Pfffft

So yeah. The whole writing every day thing didn't work out so great. But I'm going to get back on the wagon. It's been an overwhelmed-by-the-farmers-market, historical-novel-reading, Frasier-watching, crying, beer-in-bed kind of day. I was supposed to clean my apartment today.

I've been feeling more growing pains of adulthood lately. I feel like I'm constantly vacillating between confidence and contentment, and utter insecurity and confusion about my place in the world. Sometimes it's really hard to keep things in perspective and remember that 23 is REALLY FUCKING YOUNG and that I have Time. Lots of it (hopefully). I know that. Intellectually. But then I start doing the job math, and the masters degree math, and the oh-god-what-if-I-want-a-PhD math, and the career math and then that leads me right to my mid-40s with nothing but a black cat and the TV chip implanted in my eyeball to keep me company.

I went to Nashville for a conference the week before last. Every time I visit a new city I become convinced that This is It! This is the city of my soul. The one that will answer all the questions I have and the ones that are to come. For a long time, Portland held the top spot in my heart, but Nashville might have pushed it out. Nashville spoke straight to the part of me that is so fucking tired of the rat race to nowhere. The "right path." The "next steps." What does that even mean? Who decides what that is?
Here's my Nashville fantasy: go, move to a cute house in East Nash with a porch. Get a job with a grassroots arts organization and join a printmaking collective on the side. Start dating a sweet 'n soulful singer/song-writer who complimented my outfit the first time we met. Get to know my neighbors. Have a passel of kids. Live contently.
It's pretty far from my current "life path"-- the one I'm not really sure I want. That one is: Continue working at Stanford for one more year. Go to grad school on the East Coast for a Masters in Art History. Join a program that consists of all women. This program will be either in a city in a tiny apartment with weird roommates or in the Actual Middle of Nowhere. Remain single for the next two years. Graduate. Assess whether I want/need a PhD. Start working at a museum in the Education Department. Be awesome at my job because I actually really care about these issues. Try to rise in the ranks. Try to be a Career Woman Who Leans In (if that's still a thing we're doing). Be single forever. (???)
Or, I guess, the third option is to just settle into comfortable mediocrity. Which I KNOW is not the worst problem in the world, and I KNOW that these problems are so the problems of the privileged. But oh god, I don't want to be 43 and wondering what the hell happened and where did all the years go and who am I really? Too many people have fought for too long for me to actually, scientifically, literally LIVE for me to let that happen. Here's the thing (and this is so unoriginal it's almost painful to write, but what the hell, I'm the only one reading)-- we only have one shot at life. Ultimately, we only answer to ourselves. Trying to live our life in the way we think others want us to is futile and I think will ultimately result in deep dissatisfaction. I mean, ULTIMATELY, no one person actually matters on this earth (with some exceptions, OF COURSE. but I am not going to matter to that many people at all. and I certainly won't be Remembered). We are tiny little specks of matter smaller than dust in the universe. And there are billions of us! So, I think we have to do what we think will give us the most contentment in our soul. No matter how that changes. I think we need to strive for a sense of satisfaction. Not necessarily happiness, but satisfaction and contentment and growth. This is ramble-y. The beer is maybe getting to me. But it is what it is.

I want to live abroad! And try to write a book! I'm never going to be Jeffrey Eugenides but I want to write a book like Fangirl or The Princess Diaries. One where you feel like the characters are your friends and you just read it over and over just to hang out with them. And I want to learn to weave. And print-make. And lots of other things. Where does that all fit in? Does it? I don't know.

Also, I don't want to study for the GRE.

On the bright side, it is now officially summer and with that comes my second favorite thing: long summer nights, second only to my very favorite thing-- warm long summer nights. I'm forever yours, East Coast.

A recap of what were possibly the best four days of 2014 (or maybe of my life)

Disclaimer that this will probably be interesting to no one except me. I just wanted to have a record of a serious life high.

Drove to San Rafael for Puerto Rican food with Matt and Brandon
Took 280, because California is beautiful
Got coconut water at Trouble Coffee
Got the perfect vintage Boy Scout shirt at General Store, ending a decade long search
Went to the beach
Napped on the beach
Smelled like sunscreen
Walked into the Pacific
Collected sand dollars along the shore. Wished they'd convert into real dollars.
Ate excellent tacos and drank a first-rate horchata at a Mexican dive right by my house. Who knew? Not me.

