gilded amber.

Whenever I speak about where I'm from, I always feel mildly deceitful, because where I feel I'm from hasn't actually been my home in years.  It has the prettiest seasons - each one begins wonderfully and goes through the full phase before transitioning, unlike Utah where the seasons are bipolar and you're left to wonder what time of year it actually is.  Spring is usually really wet, summer is really humid, fall is really crisp, and winter is really cold.  They're that perfect sort of balance where the humidity makes everything a little more intense, and yet you don't feel as though you're going to die from the temperature extremes (granted you have a long puffer coat because that humidity seeps through your bones).

I'm like the vast majority of women.  I like fall.  I like leaves and I like them when they're orange and yellow and amber and I like them when they fall into delicate patterns around the trees.  Connecticut has the most glorious Fall colors and air - they say springtime is renewal, but to me Fall is far more renewed.  

Part of explaining to everyone why Connecticut feels like home is a long, expansive explanation that requires going into my backstory and family history and long, sad tales.  So whenever I say, "it's this quaint town in the very southern tip of Connecticut," I hope and pray they'll take it and not say, "but wait... you've been in Utah for ten years!"

There are all of those cheesy sayings about how home is where the heart is or where the hearth is or some variance of the word heart, and while I see the value in trying to quantify that sort of feeling, I know that I feel it...but can only describe it in strange terms.  Because home is where I felt the most at ease with what home is supposed to feel like, and I'm willing to bet it's not what you expect in the slightest.  My upbringing was pretty strange.  I was the epitome of the over-programmed kid, home schooled and awkward and all.  I was a figure skater and a ballerina and a pianist and a singer and I devoured every book I could get my hands on from the library where I volunteered.  Summers were always a tad frustrating because I didn't have the same schedule I was so used to, so I always relished when my birthday came around.  Not because my birthday was ever anything exciting (I didn't really have friends, so I never had parties), but because the end of August always started smelling a little different.  And with that smell came new piano pieces from Yoshie, a new school year regulated by my mom, new leotard colors for the next level in my progression, and a new schedule to grow accustomed to.

I sincerely hope my parents never feel sadness in the reality that I don't associate home with family activities or dinners, because we just didn't have any of those.  My family is what it is, and I love it for its dysfunction and oddities, and I love those who are my family (a list I expand to more than just blood relation these days).  But that doesn't change the truth that to this day when I think of home, I feel the presence of the ballet studio where I spent hours upon hours trying to get my feet to be better.  The living room in Yoshie's house where I spent hours upon hours trying to convince her I'd practiced when I hadn't.  The small, winding roads where I spent hours upon hours gazing at how beautiful our landscape was.

Each time I drive to my pilates class, I pass through a little curvaceous, wooded area where the traffic lights and roads aren't in perfect grid, and for about 6 seconds or so, I feel like I'm home again.  It's strange, and maybe even mildly pathetic, but I love those short seconds where Salt Lake City turns into New Canaan in my head.  

As interesting as my family life was and has been, my version of home also includes a family that's still basically together.  I never say that to anyone, because I definitely don't crave any form of pity - I have an amazing life and family, and there are so many more who cannot say that - but there is a measure of completeness that I associate with Connecticut.  It was where my parents were married and my siblings came to visit.  It's where I fell in love with ballet and classical music and books.  It's where my testimony was cultivated.  It's where I found joy in reading a book in a wooded area surrounded by fallen leaves.  It was before the pain and angst of depression and divorce and dying dreams.  

I don't think I'll ever be able to go back, because I doubt it will live up to my memories.  Memories are distorted, particularly after difficult life experiences, and it's become so romantic in my head.  Magical, even.  It's not fair to hold it to those expectations, and while I'd love to raise my children in those same surroundings, it's probably more realistic to just love those images I've stored away, and find a new place that will cultivate love and calm in a different way.

But what will never change are those glorious, perfect fall leaves.  So maybe there is still a little bit of home left there, after all.

boring?

Thought I'd give you a quick update on what is happening in this interesting life of mine (and by interesting, I mean almost entirely the same day in and day out).

1. My resolve to not spend money lasted two weeks.  And then I caved - aided by the pageant I hosted and was involved in.  "But I need to look good on stage!"  Yeah, big mistake.  Back to the no-spend rule.  Best purchase was easily the new Muse album, The 2nd Law.  RUN AND GET IT.

