When did I become that kind of person?

Yesterday I went to the mall during my lunch break. Partially to get greasy mall Chinese food that I was craving, and partially to look for a nice dress that magically would make me look like I weigh 120 lbs (not...well...not a lot more than that, which is what I weight). As a side note, they don't exist..those magical dresses that make you look like you weight 120 lbs when you obviously don't. Especially after eating greasy mall Chinese food.

When I was done looking for a magical dress that doesn't exist and done eating my greasy mall Chinese food, I was headed back to the other side of the mall so I could rush back to work. Suddenly I found this girl in front of me. She seemed nice enough, she was just leaving one of those annoying kiosks in the middle of the walkways...it looked like she had just dropped off some food for her friend who was working. The only thing about this girl was she was dressed like a freak. She had some hippie black top on but instead of wearing it like a hippie chick would, sans her skanky black bra, she was wearingit like someone 'rebelling against the world' would wear it. She also had these nasty Converse sneakers on and this horrible jean skirt that was so long the bottom was all black from rubbing on the ground. Now the worst part...the skirt had all this skater, punk shit glued all over it...like a pair of skeleton hands 'grabbing' her butt and weird symbols that I am sure mean something to her. All over the long nasty dirty jean skirt.

Now that I think about it, she really just looked like half of my friends did in middle school. But that's besides the point. So she was leaving the kiosk and her friend, and I was walking back to my car right behind her, and we walk around this corner. I'll admit I was completely thinking "I can't believe she is wearing that, I would never dress like that (any more). And really, the skeleton hands on her ass..." So, we turn the corner and this blond, preppy looking business type women is right there walking towards us...she obviously saw this girl before she saw me, but she got this look on her face like "I can't BELIEVE what SHE is wearing. I WOULD NEVER WEAR THAT. WHO LETS THEIR DAUGHTER GO IN PUBLIC LIKE THAT!" And then our eyes meet, and I realize that I probably had the exact same look on my face because our eyes met and we had this moment of solidarity about the skanky way this girl was dressed.

Now, I actually found the whole moment very funny, however, when did I become the kind of person who judges someone else based on what they wear? I mean the girl seemed nice enough, I knew nothing about her, and yet I was totally perplexed and disgusted by what she was wearing. I guess I finally understand what my mom must have felt like when I was in middle school and tried to did wear tyed dyed tube tops with size 20 jeans with the ghetto Mexican belts with a letter on the chrome belt buckle. Did I mention how cool we all were back then?

Are my ears not meant for technology?

A while back I bought an Ipod Shuffle because I thought that if I spent $70 on a piece of the newest technology, it would inspire me to exercise. No such luck. However, believe it not, I actually worked out tonight. My Ipod Shuffle came with the standard little ear phone thingies, as have many of my music players in the past, and I keep using them because I am too cheap to go buy the upgraded versions. The problem lies in the fact that I am pretty sure my ears were not made to fit these things. Everybody else wears them and never seem to have problems. I see skinny beautiful people jogging down the street with their little ear thingies staying in place perfectly, I see people walking down the street and hanging out at the dog park with these little things in place. Mine on the other hand fall out the second I get past the speed of 2.5 on the treadmill...think the vibration from my girls bouncing around has anything to do with my ear thingies falling out? They are also possibly the most uncomfortable things I have put in my ears...does anybody else have this problem or do I need to consult with a plastic surgeon about having my ears rebuilt so I can keep up with the latest technology?

Nifty little tidbits.

Patty tagged me for this nifty little survey thingy. Which is good because I don't really have anything else to write about tonight. Here are 6 tibits/habits about me that hopefully I haven't already shared with you...

1. I failed both the tests for my permit (because I thought I didn't need to read the book because all my awesome friends told me it was useless) and the test for my license (because I almost kind of maybe might have run over a guy who walking through a crosswalk...really all I did was pull past that first stupid line, but stop before the actual crosswalk line...and there happen to be a guy using a crosswalk who was ALREADY walking outside the crosswalk and the whorebag nice lady who was performing my test said I forced the pedestrian to walk in the crosswalk. HMMMFFF.


