One of my favorite co-workers, Niki, is leaving this week and she has been fowarding emails to me that she feels might help me in my future without her.  She also sent me an email that I had sent her the day before I left for my wedding/honeymoon because she wanted to remind me to keep emailing her even after she left:

NIKI!!!!! SUCCESS!!!

Aiden has been doing what his friends call “The Woman Diet” where he eats fruit for breakfast, chicken breast and lettuce for lunch, hard boiled eggs for a snack, and chicken and veggies for dinner.

So I told him I was going to do “The High School Girl” diet which consists of eating nothing and throwing up a lot… not to be confused with “The Hollywood Diet” which adds snorting cocaine into the mix.

Obviously my diet worked pretty well because I’m down … (Drum roll please)

3 pounds!

It’s a wedding week miracle!  See you when I get back.

And don’t go getting any ideas, my diet isn’t FDA approved yet.

Kids, drugs are bad m’kay.

Kit P to me
your teen crush may be taylor lautner, but mine is justin bieber. taylor lautner is legal though, so you’re way less creepy than i am. but really, who can resist justin bieber’s hair?

Charlotte C to kit p
I think we’re pretty much equal on the creepy front: justin may not be legal but admiring the hair of an underage boy is way less creepy than wanting to lick the chest of a slightly legal aged boy.

Kit P to me
yeah… you have problems.

I remember what it was like to be a high school student and how every little thing was a crisis. OMG he likes me, OMG he likes her, OMG my life is over. My friends and I basically had variations of the same conversation every day that usually involved the boy of the day, hair, clothes, how ugly/fat/gross we were, and how lame our parents were. Every story had the same theme: I’m a victim, my life is horrible, no one understands me.

When I graduated from High School I would like to say that realization hit me like a freight train and I stopped acting that way and hanging out with those people. It took me a long time. but we had that summer where we clung to those last vestiges of being a teenager just in case those really were the “best days of our lives”. Slowly my friends spread out into the world and I stayed behind with my remaining friends.

I wanted to  start over – rather, I liked the IDEA of starting over - but I kept being me, having the same conversations, and most importantly being the victim. Sure, at first it was easy to be a happy-go-lucky sprightly individual who was the life of the party and everyone loves. But eventually depression would rear it’s ugly head, I would hang out with my old friends, I would start the victim story all over again and be back to where I started.

After Christmas my Freshman year a few things happened that gave me that real edge on the victim front. My boyfriend announced at a party while I was within earshot that he had cheated on me… three times over Christmas Break. One of my new friends and I got in a huge friendship ending fight over something ridiculous, trivial and utterly forgettable because I can’t even remember what it was. And all in the same week I got fed up with one of my oldest friends from high school and told her that if she was going to keep dating married men, I couldn’t be friends with her anymore.

I spent that whole next week playing the victim. I watched movie after movie in my bed, I turned off my phone, didn’t go to class, and I definitely cried in the shower for a bit. I didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere, or see anybody. Just when I was about to head over the edge and get really dark, twisty, and victim-y my new roommate, Kit, dragged me to a party.

She was everything I always pretended to be when meeting new people except that she was real. She was fun and casual, no drama, no bullshit, life was meant to be experienced – and just because you were sad didn’t mean that you had to let it swallow you whole. At first it was hard because I felt she didn’t understand me, that she didn’t understand how hard my life was. 

And then I was confronted with the truth, her life was MUCH harder than mine: among other things that are her story – not mine - the previous spring her boyfriend of several years had died in an avalanche while snowboarding. My life wasn’t hard, it was filled with petty fake drama that I dreamed up to feel important. Her pain was real and instead of walking around with a chip on her shoulder being a victim and claiming that she had every reason to BE a victim, she lived her life.

When you keep choosing to live it gets hard to have patience for those who choose to be a victim and walk around with a chip on their shoulder.  I have no idea how she put up with me.  But she did, and as dramatic as it sounds I know she saved my life on more than one occassion.

There are many reasons I chose Kit to be my Maid of Honor… but I think the most important reason to me is that she showed me the importance of that choice, choosing to live. I have many things to thank her for, and in the world we live in today it is often something we don’t even think about: thanking our friends for all the little pieces of you that they are.

Thank you, thank you for being my rock. Thank you for taking me under your wing. Thank you for showing me how to grow the fuck up.

i know the definition of being a good friend.  caring, loyal, stands by someone in a time of need, tells you the truth, holds your hand, answers the phone at 2 a.m., doesn’t rat you out when you silently rip ass near a group of hot guys.  i’ve had good friends – i know they’ve taught me about being a good friend and i hope i at least exhibit some of those behaviors once in awhile.

and i get the whole being there for someone.  i’ve driven friends to the hospital, fed their cats while they were out of town, lent out my car, been DD, brought lunch/dinner/soup, stayed up late to talk, helped clean up messes i didn’t make, edited papers, helped people move, and probably a million other things.  and i know a lot of other people do just the same for their friends.

