Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Indie and You're Punk

Good Girls Don't Wear Sequins

Ok, now that we've gotten all that talk about FEEEELINGS out of the way, let's have some Real Talk about the awesome shit that comes with being a BiSC attendee. This (maybe not so) flattering picture of me was taken by my roommate/favorite person Dominique in our fancy Flamingo Go Room which had a MOTHEREFFING tv in our bathroom mirror. Guys, I don't have cable (YEAH, I SAID IT. LOOK, I WAS RAISED WITHOUT TV SO YOU CAN GO SIT IN THE CORNER AND JUDGE MY PRETENSION WHILE I JUDGE YOU WATCHING DANCE MOMS AND WE CAN ALL BE HAPPY WITH OUR JUDGE-Y LIFE DECISIONS). I don't even know what to do with a tv in the bathroom mirror, we turned it on once while we were doing our makeup, it was confusing. See also: comfiest beds ever and multi nozel shower.

WARNING: The Go Rooms and the regular hotel rooms at the Flamingo are really not the same. I stayed in one of the regular ones in January and it was actually kind of more like Motel 6 quality. So don't go booking hotel rooms at the Flamingo and come bitching at me because you got the cheap option.

At the bottom of the bed is my giant pile of SWAG. Missing from the giant pile of swag: the free drink by the pool coupon sponsored by GelaSkins. It's missing because that wristband means I just came back from the crazy Flamingo Go Pool. Which is the adult pool. (No, not THAT KIND of adult pool) As in the pool where the booze is. And the fancy VIP day beds. And the waterfall to swim under and then end up in a nifty grotto. Also, where we played never have I ever for toys from Babeland. Are you wondering how things could get more ridiculawesome? So was I at this point. Pool day already seemed like the best day of my life but then IT GOT BETTER.

One word: ZUMANITY. Sexy Cirque du Soleil. Hilarious and amazing and naked. Also incredibly disturbing. Well, only the crazy contortionist that kept popping things out of sockets and shit was disturbing. I actually had to cover my eyes. Then dancing, dancing, dancing. Happiest when dancing in sequins and 4 inch heels. Until I'm tired of the heels and have to switch to sandals. Whatever. Happiest when dancing in sequins.

Wait, did I say happiest when dancing in sequins? I might've meant happiest when wearing sequins and eating waffle fry pulled pork nacho... I don't even know how to describe these, but Sara and I managed to start a trend that apparently had like 40 people eating these piles of amazingness the next night. Seriously, what is happening here? Why did we each order our own plate? This is insanity. Also, this is 3am.

HI, now it's time for sleeping.

In case you are unaware, breakfast is my favorite meal. by which I mean, breakfast foods are my favorite because I almost never eat breakfast. So buffet time on Saturday where I got to eat bacon, sausage, french toast, waffles and potatoes was pretty much my idea of heaven. I may've also made it boozy thanks to mini bottles of Skyy. The only thing better than regular brunch is boozy brunch.

The next epic adventure was to the roller coaster on top of New York New York that Alberto insisted did not exist (SPOILER: it exists) but for some reason agreed to join Dominique, Kelly and me in walking to the other end of the strip to go on it. Or to prove us wrong. I 67% think he was hoping to prove us wrong. I really love roller coasters, but also am unable to keep my eyes open on roller coasters which probably defeats the purpose of going on a roller coaster on top of a hotel. BUT WHATEVER, I went on a roller coaster on top of a hotel because that's the kind of shit you do in Vegas right before you play Pac-Man battle royale and the world's biggest version of fruit ninja. Clearly I chose the right group for the afternoon. For those of you playing along at home, at this point I have gone multiple hours without booze in Vegas, a situation I find mildly intolerable because apparently I'm really easily over stimulated which doesn't mix with Vegas without alcohol. BUT DON'T WORRY.

Thankfully Minus 5 ice bar had us covered for the afternoon. Sadly we weren't allowed to take any electronics in or I'd have fifty million pictures and have tweeted so many clever things. Or just talked a lot about how one of the rooms made me feel like I was in Narnia because of the trees etched into the ice. Did I mention that everything was made of ice? And have I ever mentioned my lifelong goal of staying in an ice hotel? This did not lessen my desire to stay in an ice hotel. We had our picture taken in a giant ice throne so that we could yell "King in the North!" but it turns out most people sit in the giant ice throne to get a picture with the Vegas sign because when we came out the woman was all "oh, you have the picture in front of the Vegas sign" and we were like "what are you talking about, lady?" because we thought we took our picture on the ice throne and are possibly too nerdy AWESOME to notice Vegas signs . Oh well.

