This too shall pass...as comfortably as a kidney stone.

I don't often make a habit of writing about the things in my life that are less than exceptional, especially when there isn't much humor involved. I have been with my English boyfriend for just shy of 3 years. I've left Chicago and my job to move in with my parents, an interim move before heading to the UK. After all this was done we were told the UK has entered into a 'period of cutbacks' where they will be cutting back on foreign workers by 25%. Because I'm not in the UK, I am part of that 25%.

So now I am working for a Chicago company in my parent's house in Indianapolis. I have a stack of boxes and furniture in the garage, fate unknown. I will soon not have a source of income and no plans on going to the UK with any sort of legitimacy. I have a cat I will not leave behind and a boyfriend I need to get to 6,000 miles away.

Everyone asks, "Why don't you just get married?" My answer is, moving to a new country is a pretty massive step, one I am taking to get to the NEXT step of our relationship, and that is to just be normal. My world for the duration of our relationship has been IMs, emails, suitcases, international dialing and Skype. It's expensive and emotionally draining. Marriage is a decision he and I will make, on OUR time. So this is not really an option.

With that, I'm left with absolutely no ideas and very little accessible help. The saving grace is that I have friends in Indianapolis and parents who won't evict me. Which is good since I won't have a job in a month.

This is my venting session. You are my niche market.

How football can change the world

And I don't mean American Football. I mean, SOCCER.

For the past two years I have been watching soccer more and more, getting into the culture, learning the rules and why people do what they do such as fall to the ground like a whiny little bitch every time their leg is tapped. It's fascinating. I'm intrigued by the sport past the Reign of Beckham and Manchester United (I'm judging you, fans), and into the realm of really loving the game.

With the semi-finals freshly completed, Spain and the Netherlands will be facing off in the 2010 World Cup final on Sunday. I watched the US and England, I watched the US lose, I watched England lose, and today I watched as my favored Germany took their final march. But what I have loved is the game coupled with technology, the way that social media has blitzed opinions, sparking debate and renewed friendships of fellow soccer fans and lovers. It's this small pocket of people in America who truly love this game, or follow it enough to hold a conversation. But for many it runs through their veins as thick as their own genealogy. Me loving this game is like being a part of the inside joke - a part of something so many others simply don't get.

Americans have been raised on American football, baseball, basketball and hockey. Many find soccer quite boring to watch or are turned off by a low-scoring sport. These people are missing the beauty of soccer for what it is. The point is soccer is the biggest sport in the world and on a whole, the US is missing out. As the World Cup has brought together some of the richest histories and cultures from around the globe, we are privvy to a united love, even if just for a month. How can anyone ignore this?? How do you not find such intense passion and maniacal fandom uninteresting, or especially uninviting?

This is why the World Cup is amazing. Watching it is like having a beer with global culture.

We are two days away from the final game, and I am sad to see it end. With my first World Cup tucked sweetly into my pocket, I will wait anxiously for four more years to be a part of this incredible event.

The Ethnophenomenology of Unhappiness

I am back at work on a Tuesday, two days after returning from a week-long vacation to the Caribbean with my man-friend, Jim. We spent the week in 88-degree weather, where the sun was shining, the food was impeccable, and the 'no problem' attitude of the locals put an extra bounce in my previously tripped-up step. We laid by the pool, sat dangling our feet over private docks in the bay, drank frozen girly drinks, and slept. It was perfection.

Now I am back in the trenches of Chicago after immediately dropping Jim off at the airport to fly back to England. I go home, to a cold apartment, and sit by myself, as it were before I left. The only solace was having Murray to cuddle, but that quickly subsided when my allergies went into full self-attack mode since I'd been away for so long. It was misery.

I woke up Monday morning overly tired from the previous 20-hour day, and dragged myself around the apartment collecting items for my work day. I walk out into the 40-degree Chicago weather, battling the strong winds on my way to the train. My skin, which had healed and softened significantly in the Caribbean sun and sea water, had already started to chafe and redden yet again.

I walk through the pedway on the way to the office, and not one single face is smiling. No one is in a good mood, no one is being courteous or holding any doors or thanking anyone for holding any doors. A Chicagoan's bitterness is wrapping a cold blanket around me! I get to my office, walk into reception the made no room for windows, into an office with no windows, sitting and facing a gray, undecorated wall for the next 9 hours while my boss barks at me to get out of vacation mode and get back into work mode.