2. I've never had a roommate...I lived with my parents until I was 23 and moved directly into a condo I bought.


3. I was born at home, not in a hospital and not by a midwife, by a real life doctor. It was the 80's and it was Tahoe, people did that then.


4. I haven't had a person that I could refer to as a boyfriend in my life since I was a sophomore in high school (close to 10 years)...not to say I haven't had, well...other 'friends' in my life.


5. I was close to a month old before I had a name. It probably would have been longer if the grandparents hadn't been coming to visit. I was named after Ginger on Gilligan's Island.


6. I used to ice skate...for like 5 years I was really into it...then they shut down the ice skating rink in my town. That was a sad day.

Ok, well I am supposed to come up with some people to tag...
Jen, Steph, and Babba Unknown...ok, that is so sad that those 3 are the only 3 I can tagged that I know will read this and haven't already been tagged.

I am in so much trouble...

I just realized today that they are building a Starbucks about 2 blocks from my work...not good, not good at all. The only thing that will probably save me from this is that there is an even better organic, fair trade drive thru coffee place about 10 blocks from my work...I would so much rather have them support my coffee addiction than evil corporate Starbucks (although they really do make the best damn Caramel Macchiato's). As a side note, this now means I drive 5 coffee shops on my way to work (the 10 minute drive to work). How addicted to caffeine are we as a country that on my 10 minute drive to work, I drive my 5 coffee shops?

Blogging

Who knows that you have a blog? Did you create your blog as a way for family and friends to keep up on your life, or as a way to write about things you don't want to discuss with your friends and family?

I am always interested in why people blog and who, from their real lives, actually reads it on a regular basis. I read a few blogs whose sole purpose is writing about things they don't want to share with the people in their real lives. They want the freedom associated with writing without their wives, husbands or employers reading their thoughts. On the other hand there are the people who obviously use it as a way to keep their family and friends updated on their lives...there are also the people who are somewhere in between.

I haven't entirely decided why I blog. There are things that I don't write about on here...things I'm not entirely sure I want family and friends to know. On the other hand, there are things I write about on here that I haven't shared with my friends and family but, in a way, I wish they read my blog so they knew those about those things in my life. Most of my close family and friends all know that I have a blog, and where it is, but very few of them choose to read it. One of my friends read it occasionally, until I posted about something, and refer to her in the blog (in a not so flattering way). Now as far as I know, she doesn't read it anymore. If she does, she sure doesn't respond to anything I write about. Some of my other friend are aware it's there, but have never made an effort to ask me where it is or what I write about. Some of my friends read it twice a day (or try too) and complain that I don't post often enough. Is it strange that my feelings are slightly hurt that some of my close friends, who know my blog exists, don't take the time to read it? Or is blogging (and the reading of blogs) something that is only of interest to a select few?

Ok, I don't actually know where i was going with that because I seemed to have lost my train of thought, but my initial question remains: Why do you blog? Who knows about your blog? Is there anyone you don't want to find out about your blog?

No wonder my purse straps always break...

This morning I was cleaning out my purse (I decided I should probably put all those loose receipts and change where they belong...instead of you know, at the bottom of my purse). Here is a picture of the food related items I pulled out of my purse.

I should probably mention I have a habit of grabbing random food items when I am in a rush in the morning, most of the time I forgot they are in there and never eat them.

Nesting

I've lived in my condo for a little over 2 years. For the first 6 months, I don't think I had a single thing hanging on my walls. Then I finally hung up a few random pictures and some random paintings I had when I moved out of my parents house. Those paintings remained on my walls until I finally removed them the weekend before last. I should probably mention the only reason I hung anything up until now was because I had guests, and I felt embarrassed that I had nothing hanging on my walls...a house can't be a home unless you have piece of art and pictures on your walls, right?