(Side note: I'm kneeling in a really short skirt in an ice room because I was sitting the same way as Alberto and Kelly and the photographer said "You need to sit in a more flattering position, can you kneel?". And I wanted to say "Whoa dude, just how badly do you think I want this photo?" but I hadn't finished my second margarita so I wasn't feeling quite that sassy yet.

Post side note: the drinks, which were served in ice cups, rocked my socks)

More buffet. More eating all the Le Bon Garçon caramels in my gift bag. Then slowly getting ready for the Mad Men party. Where, you know, NBD, we just skipped a giant line to get into Chateau, the club on the roof of the Paris hotel from which you can see the Bellagio fountains go off. It was only so awesome that we all had to take a minute to tweet/facebook/foursquare/etc about it. That's all.

I mean, how adorable is everyone in their 60s duds, on their phones? It's pretty great. Anachronism win. Cue more dancing. Have I mentioned that I like dancing? No, really, I really like dancing. I need to go dancing more (at all) in New York now that I work normal people hours. Who wants to be my dancing buddy? Let's just go ahead and assume this girl does.
Yes, this is kind of an awful picture because it was dark and we were using the front facing camera, but I don't even care. And now we've reached the point where this post is just going to devolve into pictures. You're welcome.

In Real Life

When I was thirteen I went to my first Unitarian youth conference. I arrived at the UU church in Aptos with a few close friends and with no idea that I'd be meeting 80 or so people that would change my fucking life. I spent the next eight years devoted to that community- organizing, mentoring, participating and holding. It was cuddle puddles and 4am talks of spirituality, sexuality, social justice and which semi permanent hair dye was the longest lasting (Special Effects still wins, BTW) and days of sleeping as little as possible to soak up the amazingness of the people around me and the feeling of safety that came in that space. When I aged out at twenty one after deaning our week long Summer camp with my two best friends, I was ready. It wasn't my space anymore and it was time to let the youth I tried so hard to mentor as well as I remembered being mentored step up and take my place.

I was a left with a hole in my heart much larger than the one that causes my murmur. Don't get me wrong, those people are still my closest friends and I still very much identify as a Unitarian (even if my current church attendance record is about once a year), but that feeling of community, that feeling of (yes, I'm going there) intention has been missing from my life.

Last weekend I met 59 other bloggers in Las Vegas. 59 other people who also in some way expose themselves for the entire internet to judge. 59 other people who I felt like I already knew without having even met the majority of them before this past weekend IN REAL LIFE.

We use that term a lot, us bloggers, IRL, as if the internet isn't our real life. It's funny, because I think for so many of us it is. The internet is where I'm unabashedly me. Where I am all the things I keep myself from being "too" in real life. Too emotional, too excited, too passionate, too ready to break into dance at the slightest provocation while wearing a sequined dress, too, too, too. The magic of meeting internet people in the real world is that they already know the real version. I don't feel like I have to impress anybody or hide anything because, look, EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS RIGHT HERE ON THIS BLOG, from my worst decisions to my best decisions, from my struggling with my childhood to my thankfulness for my supportive family, from the bell jar days to the days where I want to shout from the rooftop that life is wonderful, it's all here. All of it. So trying to pretend to be anyone else is just stupid.

So this weekend I got to relax into being me. I got to meet some of the most wonderful, supportive, silly people I know of existing. I spent as much time awake as possible and went to sleep Sunday morning with the sun rising and the birds chirping, only to wake up a few hours later and have to say goodbye. The kind of goodbye that was filled with happy sadness.

And as I left Las Vegas and headed for a mini visit in California, I realized I had found my people again. I realized that this blog and the community I get to be part of because of it has done for me what church conferences did for me as a teenager. It has helped me grow and gain confidence and support others even when exposing the weakest version of myself. It's helped me stay in touch with who I am while nudging me towards the person I want to be. It's given me a whole helluva lot of people to whom I would say my guest room is always open and I'm always available for talking in the midst of a crisis.

When Lara picked me up in San Francisco and asked me if I was sad the weekend was over, I said "Remember that end of con feeling? When you were sad that you had to leave everyone but ready to not be sleeping on a church floor anymore? It was like that. Except Vegas was the church floor".