2. Speaking of the pageant, it was MUOT, the one that I actually did win way back when.  I was lucky enough to help a really pretty and awesome girl, and what do you know... she won!  It's going to be so fun to watch her continue to grow and progress.  She is easily the hardest worker I know, so I have no doubt that come August she will be a true contender.  Plus she's just really sweet.

{photo stolen shamelessly from the Missy Teen Utah facebook page, almost assuredly taken by Mr. Chad Braithwaite of Faces Photography}

3. That whole moving thing?  I've decided to postpone it.  Until at least next September.  I'm good with that decision.  Save money and such. 

4. Work is going well.  Sometimes I actually don't suck at my job, and those are nice times.  You can check out the Fashion Place facebook page once a week to see who I've styled and which trends I'm highlighting for the week. 

5. Last, but almost best of all, I leave for the big D-Land in 10 days!  Looooots of this going on!

Mazel Tov!

inflect.

When I was 14 years old I started journaling, without any sort of lock or password, on LiveJournal.  I don't remember how I found it or why I even started doing it, but it's fun (and funny) for me to look back on who I was 14 and a half years ago, and what I thought of the world around me, and who I was trying and hoping to be.  My story at fourteen is sort of a strange one, because I turned fourteen in California with my mom in this little house with a garage that didn't really work and a life away from the one I had felt more comfortable with.  In fact, I even went to an Art's high school.  It doesn't always feel like that was me - the nerdy girl with blondish hair and bad teeth and really long, lurpy limbs.  Who went by Jenny (or was it Jennie at that time?  I could never make up my mind).  And glasses.  That was an important factor.  One of my best friends at that high school was ALSO named Jennie G.  So I was Jennie G. with glasses.

The next year I moved to Utah and became Jen and got contacts and quit it with the blonde highlights.

But at OCHSA (Orange County High School of the Arts) I was awkward and strange and was lucky enough to have Mrs. Todd as my English teacher who taught me how nice it was to have a notebook and a pen with which things could be resolved... or at least understood a little bit better.

Maybe it seems strange to you, but when I had that pen and that little hardcover journal that I think had pale green stripes, I felt like the pen gave me a way to connect to home.  There's a little piece of me that still wants to connect to that girl, the one who would run up the steps to her dance studio every day, and who would practice for hours (even if begrudgingly) at the piano, and who would live for the church activities on Tuesdays or Wednesdays (especially if it meant seeing a Mr. Alex Ohrn on whom I had a MAD crush forever).  Sometimes I see her living in a different dimension that's stuck in the year 2000 or 2001, happy and content with the humid summer changing into the fall leaves.  And I like to think that she's always happily doing developes and working on her turn out and learning more Bach and Chopin.

Because the girl who lived to see September 2001 lost a lot and never really got it back.

I don't like talking about that day because it makes me sick.  Literally.  It makes me feel things I don't like feeling.  Shame and depression and panic and anxiety.  It reminds me of my mom screaming and early morning seminary and family members who worked on Wall Street and being forced to go to school despite not speaking with those family members.  I also feel silly because it became this ridiculous cross I bore visibly every day at school: I wasn't willing to face the pain and agony of losing my identity back in Connecticut, and I certainly wasn't ready to look at what had just happened to my family, so I used a terrorist attack instead.  I looked at all of those tanned kids in California with what was certainly the same sort of fear I felt, and I hated them because of geographic location.  I despised the house in which I lived, and the school I attended, and that haughty anger became my coping mechanism.

Looking back, it was a dumb way to respond, but I've never been great when it comes to dealing with pain.  And yes, I have just managed to turn a national tragedy into something about me - sadly my narcissism knows few bounds.

These days I struggle with the openness with which everyone addresses it, not because I think I'm above anyone's form of grieving, but because I look at how much hatred still exists and how backwards we can be when it comes to other religions and ethnicities, and it sickens me almost as much as those smokey images do.  The way things were sensationalized are gross and even crude.  There have been movies made and politicizing and fear mongering and it makes me crazy.  There are literally millions of stories and perspectives with regard to that event, and to pretend that my life story is more important than someone else's, particularly one that lost a life, is selfish and unfair.

