Never be cool

"Forget about good, love your experiments, go deep, drift, and don't be cool. Never be cool. Free yourself from limits of this sort."
-Kate Figgins, a philosophical and moral touchstone that I'm blessed to have in my life. She is a ridiculously cool-cool girl BECAUSE she doesn't worry about being cool.

After college, there's this whole idea, that you've got to be a more grown-up version of yourself. While it's good to say, "This is the year I'm going to stop eating Taco Bell every weekend," or "--insert any other positive goal you want to do yourself for yourself (not for anyone else)--"; it's important to not keep yourself from doing what you want to do because you have to be a grown-up now. Life is hard enough on the other side of college, what with being financially responsible (planning a budget, saving, paying bills on time), and responsible to work. You have GOT to let loose and do what you want to do because that's what makes being responsible all worth it. My point is, you should be these people:



These people made the 12 hours I worked to produce this video (all in one overnight chunk!) so enjoyable. If you love Harry Potter, don't be too cool to go to the midnight showing and dress up. And please be willing to sing, and skip, and just be alive! That zest for fun, the bubbliness, that energy is so contagious. If you lose that, you lose the best part of you. Remember that no one is keeping score anymore of who is the coolest. You can surround yourself with people who love the same things you do - and you can celebrate that in some extraordinarily memorable ways. And a giddy USA TODAY employee might just document it.

Text time

This is my best friend Andrea.

Isn't she just adorable? I know. She's also up in the picture behind the title of my blog.

So, this girl has the best personality (I think this picture shows it visually quite perfectly - the vibrant colors, the excitement over sitting on a hand in front of a yummy bakery). We've been best buds since I was a freshman in high school. We've pretty much been long-distance friends since then.

I know I've blogged about how I feel like my 9-5 routine has been a freeing experience for me, as opposed to the gut response that more people have as seeing it as restrictive. But one thing that has fallen by the wayside, is my ability to catch up with my girlfriends who live far away from me. Ange and I have often experienced how it can be really hard to find a time where we can both talk for enough time to really catch up on each other's lives. It seems rude, but it can be logistically difficult to find out when each of you can set aside the hour it requires, especially with all the other things we busy ourselves with after work.

So, Ange read an article about a woman who moves a lot and has a few dear long-distance friends. She and her best friend text each other what they ate for breakfast. Well, Ange had the brilliant idea for us to adapt that for ourselves! I was so ecstatic when she suggested that! I thought we could just pick one thing for the day that we could text each other about. So far (we started this on Saturday), we have covered: wine tours, egg burritos, baby showers, serendipitous metro meet-ups with friends, cleaning at home and finding old cards :), not hating mondays, and pumpkin ice cream. Awesome.

Another brilliant way we can still stay in touch with friends who live far away - without the hour long convos we had time for in between classes. I still think it's important to have those conversations every once in a while - and to make trips to see each other. That's the best way to keep a friendship alive.

Come to think of it, I'm very thankful that over this year I've been able to see so many of my amazing friends who live far away.

I got to see Taylor Dancer in her beautiful wedding in March.



I got to see one of my best friends since third grade over Memorial Day weekend and spend time with her betrothed - and I just saw them get married just a few short weeks ago! This is their exquisite halloween costume:


I got to see Reyna Nowaczyk on my BIRTHDAY in DC! I loved that. She is my love. Her bf got to be with us too!


And then my dear Meg, my cousin, my sister, my other half :) I watcher her graduate, and spent a week with her in in her element at Penn State - it was her birthday, too! It was SO FUN! We also had a cousins day on the beach together; I love my family so much. She is my best friend too. (DISCLAIMER: I did just get off the phone with her for an hour before writing this post. You know, most Mondays I have plans with my best friend who doesn't live far away - Calvin Bovee - but he is out of town on business. I really have planned out a weekday routine that is filled with things I love - and leaves me less time for callin').


Finally, it's been way awesome seeing my brother and sister-in-law so often this year. I love them lots. They are coming to stay with me this weekend - we are going to see Hair. We celebrated Easter together, visited Atlantic City, had fun at cousins day at their place near the Jersey shore (sigh wish it was summer again so I can overstay my welcome there...). My brother and I have become so close since I've moved to the east coast and since I shared this post-college life with him.
Their awesome Halloween costume.

There will never be a cuter Garth, right?

"Nothing's far when one wants to get there." -Queen Marie of Romania, taken from the book Reyna got me - The Girl's Book of Positive Quotations

I'm really blessed that even though the miles separate us, I've been able to see people I really really love - that I've added to my family pretty much - over this great year. I have a lot to celebrate for these holidays - a lot to be thankful for. And I have quite a bit of texts to send. ; )

I voted at an actual polling booth!

So normally, in college, I wasn't sure with class, etc., whether I should spend the time to vote on voting day. I always voted on a mail-in ballot - which I gotta tell you is a little lackluster. You mail it in, and that's it, no sticker, no smiles from volunteers, no leaving work for a change of scene.

Well that changed this past Tuesday! It was especially exciting with what Facebook was doing - encouraging everyone to weigh in on voting with the "I voted" button - I loved it.

I will always vote and now it gets to be one of those joys I have time for - everyone at work is asking if you voted, and telling you to make time for it. I wasn't gone more than an half hour because the lines were so short! I walked right up to a booth after they signed me in - went through a touch screen digital device, and it was all done so quickly! Then I got to proudly wear my "I voted" sticker.

Also, I really enjoyed seeing my baby cousin Kathleen (who is now 18 - my goodness!) weigh in about voting for the first time at the polls, too. I have never forgotten the lessons we learned about women's suffrage in grade school classes in Mount Laurel. A woman from the Alice Paul Society told us a lot about Alice Paul's life. What I remembered most was a story about her at the end of her life. She was living in a nursing home and struggling with the pain inflicted on her as a younger woman - she was force-fed in jail, a fate that chills me to the bone every time I think about it. They stuffed tubes down her throat against her will (pumping raw eggs into her stomach), so her throat and voice were never the same. She still fought for the movement. But even though it was difficult for her to speak at that late point in her life, she always asked every woman she met if she voted. I learned that in grade school and swore I'd always honor the women who fought for my right to vote. Thank goodness someone decided to stop at nothing - even horrible punishments inflicted by the very institution the suffragettes were trying to make better.

I probably could have had the same experience in college, but I always went an easier route. I really enjoyed going to the polls on Voting Day and probably will do it the same way next time!