Alas.

There is that saying that you need a vacation from a vacation, and I take that to heart today. There was not much transition from sitting in happiness with the man of my dreams, and then literally the next day being thrust into a cold gray city with no mans. It doesn't help that work conditions are dreary and depressing as well, in accordance with the high expectations of performance but without payoff or self-fulfillment.


The British call this the "post-holiday blues." I call this 'the ethnophenomenology of unhappiness.' We seem to have gone numb to depressing work and living conditions because we either have to or because it's what we know. I feel like there needs to be a paradigm shift here, because people shouldn't feel this way. Some of these are [relatively] innocuous phrases used to present extreme anguish...because everyone feels this way. Reaching into the lion's mouth, I wonder if taking a break from 'reality' actually opens our eyes to what life should be like, rather than a simple acceptance of brief happiness.

I guess one will never know. And I leave this chalked up to a question as my boss could potentially read this, and his answer would be to take away vacation days so we won't have to feel this way.

Let the tightening of the chains begin.

The Bachelor: ring-a-ding, dip sh*t

As a late comer to this season's the Bachelor, I only watched the final rose ceremony, admittedly only to find some vacation spots in St. Lucia. By the end of the season finale, I was able to draw direct sympathy with Facebook's "Live Feed" avid dislike of the infamous Vienna.

As I stand in line, albeit the back of it, I come up with a list of just a few ideas for a personal favorite Someecards.com:

1. I hope you bruise your knee.
2. I love watching pretty boys cry.
3. Two words: Shane. Lamas.
4. Never fall in love with a grammatically incorrect woman.
5. I'm only watching the final rose ceremony to find out the 11th Dancing With the Stars contestant.

Next up: AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL.

Pushing Rubbermaid to head Department of Agriculture

In the last 48 hours I have become my own worst nightmare trying to clean my apartment for my mother's arrival tonight. In fact, anytime I try to do a clean up of this nature it generally takes me several days longer than expected - I always find a mini-project that sidetracks me. For example, last night I found a bag full of samples: 3 packs of Kiehl's body wash cream, 2 packs of anti-wrinkle cream, about 8 different types of body lotion, etc. (I also went through my back-up makeup bag and threw out about 12lbs of worthless eye shadow that caused me to have an allergic (read "swelling") reaction).

Once the evening rounded the 11pm corner, I went looking for a glove that is meant to wipe up pet hair. And since my red duvet cover has recently glowed a slight "orange" tint from the layer of Murray hair, I figured now is the time to take care of it.

Not quite sure where this glove is hiding, I default to a big, blue Rubbermaid bin in my kitchen. This bin has been home to many o' pet items over the last few years: dog food, collars, E collars, torn up rope toys, kitty costumes. I start to dig around hoping this thing would just jump out at me, and instead, to my surprise, I find I have a lot more in here than I thought. So I dig deeper.

Let's call this part of the story: foreshadow.

Before I even complete my journey to the bottom of the bin I stop to notice small, brown shiny particles stuck to the velcro piece of one of Vera's old winter coats. Upon closer examination, it appears as if this coat has been bombarded with crushed exoskeleton. And anyone who knows me well, knows I DON'T do exoskeleton.

I keep going.

I keep going until I notice there is a third of a large bag of open dog food that I'd long since forgotten about. Right next to it was a paper bag with something in it, though I dared not to find out. The ENTIRE bottom half of the bin, including the base, was covered in dead maggots and little crunchy bugs. They were all over the food, stuck inside the bristles of a brush, tangled inside chew toys. Even part of the paper bag had been chewed up so there were dusty particles that had fallen to the bottom, making the yellowy maggots indistinguishable. I almost threw up. I mean, I really almost threw up.

I saved as much as I could including a bag of leashes and collars, along with a couple pinch collars...but everything else was went right out into the alley dumpster. I wonder what I must have looked like, dressed in my pajamas, kicking around a Rubbermaid bin at 11:30p in an alley.

What I learned from this is not so much dwindle down hoarded items, but rather, if you do, always ALWAYS store them in a Rubbermaid bin.

Excuse me, Fate Waiter. This isn't what I ordered.

