I've officially moved on to the next chapter of the book called "My Life" and took the leap out of the nest. I'll now be writing in PQLC headquarters alongside co-author Liz "Fuc*ur gate". The lead up to the move was long but the journey short. The emotions I felt throughout were wild and free. Let me give you and analogy that sums it all up.

It was like going from your hotel down to the beach. You pack all your gear, snacks, and beverages and then gather the troops for the short march. You're excited as hell because living in arctic conditions for 3-4 months is bull and all you want to do is swim and play Godzilla. So you find the perfect spot to set up base camp and then take off towards the water. Before your toes touch the water you hear your mother's voice calling you back ordering you to lather on the sunscreen. "You wouldn't want to get burned now would you? And don't forget your ears." And then comes the talk about water safety. "If you're ever in a rip current swim parallel of the beach...blah blah blaaaah. Before she can finish you've already taken off towards the water, running and eventually tripping into to surf. Glorious! The sharks, rip tides and occasional dunking are in the back of your mind but you're too busy enjoying the waves. You finally walk out of the surf rubbing water from your eyes and with a faint taste of salt. Exhausted but happy at the same time.

This pretty much sums up moving out for me. I'm still really nervous about doing the things that were done for me and having to do them myself. Things such as cooking, cleaning, shopping, and laundry. What I'm most nervous about is transitioning into my new job. I hope the people are as cool as my last one and that taking the bus isn't as strenuous as I think it will be. I may be out of the nest but I feel like my wings are clipped because of the lack of a vehicle. We'll see though. I'm excited for the future and see great things this year and I can't wait to go swimming!



Until next time...

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"St. Jude’s Ranch for Children serves all abused, abandoned and neglected children and families, creating new chances, new choices and new hope in a safe, homelike environment." (http://www.stjudesranch.org/about_overview.php)

Which is why my 2009 holiday mission is to get as many people as possible to donate their holiday cards to St. Jude's. All the info is here: http://www.stjudesranch.org/help_card.php

As they point out, donating your cards serves two primary purposes:
1) It helps the kids
2) It helps the earth

So, please consider participating this year or making it a new holiday tradition! If you don't want to take the time to gather them and send them you can:
1) Get your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or crafty aunt or easily coerced sibling or anyone else to do it
2) Give them to me and I'll send them out with mine. In fact, the less materials we use by combining shipments the better

They sell cards for other occasions and thank you notes and that kind of thing also (check the site for specifics) so if you have any of those laying around, send them along as well.

The deadline is february 28, 2010.

Even if you don't personally want to do it, consider mentioning this to someone else in passing. :)

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Bad boys, bad boys.
Whatcha gonna do?


I'm not handling the prospect of not working very well at all. It's an aspect of the Premature Quarter-Life Crisis that I haven't experienced until now. Which is why I've naively formed this defense mechanism mentality of "Yes, I'm going to get a job right away because I want it more than anyone else and I'm a hard-worker and powerful, independent woman who was born to have a successful career." The power of positive thinking? No, probably just filthy lies to myself which won't get me anywhere. I know how to do things. I don't know how to sit around.

Remix!

I love that I don't know what's going to happen. I love that I have nothing holding me back. I love that I'm going to have a job which will allow me to save for traveling to all the places I've wanted to go. Maybe not all. I'm not being foolishly optimistic here. But if I can take my two weeks of vacation and head to Peru for awhile, I'm there. I might not see the whole world like I've always dreamed of, but hey, I might make it to Cambodia at some point. Do what you can. Don't let the fact that you can't do it all hold you back from doing what you can. This is my ultimate mental obstacle. If a task seems too huge to take on and complete to perfection, I'm resistant to doing it. Sometimes you just have to dig in and get out what you can. No waiting 'til you have a million dollars and three years to see the whole world. Three new countries with whatever limited vacation time I have is just fine with me. And if I somehow get to see more, we'll consider that bonus.

I love that I still think it's possible for me to do anything. I love that if I find out that I hate what I do, I can do something else. I love that I've learned invaluable lessons from the jobs that I've had even though my work experience looks kind of limited and crappy on paper. I love that I'm willing to do anything and see where I end up. Maybe there's something out there that I love more than how much I love the prospect of policy research. I can't think of one field that I haven't been interested at one point or another so we'll see how many of those areas I end up working in.

I love that I have time to power through books during this interim period. Sometimes I wish I could live forever just so I could read through the whole library. Skipping the romance section, of course. And probably most of the Sci-Fi section. I have my own real-life romance going on and my own real-life sci-fi imagination.