The weekend before last (and this weekend, which is why I have posted this until now) I think I finally nested. I hung items on the wall, that I actually wanted on the walls, that make me feel like I have cool, cute things on my walls that make my house my home. Here are some pictures of the things I hung up (notice how there are no pictures that show my floors...that's because they are really quite dirty and while I completely ok posting pictures of my clean walls, I am not ok posting pictures of my messy floors!).


My bathroom...I already had the baskets but now I have a totally cheesy plastic (so not adult) shower curtain that has a tropical beach scene...I figured every morning while I am getting ready for work, I can imagine spending my days lying on the sunny beach!

My living room...I had the red curtains and got the flower canvas paintings to match them. Don't you like my totally old fashioned rabbit ears to help out on the reception of the 6 channels that I get on my t.v.

My living room...I do have the best intentions of putting a black shelf above the giant memo board and pictures on the giant memo board (I just have to hunt down my giant box of photos that have gone MIA at the the moment).

I have three of these little mirrors going down both sides of my hallway. I also have the best of intentions to hang photos between the frames...again, back the missing box of photos!

This is hanging above the overhang heading into my kitchen. Again, I have the best of intentions to hang photos on both sides of it...damn missing box of photos!

One of the walls in my dining room...

Now I'm curious...What makes your house your home?

The Path Not Taken

Do you ever stop for a second and realize that you've gotten to a point in your life, and you really have no idea what got you here? You think back to every decision you've made, and how it lead you to where you are right now? Then you start thinking about where you would be if, instead of making a gradual right turn, you had taken that opportunity to make a sharp left turn on the road of life...

Here I am, not necessarily unhappy with my life, but definitely not living life to it's fullest and definitely not feeling completely satisfied with where I am. I have a lot of things that would make some people completely satisfied with their lives (i.e. a pretty great job, decent salary, own my own condo and a cool dog!), and I have a lot of things (i.e. a lot of debt and financial responsibility, and very little time to just do whatever I want) that would completely overwhelm some people. But where would I have been if I had chosen a different path than the one I did? What if I had gone to college in Montana, or not gone to college at all? What if I choose to major in Culinary Arts instead of Environmental Science? What if I had decided to pursue a career is science writing as a graduate student? What if I had decided not come back from Australia? What if I had never bought my condo? All of these things, these major decisions in life, and the "what if" of those untraveled roads, have been plaguing me lately. Thinking about this becomes so overwhelming, because no matter what, the decisions have been made and the road has been traveled. The only thing one can do is change the direction they are traveling in the future. But anyone who has changed careers, or moved, or, well...just about anything, know how hard it is to change. How the momentum of life just lets you fly away in one direction before you have time to realize you are already in another time zone and another possible opportunity has passed you by?

On the other hand, what if you HAD decided to take a different path? What if I had stayed in Australia? What if I had gone to college in Montana? Or gone on to graduate school? Where would I be right now? Would I be any happier, would my life be any different? Is where I am right now, right where I am supposed to be right now? What if there is something for me to learn from the life I am living, and the experiences I am having, that will ultimately lead me to a life where I will be happily living life to the fullest, where I will have everything I want?

Are you as overwhelmed as I am now?

I need to keep up with the product reviews

I recently installed the nifty little site meter tool and have found that the best way to bring traffic to my site is by writing about Trader Joe's or doing product reviews because more than half of the Google hits were because of my review of Trader Joe's Chocolate Croissants (see, that right there probably brought at least 1 person to my site...suckers, now you are stuck reading some poor single girl's blog).

Trader Joe's Chocolate Croissants (very popular hit)

Chocolate Croissants (also a very popular hit)

"review" "trader joe's"


Although, the following things also brought some people my way....

I'm bored and nothing seems to matter (a little depressing, need I say more)

pick up cute waiter (sorry, I never followed through on that one so that poor sap probably left feeling bored and feeling like nothing seemed to matter....unless of course they want to wallow in sorrow and eat some chocolate croissants...now we're on the same page!)

I also realized that I have a reader in Australia...interesting...ok, maybe not.

