height

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm too tall.

I always thought that at 5'8" tall that I was a pretty good height. I can reach things on the top of shelves. But I have no problem finding clothes that fit. The best of both worlds.

Whenever I play volleyball I wish for a few more inches. Though really what I need is to develop a vertical jump and then the height thing wouldn't matter.

But when I'm dating, I sort of wish I was a little bit shorter. Why? Because a lot of guys are right around my height. That should be perfect, right? Our lips would be at the exact same level- making for easy and ideal kissing, right? No more crick in the neck as I have to bend my neck back to kiss those tall guys.

But it's not actually ideal. Height matters. It shouldn't. But it does. We are taught that men are our big strong protectors. But when the woman is the same size as the man, or worse yet, bigger, it changes things. Men feel emasculated. Women feel less sexy.

Is that something that people can get over? Or does it permanently mess up the dynamics in a relationship and cause problems? Does size matter?

adventurers

What kind of person are you? What kind of chances are you willing to take?

What keeps people at home? Is it contentment or is it fear?

Having just watched a sci-fi movie, it got me thinking about space travel. If traveling to other worlds was an option... would you do it?

A lot of people don't even travel to other countries, let alone other worlds.

There is pretty much no place on Earth that we can't get to, but we don't always go to those places. Why not? A lot of factors play into that. Money. Danger. Comfort. Health.

What reasons would you need to travel to another world? Or would you do it just to find out what is out there? What if all your family and friends could come with you? (I think that would be most people's thing holding them back.)

seating chart

I think the most stressful part about wedding planning (no, not that I am planning one) is doing the seating arrangements.

You can do buffet style and let people choose their own tables. But then you get that poor couple who doesn't know anyone who is wandering around with their plate of food looking like the new kid in the school cafeteria.

Or you can do assigned seating but then you have to worry about all sorts of things... are Grandpa so-and-so and cousin so-and-so near each other? Because they've been feuding since last fall. Crap like that.

And once you separate the feuders, you have to think about the flow of the party and who will mingle well with whom.

At the last wedding I went to, I got stuck sitting between my four-year old niece and my eight-year old nephew. And you know what? That wasn't fun for me.

So instead of having a good time with witty conversation, I got to babysit. Thumbs down.

Thankfully I had my new camera with me to entertain my not-at-all-camera-shy niece Charlotte.

I took this video and looked over at my brother with a shake of the head, who then responded, "Now you know what it's like for the rest of us having to put up with you when you're drunk!" Ha! Touche, Jaime, touche!

sunset

I was riding home on the el the other night and I had my head in my book and was pretty oblivious to the world around me, when I decided to look up and saw this intensely beautiful sunset!

My photo doesn't do it justice. There were blues and lavender and lilac and pink and all sorts of colors. It was stunning. Sort of took my breath away.

And nobody was noticing it.

I almost didn't notice it.

So I put my book down and watched the sunset for the rest of the ride home. And I resisted the urge to be the crazy person on the train who was interrupting people to force them to look at the sunset!

It was a big reminder of how much wonderful stuff I can miss out on if I get too wrapped up in my own crap.

Irony

So I had a super scary dream this morning about seeing this guy walk into a building I was in and go crazy and open fire shooting a gun at random people.

I lay down on the floor and did not get hit by any bullets.

But as I was laying down on the floor I had the thought that "This is really messed up! I bet it's gonna give me nightmares!"

boobs vs. butts

So here's your random post for the day:

Men often describe themselves as either being boob men or ass men. Meaning that they are attracted to either a woman's ass or a woman's boobs. Yeah, I know, you didn't really need that clarification. You are smart people, I'm sure you figured that out.

The other day we were talking about breast feeding while I was at work (since my coworker is about to give birth) and an idea occurred to me:

Do men who are breast fed vs. bottle fed turn more into boob guys? Does the amount of time that they are breast fed (til the age of two years vs til six months) play a role? Does what their mom's boobs look like play a big role in it?