To my fellow BiSC-uits, I can't wait to see you in real real life because I'm sure as hell not waiting an entire year for the church floor that is Vegas, let's plan a get together soon.

Like, maybe tomorrow.

Exhaustion

Las Vegas and California. Waiting on the plane to get home. Las Vegas was AH-MAZING. I'm still surprised at how little attachment I feel to California. It's familiar and full of things I love but it's not home. Given my constant desire to leave it, I don't know if it ever was. But the people I love are there and there is a very happy thing and a very sad thing happening right now and I could really use a teleporter.

Hello, Employment

My actual funemployment was short lived. If you take away the two days that would've been my weekend anyways. I was unemployed for... ummm... two days. I went on a total of four interviews, turned down 3 interviews, and only ended up trailing at one place though I was offered trails* for all four of my interviews.

All of the jobs were offering around the same amount of money but they were offering VASTLY different workloads, amount of responsibility and creative freedom and in the end I went with the job with what seemed like the least amount of stress and the greatest amount of freedom. This job, as it stands right now, is definitely not the choice that would've looked the most impressive on my resume nor is it the choice I originally thought I would make. In fact, when I sent out my resumes it was probably number three of the four jobs for which I actually interviewed.

I'm working at a tiny ice cream shop that has only had a store front for a year and only added in the espresso bar and baked goods to the retail cafe in January BUT before they had the store front they'd been selling the ice cream at events and from tricycles for two years and they just landed their first wholesale account. What is a slow day at Je and Jo was a busy day at Stellina. So I'm working for a small business again, but this time it's an obviously growing small business and I want to help the owners, who both have day jobs,  grow it more by taking on a lot of the day to day production responsibilities so they have time to do the big picture stuff.

I'm already in love with the shop, the owners and my coworkers. Everybody that works there seems to be really invested in working there. Ok, yes, it's just the owners, me and a few baristas but I have yet to hear anyone say a bad word about anyone else or the business and I basically started working last Wednesday (even though I've only officially been on board since Monday). I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be a chef who pours all of their creative energy into something and then have servers or baristas who don't give a fuck (not the case at Stellina, but definitely the case some other places I've worked) because if the front of house people aren't excited, customers aren't going to be excited. Also, obviously, it sucks to work at a place where everybody complains about everything/everybody all the time (very much the case at Stellina/Sorella and I was no exception).

There's no ego involved. I'm working for a veterinarian and an architect who went to ice cream school and have fully handed over the baked goods and kitchen management to me. And unlike my other jobs where I've been expected to take on those roles for a measly $10/hr, I'm actually getting paid the same wage I was as a sous chef and have promises of looking into health insurance if enough other employees want to opt in.

And of course, because you can take the girl out of California... as much as possible everything is organic and locally sourced and all the packaging materials, cups, etc in the shop are biodegradable. LOVE.

Right now things are pretty low key but I imagine things will start ramping up as the weather gets warmer and we start selling from the trikes as well as the store and hopefully, eventually get some more wholesale clients. My plan during this slow time, and part of the reason I took this job, is to do some massive food blog revamping and FINALLY start a confections side business. So if you don't see me over here for a while, it's because I'm somewhere on the internet figuring out a completely new blog design and whether or not the neglected blog and this blog will be one and if the food blog will still have recipes or just be for selling shit and maybe working on a cookbook.

Because when I sat down and thought about what I wanted my career to be, it wasn't about fancy titles and hip restaurants, it's about creating and doing something I love. I hate that right now I'm the type of person that would advise "don't" to anyone who asked advice on becoming a chef because in the end, I love what I do and even if I started working in another field, I would never stop baking. The flavors never stop running through my mind. It's the way my brain is wired, the way yours is wired to paint or make music or smith words and when your brain is wired for a certain creative endeavor, you know that life becomes incomplete without it.

Writers write. Bakers bake.

I am a baker. Sometimes it really is that simple.

*We use weird terms in the food world, I'm not just misspelling "trial"

I don't even try

I don't know what I'm passionate about right now. I feel hollow all the time. I'm never hungry but also never full. In February I decided to stop fighting everything all the time but I guess in my case that just makes me apathetic. Or numb. I can't even tell which.

I've been trying to learn to sit with my feelings more. Or rather, just to actually feel them. To be able to say to myself things like "I am sad that this boy doesn't like me even though it's not logical to be this sad about it" or "even though I completely understand and agree with the reason I'm losing my job it's reasonable to be sad and scared and anxious". Maybe this is the way you feel feelings all the time. This is not the way I feel feelings. Look, there's a reason Spock has always been my favorite. However, you'll be shocked to know I am not a Vulcan, even though I sometimes often act like one. The problem is that by the time I actually let myself feel things I'm feeling this huge reservoir of feeling and I can't identify where each one is coming from.

