COOUUUGGAARR FOOOTTTBALLL SAAATUURRDAAY!

It’s official! Football season is here! Take a deep breath, and you’ll smell it: fresh cut grass, pizza and beer, the crisp winds of fall and the sweaty stench of athletes in dire need of a shower. Ah, yes, football season, four glorious months of jersey-wearing, beer-drinking, sports-bar-frequenting, finger-crossing, smack-talking, nacho-eating Fun (with a capital F). I must admit it’s one of my favorite seasons, by far, and I can barely contain my excitement just thinking about it.

When I was a kid, fall meant the end of summer and the start of yet another seemingly endless school year, and when the days inevitably started to grow cooler, I’d get bummed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still always sad to see the summer go, but knowing that football season is waiting impatiently just on the other side makes the transition into fall so, so much better.

To me, football season is freedom. Freedom to eat bar food every single weekend without counting one single calorie. Freedom to wear jerseys on both Saturday and Sunday (and sometimes on Monday) without feeling out of style. Freedom to spend an entire day on a barstool without worrying what your mother would say. And of course, freedom to hate other people simply because they don’t root for your team (or they’re blocking your view of the TV).

Tomorrow morning, I’m heading to Seattle for five days. While I’m there, I’ll be lucky enough to experience the first Cougar Football Saturday of the season in person, and honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to say goodbye to the summer and hello to the fall than with a little tailgating, a little fight-song singing, a little crimson and grey and a whole lot of football.

I hope you all have a fantastic Labor Day weekend! I know I will!

P.S. — If you happen to be wondering just how and why this Texas girl turned into a Washington State fan, read this for a little background info.

This weekend, I learned...

That three large Tecates and a longboard don't mix.

Don't say I never warned you.

This one's for the girls

Empathy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of another.

The book I’m reading, I Know I’m in There Somewhere: A Woman’s Guide to Finding her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity (told you I love self help), says that “girls as young as in the third grade have already developed the ability to chime in with their friends’ feelings, even to the point of exaggerating their similarities. They learn to say in effect, ‘I know just how you feel; I feel the exact same way.’”

This is a little amazing to me, and yet, it makes total sense. What happens when you go to your girlfriends when you are hurting or sad or feeling a little blue? They empathize with you. When I go to one of my girlfriends, I can absolutely rely on them to feel my pain, relate my situation to a situation in their lives or at the very least, pretend that they’ve been there before.

And only, ONLY, after they have fully empathized with me and are sure that I understand that they are right there with me, do they begin to offer me solutions to my problem. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl and it’s the way I’m wired, but this ritual comforts me. I find that many times when I’m upset about something, one of the main reasons I’m upset about it is not because I want to fix it, but because I worry that something is wrong with me because I’m upset about it in the first place. Empathy releases me from that fear and comforts me because it says, “Don’t worry. You’re fine. I’ve felt the exact same thing. You are normal.” And personally, feeling like I’m normal can go a long way in helping me get over just about anything.

Overall, I guess what I’m trying to say is a big ‘ole thanks to all you girls out there. Maybe you’ve been there for me. Maybe you’ve been there for someone else. Regardless, thanks for being there, for feeling the pain, for shouldering the burden, for sharing the tears and for never trying to “fix” things until the time is right.

It’s an art, that empathy, and we girls seem to have gotten it just right. So, give yourselves a nice pat on the back, and have a great weekend. You deserve it.

Don't worry, be happy now

I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I’m a self help feign. Really, when anything is going wrong in my life or I’m trying to break a bad habit or I just need a general pick-me-up, the first place I turn is the self help section of Barnes and Noble. The way I see it, it’s worth the $15 spent to have someone else tell me in 300 pages or less how I can help myself. So, imagine my happiness when I stumbled upon The Happiness Project, a blog that is essentially an evolving self help book.

Gretchen Rubin, the blog’s author, is a lawyer turned writer who is working on a memoir about the year she spent test driving every principle, tip, theory and scientific study on happiness that she could find to see what works and what doesn’t. Her blog chronicles her adventures. Her memoir is due out in late 2009.

I think the main reason I was immediately drawn in by Gretchen is because she’s a girl who knows her weaknesses and her strengths and knows herself good enough to know when her weaknesses are getting in the way of her strengths and keeping her from happiness, which is all in all what I pretty much strive to do on a daily basis.