but when is being there for someone  become being an enabler?  in high school my best friend was really bad at relationships.  she was always hooking up with guys who were otherwise involved and i was always covering for her.  we were friends for 6 years and when she got involved with a married man the second time i just couldn’t do it anymore.  i couldn’t hold her while she cried about how he was never going to leave her.  i couldn’t drive her past his house to see if his wife’s car was in the driveway.  i couldn’t watch her destroy her life again.  and so i had to walk away.

it is hard choosing not to be friends with someone.  i would read about our favorite actress and want to call her, or see a Carl’s Jr and want to eat there with her, or want to buy jeans but didn’t have her to help me decide which ones made my butt look the best, or have a fight with my mom and need to vent.  but for all the reasons she was a good friend there were a million reasons why my relationship with her made her think that it was OK to continue doing what she was doing and never learn a damn thing.  without her co-pilot maybe she would finally find the right path, maybe not.  but the one thing that was for sure was that i couldn’t watch the same episode every single day for the rest of my life.

the hardest part about the decision not to be party to a destructive person’s mess is that you end up as the bad guy.  you left your friend in their time of need – looking over the fact that they continuously are in a time of need.  these type of people create their own drama and if you can’t play the part of the supportive friend then you must be a bad person.  and that right there is the bullshit, you have added one more woe to their long list of horrible things that have happened in their life always caused by someone or something outside of their control.  you bastard.

but for me, each friendship, no matter how it ended, has had some part in who i am today.  and i can’t say that i haven’t thought about my friend from high school several times over the past few months while planning my wedding because it reminds me of her constant chatter about her imaginary future wedding.  and now that i’m getting married i can’t help but wonder whatever happened to her, where she is now, and if her boyfriend did ever leave his wife for her… or if she finally found herself a man who wasn’t taken.

i hope things worked out for her.  i really do.

last night my buddy alan came over to see Beth’s new car and witness my awesome 80s hair that happens right after I blow it dry but before i straighten it.  because of kevin the night snowballed into excessive drinking.  i didn’t partake because i had to work today but i did get to indulge in my second favorite drinking pastime which is making drinks.

i put together my delicious margarita recipe and served up three glasses.  it was at that point that alan put out his hand to accept the glass but told me he couldn’t drink it.  i looked at him unable to comprehend this situation.

Me: What do you mean you can’t drink my delicious margarita?
Alan: When I drink tequila… bad things happen.
Me: That is not an excuse, you are wasting a perfectly good and delicious drink!
Beth: Yeah!  There are sober people in Africa, Alan!

So, as usual, the Cohen sister logic won out.   And Alan promptly became addicted to my delicious margaritas. i fucking hate people who don’t have to work on Fridays.

i asked kit to be my maid of honor for the wedding.  which makes no sense since she is married, but kit doesn’t like the word “matron” and i have no problem using my bridezilla powers for good so… voila, my married best friend is my maid of honor.  since i’ve picked out and ordered the wedding dress, finally gotten the colors chosen, and found the designer line for the bridesmaid dresses kit has moved on to helping me with the suits for the groom and groomsmen.

me: aiden just has the weirdest taste in suits, I’m just praying he’s kidding but I’m afraid to ask.
kit: ok, but the last time aiden had a suit was for prom how many years ago?
me: do public school students wear suits to prom?
kit: yes. what the hell do private students wear?
me: money. we just tape money all over ourselves. and talk about all the money we have.
kit: obviously.
me: yeah, i don’t really want vests or cummerbunds, i just want it relatively simple.
kit: ties. ties are the way to go ESPECIALLY the slim ties that are popular now. those are sexy! but i’ll go with more classic for aiden.
me: yeah… also I think a slim tie would make his giant head look even bigger.
kit: …
me: like a balloon with a string attached.
kit: … you guys are a love story for the ages.

The five deadliest substances served on halloween…

at work i sit in between the cubicle of a loud talker and one of my good work friends, Leela.  the loud talker broadcasts her phone conversations throughout the workplace and repeats herself throughout the phone call so much that Leela and I came up with a drinking-game-without-the-drinking.  Each day we pick two words each and the winner at the end of the day owes the other a coffee.  but the other day i needed it to be a little more potent:

Me: today the stakes are higher, real drinks.  she is doing follow-up calls.
Leela: you pick first.
Me: okey-doke and all-righty.
Leela: I want “no-prob” and “okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?”  Bonus round?
Me: one owes the other a whole bottle if you get 5 of each in one phone call.
Leela: i’ll call us a cab.

i try to remember on other days what it is I’m thankful for, it is an exercise they tell depressed people to do.  remember what you are thankful for and spend time doing good things for other people.  i’m not too great at it.  i will be lying in bed and have to force myself to realize that things aren’t that bad and that if i would stop eating bread right before bedtime i wouldn’t be lying awake worrying the first place.

as things are, and have been my whole life, i have a lot of things to be thankful for.  i have a beautiful home to live in, i have a very kind, sweet, and honest roommate, i have a job, i have friends, i have my health, i have my family, and i have aiden.  i know that i can be pretty whiny sometimes, but i do my best to remember these things.

happy thanksgiving!

my site is just damned boring compared to this.  Seriously, why are you wasting your time here?  i just hope that one day i can dress aiden up and make him look like zach.  then i’d be in business.