So I can tell you right now that I am sad and bitter and disillusioned; that I just suspended my OkC account for the eleventybillionth time though in truth I've been on an online dating hiatus for a month now already anyways; that none of the job listings I've read make me want to send in my resume; that I made out with a boy I had no intention of ever making out with again and I honestly don't know how I feel about it, I want to say I feel nothing about it but I don't think you can actually make out and cuddle with somebody that you like and not have feelings about it and I think it's actually that the feelings are too complicated and too many things and so I'm not sitting with those ones yet* and that I'm well aware there is some major grammatical craziness going on in this post but I just don't give a fuck.

But I can also tell you I've had moments of peace and serenity lately. That walking around in Central Park with the sun on your skin and new friend is happiness. That nighttime rambles with a flask size bottle of whiskey and friend you haven't seen in a while are kind of great even if they unexpectedly kiss you later. That I do have one single job interview lined up and it looks perfect for me. That I spent yesterday at my pastry cook's friend's home out in Fresh Meadows and got to hang out with her siblings and large friend group and remember what it feels like to be part of something stable and solid. That I have a week packed full of social activities with other BiSC goers who are fast becoming my close friends.

I can tell you that I've recently realized that I'm angry at myself for letting go of and being less vocal about things I care about to make myself more palatable or to fit into groups better. That I've taken my philosophy of "pick and choose your battles" a little too far. Hi, I'm Alana and I am a feminist and I probably don't think any of your sexist/homophobic/racist jokes are funny and yeah, I'm generally ludicrously PC and I'm ok with that. JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR.

So maybe it's not that there isn't anything going on. Maybe it's that there's too much going on. Too much swirling around in my head for me to sort through it and feel any of it. Today I decided I was just going to fake it until I make it. I cleaned my room, I did some yoga, I ate an entire pineapple and also quinoa, poached chicken, black beans and avocados. Fine... also an entire bag of cadbury mini eggs.

Baby steps back to caring people, baby steps.

*This is how I feel: I feel sad and a little angry because it was nice and it was comfortable and making out and a cuddle buddy were exactly what I needed this week and it wasn't expected so it was a nice ego boost but it wasn't with somebody with whom I am actually ok with casually making out and cuddling. So, I'm sad that it's not something I get to do in a non-casual way and a little angry with both of us for doing it. And maybe a little angry at myself for not being over him even though I said earlier it was ok to be sad. God I hate feelings. THEY DON'T EVEN MAKE SENSE A LITTLE BIT, CAN I PLEASE BE A VULCAN NOW?

Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.

Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth its sacrament and service its prayer. To dwell together in peace; to seek knowledge in freedom; to serve humanity in fellowship, thus do we covenant together.

Faith. It's not a word I struggle with, but it's a word I feel I'm supposed to. My dad's side of the family are Jews of the non practicing sort. I was raised Unitarian Universalist in a congregation that fired a minister basically for talking about God too much. Also, his sermons were actually the most boring, rambling things I have every heard in my life. AND he wasn't very supportive of our high school youth group, we theorized it was because more people showed up when we lead service than when he did. Actual true story. So maybe just not a good fit overall.

That really here nor there, though.

I wasn't really raised in a family or a faith that is down with the G.O.D. (except for the UUs that are, we're big on the personal belief systems in Unitarian Universalism*) and for a long time I identified as agnostic. I wasn't willing to totally discount the presence of a capital "G" God, but s/he didn't really factor into my personal belief system. These days, I've changed my mind.

I am an atheist. I'm not a militant atheist. I don't believe that science has all the answers. I do believe that religion can be a marvelous force for good. I do have faith.

I have faith that people are basically good.

I have faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I have faith in nonviolence. I have faith that there are things worth dieing for, but none that are worth killing for.

I have faith in compassion. Always. Always compassion, justice and equity.

I have faith that we are all connected, that tomorrow is another day, that everything will be ok. I think god is the feeling of the sun on your skin after a long winter, reading the words for something you felt to be true but could never say, the ocean, service work. I have faith in faith- that it helps people, that it heals. I have faith that when you say your faith in capital "G" God sustains you that you mean the same thing I mean when I say my faith in capital "H" Humanity sustains me. I have faith in Western medicine and neti pots and yoga. I have faith that some day my prince will come.

