Open Letter to Razor-Challenged Dudes Everywhere

Alternate title for this post: Enough already

Dear Dudes,

Okay, enough with the fucking beards guys. I am so over that look it is not even funny. Just today at my work alone I have spotted five fucking beards…FIVE!!! And for an office that only has about 2 dudes in it, that is a crazy high ratio.

Seriously guys, seriously. What is it with the beard? I mean you still have to shave, right, so it is not like it is a laziness type thing. Do you feel it makes you look more macho nacho or something? It makes you look older if I do say so myself, and that can never really be a good look I don’t think but then again look at Clooney so who am I to judge?

I have to say that I was not always a beard hater. When Xtian first began to rock his beard way back when I thought it was bold look very fitting for this high-power snootin falutin type of alpha male persona. But that was then and now somehow a memo went out to dudes everywhere that the beard was the next big thing and low and behold it has become a commoditized fixture in a society full of beard poseurs. It's like the whole Moto RAZR thing all over again except take our mobile phone and instert Joe Sixpack's face.

I mean never since the whole Fuggs craze have I been that appalled at a single one fashion accessory turned wrong, turned WAY wrong. So please guys unless you look way better with a beard than without (and for 99.9% of you guys you look better without) shave that shit off.

Off my soapbox.

xoxo,
GT

Feeling a Little Emo - I Must Still Be Young

Alternate title for this post: F U Robert Frost


If two roads diverged in a yellow wood and you took the one less traveled by, would it really make all the difference? Or perhaps, would you stroll on this desolate road feeling like a complete and total ass? My money is on the latter.

Today was one of those days that you know you should have stayed in bed but got up anyway determined to fight the good fight of life and ended up losing by 11:00am. I have been sick for over a week and although I was still feeling sick this AM I decided that it was time for me to go to work and actually work for a living instead of sleeping countless hours on my couch while taking antibiotics.

Well, I went to work only to be really really really and tremendously disappointed, and coupled with the sicknesses, I seriously considered that it may be time to hang up the towel and find a new venture that is more to my liking. Nothing is worse to me than being disappointed, I would much rather be sad or pissed or in pain then be disappointed, because I feel as if I can never really recover from disappointment. A bit dramatic yes, but totally true.

So there I sat at 11:00am with my work bag packed, a box of tissues for my constantly running nose and headed home on the non bullet train all the while seriously considering looking for another job. I mean what would I do? Would I stay in the profession I honestly love but am underappreciated at? I mean don’t I have responsibilities to myself, my loved ones and my clients so is this even a viable thought? Maybe I could just quit and do nothing, just workout and cook delish yet healthy well-balanced meals for my parents and Xtian. Before I knew it I dosed off and started to hallucinate myself running down different paths yet with nowhere to go.

So in my dream I sat there at the quasi critical fork in the road (or as critical as it can seem when one is in her 20s) staring at each road with not in as much as an inclination of where to go and with enough apathy to really not give a damn. I mean really, what the hell is the point? How often can we throw our hands up in the air and say fuck it and meander our way through life without a care in the world? Once maybe twice at most?

Well you know what? I have already been there and done that. While I remember that period in my life with quite fondness, and will save the details as to why I am so jaded for another post, I am so over having to explain to people that I don’t have a job because I don’t want one and I am “finding myself”. In your early 20s that is cute in a Jack Kerouac kinda way, but in your 30s you’re just the butt of a slacker joke my friend.

So when the train came to a halt at my station I woke up feeling a little foggy and like a complete and total overdramatic idiot. The thought of me going off the beaten path to become this total hard body bohemian cooking delish meals is laughable at best. Maybe for me this is the real sign that the death of my 20s fast approaches, when even typing that thought of myself as a maverick for my generation makes me laugh rather sarcastically and crave alcoholic beverages of the grape variety.

Open Letter to Christian

Dear Christian,

According to many bad made-for-tv movies and wikipedia, one of the steps to recovery of any addiction is accepting you are an addict or as they put it so eloquently “admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion.” Today I have come to recognize that I am addicted to spending money on fancy shoes and you, my good sir, are a financial bad influence in my life.

You with your fancy salary and your even fancier shoes and your suggestions as to what would look SO FANTASTIC on me has pushed me over the edge into a downward spiral of money spending that can only end up with me in the proverbial gutter of some fancy department store purchasing the last patent leather Choos that are 2 sizes to big to me just because I have to have them.

Like a drug pusher, you gave me many a free “hit” to ensure my addiction from the onset and now I spend every free moment on shopping sites trying to get my latest fix. But no, no more! I refuse to end up a fashion statistic in this cold cruel world.

So after my shoe binge today I scoured the Internet to see if I could get some help and low and behold I found some steps on my path to recovery.

