Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Making Friends Is Hard To Do

This past weekend I spent in Pennsylvania, hanging out with two of my best friends from college.  Now I feel more refreshed and happier than I have in quite a while.  It really struck me how important having good friends is to my mental well-being.  Although I am actually more social now than I used to be, I do not have the kind of social contacts that matter.  Even if I am physically with people more often, I am not really bonding with them on that deeper level that gives my spirits a lift.  I have always had some trouble making and maintaining friendships, and I have not found that this has gotten any easier with age.

In high school, I was the smart, quiet girl.  I went to a fairly small high school and knew just about everybody in my school.  While I think I was generally liked by my classmates, I had very few of them that I would name as actual friends.  I mostly hung out with three girls from my grade.  One of these is my cousin, so it would be hard for me to lose that contact.  She and I actually get along even better as adults (that high school competition aspect is gone from our relationship), but we live in different areas of the country and do not see each other more than a half dozen times a year.  The other two girls are no longer in my life except as Facebook friends.  The four of us had a huge blowout toward the end of senior year over class rankings (too many smart girls in the room I guess), and my friendships with them never recovered.  I did try to reconnect with one of them after graduation because we had been friends since elementary school but it did not work out.

I was much better at socializing with my fellow students in college.  I lived on campus, so finding new acquaintances was as easy as walking down the hall, any hall.  Over the years my friends changed as we mixed up dating relationships, living arrangements, extra-curricular activities, and classes.  My initial friends were mainly made through close proximity in the dorms.  Then, I branched out as I bonded through parties, shared activities, and class projects.  Though there were several people I would have called friends while I was there, I have found it much, much harder to keep them now that we no longer live on the same campus.  Most have fizzled to nothing but a connection on Facebook.  I do have a few that I see once or so a year, but even enjoying their company at those events does not translate into any contact the rest of the year.  I have one former roommate that I have not seen much since college but who recently moved close to me.  We have put some effort into resurrecting our relationship.  Surprisingly, the two best friends I just saw did not become such until after college although I knew both while there.  One became a better friend after we discovered we were in the same town right after college.  The other was around when I needed help, and I discovered how much I sincerely liked him through all our conversations.  Neither lives near me now, and I have had to put in extra effort to maintain the contact with them.  I know they are true friends though, because no matter how long it has been, we pick up right where we left off.

As an adult, I have found it very hard to make friends on a more than superficial level.  I only meet people through work and my husband.   While I seem to generally get along with the people I know, I seem to be out of sync with where most people are in their lives.  I am too old and too uncomfortable with the evening bar scene to connect with half of them.  I am too young and not family-oriented enough to connect with the other half.  I have maintained one friendship with a former coworker, but it is a tenuous thread at best and we have dinner maybe twice a year.  I like her, but we just do not seem to connect in a way that makes us want to see each other more often than that.  Most of the people I see on a regular basis are friends through my very social husband.  Honestly, I think the connections would fall away if my husband was not there to hold them together.  Again it is just a matter of not being on the same wavelength as them as they get together at bars and log their beer choices into the Untapped app.

Sometimes I worry that I am doomed to a lonely life with very little meaningful human interaction.  It is not that I do not want to make friends.  I feel I am an open-minded person who is willing to give superficial interactions a chance to develop into something more.  However, I find that very few people seem to consider me good friend material.  I get very few invitations to do anything with other people, except those that have obviously been flung to the masses.  When I make the gesture to invite others to do something with me, I receive what I call the back burner treatment.  If they do not find something better to do, they might consider my invitation but no one ever really seems enthused about whatever I have suggested.  It becomes depressing to constantly put effort into people that have little interest into giving anything back.

This weekend has proved that I really need to work on strengthening those relationships that I do have.  I am sad that my best friends are so far away, but I think I need to work on getting more face-to-face time with them anyways.  My mental health depends on it.  I will also try to keep connecting with the college friend who moved within a reasonable driving distance.  Maybe it will grow into something better than it is now.  Of course, I will continue to try to make friends with other adults in my area.  I suppose the best answer would be to find ways of exposing myself to new groups of people, but work, family demands, and lack of motivation use up a lot of my free time.