Or do those things not matter at all?

I've never seen any research on it, nor do I think we should waste our money doing research on the topic but it could help explain it. Though it wouldn't explain why the other men love butts. We decided that was just the default option.

quarterbacks

What is it about quarterbacks that makes them just so damn sexy???

Sorry, it's a slow blogging day, so I'm going to write about what I saw on TV yesterday. I watched a special about Mark Sanchez, the quarterback for the New York Jets.

Yum.

The most interesting thing that I learned about Mark is that he is second generation Mexican-American and is often held up as a role model in the Hispanic community.

Lot of Hispanic television shows and sports programs want to do interviews with him... in Spanish.

Only problem? Mark grew up speaking English in his home! He has had to learn Spanish as an adult so that he can do these interviews.

Becky's baby

One of my favorite coworkers, Becky, is pregnant. Very, very pregnant.

The doctors with their fancy ultra sounds claim that she is only having one baby. A little girl. So that is what she is planning on. But she won't be surprised if there is another baby hidden in there. Or a unicorn. Yes, a unicorn. They are magical, hence why they don't show up on the ultra sound and hence why she is so ridiculously big.

I took these photos of Becky on Saturday.

She laughed when she saw them and said that she didn't realize that she is THAT big. When she looks at herself in the mirror, she said she doesn't think she looks as big as she does in the picture. Yet, in my mind, the pictures don't even do justice to how big she is! Huge! Awesomely huge!

Becky and I work a lot of the same shifts and our schedules often tend to work out perfectly so that we have the same breaks and end up sitting in the break room talking to each other. I see her more than I do any of my other coworkers. It has been great watching her pregnancy (her first) develop.

So Becky says to me this weekend, "It's going to be so weird because I am going to have the baby and you will only ever really end up seeing her at like our Christmas party and stuff."

I kind of gave her a questioning look because I didn't find that to be so weird.

And she continued, "Because, you and the baby hang out so much now. You guys are buds! She is used to hearing your voice all the time and being around you. She is going to be born and be so confused, wondering where you are!"

How cute is that?!?

twitter oops

I'm by no means an expert on Twitter. I use it occasionally just to post my random thoughts that I don't want to clog up Facebook with.

But I forget that other people, besides just my followers can see my twitter posts.

So when I tweet snotty things about how Match.com should have a box that you can check saying that you don't want to date anyone who watches Glenn Beck... I should have been prepared for snotty replies. Oops!

old age

Sometimes a moment is so tender and sweet that words alone can't capture it... and then a photo helps.

Yesterday as I was walking in the Loop, I saw one old man helping another old man, who had a cane and who was slightly worse off than himself, walk down the street.

regret

Do you ever do something and then immediately regret it? Like putting your leftover Chipotle into your backpack so that you have your hands free to take pictures. You KNOW right away that it is a bad idea. So it comes as no surprise when an hour later it spills ALL over the inside of your bag. And it smelled SO strongly! I was the stinky person on the train today! We all have to be that person at some point in our lives- my day was today.

The other thing I think I am going to regret is signing up for Match.com.

I've hated it every time I have done the free trials in the past. Why is this time going to be different? They sucker you in though... they tease you... they tell you that someone has written you an email but they won't tell you WHO wrote you an email or WHAT the email says until you pay them money and sign up.

How can I live with that? How can I live with not knowing what the emails say? The curiosity was too much. I caved. But I immediately regret it. Match.com is creepy. They tell people when you are online and how recently you have been online. "Nikki has been active within two hours." Seriously, I don't want people to know that. And then tell people if I have read their emails or not. I suppose that is good for the people sitting there thinking, "Did she get it? Has she read it?" Ugh. I hate this shit.

So why am I doing this? Because I keep saying that I want to start dating again... and this is the easiest way.

But I don't really want to do it. I want a boy to come magically land in my lap. Is that too much to ask?