But then again, human suffering is kind of selfish and unfair, and regardless of how you were affected or where you were or how you remember it, it was a turning point.  For me it was a kind of cliched loss of innocence, as it made the numerous separations surrounding my situation more real and solid and tangible, and when the haze lifted, and I saw what the world was capable of, I began to really understand fear.

Luckily for me I had that pen and notebook.

to remind myself that life is neat.

1. I stepped on the scale for the first time in over a month and couldn't believe (and was entirely thrilled with) the number I saw.  I'm glad to know that my once-a-week pilates routine, combined with my steady diet of pizza and Dr. Pepper is working.

2. Blake Lively married Ryan Reynolds in a "secret" wedding (I don't think it's secret if 70+ people were there).  Paper, meet cardboard.  Bland boring blah.  NEXT.

3. Robsten is back on!111!!  Phew.  I was worried there that my look-a-like was going to have to resort to an ACTUAL dirty hobo to date.

4. God created Kate Spade, who created these shoes

5. It's rivalry week.  And I'm definitely not celebrating that an athlete's sport's career is done, but I'm not going to deny that it isn't wonderful timing for those on the blue end of things.  Also looking for a giant banner to hang on my house in my neighborhood full of Ute flags.  Because I LIKE getting toilet papered.

only the young.

It's becoming a bit of a habit for me to write up a little blurb for my birthday, and let's face it, I love routine and tradition and nostalgia, but while the years before have been a little more humorous, I'm a little more subdued this week.  I'd blame it on old age, but seeing as the only thing I wanted for my birthday was the Bloomsbury Harry Potter set, I don't think that's it.  If anything, on this day upon which I hit that quarter of a century, I feel really young.

Recent events have had me quieter than usual, pondering how everything has come about and what my involvement has been, or in some cases hasn't been.

Yesterday was an exhausting day as I left Provo early in the morning with college friends and roommates to go help our college roommate and friend say goodbye to her beautiful and sweet husband.  His death isn't one I feel comfortable writing about, but I will say that it was tragic and happened far too soon for this world.  I sat marveling at the remembrance of such an extraordinary human being, and then marveled further at my friend's remarkable courage and strength.

I felt a lot of shame, too.  I've not always been the best sort of friend.  I don't always keep in touch, and sometimes I let my selfish desires get in the way, and there are times I'd rather be alone than cultivate those relationships.

It was humbling.

My 25th year was relatively easy.  I found a job that I love, made new relationships that I cherish, and rebuilt the support system that has been so integral to my functioning as a normal human being.  The mistakes I made were a little bit different than those I'd made before - to the extent where I feel as though I actually am beginning to grow up and be an adult.  In a lot of ways I feel as though I've come full circle.  My hopes used to be along the lines of finding a husband and making money and improving my makeup collection and learning how to do new things, and in a lot of ways I still hope for those things (although I don't have any room left for more makeup), but my desires for the year during which I say I'm 25 are different.

I'd like to become the person you can count on.  I want to be someone you can reach out to when you're troubled, or when you need a listening ear.  It means I need to stop talking so much, and I need to stop being so selfish, and I need to be a more charitable human being.  I want you to feel confident in your trust of me - that you know I will always be genuine and real.  I want to be more aware of my surroundings and those within the vicinity, that I can be an emotional force for good in the lives of those who might need it.

Don't you worry.  I'm not entirely just solemn today.  I bought myself new Pilates reformer classes and I got to help a girl for a pageant (and people, she's going to be a force to be reckoned with) and I ate a cupcake and I'm tempted to go take a nap and I get to see my unique and wonderful version of family later tonight.

Because in short, life is good.

snippets.

It was just one of those days.  You know, the kind where you have to go take care of an arrest warrant in your name and watch all of the people go before you who can't afford to pay and so they're carted off to jail with kids watching.  Thankfully I wasn't that person... and thankfully my dad doesn't want to kill me.

I hate when this happens.  I was spending all of this time in my car today, and I had all of this inspiration of things I wanted to say, and now it's just crickets.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that it's Monday, and Monday is the day my ghost writing entries are due, and Monday is my day off of work, and Monday is a more stressful day for me than I'd like.  It was particularly so today because I knew what I needed to write and it was eating at me.  First I was sitting at church yesterday, and I couldn't pay attention because I kept running the scenario over in my head.  Then I was falling asleep last night after typing out ideas and I felt a little ill because of the gravity of it all.  Today I was driving to pilates and I wanted to kick myself for letting the arc get to this point.  And finally I went outside to write.