What about you?  Have you kept up friendships from school?  Have you made many friends as an adult?  How do you do it?


See you next week!

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

What Time Is It!?!

I make plans to be productive just about every weekend.  Somehow, I never seem to accomplish much on my To Do List.  The problem is not only lack of motivation (although that definitely plays a part, see the 7/1/2015 blog), but that the day ends before I am ready for it to end.  Time seems to slip away from me and I end up in the evening hours with no idea what I did with all the time that passed since I got up that morning.  So I examined my life, and I have come up with four things that suck a lot of time out of my day.

The number one thing that steals my time is the internet.  I get on with the intention to check my email, and before I know it hours have past.  Email itself does not actually take that long to read, unless I have a Buzzfeed Books newsletter in there (those have lots of links to click).  But when I am done with the email, I do not get off the computer.  Instead, I go to Facebook where I check for actual messages to me, but end up staying to scroll through the newsfeed.  I keep unfollowing people that I really do not need to see their daily updates, but it seems like Facebook keeps adding what kind of things I see in my newsfeed so it never gets any shorter.  Then, I cannot help but click on all the quizzes.  I know these are not real and they give laughable results, but somehow that is part of the addiction.  Apparently, I really do need to know which Avenger I would be (I must have hidden anger issues because I keep getting The Hulk).  From there, I go to Youtube where one ten minute video turns into several ten to twenty minute videos.  Finally, I stop at the msn homepage to read multiple news stories, mostly in the Money and Lifestyle sections.  None of it is that important, but somehow I cannot stop consuming more unnecessary internet information.

The second thing that steals my time is other people.  I swear my family has a sixth sense to know when I am busy and do not really want to talk to them.  I do screen my phone calls, but often I answer even if I do not really feel like it.  Part of this is guilt because I live so far away from my family, and part of it is fear that something is wrong at home, especially if it is my sister calling.  We are all talkers, so any phone call lasts for at least an hour while we exchange all the news that happened since the last time we talked, even if it was only a few days ago.  In addition to my family in PA, my husband and stepson waste a lot of my time.  I know spending time with the family is part of having one, but I am not complaining about the time that is spent doing something together.  I can plan around making and eating dinner together, or watching a movie together.  It is more the minutes that fly by because one of them has decided to talk to me about something I am not interested in hearing.  My husband is forever cornering me to talk about his future plans (that will never happen) or trying to lure me into political debates because he enjoys them.  My stepson talks non-stop whenever anyone is around.  He talks about his friends at school, he describes all the episodes of whatever TV shows he enjoys, and he asks more questions than I know how to answer.  Maybe I should be more assertive about saying I do not have time to talk right now, but I just feel so guilty when they seem so disappointed at the shutdown.

Sleeping seems to take up a lot of my time on the weekends.  I have the intention to keep to a similar schedule as on the weekdays, but I usually end up sleeping later and taking naps more often than not.  I am always so worn out on the weekends that I have a hard time getting up in the mornings.  On the weekdays, I drag myself out of bed before six because otherwise I will not make it to work on time.  On the weekends, my intention is to get up around seven, but it often ends up being eight or sometimes even nine before I can get myself started for the day.  Then, I have to take a nap mid-afternoon.  I will go upstairs thinking to close my eyes for twenty minutes, but that turns into two hours on a regular basis.  Even if I set my alarm, I just end up resetting it to get more sleep.  I must need the sleep though because I am still ready for bed at my normal ten o’clock bedtime.

Finally, I underestimate how long it takes me to do things.  Even when I am productive on my weekends, I tend not to do everything on my To Do List because I just cannot make it through all the items.  I know how long it takes me to do routine tasks.  It takes approximately half an hour to wash the dishes, fifteen minutes to fold a basket of clothes, five minutes to separate a bag of snacks into smaller baggies for lunches, etc.  When it comes to projects or non-routine chores though, I have no idea how long they take me to do and I always seem to underestimate them even when I try to pad the time.  I will put five things on my list, but when I actually start working on them I find hours have passed and I am still working on the first task.  The more physical tasks are the worst because I am much more out of shape than I would like to admit.  My perfectionism hinders my progress as well.  I do not just want to complete the task; I want to complete it correctly.  So I should probably work on doing things more efficiently, whether that means becoming more practiced at doing the tasks or learning to be satisfied with “good enough”.