I'm going to have to start using my magical voodoo powers to lure them to me.

the morphing of a man

What do women want? Do we even know? Filling out a profile for eharmony today has got me wanting to never date again. Ugh.

But I was thinking about what we want from guys. We want a guy who is open and talks to us and shares his feelings. Who wouldn't want a guy who goes to yoga class and musicals with them?

Basically what we want is a guy who is a girl!

But with a peni$.

Doesn't that sort of defeat the point? Don't we like guys because they are guys and manly and different from us?

I'd love to be able to do yoga with a guy. Share something with him that I love. But then I think about the guys in my yoga classes... am I attracted to those guys? Hell no! Do I want a touchy-feely girly man who wears spandex? NOOOO!

So why do we keep trying to change our men into women?

I'm not saying no to compromise. I can sit down and have a beer and watch a football game. That doesn't make me less of a woman. And a man can go to a yoga class or go shopping with me, that doesn't make him less of a man. We don't need to have separate activities and ways of speaking/ dealing with things.

But I don't feel like men have the same urge to change women that women have to change men. Why is that? (Or am I completely wrong about that?) Do we want to change men because it would make US happier? Or because we think it would make THEM happier?

Part of me thinks that we think we are helping them... WE feel better when we talk about things... therefore if we could just get men to talk about things more, wouldn't THEY feel better too? Not necessarily. Men are different. I think we forget that sometimes.

Then again, maybe that is the role that women are meant to play. I have heard many married men say that their wives have made better men out of them. Or that their interests have changed because of their wives. Getting drunk and blowing up fireworks is not nearly as pressingly important as it once was.

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."

So normally I talk about how beautiful and wonderful life is and all that jazz.

But not every day can be sunshine and rainbows.

I've been reading about the Holocaust which is leaving me feeling somewhat subdued.

And I was on the el this morning and I noticed that it wasn't just me, everyone was in a somber mood.

Not a single person was smiling.

Though one gentleman was wearing a ridiculous pair of skin-tight, stone-washed jeans that was tempting me to smile.

The book I am reading talks about how the Jews in the ghetto in Warsaw, amidst all the horror and uncertainty and death, still found things to appreciate and love and that helped them to get through it.

And it made me think about the fact that sunshine and rainbows aren't the ONLY beautiful things out there.

You can find beauty in a melancholy train ride... if you look for it. The camaraderie of slugging through the day with a bunch of your fellow humans. The rhythmic swish-swish of the wheels on the track. The whistling of the wind finding its way through the cracks. The stale lingering smell of fast food. It might not be beautiful in the normal sense of the word but you can find something to appreciate even in the mundane.

autumn

Do you know what the best part about fall is?

No, not the colors.

No, not the smells.

It's cashmere!

Yup, straight up cashmere. I could live happily cuddled inside cashmere sweaters for the rest of my life.

poll

And don't forget to vote in the new poll (to your right)!

spam-a-lot

I wonder how many emails out there never get seen because they go to a spam folder? I've gotten pretty good at giving a quick glance to my spam folder every day but how many other people do?

I actually received an email the other day that TOLD me that an email I sent had been filed as spam. Apparently I had too many of their bad "key words" included in my text. But that was sent to a university, hence why I was notified. Had it been sent to yahoo or google I would never have known.

There is that old phrase "the check is in the mail." Things out there, on their way, maybe lost forever. Nowadays we have the phrase, "Lost in cyberspace."

When someone says they didn't receive your email you scoff, thinking, "Sure, it just disappeared!" But do emails just disappear? Do they get accidentally deleted when we don't go through our spam accounts closely enough?

Makes you wonder about all the emails you might have missed out on.

The Zookeeper's Wife

I have to tell you that I'm not really loving our book club selection for this month. It is called The Zookeeper's Wife and is about Poland being invaded by the Nazis. Fascinating? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Unbelievably depressing? YES!!!!

