. Maybe I'll stand next to my computer with my hands over my eyes and have someone else look at it.

Google-image woman feels my pain.