What about you?  Are you good about sticking to a schedule and getting things done?  Do you lose time in your day?  What are some of the things you find suck up your time without your realizing it?


See you next week!

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Black and Gold….And Purple?

Last week marked one of the most uncomfortable parts of my marriage, the beginning of football season.

For starters, I am a Steelers fan.  I grew up just outside of Pittsburgh, and I bleed black and gold.  My grandmother would disown me if I ever strayed from my roots.  (I also am a Penguins fan, but that is another post.)  I did not grow up watching a lot of Sunday football because neither of my parents did.  However, once I left home and got more exposure to the world, I actually found that football was good entertainment.  The Steelers games are not broadcast in northern Virginia much unless they are one of the evening games, but when I get the chance I like to tune into them.  Getting together with friends and family to cheer on the home team is great fun, regardless of whether they win or not.

My husband is a Baltimore Ravens fan.  For all that he talks about how much he hates Steeler bandwagon fans (I am grudgingly allowed to be a Steelers fan because of where I was born), he is a bandwagon Ravens fan.  He grew up in the Washington Redskins territory.  His father is a Washington Redskins fan.  He was a Washington Redskins fan until just a few years ago.  Then, he became tired of watching the Redskins lose season after season, and he became a Ravens fan.  He says they made the game fun again, but to me that translates into he wants to root for a team that wins consistently.  Therefore, he is a bandwagon fan.  My guess is if the Ravens start playing like the Redskins, he will change his mind again.

Of course, we have known from the start that we were rivalries when it came to football, but it was not an issue for the first year or so we were together.  We enjoyed watching games together in general.  Plus, we had an agreement that as long as we were not playing each other, we would support the other’s team.  We even watched the Steelers/Ravens games together in good spirit and friendly rivalry.  This has slowly changed over the years.  It started with the inability to watch the Steelers/Ravens games together.  My husband would get angry if the Steelers won and rage about how biased the referees were during the game.  If the Ravens won, he would gloat and go into lectures about why the Ravens are so much better than the Steelers.  Now the tension has spread to all of the games.  I can no longer watch any Steelers or Ravens game with him, regardless of who the other team is.  Even when they are not playing each other, I have to hear about how great the Ravens are and what a quality quarterback Flacco is.  (Just for the record, I do not think Flacco is much of a quarterback.  He usually gets the job done, but I do not find his performance that inspiring and do not think he will ever be considered elite.)

This season, I found out that all boundaries on our treaty have been violated.  Thursday was the first game of the regular season, Steelers vs. Patriots.  My husband had some friends over to watch the game together.  At one point, I overheard them, my husband included, talking about how much they hate the Steelers and how much they hate Steelers fans.  I gave them a piece of my mind, and then later when everyone had gone home, I gave my husband another piece.  Not only was he not supporting the Steelers when they were not playing the Ravens (that was our agreement remember), but he was talking trash about Steelers fans.  That means he was talking trash about me, his wife.  It was the final straw, and my husband has officially sucked all the fun out of football season in our house.

Of course, this is only one small piece of our marriage.  Not being able to enjoy football season together is a bummer, but it should not be the end of us as a couple.  It does however make me wonder what other things are in store for me now that the honeymoon stage of marriage is over and we are effectively stuck with each other.  It also adds to a list of growing signs that my husband does not have much respect for where I grew up and the people that come from there, which makes me question our long term happiness together.  For now though, I guess the solution is to stay away from each other during football games and work on the rest of our marriage to hopefully be happy with one another in the big picture.

Also, it might finally be time for me to find a good Steelers bar in the area.  Anyone have any recommendations?


Go Steelers!  See you next week!

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Confessions of a Book Addict

What is my favorite activity in the whole world?  Reading.  Here are some random facts about my self-diagnosed addiction to books.