I have faith that I am the person in charge of my own happiness.

And I have faith you are the person in charge of yours.

 

*This post should probably include a disclaimer than in no way do my beliefs speak for all UUs. Except for the UUs they do speak for. Look, this is the only stuff we can agree on. We would like less mention of God except for those of us that would like more. Some of us would prefer we only ever mention the Goddess. We basically can only agree on the importance of coffee hour and committees. It's a great religion.

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project. Prompts can be found here.

I am the luckiest

It's 10am when I struggle with my copy of a copy of a copy of a key to roll up the metal gate and open the heavy door and walk into the dark and silent wine bar that makes up the front half of the restuarant.

What has proceeded this moment: 45 minutes of "snoozing", a bleary realization that I went to bed with my hair wet (again) and that it is sitting in a half-Jew fro on top of my head, hello flat iron, clothes somehow end up on my body, tinted moisturizer and out the door. Coffee at the bodega where they know my order (Am I a New Yorker yet?), 45 minutes on the train, half awake weaving through Chinatown and then digging through my purse.

I walk through to the pastry kitchen, flipping on lights and ovens,  setting down my phone and coffee. I snatch up a yellow legal pad and head downstairs. Into my cubby goes my purse, my real world clothes, my shoes and jewelry, out comes yoga pants and shiny blue clogs. My clipboard and I make our way around, counting and checking what was gone through the night before against what I had written for production. Two walkins, two kitchens, opening drawers, pulling out sheetpans.

And then, finally, thirty minutes later, I tie on an apron and head into the kitchen to start the real work.

Into the dock goes my iPod. Nobody is here yet, I can play whatever I want.

Stop... with you feet in the air and your head on the ground...

Mixing bowls out, yeast, water, flour and salt. Eggs for some. Olive oil for others. And suddenly the quiet kitchen is filled with the not so quiet whir of two 6 quart stand mixers and a 40 quart's clunk, clunk, clunk. I still have another hour before anybody else arrives. Another hour of just me, my music and the kitchen.

Even though I know that means I still have another 9 hours to my day, another 9 hours on my feet and running up and down the stairs and hoisting flour sacks and realizing the wholesale order should've been in the oven twenty minutes ago, I also realize that I chose right all those years ago when I chose culinary school over college because I am in the kitchen and so, I am happy.

This post was written as part of the Scintilla Project. Prompts can be found here.

It's a treacherous road with a desolated view

 Tumbalalaika is my grandmother singing me to sleep and Where Have all the Flowers Gone is her playing the piano in the sunlit living room of my great grandparents' house in the Berkeley hills.

A musical snowglobe with a basket of roses played the song played at my mother's (unsuccesful) rehab graduation and kept me company in the years she was gone.

"You're going to really like this," my father says as he puts the bright orange CD into the stereo and skips to I'm Just a Girl. Sunny summer Sunday mornings with the top down, driving me home on highway 1.

Mayonaise for the boy I spent three weeks kissing in Ireland when I was 14.

Years of late night singalongs in the Mendocino Woodlands and the smell of campfire lingering in my clothes for days are comprised of Obla Di Obla Da and Down by the Riverside.

Staying up all night next to the fire in the dining hall in the same Woodlands, with friends so close I still think of them as my family, is yelling along to Buddy Holly which is also: my first concert, Paris with Corina (another Weezer concert) endless car singalongs and dinner parties in my Berkeley apartment.

Lara and Corina are I Will Survive and the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. Stuck in traffic before the Rainbow Tunnel headed towards a Unitarian Universalist youth conference on a rare warm sunny day in San Francisco. Late night cookie bakes. Planning Sunday service.

Golden Age is rain on the roof of Jacob's room junior year of high school. It's panic attacks and aching and loss and grief and comfort and safety all wrapped in one. It's my favorite song and I rarely listen to it because it hurts. It hurts like you couldn't even imagine. Sometimes I don't even know how I got through that first year after my father died.

India when I was eighteen is obviously Redemption Song. The Garden State soundtrack is my return and the next semester in Turkey.

Our tiny, damp and cold (but cheap) apartment in San Francisco was Not a Pretty Girl, while I rocked out to Twin Cinema in the culinary classroom and walked towards the streetcar in the fog humming To Be Young is to Be Sad.