Wondering what to do now...

I started writing this a few days ago and stopped with this:

I really didn’t think that I had misjudged this one. I was pretty sure that when I asked the question (which is part of the reason I waited soooo long to ask it) I already knew what the answer was. I haven’t talked to DPG and I’m not really sure what to do. I have to admit I am a little pissed off. Is this acceptable behavior if, given the two options (a) he does actually like me, how does he think it is ok to go this long without actually taking me up on my proposition or (b) he’s just not that into me…in which case shouldn’t he just man up and tell me so? I’ll be the first to admit that I am totally out of practice (still learning?) how to do this whole dating thing. I was never that into dating and spend a lot of my time focused elsewhere…this is all new to me.

I stopped because I wasn't entirely sure where to go from there, or what to do. So I took a break.

A few days ago I finally ran into DPG at the park (ok, truthfully I MAY have kind of stalked him, just a little bit, in order to accidentally 'run' into him at the park but that's a minor detail we need not focus on). He hadn't called, I hadn't run into him and I was completely lost at what to do next. I figured running into him could go 2 ways...(1) things would be really awkward and very obvious he didn't call me because he didn't want to or (2) he would realize how much of a stupid boy he was being and he is really in love with me and we would live happily ever after. Too much to ask for? Maybe a little. Instead things were exactly the same as they were before I asked him. We chatted, for close to 45 minutes, about everything from my stupid work shit, to the fact he got a new job, to how much he was going to be making at his new job, to plans for his upcoming vacation, to stupid stories about random shit from our lives...but no mention on either of our parts about him calling me (or him NOT calling I should say). I couldn't bring myself to ask him about it and have the same thing happen again, so stood there hoping he was say something. Until we started talking about being out of shape and he said the following "When I was at that job (referring to his last job where he did a lot of physical labor) I was in the best shape of my life...185, totally hard and ripped." Ok, I realize that out of context of the whole conversation, this sentence sounds completely ridiculous on so many levels, but I can tell you that all I could think about after that point was his hard ripped body. I don't really remember anything else we talked about. I ran into him again last night. Same thing. Well not the comment about his hard body...but I obviously haven't forgotten THAT thought..thank you very much jerkface DPG. Leave me here thinking about your hard body while you go on vacation for a week, not that it matters because you won't call me anyways!

Soooooo....I am at a loss. I really do like this guy and hate to admit that he probably is just not that into me, but I have a feeling that is probably the case. Do I just let it go or do I turn myself into the crazy girl who just keeps asking him out until he finally mans up and tells me he's not interested or gives in and goes on a date with me (probably just to shut me up)?

A little bit of randomness...

This morning I put on 2 pairs of underwear. Yup, you heard me right, I got out of the shower and put on my underwear...then I shuffled through some clothes looking for what to wear and all the sudden, I found myself putting on another pair. Think I need more sleep?

Also, why is it that no matter how long it's been since I last peed, why do I ALWAYS have to REALLY pee the second I walk through my front door. This afternoon I peed right before I left work, drove directly home (15 minutes tops) and had to seriously pee the second I walked through the door.

Product Review: Trader Joe's Frozen Chocolate Croissants

I should probably explain that chocolate croissants are definitely one of my top 5 food items...the chocolate goodness wrapped inside a buttery, flaky croissant...what more could you ask for?

When I saw this staring back at me from the frozen food section of my local Trader Joe's, I almost had a food-induced orgasm right there standing between the frozen fruit and the frozen waffles. I. HAD. TO. TRY. THEM. No questions asked.

They are simple enough. The pack comes with 4 frozen croissants. You just take them out and let them proof (rise) at room temperature for at least 9 hours. I took them out at about 10pm before I went to bed. They looked like this when I took them out:

This is what they looked like in the morning when I woke up...mmmmmm, croissanty goodness just waiting for me when I woke up.


They you just bake them for 20-25 minutes...obviously I overcooked them a bit, I tried to cook them while I was in the shower...opps.

