I wonder what you think of me.

You don’t know me, have never met me, only know what you read and what you see here on this or other sites. Or perhaps you do know me, but haven’t seen me in a while. Perhaps you’re a long-lost friend from middle school, who Googled me and came upon this site. Maybe you’re an ex who I’ve lost contact with, someone who I haven’t thought about in ages. And I wonder – whoever you are, however you got here – what you think.

I try to look at my site through an outsider’s eyes, reading what I wrote years ago and trying to figure out what a person that didn’t really know me thought I was trying to convey. I look at my photo albums, see myself with various friends, and wonder if someone is also looking at them, trying to figure out which one of those boys is my boyfriend (if any), who is my best friend, and was I drunk? Was I happy? Was I just pretending to have a good time?

Not that it matters. I am who I am – I’m a somewhat-crazy girl who’s accent turns stronger when I’ve had a few margaritas, the same girl that everyone can diagnose as “drunk” because I’m blessing everyone’s heart from here to Texas. And looking back, I never thought I would turn out this way. I’m sure, neither did you.

I wasn’t crowned “Most Likely to Succeed.” I didn’t win “Best Hair” or even “Most Likely to go to Jail.” (I’m not sure if they had that, but – well, just don’t ask me about slow dancing on the roof of Hooters anytime soon.) I don’t know who – if anyone – really had any expectations of me one way or another. I’m not yet certain how people thought of me 10-years ago, much less now, so I’m at a loss to think that I’ve surprised you or let you down or ended up just the way you thought I would.

I stopped caring about others’ expectations of me long ago. My parents never put a lot of pressure on me to get good grades or to study or to be what society would call “a good kid”, and yet I did, mostly because I wanted to. I had a motivation to study, wanted to excel, wanted to stay out of trouble. So the path I ended up going down was always mine to begin with, which is where it still is today.

And yet I’m curious, not because I want to know if you think I’m smart or dumb or pretty or ugly or think I spend far too much time talking about myself, but because I find it interesting. I know how many times I’ve misjudged someone, based on a quick meeting or even the way they talked or the way they dressed. I’m not proud of that, but it’s human nature, it’s reality. People do make judgments about you, and I believe we should go into life knowing that, knowing that the littlest thing might influence if someone ends up being your friend or not.

It’s not going to change me one way or another, and as I look back on pictures from ten, from five, from two years ago, I see myself the way I remember myself being. Insecure at times, unsure of my future, looking for love in a happenstance way that I sometimes continue to do today.

Or maybe, again, I’m being self-aggrandizing. A scene in “Sixteen Candles” could be closer to the truth than anything I’ve yet written:
Jake Ryan: What do you think of Samantha Baker?
Meatheady friend: I don’t.

Perhaps you don’t think of me at all.

There’s times when I want to write about everything. I want to sing from the mountaintops and tell everyone, everywhere, all of you what I’m thinking. I want you to know that I’m happy – yes! I am! Finally! I want you to know why, I want you to know that I’ve got a spring in my step and a song in my heart. (Only kidding on that last one – I promise, despite me being in a good mood, that I’ll never – EVER – be that cheezy.)

And in moments like these, where that’s basically the only thing I can concentrate on, it’s hard to come up with something to write. I SHOULD be writing about lawn & garden for a well-known home improvement chain. I SHOULD be coming up with misspellings for the word “diamond” and writing compelling copy to lure internet shoppers to shell out some dough for their girlfriend’s/wife’s/mistress’ ring. Instead, I’ve got this dumb grin on my face because a not-so-good day has since turned into a very fabulously good day, and it’s still sunny.

I wonder if they have Veggie Hot Dogs at the Braves game.

I’ve always been a bit headstrong when it comes to exceeding someone’s expectations of me. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child – an only girl, at that, but I’ve always wanted to do it myself, and do it better than you thought I could. Face it, I like to impress you.

Owning a house, this is no exception. I’m beyond proud that I was a homeowner at age 24, that I have thus far not fallen through any ceilings of said house nor have I done any major structural damage in my various home improvement projects that I’m continually tackling. I’m nothing if not impetuous – deciding to paint my bedroom on a Sunday afternoon is a common occurrence, as is buying new light fixtures or fans and attempting to re-wire an outlet. And yet, though everything is in working order and somewhat level, I think I should have paid more attention in middle school shop class.

