My sister graduates from college in three weeks, and that little impending event has done a great job of reminding me of my own graduation two years ago. Sometimes it feels like forever ago, and sometimes it feels like I blinked a few times and ended up 24 months in the future.

All of this reflection is getting exhausting, but it’s brought to my attention a few things that I no longer care about. Chalk it up to “maturity”, or being too busy, or just growing up and reprioritizing, but here is a list of Things I No Longer Give a Shit About:

Social Conservatives

I can’t argue fiscal policy because that is neither my area of expertise nor interest, so I’ll pass on that and withhold any judgment on fiscal political beliefs. But it is the year 2012 – if you still think the gays shouldn’t get married and that women should be subjected to unnecessary medical procedures and emotional trauma when making educated and rational decisions about their bodies and reproductive rights, I no longer give a shit about you. I won’t even argue with you because I don’t respect one iota of your claims. Moving on.

Faking It

I’m so exasperated by people with pretense. It’s not even arrogant pretense, because I can psycho-analyze that enough to understand that it stems from insecurity and lack of self confidence and blah blah blah. But people who subscribe to certain behaviors because society tells them to? No thank you. People should do things because they want to, not because they feel like they’re supposed to. Be friends with people you want to be friends with, not people you feel obligated to be friends with. Go to bars or stay at home on Friday night because you want to go to bars or stay at home on Friday nights. Wear high heels all night if you want to, not because you think you’re supposed to just because you’re a girl at a club. Basically, DO WHAT YOU WANT. I’m totally guilty of not following this sometimes, but it’s on my list of things to not give a shit about anymore so I’m working on that.

Online Dating. Actually Make That Dating in General.

I feel like I need to tell myself “I TOLD YOU SO” because really. I know better. I am not nearly a patient enough person to make this whole online dating concept worth anyone’s time. I find the entire process irritating and the quality of interactions underwhelming. Someone remind me about this the next time I decide to give it a try, okay?

My Excuses for Being Lazy

I’m all signed up to run the Peachtree Road Race on July 4th. It’s a 10k – 6.2 miles – and my parents are flying down from Chicago to run it with me. We did it together last year, and that was the last time I ran, not including the times I run to my freezer when I remember I have ice cream in there. I’ve masked all of my excuses for being so out of shape in this overarching blanket of “I’m happy with how I look and who cares if my doctor told me I’ve gained ten pounds in the last year because my clothes still fit… mostly… and who needs muscle definition anyway?” While that’s all fine and dandy, a healthy dose of REALITY is sometimes helpful. And the reality is that I’ve been really effing lazy this past year and it’s catching up with me. Time to fix it and I no longer give a shit about my excuses.

People Who Bring Other People Down

Quit being so negative all the time. Quit it right now. Stop it.

Apologizing For Things You’re Not Really Sorry About

You know how it’s a sort of colloquialism to say, “I’m sorry, but…” and then follow it up with something you’re not actually sorry about? For example, “I’m sorry, but I just find squirrels to be the cutest creatures ever.” OR “I’m sorry, but your lack of intelligence and ability to string together a coherent sentence is a huge turn-off and I’d really like it if you went away.”

There is no need to apologize for thinking squirrels are cute because THEY ARE and appreciating someone who can speak like an adult should be something to which we all aspire. No one is actually sorry for those things, but we have a tendency to preface our thoughts with this “I’m sorry, but” disclaimer, as though we’re afraid someone is going to disagree with our assertion and so we attempt to read their mind and apologize for things in advance. I call bullshit, and I’m not sorry about it.

Not Feeling Like an Adult All of the Time

I think I’ve done a great job of keeping my shit together the last few years and being an independent person. On paper, I probably meet most of the check boxes of the Welcome to Adulthood pamphlet. But that doesn’t stop me from collapsing into tears because a boy hurt my feelings, or calling my mom in a panic when my cat escapes through the screen window, or needing my dad to tell me how to file an insurance claim on my car. Sometimes I feel like these are things I should be able to handle on my own, but sometimes I just can’t and I don’t give a shit if I have to call my parents all the time – that’s what they’re there for, right?