Anywho, I was a little disappointed. Admittedly part of it was my fault because I overcooked them so I will definitely give them another try but they were very greasy, but didn't really taste that buttery, like a good croissant should. They also definitely lacked a little on the chocolate as well...I took maybe 4 bites before I hit chocolate...however, once I hit the chocolate...mmmm, mmm goodness.

They also go stale very quickly. I left them out overnight by accident and they were totally stale the next morning.

Overall Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

I'de like to introduce you to a new member of my family....

Ahhhh, I know...they are so cute aren't they?

BTW...sorry for the crappy pictures, they were from my cell phone because I have misplaced my digi-camera.

They've finally caught up with me.

Long ago, when the 'do not call' list first came about, I signed up. And it seemed to make a huge difference in the number of telemarketer calls. Until recently...when apparently they have discovered that I am not home during the hours of 9am and 8pm. However....For the past 4 nights, between 8:30 and 8:45 at night, I have gotten a fucking call from a fucking telemarketer. WTF? It is so annoying. On the rare occasion that I am home during the day, I don't answer the phone because I know who is on the other line...my friends and family know better than to call me at home. But who would expect a fucking marketing company to call you at 8:45 at night? I sure wouldn't. Bastards!

Lost in Translation

First, yes, I totally just ripped off Jen's blog title but I think it fits this story so well that I just had too...

I just read this post by Jen and her comment about the remote control for life should have a Spanish option button reminded me of the following night (not entirely sure why THIS memory popped up, but either way I thought I would share).

Writer's note to the Reader
This story may appear not as funny as I remember it to be because of the following reasons: you were not there, you are not (and have not) been heavily drinking for the past few hours (well, maybe you have), it is not 3 am.

While I was in college I had a friend. She had a boyfriend who had friends (shocker there huh?). One of her boyfriends friends lived in Sacramento and we would go and visit him once or twice a month on the weekends. These weekends were largely spent drinking and ditching the boys so we had an excuse to go shopping. And then more drinking of course. We normally played a marathon game of Monopoly at some point in time as well.

This particular night, we had been drinking heavily all night. Earlier in the night we had played a rousing game of Monopoly but things were starting to wind down. We decided to put in a movie since our livers probably would have shut down if we consumed any more alcohol. The movie we choose was Dogma. I should probably explain, at this time, everyone in the room had probably seen Dogma close to 20 times so we pretty much knew the movie by heart...

Now, my memory is a little fuzzy about the exact details of what caused the next serious of events to unfold, but about 30 minutes into the movie my friend and her boyfriend started wrestling on the ground. Like I said, I don't remember why it started, probably some stupid challenge about how so and so could pin so and so to the ground and before you knew it people were wrestling on the living room floor. Short lived as it was, the little wrestling match caused some destruction in the living room...the playstation being used as a DVD player had been tossed across the room and our movie viewing has been interrupted. Once things calmed down, we plugged the DVD player back in and started the movie back up. We kept watching...for probably about 45 minutes....when all the sudden my friend started laughing hysterically. We all immediately assumed she had finally cracked and couldn't contain her craziness anymore...I mean why else would she start laughing completely out of the blue.

I finally tried to ask her "what the hell is so funny?" But she just kept laughing and pointing at the t.v. Ummm? What? Ahhhh, ok crazy women? Until it hit me...French...they were speaking French...For the past 45 minutes we had been watching Dogma in French. And none of us had noticed. For 45 minutes.

Of course I started laughing hysterically and the boys had thought that we had completely lost it until one of us could stop laughing for long enough to explain. They didn't find it as funny as we did. Stupid boys.

A little bit of randomness...

Just some randomness from today....