Almost 2 years of home improvement ventures have left me with an organized closet that rivals California Closets, some shelves, a new dining room light fixture, a blue bedroom & bathroom, somewhat-unscuffed (due to touch-up paint) walls, curtain rods, curtain hold-backs, chrome light plates and more. And despite my new cabinet pulls (also a lovely chrome variety) and the soothing shade of blue that eases me to sleep every night, I’ve got to admit – handywoman I am not. Rosie the Riveter would roll her eyes in frustration if she caught a glimpse of the battleground that is my closet wall. It looks like a drywall sieve, as – in making the aforementioned high-class and very functional closets – I had two not-so-high class, falling down on my head versions that left me with, um, let’s just say nearly 50 drill holes that I’ve yet to patch.

Onto the light fixtures. If we have an earthquake, I’d bet the farm (or perhaps MDR) that the first thing to come crashing down is the light over the kitchen table, as it’s held up in a very creative (read: jacked up) way because, hell, I’m a girl with no patience, no formal training on what to do when your drywall ceiling needs anchor bolts that don’t seem to work b/c the light is too heavy, and no boyfriend/brother/father within a close driving radius. So, I do it myself.

This weekend I once again embarked on another home improvement project: putting up shades so I can sleep in past 8am on the weekends instead of having to wear eye masks or eye pillows to block out the light. (Though I’ve mastered the use of them; My Darling Roommate wonders how I can sleep with them balancing on my face. Years of practice, of course.) So I take my trusty Saab-alamobile (a feeble excuse for a handywoman’s car) to Home Depot (a store I know inside & out since I’ve come up with over 30,000 keywords for them in the past few months) to find myself some Room Darkening shades. (That’s what they call them: Room Darkening shades. If only every product was labeled so descriptively.) I’ve taken the appropriate measurements (31 1/2″ from window frame side-to-side), know that I want the Medium weight sans-froo froo ruffle shades in the longer length, and I want them in white. I will need some mounting brackets (hee! Mounting!), a drill (located somewhere under the bed) and a measuring tape to ensure that they’re level. Oh yes, Aubrey is prepared.

So I go home, find the drill after wading through old boxes of checks and other sundry items that I’ll spare you from describing, and even get an extension cord. I’ve turned on the fan (it’s hot in my room), re-position the cat on the bed as to not scare her with the sound of the drill (my coughing scares her as well, so this is an exercise in futility), and get up on my couch, prepared to mount. (hee! The brackets; I’m mounting the brackets. On the wall.) I draw my circles, and start to drill.

Plaster comes flying. Aaah yes, the drill was on reverse; THAT’S why the bit came flying out and nearly impaled my eye. Ok, let’s try again. Well, apparently the holes I positioned were too close to the blinds that were already hung (though have thus far done a pathetic job of filtering out ANY light, thus the need for the Room Darkening shades) and the hole I drilled wasn’t exactly straight. Ok, third time’s the charm. Finally, I drill the holes, I put in the screws, and the electric screwdriver dies on me. Aaah, so let’s use the DRILL to be a quasi-screw driver. Yes, that will work.

10 minutes, many beads of sweat later, I have the brackets mounted. See? Handywoman Aubrey to the rescue!

Now screwing in the shade itself (is it just me or does home improvement require you to use words like “Screw” and “Mount” a lot? This is NOT good for a girl who still has a 4th grader’s since of humor) is another feat. Apparently, the little old handy lady at Home Depot didn’t actually cut my shades to be 31 1/2″ because the peg won’t fit in the hole (see what I mean? Mount! Screw! hee!) and it keeps falling down on my head. OK, so I’ll bend the brackets; they’re firmly screwed into the wall, so I can likely just bend the suckers to decrease the width between the window frames, thus making the shade stay!

Note to self: Do not try to bend metal brackets with a screwdriver blade lest you propel yourselves backwards, falling over the couch into a pajama-clad heap on the floor. Good thing I moved the cat.

10 minutes later, some unsuccessful attempts to un-screw the brackets and re-screw them with Kleenex behind them (to make them stick out farther, of course), and a stronger screw driver, and I’ve got the shade installed.

Backwards.

Ok, long story short, I fixed it. The shade is up. And despite a 1/2″ space on either side of the window frame where the shade doesn’t cover (31 1/2″ my ass), I’m 1/2 done. I am superwoman, hear me roar. And I’m dying with sweat – I need to change.

Onto the other shade. Always one to apply “best practices” as more than a corp-speak suggestion, I decided to mount both of the brackets at once, and THEN screw in the shade. Yes, I’m a smart cookie. Bracket one: Success. No problem. I’m fan-f-ing-tastic, you see – I wonder if there’s a market for professional shade mounters because I need to sign up at once. Though it’s still hot in there – since I’m the only one home, I may as well take off my PJ pants to finish, since it’s all of five minutes until I declare myself the Master of all Shade Mounters, esq.

