Prepared For A Maiden Name

I went home to my parents house this weekend to hang out with my family, because Katie had come from Indy with the Liberator (who, by the by, finds me hilarious. I told you, the babies. They love me.)

While there, my mom pointed out something I had completely forgotten about: on the inside of one of the bedroom closets, I had left my mark. And I have that to share with you all now.



For those without the ability to read legible 2nd grade handwriting, here it is:

March 31, 1993
Emily

(I hope I
can show
my kids
this!?)

Emily J__
S______
and now
---> __________
Last name marryed!


First of all, yes. That is officially what ejs stands for. I considered blurring it and then realized that if you want to find me on the internet, it would take you about four seconds, whether or not you knew my full name. Feel free to steal my identity and use it as your own. It might get you unemployment checks (CHA-CHING!)

Now let's go on to the analysis portion of this photo.

A) Clearly there is a sticky mark beside my date and name. Which means that I found something that was sticky and thought it would be awesome if I hid it somewhere and then found it decades later, and it would be important enough to gather my offspring around. "Come on kids! This is where I used to live. Let me show you the place where I spread gak on the wall with my finger."

B) Yeah that's right. Who has two thumbs, is eight years old and knows how to properly punctuate her dates and use an interrobang? This girl.

C) So the sticky substance you placed there because you thought it would last forever. And then you used pencil. And also tried to erase a mistake you made in your own signature. Sure.

D) I actually had considered writing a post about my thoughts on Ms. versus Mrs. and last name changing and more feminism things before I came upon this. But luckily now I don't have to; you all know my opinion. In the future, I WILL be getting married, and I WILL be changing my last name and I WILL be having children. Multiple. There is no other alternative. My 8-year-old self already had it planned out.

E) I also appreciate that this sticky substance wasn't just important for me as a second grader. It was to be important to me as a grown, "marryed" adult. For when I rediscovered the sticky thing in the closet, I could thoughtfully update it so that any future owner of the house would have a full, complete record of just WHO this girl was who was leaving important sticky things around their house.

In fact, I updated it once myself:



The old one fell off two years later. Well that's good to know. And I'm so glad that whatever it was I was sticking to the wall for eternity was still available to use again. And that I was keeping a proper record.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about my weekend at home. Unless you want to look at 8 thousand pictures of Libby? Oh you do? Oh I have them right here....

Say hello to your new Big Brother.

I don't know why people keep telling me that they are "stalking" me by reading this blog. That was the point of my writing it...for people to read. These are not my innermost thoughts. My innermost thoughts are WAAAAAAAAAAAAY more boring. They sound something like this:

"Dear Diary: The locker room in the gym smells like poo. It's terrible. Chicken sandwich was good today. Put ranch on it."

That's why this thing is public. To encourage me not to talk about my chicken sandwiches. Which, seriously...it was pretty good.

But anyway, no need to worry about whether or not you are stalking me, for I am stalking you right on back. PHEW! That feels good to get off my chest. See, I finally started to track my blog last week and I have found so many ways to interpret my visitors, it’s taken internet time wasting to a whole new level for me.

I mean, mostly I don't know who you are because all it tells me is the city you are in, and then a bunch of other pretty useless facts. Unless, that is, you were wondering just what version of Javascript most people have. Because I've got some cold hard facts about that. But obviously I don't have your names or email addresses. Because then any website could know those things. And if that were true, every time you went to badgerbadgerbadger.com, you'd start getting emails about legalizing marijuana.

I do like that I can clock you by city, though. Because sometimes I know who you are. Well, rarely. But my big sister is (I’m pretty sure) the only one who lives in her town. I think it’s just her, the hubs, Libby, and the cat. So I know when she reads my blog.

Mostly, I get excited when I DON'T know who you are. Who cares if Hannah reads my blog? Not me! (Just kidding, Hannah. I care.) But someone out there in Kentucky is reading me and I can’t figure out who--yet I love you regardless. I've even got international readers! Someone in England from Warwick, Warwickshire looked at my blog once! Of course, I mostly share that because COME ON. That’s like being from Yemen Road, Yemen. That is a made up place, my friends.

Also, occasionally, Canadians read my blog and it makes me nervous. Am I proving to them that Americans are lazy, uncultured, embarrassing idiots? Or am I showing them our negative side?

Zzzzzing. Kidding.

There is one way to analyze things which consistently manages to blow my mind, and that is by "referral," or, the website that people clicked on to get to my blog. And almost always this is either Facebook or "unknown" so it really does nothing. But then sometimes it's a total mystery that makes no sense!! One time, someone got to my blog from an Always Sunny episode on Hulu. What? I mean, I'm flattered to be somehow connected to the magic of Danny DeVito, but I just don't understand how this happened. Which could also be because I don't understand computers.

Anyway, I just thought you all aught to know, there is mutual stalking going on. So feel free to read. Especially you, visitor #685 from Allendale, Michigan with the Mac OSX whose monitor has a resolution of 1280 x 800.

The Bittersweet Smell of Changing Winds.

The day I turned 25 (which was like ten days ago), people asked me if I felt different. And I told them no, because I've acted like a late-twenty-something for a while ("But why do they have to play their music SO LOUD? Can't a girl chew her antacids in peace??"). Plus I've been calling myself 25 for months, partially because it's a nice, stable-sounding number, and partially because I'm too lazy to remember how old I technically am.

But within ten days, all that has changed. Now I feel like an old, oooooooold person. I feel...thirty.

Two days ago, this conversation transpired:
Jane: "My boyfriend's mother keeps hinting at babies. Blech!"
Monica: "My dad is the same way! All he talks about is grandchildren! I'm like, NO, Dad! Not for a looooong time, IF AT ALL!"
Me: "Thank GOD my sister had a baby, so no one bugs me about it! Phew!"
Carla: "I'm pregnant."
*Screaming*

So Mozel Tov to Carla and her husband! I believe they are 1-part excited, 3-parts terrified, and that sounds about right to me. But the conversations that have transpired since The Announcement have revealed so much change in such a short period of time. Someone call Daniel Faraday, because I'm going to start getting nosebleeds.


This is the ever classic "Faraday Concerned Face." My niece, Libby, is great at it, too:



And this is basically the face I've been walking around with since Wednesday.

In a nutshell, I've realized that nearly everyone is moving out of the city/state. And Joe and I are planning on living together in the spring. So, by this time next year, given that things go well, I'll have a whole new group of friends, a new job, and I'll be living with someone who has to shave their face.

I suppose I'm mostly excited, because I'm really rooting for some quality new friends and job and apartment. But thinking about losing the people who have gotten me out of the Hell that is post-college...well, it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position under a fuzzy blue blanket and blog, specifically. And non-specifically, it makes me feel lost. In the same way I felt when they stopped making my favorite kind of cracker so I walked around aimlessly for months, eating sweet pickles from the jar.

MAN those crackers were good. I don't know who made them, but they came in a blue box and they were covered in magical southwest flavored red powder and they were thin and shaped in Navajo blanket patterns. Anyone? ANYONE?!

Where was I? Oh, sadness. Meh, I think I've said what I need to about current sadness. My new focus is the crackers. You all need to help me find those crackers. STAT.