• I am exhausted for 2 reasons today, (1) I did not have coffee this morning...Oh wait, I just remembered I put my Dr. Pepper from lunch in the freezer, damn it! Now I am going to have a popsicle instead of a soda! and (2) I stayed up until 1:30 doing arts & crafts (i.e. painting a gold picture frame black because I don't particularly like gold colored things) and watching Sex & the City.
• It was some one's birthday at work today. This means we ordered lunch and bought a dessert. Today's dessert was a generic ice cream cake. Good, but it wasn't a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. Now all I can think about is a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake decorated with yummy, sugary frosting balloons. Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes are the bomb. I am now seriously considering ordering an ice cream cake for myself...but I won't because all I would eat is the frosting. Do you think they would sell me a scoop of ice cream decorated with massive amounts of ice cream cake frosting?
• All day I have been smelling something weird, not really bad, just weird, and I think I have finally figure out that it is my shoes...I think I need to throw them away...which is sad, because they are my favorite work high heels. The death of a good pair of shoes is a sad, sad occasion! And now I am wondering if anybody has been able to smell the weird smell, or if I am just super paranoid about my feet smelling and there really isn't any weird smell.
• My work just hired someone that I went to high school (and was kind of friends) with for a position not really related to what I do, but really there's only like 10 people in my office so even though it's not really related, it's still related...I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. The girl is nice enough, but it's the whole intermingling of "friend" Ginger with "work" Ginger that I'm not sure I'm down with. I like having different personalities for different areas of my life. Great, now you all think I have multiple personalities!
• And just now I got a call on my work cell phone with some little kid screaming "Helllllloooo...hellow....I'm Hannah Montana!" I hung up immediately, it obviously wasn't work related.

So, that pretty much sums up my day...I am now apparently a psychotic with multiple personalities who is mourning the death of her shoes and craving an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins...and whose vision is now starting to go blurry because of her lack of sleep last night because she just 'had' to paint that picture frame!

Stepping out of your comfort zone...

The other day I found myself perusing the latest issue of Glamour and there was a feature on what certain people have done lately that was out of their comfort zone. One women responded "I eat low fat food once in a while." First of all, she is a women after my own heart. Second, I figured since I myself had recently been brave enough to do something out of my comfort zone (ask out the Dog Park Guy, which if you have inferred by my lack of updates on the subject, is not going as I had hoped it might) I thought I would ask...

Have you been brave enough to step out of your comfort zone lately? What was it that you did? How did things turn out?

What friends are for.

I have this friend. Not to get into too many details, but she has a lot of weird habits. Weird habits that I normally make fun of her for. One of these habits is that she puts ice in her milk when she drinks milk. To no end, I used to make fun of her for putting ice cubes in her milk. I mean, really, who puts ice in their milk?

Here's the kicker, I like drinking milk at certain times (i.e. when I am enjoying my mmmmmalicious chocolate chip cookies) but I never used to because I don't like warm milk. I always had to drink milk RIGHT out of the fridge, otherwise I got all uuukkkked out because it was too warm.

So one day (I can't EVER admit this to her by the way), I tried putting ice in my milk. TA DA, problem solved. I now had ice cold milk. Whod a thunk it? What a concept? Putting ice in milk to keep it cold. Hmmm, now I can enjoy my ice cold milk with my warm fresh cookies.

Still Falling...

I never called him back. I know, I know, this means that I probably committed another mortal dating sin but I honestly hoped I would run into him. Afterall for the past few months I had been seeing him at the park a few times a week. It's been more than 2 weeks and I haven't seen him. And too much time has passed for me to call him...Right?

For work today, I spent 6 hours driving. This means that I had A LOT of time to obsess over the Dog Park Guy, because, well...I had nothing else to think about for 6 hours (what, why would I think about work when I don't have to?). For the first 3 hours, I had completely convinced myself that it was a lost cause. If he liked me he would have called, right? Or I would have run into him, right? He's probably been avoiding me, which is why I haven't run into him. Ok, argument over...I'm not calling him.

On my way home, I got a voice message on my cell phone. No, it wasn't from him...calm yourselves down! After listening to that message, it automatically went to my next 'skipped' message. It was his message from weeks ago. That I had totally forgot I never deleted. Hmmm, it got me thinking that maybe I shouldn't cross him off as a lost cause. Yes, I realize I sound like a crazed, obsessed, pathetic girl....but like I said, I had nothing better to think about.