Competing About Who Works More

People in Europe think Americans are crazy for how much we work. I sort of agree with them. Why is the number of hours we put in at the office or how little sleep we got because we were up all night working on a project a measure of how successful we are? Why do we seem to compete with each other over who worked more or whose job is harder? It’s a false competition – no one wins. In the end, we’re all spending too much time at the office, right? I’m over it. I work my ass off and sometimes I have to stay late or come in on the weekends or a holiday to get something done. I know you do too. We all do, and that’s what we get paid for, so let’s stop making it a competition.

Anything you’ve stopped giving a shit about recently that you’d like to share?

As of Tuesday of this week, this here blog is four years old.

The domain name has changed but all the posts are still there. I started writing here as a procrastination technique when I should have been studying for finals and finishing papers during my sophomore year of college.

I was 20 years old and freshly single. In the grand scheme of life, I hope four years is a small part of what my life will be, but my goodness it feels like a lifetime.

I feel like a completely different person. When I was 20, I thought I had my life figured out. And really, what’s to figure out at 20? Go to class, do your work, have fun on the weekends (and weeknights). Frat parties, make out sessions, two more years left of college to plan for the real world. It was a pretty alright time.

———

For most of my life, I was very passionate about my opinions. You might call it domineering, although it was in no way malicious. Any time someone asked a question – where to go for dinner, what movie to watch, whose house to hang out at – I always had an answer. It wasn’t because I thought I had all the answers and I was right all the time, it was that I always had an opinion that I was willing to offer. People around me sort of accepted it, or didn’t care, or secretly talked about what a bitch I was behind my back.

In college, I mellowed out a lot. My internal pendulum swung the opposite way and I stopped caring so much about where we ate dinner, or who kissed who on Friday night. I started accepting things as they were and not challenging every detail, and while I think in some ways it was a good alternative to my previous outspokenness, I may have swung too far into apathy.

At 24, I feel much more balanced. I try not to let the small things bother me too much, and I use my passion for the big things, the things I truly care about and believe in. Instead of excusing others’ behaviors as differences of opinions, I now believe sometimes people are just wrong. Opinions can be wrong. My capacity to understand the gray area is diminishing and I’m learning to take care of myself first, and then others. It’s a good place to be right now, I think. Single and happy with it. Living alone and loving it. Calling Atlanta home, at least for a couple more years. Eager for change and new things but appreciative of stability and the familiar.

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I think about the milestones I’ve reached since starting this blog. I lived in Spain for 6 months and traveled the world. My two best friends had babies. I graduated from college and moved to a new city and found a job. I bought a washer and dryer (if that’s not an Adult Thing, I don’t know what is!) I have retirement accounts and savings accounts and a whole slew of self-realizations in the last four years.

Of all things, Facebook makes me acutely aware of the progress I’ve made in the last 4 years. Every time I log on to Facebook I see people I knew years ago living the same life they lived back then. Same town, same friends, same family vacations. Same relationships, same childhood bedroom, same lack of direction in life. I try my best to tell myself that it’s okay that they haven’t grown or changed or taken risks in the last 4 years, but I don’t really believe that. Deep down, I resent people for not evolving, for not pushing themselves past their potential, for settling for what’s comfortable.

Though I’m sure I’m resented for the opposite, so I suppose that’s just part of the process.

———

All of this self reflection and navel gazing is all to say I’m thankful that I’ve had a place to call my own for the last 4 years. Thanks for coming with me.

I had the great fortune to serve as a bridesmaid in my lovely friend Jessica’s wedding this past weekend. In addition to being a wonderful and hilarious friend, she has great taste in destination wedding locations, so we were off to the Dominican Republic for four days of tropical weather, all-inclusive food and drink, and a beautiful wedding celebration.

It was so beautiful that it was worth taking 3 flights to get there and spending the night in the Puerto Rican airport next to an old Haitian man who kept fondling himself. It was worth the exhaustion and the time off from work and three days of rainy Dominican Republic weather, just for one gorgeous and sunshine-filled wedding day.