However, I must admit that when you have had a bad day, filled with annoying clients, there is something about reading about the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw that helps you put things in perspective and feel a lot better about your life!

I mean, really? I'm upset because I had a bad client?!? Get an f'ing real problem, Nik!

how about cutler gets tackled again??

Seriously, Bears?!? So far this game is so painful to watch that I am thinking about going to read my bookclub book instead... about Warsaw being invaded by the Nazis. I find it more uplifting than this game.

the motion of the ocean

Is there anything more calming than sitting next to a big body of water with waves rolling in?



(There is nothing exciting on this video, it is just really sort of relaxing and pretty and calming. I could have it going as background video at all times.)

As people on the coasts will tell you, nothing is as great as the ocean. And I have to agree. But Lake Michigan, especially when the waters are churning, is a close second. And a LOT closer to home, so I'll take it!

The lake has always been a really special place for me. When I was a little girl my mom used to take me and my brother Mike (and occasionally my other brother Ryan, i.e. Mike's best friend that I saw more of than his own family did) down to the beach. I think I am one of the few people that the lifeguards at the beach ever forced to have a "time out." Oops. Apparently pelting little old ladies with wet clumps of sand is forbidden. Who knew?! :)

In high school I would go down to the beach with friends to play sand volleyball.

Right after college I worked a block away from the lake at a horrible job and I would escape down there on my lunch break to regroup and restore my sanity.

Later I became obsessed with the lakefront bike path and would spend hours rollerblading along it... occasionally going all the way up to my job in Evanston.

And when I had my evil boyfriend that is where I used to go to cry my eyes out. Walking along, seeing how pretty it was, telling myself to stop and notice how pretty it was and being so miserable that all I could do was cry.

I was thinking about that this week. Because I was sitting at the lake and was just so happy that it made a tear come to my eye. And so I recalled all the other, much different, tears that I have shed at the lake.

I am in such a different place now.

It's hard to imagine being as miserable as I was. Being on the emotional roller coaster that I was on. And again, all I can say is "Thank you!" to my friends for putting up with me during that time! I mean, I know it's always fun to have a sort of crazy friend who makes you feel better because your life is going a lot better than hers. So I'm glad I could fill that place for you back then. But you guys put up with a lot of drama from me that year. And though I still blame all of you for not giving me a sound talking to and just snapping me out of it... I do love you all for being there for me... again... and again... and again!

A large part of me wants to forget those times. Pretend that they never even happened.

But sometimes we need rough times like that to make us appreciate the good. Too much sunlight can make us blinded. Sometimes we need shadows as well.

Though, I'll tell ya, I am liking being in the sunshine a lot better.

I'm not the girl I used to be.

Part of me looks at this blog and says "A year with nikki? Not much has happened in this year!" Until you look back at that person that I was. I feel like I have done a lifetime of growing in the past three years. And each days brings me closer to being the person that I want to be.

So maybe I am still in the same job and haven't published a book yet. Maybe that didn't happen this year. But I've learned to be happy with still being in my job and happy despite the fact that I haven't published a book yet.

I think one of the biggest lessons you will ever learn in life (and especially in terms of happiness) is that it is not always about changing the world. It is about changing how you perceive the world.

Love. Happiness. Change. It all comes from within.

And 10 times out 10, I would choose to be who I am now even if I haven't quite done everything that I've wanted to do, rather than be who I was six years ago but with all the accomplishments in the world.

I'm a f*cking work in progress, I tell ya.

Why does every single solitary post I write end up talking about change and progress and blah, blah, blah?!?

I do REALIZE how annoying that is. I'll work on it, I promise. Don't worry, I'm still riding the el daily... I'm sure I'll have more stories from there soon! This past week has been strangely (blessedly!) uneventful!

confused

This morning as I lay in bed I was soooo confused... why was there a car alarm going off? And why was it so close to my head? I'm not even going to admit how long it took me to realize that it was actually just my alarm clock going off!