It's about 2 pm by now. I'm headed back to work and I've now started to convince myself that maybe, just maybe, I should call him. He's at work right now, so I can call, leave a message and put the ball in his court. "Right?" " Yeah!" "Ok, just do it!" Ummm, somehow my fingers don't get the whole "just do it part." They got stuck on "Yeah!" So here I am, driving through the Nevada desert with a bunch of fingers that are only on step 2 of this 3 step program. Maybe they are stuck in the denial stage? Haven't quite moved onto that whole acceptance thing...

So there I am...for the next hour, arguing with my fingers over that last step. Every time I convince them to go forward, my phone loses it's signal. And there we are back to arguing. It's 3:45 now and I am almost back at work. I know once I get back to my office, I will be enveloped in the whirlwind of chaos that taken over my office lately, and I know I won't be around tomorrow so this is my last chance (this is the delusional talking it took to talk myself...or more correctly, my fingers, in the making that phone call). Of course, now the problem is that he is probably home from work and my whole idea of just leaving him a message has to be replaced by what I would actual do if he answered.

Then, all the sudden, they (my fingers) finally press the call button before my mind actually realized that we came to an agreement on this subject. Hmmm, the phone is ringing. Ummm, what the hell do I say if (a) I get an answering machine or (b) he answers the phone. Fuck, shit, what do I say?

"Hello." It was him.

We talked. It wasn't bad. Not bad at all. He sounded excited to talk to me but didn't broach the subject of doing something (as if I would be calling him for any other reason....I haven't called him in 2 years 'just because'). So finally, when we got to a pause in the conversation, I finally said "Well I was just calling to see what your plans for this weekend were? I thought if you weren't busy you might want to do something?" I won't go into the details, but he is busy during the days (building something, he's a handy manly man) but if he's not too tired at night, "he would love to do something". "He'll call me later this week." "But if not this weekend, definitely next weekend."

What is happening to me? Do I not get the picture? I have now asked this guy out twice and still don't have a straight fucking answer from him! Here's the deal with me. It takes me a really long time to actually start something...anything. But once I start, I have a really hard time focusing on anything else until it's finished. That means, for those of you who can't put 2 and 2 together, than I think I have to keep asking him out until I get a definitely answer one way or another.

So now, even though the ball is in his court, I am the one bouncing off the walls.

Who's really better off?

The other day I found myself leaving my bank with $40.00 cash in my wallet. As I was leaving the parking lot there was a homeless man standing on the corner with a sign "Vietnam Vet. Please help." It got me thinking about money and debt. Here is this man, standing on a street corner in his dirty clothes, with his unshaven beard and his cardboard sign, and here I am thinking to myself "well, you (thinking the homeless man) aren't really that bad off." Recently I have been stressing about money a lot. I get paid pretty well, yet most months I spend more money than I make. This is my fault, I put myself out there and took a chance by buying a condo. In the long run this will pay off, however right now, even though I make more money than a lot of my friends, I find myself putting my groceries on my credit card so I don't bounce a check. Now truthfully, when i thought that, I was probably rationalizing my excuse for not giving this guy a buck, but here I am, this 25 year old girl with a home in my name, a car in my name and a job that pays me pretty well. However, here I am drowning in debt. After combining my credit card debt, student loans, car loans and house loans, I am over $200,000 in debt. Me, by myself, am over $200,000 in debt. Him, this homeless man, I am guessing, has no debt to his name.

What kind of culture do we live in that going into debt, an amount more than most people will see in their lifetime, is completely acceptable, if not preferred. Who doesn't want to own their own car, own their own house, take dream vacations and get a college education? But what does it really cost you? Does this debt confine you to a lifestyle that ties you down, makes you stay at a job you don't like or stay with a spouse just because you are afraid you can't survive on your own? Or do acquiring these things give you a sense of pride in what you have (and will) accomplish in your life?