Seeing as how I had never been a bridesmaid before and the last wedding I attended was a boring, super-religious ceremony four and a half years ago, I had no idea what to expect. But as Jessica and Tom read their vows and said I do, I found myself crying. Not a little glisten in my eye, but a full on, tears-streaming-down-my- face cry and I couldn’t stop myself.

Here I am, a semi-cynical single girl, watching one of my best friends declare her love for this man and watching him do the same, and I am reminded that love is not this nebulous notion that I once thought I felt, but rather something real and important that I will one day feel again. I am so honored to have been able to be part of their special day, and I have a renewed outlook that one day they will be able to be part of mine.

So thank you, Jess, for being the best bride ever and being a living reminder that manicorns exist – cheers to you and T!

I was fully conscious of the fact that this was an Adult Situation That I Should Be Capable of Handling.

It’s just a car, right?

But it wasn’t just a car. It was 9:30 on a Saturday morning, it was a fluke incident that could not have been more random, and it was a frustrating phone call with Volkswagen who had me speak to three different people who simply could not comprehend that not only would I have to cancel my service appointment that morning seeing as how my bumper was now dragging on the ground, but I would also now like to tow my car to their body shop to fix said dragging bumper.

It was a situation that I’ve never dealt with occurring at a time when I was too exhausted to be rational that turned this Adult Situation That I Should Be Capable of Handling into one Where I Called My Mother Crying, seeking her reassurance and guidance.

♦    ♦    ♦    ♦    ♦

As I make my way through my twenties, I encounter situations that I am unprepared for in the sense that I have not experienced them up until the point that I do, yet I am fully prepared for in the sense that I’ve been raised to be independent and confident and capable of navigating new situations that I have not experienced. It is a strange feeling to consciously talk yourself off the ledge and be simultaneously dialing your parents, tears streaming down your face because you also haven’t yet learned how to be upset or frustrated without this inconvenient autonomous biological response.

♦    ♦    ♦    ♦    ♦

Growing up, I thought there were certain Adult Milestones that marked the passage of time and maturity. Go to college, get married, buy a house, have children. They were far off goals that lacked the nuances of the process and path I would take to achieve them. These far off goals did not factor into account the making of me as a person, a person who would ultimately get a degree and perhaps one day marry and have children, but who would also experience a million and one emotions and growth opportunities along the way.

I’ve come to realize that the actual Adult Milestones are fairly inconsequential in the bird’s eye view of life. I’ve had countless small moments where I have felt, either right then or in reflection, that something notable was happening and developing me into the woman that I will become.

Being rejected from job after job and learning to handle that with grace and persistence.

Being in charge of another life – even if it’s just a pet – and being the only one responsible for his health and life.

Paying off debt and making sure bills are paid on time and financing major purchases like a washer & dryer and a grown up, non-IKEA couch.

Taking a leap of faith and moving across the country in pursuit of love and finding your own place when that doesn’t work out.

Discovering what you believe in and where you draw your line and how you stand up for yourself.

Making a mistake at work and taking ownership of that mistake and pledging to turn that sinking feeling in your stomach into a lesson for the future.

In the end, it’s not the big milestones of getting a degree, or getting married and having babies that I will remember as Important Defining Milestones; rather it will be the small and seemingly inconsequential moments that I’ve had, that I continue to have every day, that will be the ones to shape me, that will transform adolescence into adulthood and a girl into a woman.

“It’s because we have a female pilot. She’s probably doing her hair.”

Those words were actually spoken to me yesterday as I sat on a plane from Chicago to Atlanta, waiting for it to take off. We had pulled back from the gate yet hadn’t started for the runway, and it had reached that uncomfortable amount of time when people start fidgeting, myself included.

I think I even started the conversation with the man seated across the aisle from me, an older guy probably in his late 50s or early 60s, commenting how all of the waiting is why I hate flying so much.

“It’s because we have a female pilot. She’s probably doing her hair.”

I let out a half-laugh, half-cough in response, too in shock to put on my Serious Face so abruptly. We did indeed have a female pilot, but we clearly weren’t delayed due to her hair needs.

I recovered and responded to him, saying that I was personally offended by that and it was inappropriate, but it was too late. He thought I was joking and laughed me off.