I'm not really sure why I don't spend more time outside in our yard.  It's quite pretty back there.  The trees are the right sort of overwhelming, and there are plenty of places to sit, and it's actually relatively peaceful for the neighborhood we are in.  It's the first I've spent writing back there, and it took me back to this little area we had in our massive yard in Connecticut.  There was this tiny little grove of trees - I mean TINY - and it was perfect and it felt like it was all mine.  I used to gather up a book, a notebook, a pen, a water bottle, and an Oat's 'N Honey granola bar (or sometimes a Peanut Butter one) and just go sit there on the ground.  I would sit on the needled grass, and I would feel like I was in some sort of magical spot from a C.S. Lewis novel, and maybe even half expected to see my life transformed every time I entered and exited that small area.

Why am I writing this?

There are so many parts of me that are so insanely sheltered.  I read all of these teen novels and I'm amazed at what these fourteen year olds are saying and doing.  I was eleven and twelve in that house, and I loved feeling like a child, and to think that children are growing up so much faster freaks me out.  And then I have to go write as if I'm one of them and I'm even more freaked out.

A character made a serious decision.  I say that as if I didn't write it.  But really - she's so real in my head now, and it was the right direction to go, and it freaked me out because it is so outside of my comfort zone.

Whatever happened to just sitting in pretty little nooks of trees (can I call it that?), reading Nancy Drew, and listening to the bugs and animals in the surrounding wood?

news.

Nordstrom announced a full-line for Manhattan.  Coming to you and Columbus Circle (PERFECT LOCATION) in the year 2018.

Ugh.

It's not soon enough.

I need something NEXT year.

Friendsies, I think I'm gonna have to bail from this state soon.  My bf is having a baby, and I hate the thought of leaving her and future Jennifer the Second, and I would miss this house and its inhabitants oh so much, and the 8 minute door-to-door commute is pretty blissful, and holy cow Tina Christensen is my favorite boss in the world, and what would I do without Amy.

But this state is suffocating me a little.  And I know this is the longest build-up to a move in history, but I need to be held accountable to it, and what creates more accountability than a blog that may or may not have editing/deleting features?

Really though.  DC OR BUST.

{and the only place that would take precedence over the District is the City.  of course.}

kick in the pants.

I've needed one.

Because I'm annoyed with the way things are right now.  I'm annoyed with how things have turned out over the last little while and it annoys me to realize that all I can do is just keep living and having faith.

It's annoying.

Especially because I can't stay a melancholy mess for too long.  It started with my little kick into gear a couple of weeks ago.  And then, because of a silly little song tonight, I want to be alive again.

I'm sick of being frustrated with the stagnation I experience here.  There's nothing I can do right now about the state in which I live, so I'm just going to embrace it and move forward and hope that I can learn a few things in preparation for moving away from this place.  And I need to remember that I love my family dearly, and someday I won't get to live in the same house with all of them, next to a perfect pool, playing with my nieces during my spare hours.

So tomorrow I'm going to try to get my large butt out of bed and to the gym and back to living.  Because holy hell I'm turning 25 this year, and even if I'm not going to meet a man here, I might as well have a rocking body just because.

But really though.  I'm not going to tell you what the song is, because it's a little embarrassing, but it reminds me how lovely my life could be.  I just need to revel in the promise of inspiration, and live with a little more hope.

Because it's going to happen.

aaaaaaand ending awkward entry.

how to lose.

Have you heard the new Rush album?  It's pretty amazing.  It's what I was hoping it would be.  It's different than what I imagined.  It's poignant and yet straight forward and even a little sad.  I can't stop listening to The Garden.  I've always loved songs like 2112 and La Villa Strangiato and The Spirit of Radio and their old things, but this is my favorite.  It's got me nostalgic and content and, as it is, a little sad. I would hate to see this be their last album, but if it is, I can see why this is the final song on that final album.  It seems like the right exit, if that's indeed what it is.

Miss Utah was tonight.  I couldn't go last year because I couldn't face everyone and explain all of the reasons why I dropped out of Miss Nevada.  There wasn't a right exit for me, because every time I tried to go back to a state pageant, something got in the way.  I wanted to decide on my own terms, and in some ways I did, but I also wanted something desperately that was never really in my cards.  It's difficult to go back, because you want to think that there's a legacy, but when you have hundreds of former girls and only a couple of winners, you feel a little lost in the crowd and very insignificant.  And when you're remembered as the girl who had a tendency to lose, it's even harder.  There really is nothing quite like losing.