6 of the 12 steps because doing the full 12 is too much effort

1. admitting that one cannot control one's addiction or compulsion;
   I think I always knew I had a problem, which is why I made a new year’s resolution to myself not to spend more than $100 on anything including shoes. 23 days into the new year I spend way over an entire paycheck on 2 pairs of shoes. Shoes, mind you, you were supportive of me getting…pusher.
   
2. recognizing a greater power that can give strength;
   God, are you there? It’s me Gravy Train. According to the numerous religious paraphernalia that adorn my house, Jesus does not wear shoes on the cross so, as such, what would Jesus do? Well, not spend copious amounts of honeys on shoes that would still make his feet hurt I’ll tell you that much.
   
3. examining past errors with the help of a sponsor (experienced member);
   I must find a sponsor but, like most addicts, I surround myself with other addicts, enablers like you if you will, which is why it is so hard to get better. I want to get better, I do, but I feel helpless in this cold cruel world.
   
4. making amends for these errors;
   Dear bank account, sorry there are not more zeros behind the numbers that are thankfully still in black. I am also sorry to anyone else who I may have hurt in my crazed shoe obsession, and by hurt I mean accidentally stepped on because the shoes never hurt anyone (is this denial)?
   
5. learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;
   This is probably the hardest part of all of this and to be honest I don’t know how I can cope. You must learn to support me as I become frumpy girl in the payless shoes…okay, wait, no. I take that back Don’t ever support me in that endevor.
   
6. helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.
   Babe, sorry but I have to tell you, you have a problem a shoe problem. We must get help together…I wonder if they have shoe rehab?
   

So there, there you have it, my wallet on my sleeve and I ask for your help during long drawn out recovery (at least until the spring lines come in).

Cheers and love,
Gravy Train

A Taste of Married Life

When Xtian and I were engaged we agreed that we would move up to the city and live a fabulous city life. So given that his worked moved to the city we he thought it would be the appropriate time to start to look for a great place to live where we could be young and fabulous. So off we went and found this fabulously fantastic loft in the city that we could call home once we are married and he moved in and I stayed in the fabulous San Jose because I actually like living at home and hanging out with my family.

So given that I had to work in SF all week long on behalf of a client of mine and what better way to test the waters then to stay at the loft with my amour for a week to see how things go. Well, as I predicted life is exactly as I imagined…I am alone…constantly alone. Xtian travels…all the time…and although last week I was promised a full week without travel things, as always, changed and he is gone. Granted he was here 2 nights out of the 4 but still I went to bed alone because he worked all night long as I tossed and turned alone in this big bed that was meant for two.

Going to bed alone, coming home to an empty loft, eating dinner out of a box alone…is this really what I signed up for? I mean take away the bands and add a cat and isn’t this what being single in my 30’s would be about if say I were not getting married?

It must be nice to come home to someone, to have someone around to talk to and to laugh with and eat dinner with and perhaps this is why Xtian really wants me to move in. But as this “married test week” goes, I have spent more time alone than I have ever cared for and I feel terribly lonely and needy and I don’t really like it.

I know I am probably being unfair because he is a very generous man who truly adores me beyond my wildest dreams, but seriously, isn’t there something wrong here? Am I missing something?

I'm Back

There is this great line in the book and ensuing move “About a Boy”* that I often think about when analyzing my own life. While explaining one of his many random philosophies on life the main character ‘Will’ states: “you have to mean things to help people… Me, I didn't mean anything, about anything, to anyone. I knew that guaranteed me a long, depression-free life.” I often feel that way…not necessarily about helping people (just tell me whom to cut a check to and I will) but about other things in life…like doing my nails, volunteering for the holiday committee, saving money, going out with acquaintances and blogs.

I am all gun-ho in the start – almost to an obsessive point – and then I just don’t deliver, finish, show-up, et cetera. It is not for lack of intent because I am full of that, and I want to mean so many things to so many people, but in the end I just it is just don’t really do the things I set out to do. I guess I don’t really mean anything.

Take this blog for example. It started because I am highly impressionable and my friend D sent me her blog that I began to read religiously. Then via her blog I found another blog that like D’s I also read religiously. So inspired I started this blog but after 4 posts I stoped my quick love affair with it and sadly it has been weeks since my last post. Yet I spend my free moments blogging in my head (okay I do this all the time with or without the blog, I journal in my head about random things) yet don’t commit to paper or screen.

Well this is about to change folks, in the words of Elton John “This Bitch is Back” and my New Year’s resolution is to blog more about the randomness that is my life so rejoice dear readers.

*Total side note – I have a random obsession with this book and the character Will. Maybe it is because I am obsessed with Nick Hornby and all of his main characters? Or perhaps because, sans the trust fund account, I was very “Will” at one point in my life? Who knows, but I thought I should mention that’s all.