I spent the rest of the flight brainstorming all the ways I wish I had handled the situation.

1. Stand up and announce his comment to the people seated around me, asking them if they thought that was an appropriate comment to make, and publicly shaming him for being so nonchalant with his misogyny.
2. Tell him I hope he doesn’t have daughters, because god forbid someone trivializes them after they’ve trained and mastered their profession like this woman clearly had.

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“Trophies are better seen, not heard.”

If you haven’t heard by now, Gisele is under fire for making comments about the Patriots’ loss in the Super Bowl last night. Her husband, Tom Brady, is the Pats quarterback and she was caught on camera saying that her husband cannot throw the ball and catch it at the same time, insinuating that the receivers should not have dropped the ball so much.

Out of context, it seems like a bitter comment to make. In context, it is clear that Gisele spoke these words quietly, and only after being heckled by bystanders as she left the game on Sunday. They’re comments that any frustrated fan would have made, and coming from the woman who emailed all her friends and family asking for prayers and support for her husband before his big game, it’s understandable that she was sad for him.

But apparently certain football fans think that a wife has no right to make those comments. Particularly a trophy wife such as Gisele.

This tweet showed up in my timeline this afternoon, and my jaw dropped.

A beautiful woman is not allowed to express her frustration and opinion simply because she is beautiful? She was merely put on this earth to stand there and look pretty? Being a supermodel immediately negates her intellect? I’m appalled.

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I’m far from a marginalized population. As an upper-middle class Caucasion with a private school education and a savings account, I can’t claim many hardships in my life. I am blessed, for sure. Maybe if my life had been harder, these small annoyances would roll off my back and I could move on with my day without feeling anger and rage boil up inside me. Instead, I feel compelled to speak out, louder and louder each time I encounter a situation in which my gender is trivialized, stereotyped or otherwise not taken seriously.

I don’t want to be the angry feminist. I don’t want to watch the Super Bowl commercials and dissect each one for its sexist overtones, subtle or overt. I don’t want to lecture strangers about the impact their comments and behavior have on those around them, especially children and especially their sons. I don’t want to go on dates and have men be scared off when these topics come up and I stand strong with my beliefs.

I want to laugh at jokes that are funny, jokes that don’t cater to the lowest common denominator of sexism. I want to experience a man who is turned on by my strength and power, not intimidated by it or judgmental of it. I want to be able to be emotional without having someone belittle my feelings by writing me off for PMS.

I don’t think these are unreasonable things to want, but they are proving difficult to find. And so I become the angry feminist. The one constantly lecturing and calling out and being disappointed, and I will continue to do so in the desperate hope that one day it will trickle down somewhere and have an impact on someone. Anyone.

I don’t understand people who say they don’t like dessert. It just does not compute in my brain because I seem to have this insatiable desire for all things sugar-related. Cake, cupcakes, brownies, cookies, ice cream, candy, chocolate, spoonfuls of sugar to help the medicine go down… You name, I will consume it. You know that scene in Elf where Buddy lists off the elves’ four main food groups?

Candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup!

That’s me. In fact, if you looked through my freezer right now, you’d find equal parts frozen vegetables and assorted frozen desserts. (We won’t go into the fact that the vegetables have been sitting there in all of their freezer-burned glory for nearly a year.)

This is all to say, I was super excited to win the Bloggers in Sin City giveaway for six delicious cookies from Bitter Baking Co. While everyone else was squealing¹ over the vodka in our swag bag, I was busy shoving a cookie down my throat.

And now YOU get to shove cookies down YOUR throat too!

In addition to receiving six cookies of my own, I get to share the calories and give six cookies away to you poor, cookie-deprived people. I know, I know, I’m really generous with all of my calories. No need to thank me.

Want to win? Just head over to Bitter Baking Co and check out their selection of extremely witty cookie designs and tell me which one is your favorite. Better yet, come up a hilarious message of your own and share it in the comments!

For an extra entry, go over and like the Bitter Baking Co on Facebook and let me know. For a third entry, tweet about the giveaway and link to it down below. The winner will be chosen via random.org next Wednesday, February 8th at 3 pm EST. Right after I get back from the dentist, because that makes sense.

