Bad Friend

So today, via Facebook, I saw pictures of my “best friend” from high school’s bridal shower. A bridal shower I knew nothing about for a wedding I know nothing about. A bridal shower that a lot of people I went to high school with appear to have attended. People I probably would have called my friends at some point.

It made me wonder why, when these people still seem to have such a bond, I have nothing to do with any of them anymore. And then it struck me that I'm kind of a bad friend.

I don’t keep in touch. Maybe it’s moving every 3 years while I was growing up, but I’ve always just kind of moved on – out of sight, out of mind. And if you expect me to call on the phone, just forget it.

I’m not good at sharing my feelings. If you can’t decipher how I feel about you through an endless monologue of sarcasm, I really don’t know how to help you.

I hold grudges. Don’t call me back Thanksgiving weekend after I called you? Hope you don’t expect to ever talk to me again.

I’m defensive. It’s not like anyone else did such a great job of keeping in touch. Why should I have to be the one to put in the effort?

The downside of this is that there are some good people, good friends, who aren’t a part of my life anymore. And while I’m happy with my life, and glad that every weekend isn’t like a mini high school reunion, there is a part of me that is sad that I won’t be there to see Terri get married.

P.S. - Just had to comment on the irony of this post sitting next to my Twitter badge that says "unless you're making fun of a third person who's also there. then it's hilarious!"

Too much or not enough?

Usually my excuse for not blogging is that I don’t have enough to say because not much changes day to day. But in the past week or so, so much has happened/changed that I don’t really know where to start. Therefore, I’ll just throw it out randomly.

I’m 25 now (happy birthday to me). I really like the idea of 25. I feel young enough to see infinite opportunities ahead, but old enough to know that I have nothing to prove. I kind of hope I feel like this for the rest of my life.

Barack Obama is the President. I finally feel at home in my country, and hopeful for the future.

Going to Vegas for my birthday meant flying for the third time in three months. At this point I can have my shoes and jacket off, liquids out of my bag, and ID and boarding pass in hand in about 13 seconds. I’m looking forward to staying on the ground for at least a couple of months.

My parents are visiting in February, which means that we’ll have a reason to clean our apartment at least once this winter.

We’ve been in FoCo for almost 9 months now. Time has flown by! I really can’t imagine a better place to live, and honestly I’m a little amazed because we set our expectations for this place really high.

The Arizona Cardinals are in the Super Bowl. When I went to college, I didn’t know the Arizona Cardinals were a professional football team.

Prepping for GMATs has made it abundantly clear that neither of us remembers any math. We vaguely remember that you can do stuff to numbers to find other numbers, but don’t remember what that “stuff” is. Hopefully 4 weeks will be enough time to re-learn about 12 years worth of mathematical concepts.

When everything seems to be going so right like this, it makes me worry what kind of upset may be around the corner. But I guess all we can do is keep trying to make the best of everything we’re given.

Update

Here is a more updated story on what went on next door.

The Great Blog Debate

To blog or not to blog? This has been our question. Mostly because there's not really a lot of blogging going on here. For Steve's part, he seems to favor posting a political link or YouTube video about once every two months. I'm operating more on a random stream of consciousness blurt every few weeks. So is it worth keeping this up for the pretenses?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Ultimately my reasons are selfish. I like being able to look back over our lives in electronic form. Five years from now I'll want to look back and know what we were like at 25 (or 24 and 51 weeks). I'll want to know that we were obsessed with the OC about 5 years later than everyone else, that we were in the midst of a Twitter revolution that was no longer just first adopters (and second adopters like us who do things when Josh tell us to), that we were loving Colorado, feeling very independent and ready to take on the world, but also sometimes a little lonely and homesick, and that we're generally very content, with life and with each other.

And in the spirit of history, or maybe nostalgia, here are a few of my favorite posts to go back and read:

Untitled – Steve – 11/24/2002
Highlight: Rachel is already home for Thanksgiving so I got a dose of life without her. Boring yes, but it does allow an outlet to accomplish my guy things such as constant video games without the nagging. I am mostly joking, Rachel happens to be a very understanding girlfriend and only nags on occasion.

