Thanksgiving

Since it is the holiday season and my relatives flood in from Rhode Island, Arizona, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania I figured I should write about it.

Thanksgiving in particular.

As I was talking to some people about why I love Thanksgiving and what we do on Turkey Day, it shocked me that not everyone was like us.

This is a typical Thanksgiving week:

Sunday/Monday:

1.     Prepare what is able to prepared ahead of time such as glazed pecans, cookies, buy more food.

2.     Obsessively clean the bathroom, basement, guestroom, kitchen and bedrooms, because you will not be sleeping in them for the next few days.

3.     Buy booze.

4.     Pray for no extreme weather conditions.

Tuesday:

1.     Try not to make a mess in the kitchen, bathroom, or family room.

2.     Clean some more.

3.     Get more food.

4.     Watch all my t.v shows, and get out singing, guitar playing, screaming, whining before Grandma arrives by airplane at night.

5.     Pick Grandma up at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton/Avoca Airport.

Wednesday:

1.     Decide if I’m going to school.

2.     Decide against it.

3.     Wake up at around 7:00am to find mom in the kitchen trying to figure where she’s going to put everything between our two refrigerators.

4.     Eat bagels, or breakfast casserole.

5.     Listen to Gram decide what she wants to do. Gram spends a long time upstairs, because she can’t go up and down stairs.

6.     Gram comes down makeup and dressed, ready to work and help prepare.

7.     I come downstairs to realize what’s going on.

8.     Go out to eat at night, even if there’s food in the freezer.

9.     Buy more food even though the refridge is more than full.

10. More relatives come.

Thursday:

1.     Wake up to find mom in the kitchen at 7 am trying to figure out what temperature the oven needs to be on to cook the turkey.

2.     Find out if Gram is still sleeping. Try to keep quiet not to wake anyone up.

3.     Dad hangs around hiding in his office and periodically coming out to help. Sometimes he hangs around and does everything mom tells him to do.

4.     Wipe down counters. Again.

5.     Mom puts sticky notes where she wants certain dishes and in what containers.

6.     Go upstairs take a shower before everyone awakens, or decides to shower.

7.     Find a safe spot to put on makeup.

8.     Find an outfit , while Gram’s in and out of my room.

9.     Help mom make dips, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

10. Try to snack on munchies like chips, dip, cheese and crackers and mom yells at me because it’s for our guests.

11. I whine and Gram tells me to stop, and I ignore her.

12. Get wine glasses out, and listen to Gram talk about how when she was a kid, there was more respect for her parents. Roll my eyes.  

13. Get wine glasses out.

14. First guests arrive at noonish.

15. Give everyone hugs.

16. Munch on the munchies for 2-4 hours.

17. Try to play with the little kids, but eat at the same time.

18. Decide to put almost all the munchies away and get hungry again.

19. Put turkey in the oven.

20. Everyone still talks while mom and dad put everything else out.

21. Stuff our faces, because no one’s cooking when they go home.

22. Get the little kids to eat.

23. Gramma tells the story of how her and her siblings used to have to perform at family gatherings. She harasses us to play our instruments for everyone else. I ignore it, I’m more focused on food.

24. Let us all say how stuffed we are.

25. Bring out dessert.

26. Stuff our faces with desserts.

27. Harass my sister and I to perform a song. We deny.

28. Let everyone say they’re leaving.

29. Harass us again to play a song.

30. An hour later, have everyone actually leave.

31. Find a place to dump the leftovers.

32. Clean dishes by hand and by dishwasher with 5 or more people helping.

33. Get tired, try to hide. Later in the evening, it works.

34. Finally, we go to bed.

This is a typical Thanksgiving holiday in my family, hope yours is family filled, and safe. Have a great Thanksgiving.

I Blog Because--

I blog because I’m an idiot.

The Internet has created a world, where we have virtual friendships and virtual lives. So, it  makes sense I write in my diary on the Internet.

My blog is more than a diary where I write about my boyfriend and complain.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned while taking classes at college, it’s how to observe the world around me and to write about it.

I’ve learned you will look like an idiot sometimes. I’m the type of person that will realize her shirt’s on inside out at 2 in the afternoon. I have had my share idiotic moments, and I’m sure I’m not done writing about them.

I wish I could say I started blogging to get my name out there, or to make a difference, or to practice writing, but I actually started because my boyfriend took a class on Tuesday nights.

Bored+Cassidy=Blogging.