Never, EVER begin to think that you’re in the running for the Master of all Shade Mounters, as you’ve jinxed yourself to metal window frames, stripped screws and a broken drill. Which I had.

The second mounting was off center; in trying to remove it, I somehow managed to strip the screw, leaving me with a metal-sharded screwdriver and one very ill-placed mounting. Ok, I’ll do what any sane pseudo Mounter of the Universe would do – get that thing out of the wall, however possible, and start over. And I’ve got the right tool for the job – the back-end part of a hammer. (I have no idea what that’s called, and by now, no patience to figure it out.) So I prop myself up on my end table with one foot, the other foot on the wall as to help me pull out the mounting, and alas – in a rainstorm of plaster and dust and screws and mounts, I get that sucker out of the wall.

Along with a nice part of the window frame.

Not to be defeated, I repositioned the mounting, drew my circles, drilled my holes, and screwed my screws. I did the aforementioned mounting-bend with the screwdriver (the appropriate metal-bending tool, you see) and installed the shade. Only to find that it was broken – you can pull it down, but it won’t get back up.

And that, my friends, is why My Darling Roommate found me standing on my bed in a tank top, my underwear, covered in plaster with a shade and a hammer in my hand, a screwdriver placed in my undies like a tool belt.

I think Rosie the Riveter might just be proud of me, after all.

Having a website is like having a megaphone – you can say what you want, yet spread your message much farther than you could with – say, a telephone. You’ve instantly increased your breadth from one person to possibly thousands, and airing your dirty laundry in public is, well, a bit tacky. That’s not to say it isn’t tempting…

I’ve talked about this before – how sometimes you just want to NOT be the bigger person, how you sometimes DO want the last word, how sometimes, after you’ve gone through so much pain yourself, you just want to hurt someone else. You want to be mean – you want to not care what the other person thinks. You want to say all the things that you didn’t while you were in a relationship, just to get them out, just so they were said. Having a website affords you this luxury, and whether your ex reads it or not is basically inconsequential, because you said it, and that was the point.

Then you move on. You find new likes and new loves and new crushes and new people that make your heart go pitty-pat. The unanticipated feelings of longing for your ex slowly go away, and little-by-little you realize you’re over them. Those places that reminded you of him stop doing so, those feelings that you had start to abate, first slowly, then quicker now. You realize it’s been longer than you had thought, you look back on the time and look at all you’ve done and all you’ve found and all you’ve learned. And, without anyone ever having to tell you, you realize you’re happy.

And herein lies the quandary. You’ve had your say with the past, and despite tangible written evidence that you did, in fact, feel that way, you’re done with that matter and on to bigger, better, brighter. Your website no longer looks to the past; instead, it looks forward, with hope, with excitement, and with the jubilation that only a new take on things can bring. But in the midst of hopeful anticipation, there’s a fine line between writing what you’re thinking, writing what you’re hoping for, and jinxing it all. You see, writing about the past is fail-safe: it’s done, it’s over, and very little you say can change the way it was. Yet the future – well, that, my friends, is in your hands. Anything you say or do can influence what will be, leaving us falling all over ourselves to not mess it up.

I liken it to a new relationship. When you like someone new, you tread lightly. You’re on your best behavior, lest you end up doing something ridiculously uncouth like snorting while laughing, sending you into the depths of embarrassment so early into a new relationship. And if you like them – and I mean really like them, you end up over-analyzing. You don’t want to get too close too fast; what if you come off as all needy? You don’t want to be intimate before the “acceptable” time – what if he thinks you’re a slut? And God forbid if you have a few too many margaritas one night and drunk-dial him, slurring your words like a 60-year old homeless booze-hound, because then you just know it’s over.

And through it all, you end up doing this little dance, walking the tightrope of propriety, basically disguising who you really are from someone you want to know you – REALLY know you.

Somewhere in the midst of this all is the right balance between not enough and too much, and I’m still figuring it out. Yet in the meantime, I’m off to have margaritas now. And if I call you? Well, please don’t hold it against me. I like you, and I’m trying my best to keep my balance.

Hells bells, she’s announced it.

Jane’s lecturing, people are saying it’s an April Fool’s Day joke, and for me? Girl, at least you had the sense to wait until next year, as I’m about tapped out for my bridesmaid’s duties this year.

So congrats, my young friend. You’ve upstaged me yet again, but you can make it up to me if we can wear these!

I’ve always liked unannounced guests…you know, the old “Drop-in”. It’s like a surprise party on any given day, when, Voila! Your friend is at the door, coming to see you! Every time my doorbell rings unexpectedly (which, sadly, is pretty rare), I race downstairs to see who has graced me with a visit! And then I find that it’s some neighborhood twerp wanting to sell me a $25 subscription to Teen Magazine and my heart falls yet again.