You try your best, or sometimes you don't.  You put yourself out there.  You let everyone critique how you move your arms when you walk and how you laugh on stage and how far into your eyelid you take your eyeliner.  Your toe nails are judged by polish and shape and amount seen in each shoe.  And that's just the audience.  Sometimes you really suck it up.  You turn into someone else, someone you don't recognize, and you let your hopes consume you.  Sometimes you forget your piece and fumble your way through it, making that poor Rachmaninoff a total hot mess.  I'm looking at you, Jen Gulbrandsen - Miss Utah State Fair 2007.  Sometimes you go into the competition with so much pressure on yourself because the expectation to be what you were at seventeen is so great.

And most times you lose.  Well, I did, at least.

Sometimes you do your very best.  Sure, maybe you say something a little dorky in your interview, or you have a little blip in your talent, or you don't walk quite as well as you did the night before, but it's still pretty damn good.  All of those things are proof of your humanity, because you can't always be perfect.  But regardless, you do what you went to do, and you know it was your best, and the audience knows, and hell, a couple of judges might even be right there with you.

And you lose.

No matter what, you seem to just lose.

It sucks.  It sucks because it sticks with you.  You'll always go back and want to be involved, and you'll see that group of former Miss Utah's and you'll feel a little twinge of pain because you're not one of them.  You'll still criticize yourself and your performance from four years ago.  You might even go so far as to wish you had chosen differently.

But that's kind of losing, too.

So to my girls who lost tonight, those who I know, and those who I do not: it sucks.  You'll always carry it with you.  You'll be frustrated and sometimes sad and when you're older and past it, you'll wonder what your life would have been like if that lottery had gone differently and if a judge had ranked you one spot higher.  You'll obsess over what they might have ranked you and you'll be mad and you'll rage and then you'll cry some more, because tears actually do help you feel better.

There's a line in The Garden, that final song off Rush's new album where Geddy Lee sings, The measure of a life is the measure of love and respect...a garden to nurture and protect.


All of these things that I've done, the choices that I've made, and the many times that I've lost have given me empathy and humility and the right kind of pain that I think has made me a better person.  A person who can try her best, perhaps even the very best that could ever be for that person.  A person who has these infinite hopes, and who feels sorrow when it doesn't pan out.  A person who can grieve.  Because a person who can grieve can feel joy, and once you've grieved, you can remember the friendships created in the midst of the sorrow, and suddenly those friendships become loving ones.  And then maybe you can be the person who cultivates such a garden of that lifetime of love and respect that it necessitates protecting.

So feel some sorrow, and eat a cheeseburger, and know that you're your own worst critic, and then feel joy in the person you're growing into.  One with scars and bruises and patches all over her heart, but one who gave everything, and one who tried, and one who walked out of the refinery with fire in her eyes.  Talk about the right exit.

how to disappear completely.

There's something about Radiohead that makes me feel simultaneously calm and wound, where I'm perfectly fine to sit and contemplate while needing to buzz around fixing everything.  I doubt that makes any remote sense, but it's the only way I can describe how Thom's voice makes me feel.

Today a girl came in to buy two pairs of shoes and two shirts, and then had lunch in the restaurant as a part of her "Wish" with that notable organization.  And I looked at her beautiful, fuzzy head, and the joy on her face when she opened the shoe boxes, and I was ashamed.

Later I almost had a panic attack.  There wasn't anyone around to help, and I had an appointment, and suddenly we were that kind of busy that creates panic in me, and there were items all over the desk, and for a minute I thought I was going to just walk away and say "best of luck, y'all.  I'm gonna go get a soda."

Not eating is bad.  Eating too much is bad.  One time I couldn't gain any weight for whatever reason, and my body began to crave all of the disgusting and terrible things that would hopefully put weight back on me.  And now that I've normalized back to a reasonable sized person, I'd really like for my body to eschew all of that carbonation and processed junk.