Now go get your cookie on!

¹ This is funny for anyone who was at the poolside challenge in Vegas last year. Tee hee.

Winner Update: Random.org chose comment #11, which goes to Maxie! Congrats, my dear.

It struck me recently that it has been approximately a year since I’ve liked someone. At least romantically speaking.

(I generally like my friends. I find that helpful in a friendship.)

During my six month existence on Match.com, I went out with lots of guys. I would even concede that I dated one of them, albeit briefly and perhaps longer than necessary. But for the most part, I hated all of the guys I went out with.

I know hate is a strong word, but I feel strong negative emotions towards these people. They weren’t necessarily bad people in the sense that they were murderers, homophones or pedophiles. I’m sure their collective rap sheet is short. I just mean they were bad at being people.

People should be exuberant, and lively, and interesting. They should be unique and energetic and bring life to the world. I refuse to believe it’s that difficult to share an opinion or original thought. I’m the easiest audience ever – I find bizarre hobbies and stamp collections and passions for herb gardening fascinating, so long as they’re shared and explained with some vigor. And none of these guys did that in any meaningful way.

I can’t even blame the opposite gender and say that men are disappointing, or lacking in some way, because I’m sure they experience similar frustrations with women. But it brought to light something completely unrelated to dating.

In this era of instant communication and countless ways to contact and keep up with a person, where do we draw the line with friendships? When does a “friend” become just an acquaintance, or a contact on a social networking site? I have so many online contacts that I can barely keep track of them, and I know I’m not alone in that. I cannot possibly be the type of friend I want to be to that many people.

In the last 12 months of dating-frustrations-turned-relationship-analysis, I have come to realize that I truly care about quality over quantity. I care about choosing to spend my time and energy with people are exuberant, and lively, and interesting. People who are good at being people and who add sparkle and excitement to my life.

So 16 days into the new year, here’s my resolution:

BE FUCKING SPARKLY.

Be the type of person I want to be friends with. Surround myself with sparkly people and exciting adventures. Open up my life and my heart and bring sparkly people in and wear bright lipstick and high heels and drink champagne for no reason other than it tastes good because what other reason do I need, RIGHT?!

LET’S DO THIS, 2012.

There are a few secret weapons tucked away in every woman’s closet – that perfect pair of pants that make your ass look like a Kardashian’s. The sky high heels that inspire you to walk with such attitude that people get out of your way as you sashay down the sidewalk. The perfume that transforms any day into sexy day with just one spritz.

I have all of these items, and I’ve recently added another to the arsenal: the red lipstick.

As a single lady for nearly a year now, I’ve experienced a flood of emotions over these last 11 months. Sadness while mourning the end of the relationship, trepidation as a I began to date again, despair as I concluded that everyone I met was dull and uninteresting, freedom when I realized I enjoyed this single lifestyle of sleeping starfish-style and doing what I want when I want, and sometimes even loneliness and fear that I’ll never find someone who excites me.

But then I put on those pants, slip on the shoes, spritz myself with some Chloe, apply the red lipstick and suddenly I feel like whole new woman ready to take on the world.

I’ve been feeling particularly festive this holiday season. I put up my tree a week before Thanksgiving, justifying the premature decorating because it was terribly rainy outside and I had nothing better to do and I was going to be out of town for most of Thanksgiving week and wanted to arrive home to a pretty tree.

Now I’m in the process of thinking of gifts for people, and couldn’t leave my internet friends out of the loop! (Or as my mother refers to you all, my imaginary friends). So fill out the form below and I’ll send you a little holiday card in the snail mail, because who doesn’t like snail mail?

(Oh, and I promise if you send me your address, I won’t give it to anyone else and I swear I’m not a serial killer or some weirdo. I’m a little weird, but not THAT KIND.)

If you want the password for things that i want, just shoot me an email or tweet.

It’s really personal, so please don’t be upset if I don’t share the password. And yeah, I know it’s lame that I posted something secret, but just give me a pass here please, mmk?

Thanks!