Being a Grown Up – Rachel – 01/18/2005 

Highlight: Do adults just pretend they have it all together so that everyone younger than them won't panic? This has all just been too much thought for one day. Apparently I should exercise my legal rights and go get a beer and try to forget all of it.

negative one year anniversary – Steve – 05/20/2005 
Highlight: Rachel observed a couple days ago that today is our negative one year anniversary for our wedding. To celebrate, we are going to go to the restaurant at the place we are going to be married and sample some food for the wedding.

mumbo jumo – Steve – 1/8/2006 
Highlight: Rachel, Nate and I made a spontaneous trip to California. Much like Christian enthusiasts travel to walk in the footsteps of Jesus in Bethlehem, we wanted to walk in the footsteps of other gods. The cast of Laguna Beach. While no sightings occurred, I got to live like Talan for a day, except much pastier.

This is your brain on spring break – Rachel – 3/27/2006
Highlight: Last night, while talking about religion or nutrition or maybe something completely unrelated, Steve, Nate and I came up with the idea of low-carb communion. We floated around a few ideas on how we could change the ingredients, but decided meat was definitely out (I mean, who wants to hear "the body of Christ" when you're biting into a piece of steak). I'm not sure if this is sacrilege of a brilliant marketing idea...

popular demand – Steve - 4/23/2006 
Highlight: 27 days left...

FAQ (you know you were asking them in your head) – Rachel – 5/23/2006 

4. Since you finally tied the knot, have you and Steve gotten any less annoyingly adorable?

Sorry to disappoint, but our annoying adorable-ness actually seems to be increasing with time. Being newlyweds is just the icing on the cake.

change of heart – Steve – 12/23/2006 
Highlight: I know how perturbed you all must have been when we decided to move back to Flagstaff. After all the bad things we used to say about the place, I decided to seek documentation of my criticisms. Sorting through all my archived posts, below are all the negative statements regarding Flagstaff. Enjoy the hypocrisy in no particular order...

Many Mini Blogs – Rachel – 1/22/2007 
Highlight: The best part of being married besides all the being in love with Steve stuff is being an aunt. With the arrival of Zoe a week ago today, I have five nieces and nephews in all. (It bothers me that they don’t have a word that combines nieces and nephews like siblings does for sisters and brothers.)

The couple that blogs together... – Rachel – 4/26/2007 
Welcome to the next phase of our disgustingly cute couple-dom (couple-hood? couple-ishness?). 341 days into our marriage, we have decided to take our relationship to the next level - joint blogging. In reality, I think we're just hoping that if we join forces, it will look like we blog more often even if we don't.

This is what happens when you procrastinate – Rachel - 1/25/2008 
Highlight: I’m 24. I immediately sensed a newfound maturity and sophistication at around noonish on January 18. Then it dissipated at around 2 a.m. on January 19.

The Grandma Jean that I knew – Rachel – 8/29/2008 
Highlight: I wish any of this brought any sort of closure but I think I’ll always have to remind myself that she’s not in Lincoln welcoming a visit when we can break away from our busy lives.

A year and a half of us – Rachel – 12/2/2008 
Highlight:

• I write more about Steve than he writes about me, or he writes a lot about himself in the third person.
  
• "Eat" is very little, but we actually eat a lot.
  
• "Time/Distance" shows up because apparently at one point in our lives we ran.
  
• "Fun" is used far less often than "work."
  
• The only names that show up are our own. We are some self-centered SOBs.
  

Ode to Alima Pure

This post is about makeup. I’m sorry.

So usually buying makeup was something I’ve liked the idea of, but truly hated every time I got into the store. I’d sit on the floor of the aisle reading every ingredient and scanning for all the things that kill the world (check out Ingredients to Avoid ). Even most of the expensive brands were filled with cheap, toxic preservatives. I’d usually walk away with something that equated to expensive colored chalk. It was a vicious and frustrating cycle.

Then on Futurenatural, I happened to stumble upon Alima Pure. It’s more expensive than Bonne Bell, but a heck of a lot cheaper than most of the tree-hugger makeup you can find. And that was just the beginning…

1. Cruelty free and free of the things that give me neuroses – mainly parabens.
   
2. Sample products for $1!
   
3. For every $10 you spend, you get $1 off your next order.
   
4. Jar recycling – return 5 full sized jars and get a free eyeshadow.
   

So again, sorry, I know this sounds like one big ad. But when a company can worm it’s way into my heart (now it’s Alima, IKEA, and Target), I figured it deserved a mention in case anyone else was looking for environmentally-friendly, non-toxic makeup that actually worked well and came in pretty packaging.