Not everyone agrees with me, but I really love[d] the movie Inception.  I love Leo, and I want to marry JGL, and I'm friends with someone who looks like Tom Hardy, and Hans Zimmer is genius.  I have cravings to watch things, like old episodes of Gilmore Girls.  Or Inception.  Constantly.  And I never do.  You know that moment when suddenly he wakes up, and he looks around at everyone involved?  The music is quiet, and it gradually builds, and the cellos create this really gorgeous basis for a significant melody.  Everyone is knowing and confident, and a little scared at what has just happened (if we're to believe Nolan's world and reality), and it's this consistent crescendo to the realization that everything came together and it worked.

"Were you born in 1992?  Oh my goodness you're young!"  "Why?  How old are you?"  "24"  "Oh, that's not THAT old!"

Contentment is either a blessing, or a curse, and I haven't yet decided which.  I doubt I ever will.  But it would be nice to one day look around and think, my goodness.  I'm healthy.  I have a working body.  My mind is clear.  I can work.  I'm surrounded by beautiful music and art and literature and people.  I am young, but am nearing the age where I'm beginning to have a little wisdom and experience, even if only a morsel.

Though, don't you sometimes wish you could wake up and take a look around at your life and feel that awe of that moment when everything came together, and it worked, and you can't even believe it?

swing.

I try to avoid thinking this, because it makes facing the next day a little more difficult than it should be, but tonight is one of those nights where I'd like to go back in time a few years.

restlessness.

The feeling of restlessness is now turning into an ache.  I ache to be in a city, in an urban environment.  I ache to be around people who are constantly moving, who are using the metro or a subway to get there, and who only stop to eat but at least each meal is a great gathering.  I ache to be surrounded by strangers who do the most interesting things, even just when commuting to work.  I ache to be near the Met and the MoMA and Park Avenue.  At this point, I even ache to just be living at the upper 90s and Broadway.  I don't even care.  I just need to be able to go to work, and to go take class from Darcy Kistler after work, and to spend my days off writing in the park.  I ache to be on my own, meeting an entirely new group of people, forging my pathway independent of anyone who knew me before.

I mean it when I say ache.  My heart literally hurts for it.  I don't know how it happened, but I am an urban, city girl and my body and my mind need to be there to find the balance I'm seeking.

bowie truth.

this is ground control to major tom, you've really made the grade, and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.  now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare.  this is major tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door, and I'm floating in a most peculiar way.  and the stars look very different today. here I am sitting in a tin can far above the world.  planet earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do.

tristesse.

Remember that little gig I mentioned a few weeks back?  The one about ghost writing?

I think I might have been able to write something again that has purpose.  It's little and it's short and it's not even me, but then again, it kind of is as these four girls each have qualities I've stolen from myself.  But I love writing this one girl in particular because I can tap into who I wanted to be at one point in my life, and it reminds me that while I didn't become the stellar virtuoso I dreamed of being, I developed a few important skills and learned a few things that have quite literally saved me during some of my times of failure or despair.

Music is a powerful thing, my friends, and the study of it is even more of a testament to that.

Finally, I am blessed.  Sometimes confused, and often uncertain, but extraordinarily blessed.

a plea.

Dear Audi.  Dear, sweet, wonderful, kind Audi.

I really need something from you right now.

I need you to last for a few more months.  I need you to stop pretending you're going to stall and die.  I need you to stop shaking so bad.  I need you to stop eating through gas twice as fast as you used to.  I need you to make it just a little bit longer.  I know it's hard.  You're at the end of your life; it's been such a good one.  Think of all the places we've been!  California, several times.  Vegas.  Arizona.

That's probably it.

But really.

It's been so wonderful driving you.  You've taught me patience and understanding and budgeting and how to drive a stick shift.  Invaluable lessons.  I will never forget you, Audi.  You were my first car that I actually liked.  You made the end of my freshman year at BYU such a wonderful experience, even if you were already old at that point.  You were new in my eyes.

So just do me a solid, okay?  Last for a few more months, because you see, I'm getting elective surgery in 10 days and I could have used that money for a new car, but well... I'm just too vain at this point.  Unfortunately you're dying at the worst possible time.  So I just need you to last until about July or so.  Then you can rest from your labors.  I promise.

Love always,

Jen, your owner who may have not always changed your oil right when she was supposed to, but it was only because you never seemed to need it...

sea of [tears salt love]

Ugh.  I am not allowed to stay up all night long as I did the other night, even if it is just playing Scum for six hours straight at a cabin in the woods with my little brother and his friends.  Because then it sets my entire schedule out of whack, and I can't sleep, and when I don't sleep I read, and when I read I find truth, and when I find truth I cry, and when I cry and I find truth I want to write, and then I want to write things that I cannot tell you.