According to Gretchen, “to be happier, you need to think about FEELING GOOD, FEELING BAD and FEELING RIGHT, in an atmosphere of growth,” and while this may sound a little fancy, the foundation of her happiness plan is made of simple things like getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods and exercising regularly, all things that regular folks like me can easily do.

So, if you have a few free minutes and you find you’re in need of some easy, step-by-step (just like I like ‘em) tips on just about anything, check out The Happiness Project, and come on, folks, let’s all get happy.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

I just realized something. Like, I really just realized this as I sat here checking my email and eating my sandwich and thinking back over the events of the last 48 hours, and I felt like it was such a good realization that I couldn’t go another minute without blogging about it.

Maybe it’s not profound. Maybe you’ve thought of it before. But I’m not sure I’ve really ever thought about it in this context, and honestly, on a Monday, any realization seems like a good one.

So, my realization: People always talk about how when two people are perfect for each other, they make each other better people, and personally, I’ve always thought this to be quite romantic sounding. However, I just realized that behind all of those rosy words lies something far less rosy because allowing someone to make you into a better person is actually quite possibly the most painful process in the entire world.

Let me explain.

When you are single, you can do what you want, when you want, with whoever you want. Your actions, for the most part, do not drastically affect anyone (outside of your roommate or your cube mate, and who really cares about them anyway?) When you’re single, you can be rude, gossipy, judgmental, jealous, angry, negative and a general pain in the butt, and there’s no pressure to be anything else.

But all of that changes when you get in a relationship. Suddenly, when you meet someone you care about, your actions begin to affect someone else, and that someone else happens to be the person you love and want to spend your life with. Suddenly, that jealous streak/worrisome nature/bossy tendency/fill-in-your-vice-here starts to drive a wedge between you and your beloved, and not long after, you find yourself facing The Dilemma: Work on your negative traits or lose the person you love.

And although this may seem like a simple decision, not all of the ailments that plague us are easy to fix. Some of them have been engrained in us since the day we were born, and changing them often feels impossible (and a little like ripping each and every hair out of your head).

You see, Friday night was my birthday party, and while there were balloons, drinks and plenty of laughs, there were also angry words and tears and lessons learned. And while it’s a new day, the pain of those lessons still hurts. There are still tears hiding just behind tired lids, and there is heaviness with each breath. But while a moment ago I had been focused on all the ways I fall short, my realization made me think about my relationship and the fact that it really is making me a better person, a person capable of loving bigger and better than I do now, a person that I will be proud of one day, and for the first time in two days, I feel ready to get up, dust myself off (once again) and make another go at it. Wish me luck.

27 things to do before I turn 28

1. Read five books (done)
2. Visit San Francisco (done)
3. Go dancing at Cowboy Country (done)
4. Make more homemade postcards (done)
5. Spend a night at the Madonna Inn (done)
6. Clean out my filing cabinet (done)
7. Fancy up my beach cruiser (done)
8. Make a Los Angeles photo album (done)
9. Host a game night (done)
10. Go to a fair (done)
11. Cook three new recipes (done)
12. Improve my posture
13. Pet as many dogs as possible (done)
14. Make chocolate fondue (done)
15. Take a road trip
16. Memorize the four agreements (done)
17. Go sledding (done)
18. Volunteer somewhere
19. Watch one documentary (done)
20. Bake banana bread (done)
21. Get a Santa Monica library card (done)
22. Start a new hobby (done)
23. Make someone a homemade birthday present (done)
24. Write in my journal once a week (done)
25. Have dinner in Laguna Beach (done)
26. Make at least one new friend (done)
27. Print this list out and put it on my fridge (done)

My favorite

With my birthday just around the corner (TOMORROW!), I thought it would be appropriate to take a look back over my 26th year and remember some of my favorite parts. (Yes, I’ll admit it’s a tiny bit reminiscent of a MySpace survey, but I promise I won’t make you repost it and I won’t include a question about my last kiss and what it meant to me.)

Favorite part of my 26th year:
Moving into my beautiful apartment in Santa Monica

Favorite vacation of my 26th year:
My Vegas Thanksgiving

Favorite food of my 26th year:
Nachos

Favorite movie of my 26th year:
Juno

Favorite TV show of my 26th year:
American Idol

Favorite restaurant of my 26th year:
Big Wang’s

Favorite book read during my 26th year:
Honeymoon with my Brother

Favorite gift given to me during my 26th year:
My Aldo purse

Favorite item purchased during my 26th year:
My cowboy boots

Favorite new tradition started during my 26th year:
Sunday Night Dinners

Favorite hotel stayed in during my 26th year:
The Parker Palm Springs

Favorite new hobby of my 26th year:
Blogging

Favorite concert of my 26th year:
Alan Jackson at Go Fest

Charisse's Birthday Week has arrived!