Went to the new Palo Alto Pizzeria Delfina with Ben
Laughed at the kid-proof booth material
Died a little over the meatballs
Definitely overdid it with the sundae, but #noregrets
Bizarrely ran into Marc and Dana as we were seated next to their group. They were (MAYBE) a little drunk, which was a little funny, and nice.
Drove to the mall because we are suburban teenagers forever
Vowed not to buy anything at Urban Outfitters when Ben dragged me there (bad quality! expensive! my better judgement protested)
Decided to get matching beanies
100% bought into their scheme of having amazing things to look at and buy near the register. I needed everything.
Miraculously walked out with only the beanie
Drove back to campus, aimlessly
Drove to the lit up Rodin garden
Took silly snapchats with the art
Laid on a concrete table and talked while lamenting the lack of stars





Discovered California Bookstore Day on Twitter
Drove to Kepler's Books to celebrate
Fell a little in love with Kepler's
Spent too much money on books and art, but if you're going to spend money, it might as well be on books and art (and food)
Had a sudden fierce love and appreciation for Northern California (this is rare)
Went to Costco for gas (I'm bragging because I had some adult-ass foresight to do this. I usually wait until my car yells at me and I pull into the nearest station in a panic)
Ate lunch by myself at another Mexican dive. Eating alone in America feels profoundly different than eating alone in Europe.
Drove down El Camino the whole way home, just to see what's there
Stopped at the pop-up Pace Gallery in Menlo Park
Discovered new dimensions to Calder
Pondered a Rauschenberg
Missed studying art history with a burning intensity
Wished I was rich enough to buy the Rauschenberg (it's for sale for the low, low price of 3 million)
Loved that the gallery had kind and enthusiastic guards
Lounged at home
Picked up Ben
Took a bus to SF to see the ballet (for free! thanks, ITALIC)
Was blown away by the costumes and the dancers (and their butts)
Went backstage
Went ON stage
Went home

Decided to try a new (to me) market in the spirit of adventure and the best few days in recent memory
Bought a week's worth of groceries for $25
Mind was blown
Mind was also a little suspicious about how everything was so cheap
Lounged at home
Felt very attractive (no, seriously)
Decided finish my book on the porch at Philz (let's be real, it was an excuse to see and be seen)
Was eventually joined by The Usual Suspects (Matt, Connie, Brandon)
Made flirty (?) eye contact with the handsome man seated in front of me
Noticed his wedding band
Continued to notice his flitting eye contact
... did not look away
Made progress on the book (but didn't finish)
Scandalized my friends with a choice bit of info
Went home; finished the book
Had an extreme bout of Adult, wherein I:

• Listened to 3 episodes of This American Life while
• chopping celery and carrots so I can snack on that instead of chips
• washed ALL of my dishes
• prepared some tofu
• made kale salads for the week
• cleaned out my fridge
• roasted broccoli

I suppose, above all, I felt a deep sense of contentment and independence.

And now, the anvil falls.

Note to Self: I am no longer in college

Things Not To Do On A First Date

You:

1. Ask me how much my rent is
2. Tell me how much money you're saving by living with your parents
3. Be visibly strung out
4. Abruptly announce on a coffee date that you think we should "call it," but then immediately ask me out to dinner for the same night
5. Add me on Snapchat
6. Repeatedly talk about our "second date" and then never contact me again
7. Assume that all I can talk about is art because I work in the arts
7a. Tell me that you think all art is pointless except for the time you "got super high in Amsterdam and went to go see the Van Gogh museum and all the colors swirled around and shit."
8. Quiz me about a museum exhibition when I obviously (accidentally) lied about having seen it
9. Pitch me your startup
10. Act super weird when college comes up and you find out I went to Stanford


Me:

1. Lie about going to exhibits I haven't seen
2. Say "God, no." when the waiter asks if we want a second round
3. Spitefully announce that I never learned how to ride a bike when my date tells me he owns 6 bikes and that 2 only go downhill (ed note: Physics, I know, downhill-only bikes remain a mystery for the ages)
4. Bring up my parents
5. Seem way too into Katy Perry when I like exactly two of her songs
6. Call my date "dude" a lot
7. Be really obvious about my disdain for startups while out with a startup founder
7a. Make it worse by backtracking ("Oh no, but yours sounds really different and important. This is the kind of good more startups should be doing!")
8. Say, "I don't know, normal stuff," when asked what I like to do on the weekends / what my hobbies are
9. Talk about the time I hallucinated that I was in an Ashlee Simpson music video (it was 2004, what can I say...)
10. Check the weather on my phone in order to make conversation

Being an adult

Means having a craving for cereal and milk and then going to the 24-hr Safeway to fulfill this small dream after having the larger dream of long-term human connection slightly crushed by the free screening of Her you just saw at the college campus where you both 100% belong and 100% don't belong.