My apologies.

There's so much I wish to speak about, rejoicing in events and expressing just how scared I am, mostly just so that I can share all of this with somebody in the only way that I really feel I'm competent.  Instead of telling you about some recent happenings that make my heart flutter and my muscles ache and my soul content, I'm going to keep my trap shut because I have to. Because I have made so much progress, and I've been so good, and I've done it all the right way... but I'm bursting here.

You wouldn't know me.  You'd be shocked, actually.  I've evolved a lot over the last few months into this strange person who feels really confident, and independent, and shockingly at peace with whatever happens.  That is, until it's 4:30 in the morning and hormones are probably to blame and suddenly I lose my security and just want to be in a different room in a different city just so that I can hear you breathe and watch your chest rise up and down while you sleep.

Am I making sense?  No?  Good.  Because none of this is supposed to.  Because I can't!

I mean, can you just buy me a damn penguin already so I can just be content with my current status and just let it be?

all of this is brought to you by Azar Nafisi and her stupid insistence that I find intelligence, and career, and once I feel like I've made a good showing there, find myself some love.  What if it doesn't want to find me back?!

futurism.

It has been a rough week.  I've been working through some serious pain (not emotional or existential, but real, physical, searing pain) and thankfully my manager let me have today to rest.  It's given me an opportunity to regroup and gather a few things together for the exciting events in the coming weeks.

It also gave me a chance to binge on George Clooney with The Descendants and The Ides of March.  Ryan Gosling is sort of a perfect specimen, you know?  But it reminded me that I'm lucky.  My upbringing was really wonderful, but some not-so-wonderful things happened, which grounded me in reality.  At this point in my life I would be one of two things: jaded or idealistic.  Somehow I'm neither.  

My mother is a politician.  She desperately wants me to work in politics, for whatever inane reason it may be.  Remember that one time I worked on a campaign?  It was tough for me.  It was good to have a job, and something to put on a resume, and there is nothing negative I can say about the individuals involved, but I hate politics.  Everyone begins in this idealistic dream state of hope and change and reform and realignment, and then people are people and each idealistic fool realizes that no matter what they want or try for, human beings are fallible.  Which is where those idealists become jaded political staffers.

I wouldn't be good at it because I've never been an idealist in the way so many my age are, at least amongst those who believe that we can change the world SOMEHOW.  See, a lot of them put their hope in another person who seems to be able to lead more effectively or speak more coherently or inspire more profoundly.  They hope that this person, whose ideology is gorgeous and packaged perfectly, will bring about the reform that will end poverty and enable education and encourage peace.  They hope that this time will be different, and that no matter what, this beacon of integrity will remain true.

Unfortunately it does change.  Every single time.  I've seen it happen in my family members who have been given an office or sought an office.  I've seen it in individuals I've voted for.  I've seen it in individuals I thought were golden.  There's a reason we complain about politics in the workplace or in schooling: politics is a game and by virtue of competing in the political arena, you have to play.

So no, I'll never be able to be in politics, whether behind the scenes or in front of a camera, because I'd rather not pretend that I'm always going to make all of the right decisions and do right by you.

I put my faith and trust in a God who allows us the opportunity to repent and change our behavior, because He is merciful and kind.  I also put my faith and trust in the hope that we as a human race can change, not by a political mandate or an individual by whom we can rally, but by human interaction, and by love, and by refusing to let a system run this show.

I believe in God, and I believe in classical music, and I believe in 5 inch heels.  And I believe in the power of the pen and the influence a piece of writing can have on a person.  So while some will get caught up in the rhetoric of a promise for political reform, I'm going to do my very best to help enable young people to find confidence and hope within themselves, a self-worth instilled by a loving God.  No promises - just an honest effort to help someone who may feel lost as I once did, and to remind them that the most important thing is to do what I describe as being like Jesus: loving and forgiving and bridging the gaps built and erected by politicians through human empathy.

Jeez, Ryan Gosling.  Look what you and that smirk inspired.

boom sha-clack clack.