I wrote a story once about the subjectivity of life and how our mindset changes from the time we are small children until the time we grow old(ish). I find that many of my thoughts as even a teenager, somewhat rational considering my post-pubescent rage, have expired into the butt of jokes, or walk among the undead. Growing up, I believed I would be married at 25, children shortly thereafter, successful business woman (I invented post-its), a dog and a walk-in closet. So when I graduated college and moved to the big city where I landed, not the job of my dreams, but more like an "oh my god! A job!" job, I thought my adult life could finally flourish.

Four years later, I am sitting on the couch in my one-bedroom apartment, with my left arm draped over the belly of my 18-pound cat, writing a blog. Alone. At 28.

But my life is wonderful. I have no complaints that wouldn't melt under a 20-watt light bulb. But as I get older, as more and more friends' paths become straighter, more married, more parental, I wonder where it is I strayed to wander so far from a path I once thought was my destiny. Suddenly I can barely stand babysitting for more than a few hours, I'd happily trade a wedding for a box of pizza and a beer, and that walk-in closet only half exists as an airtight bag squeezed underneath my bed. There is no dog, there is no husband, and thirty is meeting me in a half hour, near the corner of PMS and Menopause.

My sister, Mom and I often sit and talk about weddings. I tell Anne that her colors should include a lime green accent, Mom tells me I should wear my hair in a loose bun, I tell Mom she can plan the ceremony, and we all have a good laugh knowing the lackadaisical effort we put into an original thought makes for great girl talk. But even as I sit here now, I cannot envision my wedding. I close my eyes so very tight in hopes that it will magically appear like a 13-year old at a wishing well, but it's just not coming. Those kids' names I always said I wanted for my own will now go to my friends' children, and that beautiful white dress maches itself into another bride's album. I'm slowly watching as what I thought was my destiny slips away unclaimed. Even unidentified.

I know I'm not the only one who finds it fascinating that what we once thought would be will never be, and in some case SHOULD never be. But still it could be. I feel that while I would dearly love to hold onto the hope of a memory I'm comfortable will never come alive, the possibility of it happening is still just as sweet. Me, in a long white dress and hair pulled lazily into a that bun, drinking the nectar of the Guinness gods and wondering how I ever thought the one-bedroom life of a 28-year old could ever have reached that full of satisfaction. And while it does for me now, original fate might intervene.

So, until then, I hold the cards close to my chest and raise my glass to those who will walk before. Here's to a life well lived, my friend, or a life of nevermore.

Did non-zombies in zombie films ever watch zombie movies?

I wish this were discussed more. In fact, I wish there was an entire Jeopardy category dedicated to zombie reasoning. I'm in the middle of watching the most recent release of "Dawn of the Dead" and so far, the burdening question among the selected living is, "what are they?"

Bitch, they're zombies.

Look, it's about to be 2010. There are like 862 zombie movies, probably originating during the time of Adam and Eve. So during a weekend romp with a 2004 remake where no one seemed to know what to do, I was a little taken aback.

Let us break this down....

You (Read "general term for general idiot in leading role of horror film, male or female, though likely 'all'") wake up one day, and at random most of the people in your life, and on television, and walking the streets of city center have somehow formed a death strut of thump-thump-drag. You are able to escape in your 2004 Honda Civic to the nearest mall where you find solace in other humans who have yet to morph into grandma on her 97th birthday. The mall is empty, the PA system lulls you into a calmness with its elevator music, the escalators are still running by the electricity we've had since the 18th century, and the vast spread of Abercrombies and Crate & Barrels are at your endless disposal. The televisions are even still broadcasting the horrors of nearby ravaged cities, detailing the mass chaos that has plagued the millions of Americans (pompously assuming this hasn't gone "H1N1") who you live among.

With the rest of the film stained with modernity, are you telling me that if you marched your living ass to the nearest Blockbuster, there wouldn't be one single zombie movie to tell you what the F is going on?

I can only conclude that this ups the ante for Shaun of the Dead to be one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. It's original, funny, the characters placate the undead with their knowledge of how to "blend in", and to boot, it's a British film.

God this has exhausted me.

Dan Brown, where are you?

With my B.A. in Religious Studies firmly nailed to my wall*, I recall the summer of 2001 being the first wave of Dan Brown awesomeness. The DaVinci Code sold so many copies, hot dog vendors traded in there "ass and lips" for copies of the highly talked about novel to sell from their push carts to the late-night drunks. Hold the mustard.

