Monday, November 26, 2012

Perspective through Facebook

You know those annoying little status updates that are basically forms you fill out to tell your fake friends on Facebook information about yourself that they probably never wanted to know in the first place?

In the current one I'm thinking of, a friend chooses an age for you to focus on. Then you write the gist of where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, and what your hopes and fears were. My friend chose age 19 for me, which was a significant year in my life. I was moving from my parents' respective homes in Northern Virginia to Long Island, New York to live with my then-boyfriend (now ex-fiance). I was struggling in community college classes. I had hopes of happiness and fears of failure and heartbreak.

I chose age 18 for my mother. This is what she wrote:

"A few months after finishing high school I turned 18. A few months later the government closed all the universities. One year later I left Iran and never went back."

A stunned "wow" and a long exhale were all I could manage when I read this. I already knew this information objectively but I had never felt it before.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Boom, check us out!


I love my Cleavage Shields.
Yesterday morning I threw on a faux wraparound blouse with a plunging neckline and left. (I wore pants too, just to let you know.) This shirt is so boobs that I normally take double measures. (Hahaha. Double measures. So not intended, but absolutely perfect.) I usually have a safety pin pulling the two sides of the shirt closer together and I wear a cleavage shield underneath.

Well, once I got to my internship I realized that I'd forgotten to don my cleavage shield, the safety pin was nowhere to be found, and there were my boobs! They were like "Boom! Check us out!"

This is the best thing in my office.
I looked for a safety pin in my desk but could only find thousands of paperclips. I scanned my office like MacGyver. A glint from the corner of my desk caught my eye. I turned and saw my sparkly pink stapler. (Yes, I really own this stapler. I got it from Dave & Buster's, the Chuck E. Cheese's for adults. You really shouldn't be surprised...unless of course you knew me when I was in high school, had red/green/purple hair, and wore all black...in that case you should really be surprised.) 

I shrugged. "Let's try this," I thought to myself. I gathered the two sides of my shirt together and gave it a good, firm staple. It worked! You couldn't even see the staple because of the way the fabric rippled. You have no idea how much it amused me to be wearing a stapled shirt! I wanted to tell the world, but of course I kept it to myself until now. It was fantastic and it brightened my entire morning.

It would've brightened my entire day but later I had to call EMS to ensure a suicidal client's safety. Sigh. This is where chocolate and/or mindful meditation helps me (preferably "and" rather than "or").