Happy V-Day everyone.  Hope yours has been a blast.  There are two important days in February, the fifth, which is apparently the day that EVERYONE decided to pop out babies (but most importantly my love Whitney - and maybe even some former loves) and the fourteenth.  Not because of any sort of romantic whim or sentiment, because let's face it, the sweetest thing to happen to me on Valentine's Day has always come from my father..although Amy did give me a cartoon valentine today at work.  Close second.  [side note: favorite valentine memory comes from Junior year of high school.  maybe another time.]

Right, why February 14th is neat to me.  Because I've decided to start my own tradition.  It very possibly could have something to do with love or with pink or with chocolate or with candy confections that have slightly sinister sayings on them.  It also very possibly could have something to do with hate and brown and carrots and stupid M&Ms handed out at weddings as favors.

Go with me.  I'm getting there.

Last year at this time I was in a creative writing class that pushed me a little bit and gave me wonderful excuses and deadlines and oh my gosh I MISS IT.  I was reading essays and writing essays and pretending to write fiction and poetry and terrible haiku and pissing off some kid in the class who didn't like me (but I'm sorry, he just used SO MANY ADJECTIVES EVERY TIME).  It was so grand.  And last valentine's day I sat on my bed while Whitney sat on hers and I read her my new favorite essay about love and marriage and she looked at me as though I were completely insane and oh.  It was wonderful.

So while beaus come and go, my one true love remains and lasts and I love it almost as much as I love my Michael Kors handbag.

The essay.

Sometimes I forget how much I love it.  Sometimes I forget to read it.  Sometimes I forget to write it.  Most times I just prefer watching Dance Moms or Gossip Girl or making monies.  But it seems fitting that on a day when many of your beaus try to convince you to fall in love with them all over again, I remind myself why I love a simple piece of nonfiction so much.

So tonight, I give you another favorite to read.  This isn't so much about love as it is about what we can do for others, mostly just in being more considerate.  Besides, I just googled a song that I liked a lot and found out that it was on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack, so I now need to go bleach my ears with some wit.  Who better to do it than the master of the essay, Mr. Mark Twain?

I love you, and chances are I love some of you quite a bit, but let me tell you... the essay is seriously loyal and loving and never fails to give me a warmth that reminds me I can do this thing we call life.

"Hygiene and sentiment"

my point.

Something's been bugging me for the last day and a half.  Perhaps you heard that a girl in Provo was running along the Provo river trail, and was attacked, and sexually assaulted.  You probably also saw stuff being passed around like wildfire on facebook, "Girls - don't run alone!"  "This is why you don't run at night!"  "Women - please be smart!"

I didn't plan on this turning into a long treatise, but I have a feeling it's going to.  And the few people it's pointed at will probably whine about Jen Gulbrandsen and her feminist idealism and blah blah blah be glad you're out of that blah blah blah bob law blah.  And that's fine.  I expect them to.  And I also expect a text from someone in the morning saying something along the lines of, "why do you even care what certain people think or say?"

Tonight I care because people get raped every day.

By people they don't know.  By a date.  By a spouse.  By a parent.  By a friend.  By a colleague.  By a mentor.  By a teacher.  By a boss.  By a random stranger.

I mean, this happens on a consistent basis and the best we can come up with is "be safe" or "be smart".

Pretty sure women who are safe and smart are raped ALL THE TIME.

Yes, we do need to be safe and we do need to be smart, but how about we start changing how our society views rape, shall we?  How about we start teaching boys to respect girls from an early age?  How about we remind men that women are not objects?  How about we stop telling this girl what she did wrong by running late at night by herself (something she's surely heard a million times by now) and instead focus on what we can do to eliminate this?

I have an idea - why don't we stop deluding ourselves into believing that a little post on facebook or a message board or twitter or anywhere on the interwebs about being "careful" will actually have any measure of change in our world.

My name is Jen Gulbrandsen, and I'm really pissed off.

now that that's done.

Sometimes there will be criticism when someone is as open as I am, but then I get random emails and messages from people stating how my process of grieving has helped them in their own process of grieving.

Lest you think I'm wallowing in a pit of despair, please know this - I'm content with the roller coaster I'm on.  Maybe I'm documenting it a little more than most, and yeah, I genuinely don't know where things are going to go, but it's not a bad ride.

Onward and upward!  With lots of David Bowie and rewatching episodes of Gossip Girl.

also, pie.