Idiosycratic Life

Okay, now I have played seven games of Freecell. I don't feel inspired to recreate the same entry, so I will talk about something else. I am very excited because my sister is here! I was dying to see her. Love the lovely Manda. I forget how beautiful she is, both inside and out, and then I get to see her again. She is amazing. Definitely a succulent wild woman.

I am, like, giddy because she is here, and she is so much fun. Having my big sister around makes want to act like a little kid. I just ran into her room while she was on the phone with her boyfriend and started poking her with the broken-off stamen of an anthurium plant that came in this flower arrangement that my mom got for breaking her arms. Amanda started screaming, "WHAT IS THAT?!? What is that?!?" It was very fun. I feel like I'm six. I told her it was the stamen of an anthurium plant, which kind of look like those miniature corn-on-the-cobs (corns-on-the-cob?) on salad bars in grocery stores. She yelled, "I'm allergic to that, you know!" and my dad called upstairs, "Keep Bella out of Amanda's room!" which was very funny because Bella, whom Amanda is also allergic to, was asleep in my parents' bed. I said, "It's not Bella, it's the broken-off stamen of an anthurium plant," and he said, "Oh, that's cool." I love my family.

I am totally psyched because I was reading this magazine, Real Simple, which is a great publication for women who have enough time to read a magazine and perhaps prepare a meal using one of its recipes, such as the one for Asian Noodle Soup on page 136, (which is actually the whole reason I bought this particular issue because it looks like something that I would have eaten at this amazing noodle bar in London called Wagamama that my friend Luke-- I love Luke-- was so obsessed with that he bought the cookbook, which is funny because not only does Luke not cook, but his usual food groups include McDonald's, things from the Eggplant Diner in Dewitt, N.Y., Mountain Dew and Papajohn's pizza, but not the complimentary lime-green peppers that come with every pizza) but not enough time to do things like zest lemons (what the heck? isn't "Zest" soap?), dye one's own Easter grass (I have seen Martha Stewart do this on TV) and practice 146 positons adapted from the Kama Sutra (I mean, really, sometimes even the most well-intentioned plans to make love get side-tracked by-- I don't know-- the Model U.N. episode of the Simpsons; "Go Banana!")

If you followed that sentence, you get a gold star.

Let me try and translate that previous paragraph of Angiespeak into plain English, and then perhaps it will be as amusing to you as it is to me.

I was reading a magazine called Real Simple. I bought it because there was a recipe for Asian Noodle Soup on page 136. The soup looked like something I would have eaten in a noodle bar in London. My friend Luke loved to eat there. He bought this cookbook for complicated Asian food from the restaurant. This is funny because Luke does not cook. Back to the magazine. Real Simple is nice because it's fun to read, and it does not pretend that its readers have ridiculous amounts of free time. Martha Stewart Living, for example, does pretend that its readers have a ridiculous amount of free time. Furthermore, this magazine does not assume, unlike Cosmo, that its readers have the time or energy to expend practicing sexual gymnastics. "Go, banana!" refers to a line that Ralph Wiggum has during the "fruit race" scene of the Model U.N. episode of the Simpsons, which is, in my opinion, the funniest episode ever.

ANYWAY... I was reading this magazine, and there is an article about this artist-woman named Katri who essentially gives her life a makeover and starts her own Montessori School in a big red barn which gives her enough money to do her artwork in the summers. The author writes, "'Follow your bliss,' reads a magnet on Katri's refrigerator. Katri has done just that. We all have an inner voice that tells us what we want and need, but we tend, particularly in the years just after college, to muffle it. Maybe we feel we don't deserve what would make us happy. Maybe we're afraid that what we want will be seen by others as too odd or offbeat. Maybe we think, if we just wait, treading water, something good will come along."

Okay, I am excited about this for several reasons. 1.) Amanda gave me a "Follow Your Bliss" magnet for Christmas last year at the same time she gave me the "Life the life you've always imagined" magnet. I could form a whole life philosophy around these magnets, AND I have the same magnet as this cool lady. Yay! 2.) The inner voices thing. I have those too. MY GOD, THE VOICES! SOMEBODY STOP THE VOICES!! Just kidding. Hearing voices is one psychological symptom that has not surfaced, thank goddess. 3.) I am trying to hard not to muffle my dreams and to pursue that which I really want. This is sort of an affirmation of those attempts. 4.) me? offbeat? odd? what? 5.) Okay, so I am treading water right now. This woman did it too, and she achieved her dreams.

I think we're going to make it, all of us. All of you amazing dreamer-friends who read my hyperactive ramblings. This is good. I can't wait for a few months from now when I can go through my archives and say to myself, "What on Earth was I worried about? Everything turned out just fine. I worried for nothing! Silly me!" Could we please fast forward to that part?