I started writing it, because I was bored, but I also felt I had something to say. Of course, I’ve also written a blog about not having anything to say ” I think all the time, and never have a damn thing to say. “

I’ve written blogs about sexiness, “When the weather gets nice, the clothes come off, and the sexual chemistry and tension bubbles over the beaker,” getting lost “I made a left, because it felt so right,” and high school reunion syndrome, “it’s like going back to high school, because you’re comparing yourself to the girls who can scarf down chicken wings and pizza and not gain a pound. God, I hate them.”

I started blogging because writing took my mind off the stresses of school and life. The only people I ever thought would read it would be my friends on Facebook. When I wrote about tattoos, I received a new reader whom I have never met.

That was so cool. That’s why I keep writing, because I believe people are reading my life like a book. I’m ok with them reading my life like a book, because I’m a really lousy liar and I’m an idiot for trying.

 I was sure only people I knew read my blog. I guess it was dumb to think that if I put my entry online, only my friends would find it.

Writing has always been something I’ve enjoyed like singing or acting, because it allowed me to escape from the life I was living. Not that the life I was living was bad, but sometimes life just gets hard.  When I was 9, I wrote a fractured fairytale about Cinderella, it wasn’t finished until 14 pages later.

I’ve been meaning to write about this on my blog, but haven’t figured out the way I wanted to put it yet. 

I’ve realized, writing is a lot like putting yourself on stage. Sometimes you come out a star, and other times you come out looking unprepared. Usually, that’s because you are. That’s one of the moments being an idiot is humiliating. But sometimes, you need to look like an idiot to learn your lesson. I know if I hadn’t made some of the mistakes I’ve made, I would’ve never learned from them, like the time I put my iPod in the washer. 

Not my finest moment.

I think some of the best blogs are written on a spur of the moment, kind of like life. When we make a decision in life, sometimes we’re stuck with the decision we’ve made. But with blogs, we can edit and assess what we’ve done.  

When I was a kid, I wasn’t encouraged to write. Now, that I have the chance, I feel like I’m making up for lost time and editing my life story. I’m constantly editing my life story like I’m constantly editing my blog.

Now let me clarify why I am an idiot for blogging—because I think people will actually give a damn about what I have to say.

But being a story teller is something I love to do, and that’s what I choose to do on my blog. Writing a blog, I’ve made my mistakes and shared them or will share my future screwups. 

If that doesn’t make me an idiot, I don’t know what does.

S-O-O.

Sex.

Oral.

Orgasm.

Those words may be used explicitly for the bedroom, but they’re easier to discuss than this word.

The dreaded “L word.”

Not liquor. But love.

Now, I’m not a relationship expert, but sometimes I wish I was.

It seems on college campuses, people are hooking up faster than they can remember each other’s names or major. In college, there’s lots of sex, but not a lot of “I love you.”

It dawned on me, that not a lot of people allow themselves to fall in love, but rather allow themselves to fall in lust.

But that asks the new age old question—

Why are people afraid to say “I love you"?

I’ve seen a lot of breakups on college campuses, and some of them were convinced they were in love, and some of them were never in love, and some of them left with a broken heart.

But people are straying farther and farther away from the L word and treating it like a marriage proposal.

I like to think I’m one of the lucky ones who got to fall in love. I always wanted to know what love felt like, and once I did, I never wanted to fall out of love.

I still don’t. 

But I remember the moment I knew I was in love with my boyfriend, Andy. It was a cold winter night, but we were getting hot. He had his shirt off, and gazed into my eyes, as if they were the starry night sky on a clear night.

Falling in love was the best thing that ever happened to me.

But it wasn’t like I just fell head over heels in love with him. I knew I liked him, but I had to accept it first. That took me a long time to figure it out.

I had to accept it, in order to let it grow.

But when I accepted it, I knew it was giving potential to what could be. It was about enjoying the time now, and it should be awesome while it lasts. I wasn’t asking for a ring. I was just asking for a chance.

When was the last time you heard of someone having sex because they loved the person? You probably haven’t.  

It seems people are more willing to hook up when there are risks of herpes, pregnancy, or AIDS but when it comes to having a broken heart, it's worse than all the physical symptoms.

You have to live with crabs too, but the consequences are far too great to have your heart broken. When your heart’s broken, you hate couples, married, young, engaged, whatever. It seems like all you see are idiots in love.

Then you’ll think to yourself, “why would anyone do that to themselves, when you fall, you’ll fall hard. “

Then you realize  sex, oral, and orgasms are the best when you’re in love.