Helen Jane recently lamented the lack of unannounced Drop-Ins, and to that I say, “Bravo, sister.” She hit the nail right on the head. Unannounced Drop-In’s (UDI’s, from here on out) are a treat, at least to me. You get to see your friends with the most minimal of effort. For us lazy-bones, it’s a win-win situation. THEY come to YOU, YOU get to see THEM, and all is right in the world. It’s how I rationalize the pain-in-the-ass that is scrubbing my floors & cleaning my house every Sunday. And despite said spick-n-span house, nobody ever just “Drops In” or “Pops By.”

You hear that people? Pop on by. I’ve got a cold, frosty one waiting for you (and some clean floors to show off…)

…Every time I cough, Sullivan meows as if he’s in pain.

I can’t talk, I can’t stop coughing, and now I’m BOTHERING my CAT while he takes his day-long nap?

Well, Excuse me.

As a writer, I tend to value the written word often even more than speaking. A conversation can only be replayed again and again in your mind (unless it’s taped or recorded, but go with me here) whereas a letter can be cherished, re-read in the middle of the night, kept in your journal to revisit when you need a pick-me-up or at least a reminder that someone, some time, somewhere DID, in fact, think you were special. I’ve got a few of these notes saved away for those rainy days, when the world seems a bit gray & desolate and the only excitement is finally getting your new All-Clad pan de-greased after a disastrous bout with crepes. It’s the little things, you know.

And yet despite my predilection for writing, putting thoughts on paper or even online (the de facto standard of communication these days, a concept that makes me long for fine stationary and a fountain pen), I’m finding it an interesting quandary on how much I DO count on verbal communication to express my thoughts. Now more than ever, in fact, since I’ve lost my voice.

Yes, Aubrey has (to some extent) been silenced.

An adorable friend of mine said how wierd it was to hear me be this quiet, and until he said that, I don’t think I realized how much I really DO talk. Not so much as a space-filler (I’m fine with comfortable silences), but to share my thoughts on this matter or that song or your pants (pleated khakis are BAD! BAD, I say) or even the fact that there’s nothing like a sunny March day in Georgia to give you Spring fever. Even driving on a brisk, beautiful Sunday morning, top down and drinking a cup of tea, I found myself wanting to talk instead of just witnessing the way the sunlight streamed through the trees in silence. It’s the “Don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” theory (props to Poison and all), but I’ve found it both infuriating and frustrating to try, without avail, to order a McGriddle into the drive-thru when all that comes out is a muted quasi-whistling sound. I mean, you can barely even call into work to let them know you’re sick – they can’t hear your whisperingly quiet message trunkated by a staccatoed hacking cough, after all.

So I’ll be taking some long naps, trying to get a doctor’s appointment, and hoping above hope that I’m really not contageous and didn’t pass on my sickie-germs to certain people who have certain important appointments this weekend that they really can’t miss. In the meantime, I’ll talk with you write you later…

I think I’m getting sick. I’ve taken my vitamin C, overdosing to some extent based on a promise from my Mom that it would, in fact, get me better sooner. I’ve drank my water – 128 oz. a day. I’ve gotten my sleep, opting for my pillow over a non-repeat of Law & Order. Basically, I’ve been trying to take care of myself, and despite my valient efforts, I believe I have lost.

I’m blaming it on anyone and everyone, but mainly My Darling Roommate and my co-worker, both of whom have been hacking up a lung and fighting phlegm with valor. To no avail; they are STILL under the weather. As such, I didn’t want to get sick myself, so I followed the steps above, confident that my best efforts would prevail.

Damnit straight to hell, it didn’t work.

So here I am, on the sunniest, most beautiful of days, sitting in my office while the sun shines outside, coughing and talking all congestedy and noticing the beginning of a sore throat. This is so not fair for so many reasons, one being that I’ve got Red White & Brew tomorrow, a darling boy to meet for happy hour tonite, some much-needed sunbathing and there’s some fun in the sun to be had. Also, I think I just finally got rid of my cough from November, so I deserve at least a couple more months off. And yet, I’m rifling through my drawers to find some Robitussin and a cough drop, and trying to think my way into good health.

That, and wondering how many more Vitamin C’s I can take before I have to call the poison control hotline.

You know, on a day like today, where the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and my Saab-alamobile is whispering “Take me out! Take down my top”, I really, really don’t feel like writing.

I think I’ll listen to my car. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so just envision me, hair blowing in the wind, crusing around the city, nary a care in the world. (Ok, a few cares, but I’m trying to forget them.)

That’s the size of one of my normal entries, isn’t it?