I have probably read over a thousand books in my lifetime.  I like all genres and will give anything a try.  I read more fiction than non-fiction, but I do like the occasional biography, history, or real-life crime story.  I love epic fantasy, the more novels in the series, the better.  I am not ashamed that I like chick lit and romance novels, especially those that have strong female protagonists.  I still enjoy reading novels meant for children and young adults.  I have an incredibly hard time not finishing a book once I have started it even if I do not like it.  The only exceptions are textbooks (especially math and science ones).  I also find it difficult to read more than one novel at a time, because I was once scolded by a babysitter for not finishing the book she lent me before starting another one.  I have read books in as little as one day (even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and I have procrastinated reading over weeks (the little novella Billy Budd, Sailor nearly got the better of me).

I actually have a spreadsheet dedicated to books that I want to read.  I call it my Geek Page.  There are currently 242 entries on it, but some of those actually represent series with multiple books in them.  I gather the books from many sources.  I get recommendations from friends and family.  I read a book that I like, and so I look up more by the same author.  I hear about books through online forums and TV.  I pull some of them from reviews in Entertainment Weekly.  I probably get the most ideas from the articles on the Buzzfeed Books emails that I receive.  Some of the books that are on this list have been there since I created the spreadsheet (maybe eight or nine years ago?).  Some of them have only been on here a day or two.  I always delete books that I have completed, but I almost never delete a book I have not read yet.  While I dream about reading all of them some day, I am quite aware that I probably will never get through the list, especially since I add much faster than I delete.  Even though I have this magnificent list, I still randomly pull books off the shelves to read without having preselected them.

Despite my love for books, I do not actually own that many compared to some people I know.  I probably have a hundred or so, spread across several bookshelves and boxes.  I used to own a lot more, but after moving several times the joy of owning does not quite live up to the pain of packing and lugging boxes of books everywhere.  I have purged my collection over time, although it is very hard for me to get rid of a book.  I always give my books away; I never toss them in the garbage.  I actually find it much easier to never buy a book in the first place than to dispose of it after I already own it.  Because of this, I try to force myself to borrow the majority of the books I read, mostly from the library, sometimes from people I know.  This has the added benefit of being kinder to my budget as well.  I much prefer to read an actual book where I can turn the pages, but I still do own and use an e-reader.  My Nook has probably twenty or so books on it.  I have bought them mostly to take on vacation as I try not to travel with library books lest they get lost, or non-fiction books that I think I might want to reference more than once in my life.  Someday when I have unlimited money and space, I hope to own a library that would rival the one in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast movie.

I attended the National Book Festival this past weekend in Washington DC.  I met a college friend there, and we went to two of the sessions.  The first was a panel discussion between Jane Hirshfield, Azar Nafisi, and Jeffrey Brown entitled Why Literature Matters.  The panelists joked with the audience that the topic probably did not need to be debated much for an audience who was at the National Book Festival.  The second program was a presentation given by Bryan Stevenson about some of the ideas discussed in his book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.  The book is based on his opinions about the flaws in our nation’s justice system, drawn from his experience as a lawyer working with some of the most hopeless cases in the court system.  He was a phenomenal speaker who clearly articulated his ideas and provided plenty of anecdotal evidence.  His book is now on my Geek Page, waiting to be read.

I would dearly love to be paid to read all day, every day.  Yet I did not go into a career that had anything to do with reading books.  The main reason for this was that English classes drained me.  Although I did really well in them, analyzing and critiquing books was very hard work for me.  I felt that the process of doing English homework sucked all the fun out of too many books that could have been enjoyed for their own sake.  I feared this would probably hold true in the professional world as well.  So for now, I read books to enjoy them, not to edit them, analyze them, critique them, or pretend that I have all the answers to why the authors wrote them in the first place.  However, if someone wants to pay me to put their library to good use, I am more than happy to accept the position.  If I ever have the time to do much volunteer work, literacy initiatives are at the top of the list.

Now it is time to go read a book.  I am currently enjoying The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom.  It is a rather complicated non-fiction read that has made me really wish I was more familiar with some of the past’s more famous thinkers (Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, etc.).  Next in the pile is a more light-hearted pick by one of my favorite authors, Home from the Sea by Mercedes Lackey.  Both are due back to the library in a week and a half, so I need to get reading.