The truth is, I could keep doing this all night, almost every post on this blog for the last three years has been titled with song lyrics, each one awakening a very specific feeling. I'm one of those people. You know the ones, the ones that can't possibly get by on only the 16 gigs their iPhone allows, the ones that listen to albums with the shades drawn and the lights off, whole albums always, songs are meant to be listenened to in album order or on a playlist but never an album on shuffle (shudder), the ones who sometimes replay a song if a conversation interrupted really listening to it, the ones who devour new albums like they've never heard music before... One memory and one song? Impossible. I could more easily give you the soundtrack to my entire life.

But if you really must know, Summertime will always make me cry.

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project, prompts can be found here.

On Adulthood

I don't really understand this whole not thinking of one's self as an adult thing.

Lightbulb Moments I never had:

• I am responsible for myself now.
• Adults are imperfect.
• I am an adult

I hold these truths to be self evident.

My dad used to describe me as 13 going on 30.

My family feels the need to remind me that I don't have to do everything by myself.

Being an adult was all I ever wanted to be and I wouldn't trade being in control of my life for any part of childhood or adolescence. It was all I ever wanted and I will gladly take it, bills and monthly budgets and ten hour work days and all.

Because I don't trust anyone else to take care of anything ever.

Maybe when I do, that'll be the real adult moment.

Maybe adulthood is backwards for me.

This post is written as part of the Scintilla Project prompts can be found here.

The First Scintilla Post

I tried to think of important firsts. The first time I flew across country by myself, the first time I baked a batch of chocolate cookies, my first birthday cake made completely from scratch, no help from a box, my first day of school in a new town, the first time I drove a car or rode on a motorcycle. It seems the important firsts to me are the ones for actions that I will repeat over and over and over again until all the times meld together making the first indistinguishable from the rest.

So instead.

The first boy I ever "went out with" was Austin Close in the sixth grade. We held hands for two weeks before a mutual friend informed me Austin didn't want to date anymore. I don't remember being particularly heartbroken.

The first boy I ever kissed was Larry I Cannot for the Life of me Remember his Last Name. (In my defense I don't think I've seen Larry since I was 15, not in my defense, I'm pretty sure I've know him since I was like six). It was Summer break (I think between 6th and 7th grade?) and I was visiting my dad in New York. In retrospect, Larry was a terrible kisser, even for a 12 year old.

The first boy I dated even though I knew I shouldn't was Drew Davey. Drew was my first venture into the land of goody two shoes smart girl dates somewhat bad boy in an effort to change him. Drew was also the first boy to break my heart, dumping me over the phone the Summer between 7th and 8th grade. I didn't learn my lesson.

The first boy whose heart I broke was Tim Matthiessen. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog (because I've never told him it existed) but if he does I want props for not referring to him as "Timmy" (which I still have a hard time not doing IRL) and for still being able to spell his last name correctly without checking facebook. Obviously, Tim and I are still friends, but there was a period during freshman year of high school during which that was very much not true. Apparently that happens when you break somebody's heart and then start dating somebody else two weeks later. It would take me close to ten years to really learn that lesson.

The first boy I dated where the relationship was built on true friendship was Jacob Peters. See also: the first boy I sat in rooms with just listening to albums, the first boy I think of when listening to the sound of rain on the roof, the first boy with whom I went clothes shopping, the first boy I lived with, the first, the first, the first.

However, the first boy I ever slept with James Doolittle. Also the first boy with whom I had a borderline emotionally abusive relationship. My most truly codependant relationship. I hadn't learned my lesson about fixing yet.

The first boy I ever broke up with without having another boy waiting in the wings was Jacob Peters. When I was 3 weeks from 23 years old and I just couldn't bear the thought of moving in with him again, hated the future I, for SIX YEARS (er, other than those James Doolittle time, but that's another post) thought would happen looked like and felt so trapped that even though I loved him, I was miserable and had to leave. I broke up with him for me, completely selfishly, but I honestly think we're both better people for it

And because of that, I wrote my first serious blog post on this piece of internet property that was originally supposed to house the craft projects and random snippets that didn't quite fit on my food blog.

And because of that, I kept writing. I remembered what it was like to take the words cluttering my head and clutter the screen instead. Not for anybody. Just because. Writers write, they say.

And because of that, I met people whose lives I read every tiny detail about online, offline. I made friends and moved across country and built a network and met a lovely young woman named Dominique.

And because of that, I'm writing my first Scintilla post.

Who knows where this first will lead?