After reading the book and absolutely loving it, I decided on tackling its predecessor: Angels and Demons. Whatever seat I was sitting in during its page-by-page play of dramatic religious and symbolic infusions, I was on the edge. This guy writes like another favorite author of mine, Ken Wilbur. I think they're both too interesting to write a text book or some other form of non-fiction (likely because it will bore the hell out...zzzz). I think they chose the smarter route and placed their intelligence into the not-so subtle notes of fiction.

Until I met The Lost Symbol.

I wanted to love it, I really did. But everything seemed so anti-climactic. It had the occasional build up, and then followed by the inevitable let down. It gave new meaning to a few choice phrases that were popular in grade school. It was like watching Aaron Carter on Dancing with the Stars - I just couldn't force myself to like it. Books are like albums. They have to be treated delicately because it's most important for you to grow as a musician, grow as a writer. I struggled past book 4 of Harry Potter, and Dan Brown lost my on book 3. It's a record.

I finished the book this morning on my commute to work. Generally I sit and ferment in a job well done to even complete a book, but I skipped that and went right to popping in my ear phones and wishing like hell the train would plunge into the dark waters of the Chicago River.

Dan Brown, if ever become rich and famous off one of my awesome inventions, and this blog ends up at the top of your Google search, take heed: evolve. The intellectual Indiana Jones is cute as a button, but I need more. I wish for Robert Langdon nothing but success. Maybe he could achieve greater success through a carefully leaked sex tape, Jennifer Aniston's next dumper, or maybe a cameo on "What Not to Wear." I mean, it can't be that hard. Right now you could even place him anywhere with Carrie Prejean and he'll get attention.

Regardless, I know where my weaknesses lie and I am sure I will be purchasing whatever money maker you decide to put out next.

Until then....


*This statement is up for grabs in the Truth department. I'm not sure I ever received my actual diploma, from high school or college. I'm assuming there was some pending or unpaid balance from excessive parking tickets which led as a barrier to receipt. If so, I promise I'll pay those fees. Maybe.

What better way to say "I care" than with a well-chosen emoticon

I love emoticons. And by that I mean I <3 emoticons. With most of my beloveds located around the world, most of my communication is conducted via IM, email and text messages (I find phone calls to be SO archaic). For moments such as, I often find conveying proper e-emotion to be a very fragile situation which requires the delicacy of handling newborn baby chick with a missing leg and a Napoleon complex. It's tough.

By personal jest law, I am required to mitigate the distance issue by cracking a joke (that might not sound much like a joke). As a substitute for voice inflection, it might go something like this:

So-and-so: Damn, I really feel like crap today.

Sarah: Yeah? I bet you look like crap today.


There's only one way to save this....


So-and-so: Damn, I really feel like crap today.

Sarah: Yeah? I bet you look like crap today. :D

No tears. No ended friendships. Just the understanding that my dry sense of humor and sarcasm shouldn't be taken for more than just that. Assume I am always laughing or joking when I say mean and hurtful things. And if a day shall come that the emoticon makers make a middle finger emoticon, then you know when I'm crossing a line.

Until then....

What do you do with sunshine

I used to love that old song:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine; you make me happy when skies are gray...

When it comes to rallying for life, I am at the front of the picket line waving the flag of independence and self-reliance. At some point, I figured you can have the best of both worlds, so relying and depending on people has gotten harder the older we get, but when you learn you can harbor such trust in someone else (friend, family, personal relationships overall) you start to use it.

So what happens when you realize that you're life isn't everything you thought it would be? For instance, with the economy in the crapper, I run into more and more people who are extremely unhappy with their job. And considering you spend like 80% of your day working, it's probably one of those places you prefer to be coming up roses. On the other hand, maybe you entered into a line of work that you much later realize isn't what you want to do forever.

If you're in this boat, keep reading...

While we wait with breath bated and fingers crossed, it's becoming ever-so important to rely on the other things that make you happy. Primarily, the people in your life. In even the darkest of days, you need to be able to rely on that one special person. The one person you can go to and just...exhale. Frenchie from Grease said, "the only man a girl can really depend on is her daddy." And while I agree with this comment 100%, my dad isn't much of a chit chatter. So I have my brigade, and at the front of the line a leader full of sunshine.

Is that sunshine an actuality? Or is it a flame in the allegorical Cave?

I come to this question on a relatively frequent basis, and fear I may be putting more effort into it than necessary. Is it really this difficult to make yourself your best possible self without reliance on others? Are the people who have freely chosen to be in your life actually a product of choice as we commonly know it, or necessity, and can these two ideas live independently from each other?