What is on your reading list?  Any recommendations for what I should read next?


See you next week!

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Highlights of Seattle

It is easy to pick a topic to write about when you have just come back from vacation.  You need to write about the vacation of course.  You might remember from last week’s mini-blog that I went with my husband to Seattle, WA for the week to visit his cousins.  So now without further ado, some highlights from the trip.

Best Restaurant:  Elliott’s Oyster House

Over the course of several days, we sampled many places.  Our cousins guided us to several of their favorite places, including some Seattle hotspots and some yummy local options in Bellevue.  We also ventured out on our own one night to sample the famous Sky City restaurant at the top of the Space Needle.  While the view from Sky City was definitely the best we had while eating, the food options were a bit fancy for my taste.  I actually enjoyed our final meal at the oyster house best.  It was my first time eating raw oysters, which were not my favorite (a little chewy).  However, my grilled seafood salad was amazing.  There was a decent amount of seafood on it, and it was all cooked deliciously.

Best Snack:  Rachel’s Ginger Beer

Although I had plenty of muffins, cookies, and brownies at our cousins’ house, I only have a couple places to choose between when it comes to snacks outside of the house.  I picked Rachel’s, because a) it is unique and b) it was good.  We did have cupcakes one day.  While tasty, they were no better than half the other cupcake places I have tried (and I have tried quite a few of them).  This is the first time I have ever been to a place dedicated to ginger beer though.  You could have it plain, you could have it flavored by a number of fruit or spice add-ins, you could have it mixed with alcohol, or you could have it with ice cream.  I had mine with pink guava juice, and it was quite refreshing.

Best View:  Ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle

As mentioned above, we did visit the Space Needle where we had the view of Seattle in the restaurant and from the observation deck above.  This gave us a wonderful view of the mountains including an amazing look at Mount Rainier and the harbor.  However, this was easily beat by the view of the city skyline coming back on the ferry from Bainbridge Island.  We timed our ferry ride so that we were headed back to Seattle right as it was getting dark.  As we got closer, the sky got darker and the city lights twinkled brighter in the twilight.  It was absolutely breathtaking.

Best Attraction:  Chihuly Garden and Glass

I might be biased because this was my only pick while there.  I was looking more for relaxation and less for running around doing things during my time off.  As a result, I failed to plan anything, and my husband and our cousins picked most of our activities for the week.  When I heard that the Chihuly gallery was literally right next to the Space Needle, I requested that we make this another stop on our solo night out.  I have seen Chihuly’s work before at an installation in Florida, so I knew it would be beautiful.  This gallery did not disappoint.  There were eight inside galleries (nine if you count the Chandelier Walkway), one glasshouse exhibit, and one outside garden.  Chihuly uses blown glass set among lights, flora, and objects to create fantastical landscapes and scenes.  Everything about it made me happy and I could not keep the smile off my face as we walked through the galleries.  My favorite room was the Sealife Room where there was a huge whirl of blue glass currents in the center with little glass sea creatures floating among the pieces.  Around the edges of the room were individual sculptures highlighting individual sea creatures.  My favorite was a piece with turtles on it.  Bonus, the gallery took a picture of us against one of the pieces which we could download for free from home.

Weirdest Attraction:  Seattle Gum Wall

I honestly do not get the allure of this attraction.  There is a wall down in Pike Place Market that is literally covered in gum and things stuck in the gum.  Although I tried politely to decline a visit to the gum wall, our cousins would not let it go and insisted on a trip to see it on our first day out there.  Apparently you cannot go to Seattle without visiting the gum wall, and therefore I figured I could not write a blog about a vacation to Seattle without mentioning it too.

Cutest Baby:  Little Baby Cousin

This was an easy contest given that we only really saw and interacted with one baby while there.  Our cousins have a son around eight months of age.  We have seen many pictures of him since he was born, but this was our first chance to see him.  He was a very calm and playful baby without a lot of fussing and tantrums (luckily we got to see him before he started teething).  He seemed to like us and had no qualms with playing with these strangers who had invaded his house.  Some baby-playing was just what I needed to relax on my vacation.


See you next week!