2 hours driving south +
1 very pretty room at the Westin +
2 beers at the Gaslamp Tavern +
1 heaping plate of nachos +
2 hours by the pool +
1 pina colada +
8 stops on the trolley +
1 crazy man with a can of pepper spray +
2 beers in the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot +
3 quarters of the Cowboys vs. Chargers game +
1 huge tub of popcorn +
1 outfit change +
3 blocks walking in the Gaslamp District +
15 minutes searching for cheese +
1 bowl of cheesy stuff at some Mexican restaurant +
2 scrambled eggs +
2 hours driving north +
4 hours of the Olympics =

One fantastic kick off to Charisse’s Birthday Week!

Are you ready for some football?

Happy Friday! I wish I could write more today, but I’m short on time. I’ve got a housewarming party tonight, and I’m leaving bright and early in the morning for a couple days in San Diego.

I’m going to do a little sunbathing by the hotel pool, watch the Dallas Cowboys play the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium and enjoy a night out on the town, all courtesy of my amazing boyfriend. It’s his birthday present to me, which means that tomorrow officially kicks off Charisse’s Birthday Week, with my actual birthday on Wednesday and more birthday festivities to come next weekend.

I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!

What can I say, I’m a girl who loves her birthday!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Dontcha wish your boyfriend was hot like mine?

Dontcha?

To carpool or not to carpool

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for going green. I love Mother Earth just as much as the next person, but I’ve recently found that there are some things I just can’t do for her, and one of them is carpooling.

My sister and I have been carpooling to work for the past two weeks until she starts her new job, and what seemed like an amazing idea and a great way to save on gas has taken a terrible turn for the worse.

Let’s just say, yesterday, we had a 20-minute fight about the air conditioning vents, and it wasn’t pretty.

That fight, plus the many others we’ve endured over the past 14 days, led me to write my top 5 do’s for carpooling for all of you eco-friendly folks considering this mode of transportation:

5. Do refuse to carpool with anyone who does not have dual climate control. Like I said, fights about air vents aren’t pretty, and neither are sweat rings on your favorite shirt.

4. Do bring an iPod. Yes, there are people who prefer to listen to gangster rap at 8:00 a.m. If you’re not one of them, better have your handy dandy headphones ready.

3. Do observe the old adage “never speak unless spoken to.” While I generally wake up on the cheerful, let’s-talk-about-our-day side of the bed, I’ve learned there are people who prefer not to speak before checking their morning emails. If you don’t believe me, chat with caution.

2. Do pack a lunch. There’s really only so much time two people can spend together without wanting to give each other a good slap upside the head. If the ride to and from work is getting to be too much, why add fuel to the fire with an added carpooler lunch. Brownbag it, and save your sanity.

1. Do carpool at your own risk. Yes, gas prices are rising, but are those few extra bucks a month really worth forfeiting the half hour of peace you could have before you walk into another work day? I’ll let you decide.

A whole bunch of nothingness

It was Saturday afternoon, the apartment was hot and my sister and I were restless. We decided to take a walk down to the Third Street Promenade and see what was going on. The following conversation occurred somewhere between 6th and 3rd.

Me – “Look at that big fat squirrel up there on that post eating!”

My sister – “Oh, wow. Look at him. He’s so into his food. You know, I feel like that’s all squirrels do is eat all day.”

Me – “Well, I guess that is what animals do: eat, sleep and mate.”

My sister – “True. Actually, I think that’s what we do all day, too.”

Me – “No way, we do way more than that. We do things for entertainment like play games and go to the movies.”

My sister (looking at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot) – “Well, squirrels can’t go to the movies!”

I don’t know why the above conversation cracked me up so much, but it still makes me laugh just typing it. It was so random, just like my weekend. Two days full of a whole bunch of nothing at first glance, and yet, upon further perusal, two days strung together by fun little things like Goodwill shopping sprees, scoops of gelato, hours and hours of the XGames, new neighbors, shared meals, tie dyed t-shirts and one big plate of bacon.

While some would say it’s boring to do nothing, I must admit I quite enjoyed my weekend of nothingness. After all, when you’re busy, there’s never any time to stop and talk about the squirrels.