I have no answer to this, except that I can't shake that everything is subjective, and nothing is real.

Now THAT is depressing.

Posh Spice: Hilarious

There is no shortage of Victoria Beckham cracks spread all over the internet, TV, and the Us Weeklys of the world. She's often portrayed as stone-faced and cold, with her harsh features and skeletal frame, her poses quick-to-react for cameras and is often never smiling. But the Victoria Beckham I see is anything but stone-faced and cold. In fact, she's quite funny!

No woman could make the following videos and not be a lot of fun to hang out with. It might be one of the few intelligent moves Tom Cruise has ever made.

Hot yoga: heat should not always result in nudity

Last night I completed my third day as a bikram yoga student. The first time I ever took yoga was working with a Beginner's VHS tape when I was 18, and it's slowly graduated to this: bikram yoga, where the temperature is raised to 105, allowing you to really sweat your ass off. If you've heard the workout results in what appears to be the yogee to have jumped into a pool, it's true.

(This often results in a few stares from the community I bike through afterward. I don't blame them: my sports bra sweats through the shirt I wear, leaving these big (or, not-so-big) sweaty prints right over my boobs.)

The class is comprised of many different types of people. We have men, large men, skinny-tall men, (un)flexible men. We have women, large women, skinny-tall women, (un)flexible women. And what I love, we're all scantily clothed as you have no idea how much 105 degrees hits you when your yogic for 90 minutes.

So last night, I was in the Tulandandasana pose (see right). You're supposed to look toward the mirror in front of you, which sounds like a good idea...unless you're Tulandandsanaing behind the same girl I was last night. I look up to face the mirror, and home girl was not wearing any underwear.

I completely understand that your knickers get a little swampy, and I'm all for women's liberation, but OMG...at least wear pants or long shorts. Something other than what a roller skater from the 70's would wear.

Maybe I'm acting a bit prudish about the event, but I couldn't keep my pose. It reminded me of the Friends episode when Pheobe's boyfriend's genitals kept popping out from underneath his shorts. Just knowing it was there, staring at me like I was guilty for being in the second row, I ended up standing most of the pose.

So ladies, men, whatever you do, wherever you go, when you're in yoga class, remember to put your pants on.

Griller sans la buerre

I once read that the origin of the word (and musical genre) "Zydeco" came from the Clifton Chenier song "Les Haricots Sont Pas Salés," which means the beans aren't salty. This was in reference to the Louisiana-based singer being too poor to provide salted pork for his beans. The actual word Zydeco is a corruption of the shortened "les haricots."

During this economical crisis, or the intertia of it's trough, I can't help but modernize by own "les haricots." After one of my biggest clients was busted running a Ponzi scheme worth $11 million, I've added on 13 offices and lost the next few months of commission. I am able to pay my rent and most of my bills, some gas and even afford a new bit of mascara here and there, but other than that my means are rationed. I've taken to canned vegetarian chili ($3 at Trader Joe's - delicious!) and water crackers, and making the meal spread over 2 days. A hard-boiled egg or instant oatmeal is close to doing to the trick in the mornings, so I feel relatively covered.

However, this morning I found myself toasting high-fiber bread...and realizing I have absolutely no butter, no jam, no spread whatsoever. And the $50 in my checking account I have to live on for the next 6 days is inspiration enough to eat the toast dry. I can't afford the butter.

So I have decided I am going to start my own line of music, my own corruption of the phrase "griller sans la buerre: the toast without butter."

This is what my life has come to.

Why I am destined to be alone in life

My all-knowing mother once told me that the secret to never getting sick is to just eat large quantities of garlic; no one will want to hang around you and therefore you will never catch their germs.

Mom, I agree.

Since I always do exactly as my mother has always told me to, I decided stand tall beside familial piety during my usual Subway lunch order. You might ask, what does a non-dairy vegetarian eat at Subway?

6" Veggie Pattie, with spinach, onions and jalapenos. Oh yeah.

Though the lack of garlic is beyond my lunchtime control (and yes, I have really thought about bringing my own), I submerge myself in the stench that has been sourly whipped together by my local Sandwich-Making Artist. The combination of onions and jalapenos has a "stay out of my office" success rate of 33%.

So how do I keep away an additional 18%? I do like some of the people here.