I love that we're all so young and it's tough sometimes because of that. Most of us are struggling to make a reliable living. Maybe the economy's getting better and maybe it isn't. But these are lessons we'll learn that will make us appreciate the times when we're living comfortably. And this will be the baseline for the rest of our lives. I love that even though we don't have money, we still find ways to have a good time and head out on Friday and Saturday night to wherever life may take us. I appreciate those times we have so much more because we work so hard to make sure they happen. Not having what you want and even not what ou need sometimes makes you even more grateful for the surprises. People help you out. We're all still alive (Well, most of us. I'll take those odds). I can think of 10 people right away who've overcome some incredible disadvantages and I can think of 10 people right away who are currently overcoming some incredible disadvantages.

Last Christmas, Nonnie asked us all to go around and say what the best Christmas gift we ever got was. None of us could come up with anything. We had always gotten more or less what we wanted. If we didn't get everything we wanted, it never really mattered for very long because we never really wanted it that badly. We'd all been relatively spoiled. Nonnie proceeded to tell us the story of her all-time favorite Christmas present. She was relatively little and it was during the Great Depression. Her family, just like all the other families, didn't have much money and it was kind of understood that there would be no presents that year. However, for some reason, her aunt (I think it was her aunt. This part of the story is kind of vague) was able to buy presents for Nonnie and the siblings. That Christmas, she got a Shirley Temple doll and a doll baby carriage. Shirley Temple was her favorite then and probably still is on some level. Hearing Nonnie talk about how she didn't expect to get anything and understanding that it just wasn't possible but then being surprised with her most favorite thing of all was absolutely flooring to me. I realized that never in my life had I appreciated anything like that. Everything was insignificant to me.

Ok, wow. Regroup. I have no idea how I ended up at that. This was a very unplanned ramble blog. Well, it's a good story anyway so I'll keep it. And only proceed to say that I'm in love with this not-knowing thing. We'll see if my failure to find a job beats me down to reality. But until then, cheers to full-time employment and being 22 years old and finally a real person. For the first time, I'm not aching to be 17 again. 17 was so insignificant. 22 is where it's at. When I'm too old to have the energy to work full-time and have fun full-time, then we'll reassess. But for now, let's live it up.

PS - Ryan and I live together now. I'll coerce him to blog by threatening to eat his food and things of that nature.

PPS - Upon rethinking this and trying to connect the dots, I guess the Nonnie story was supposed to illustrate that things in our lives will be significant and we'll have histories and memories and experiences because nothing means anything if you always have everything that you want. I can't explain it in words. I hope you get what I mean. Not just financially. It applies to all things. For example, even though it feels like people have dropped like flies in terms of dying and leaving and that sort of thing in the last five years, I've come to appreciate every single person and moment that I still have. And in the struggle of trying to push people out and away to avoid the hurt, I've learned how good people are and how deep you can go with them in the most unforeseen ways. You can either obsess over what you don't have or you can kick yourself out of the pity party and focus on what you do have. And that way, you'll be ready to appreciate the surprises and treasure them. It's hard. I know. I'm guilty of all the pity-parties we fall into. The more you force yourself to kick them, the easier it becomes. I promise. So that I don't sound condescending and like I have it all figured out, here's a disclaimer: I suck at life just as much as everyone else. I hope that somehow I'm getting better and less bitter. Thank you all for making me want to try harder to be better.

PPPS - I love that I've moved out of the 233 house and away from people who haven't learned how to be adults yet. I'm not talking about the termination of painting stupid pictures and frolicking in parks. That's stuff for all ages. Basically, 24 year olds just shouldn't have temper tantrums. I think that's something we can all get behind.

PPPPS - Happy Holidays. Coming soon: Recycling your holiday cards to help some kids and help the earth.


Good Lord, what just happened?

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"Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle." - James Russell Lowell


This is a positive little upper about blessings which rise from the ashes of what you had once fancied to be misfortunes.

Today I realized that there is absolutely no way I can get a 4.0 during this final semester of my life.

Back story: Why did I think I needed a 4.0?
- To prove to myself that I could work and get a 4.0 at the same time because apparently I'm not good enough for myself just the way I am
- To graduate with a 3.5 and be able to put Magna Cum Laude on my resume because I am absolutely TERRIFIED of not being able to find a job immediately after graduation

Back story: The rationality which I ignored.
- What a stupid low self-esteemed capricious goal which is susceptible to external factors of all sorts
- I'll get a job and Magna Cum Laude isn't that big of a deal. And even if I don't get a job and Magna Cum Laude actually is that big of a deal, I'm sure I can count that "misfortune" as a blessing also. Because then I'll grow some balls and leave the U.S. for a bit and flee to South America because there will have ceased to be anything "practical" to hold me back which I might have foolishly considered to be tempting.

Now I can't get a 4.0. So, I can stop killing myself for it. I can sleep, I can relax, I can half-ass everything and be content with Bs and maybe even a C or two.

I'm in love. I want to devote time to enjoying that.
I self-educate. I want to devote time to developing my understanding.
I have other things to deal with. I want to devote time to fixing them.

The blessing is that now I can do absolutely all of that.

Grades are just numbers. Paychecks are just numbers. It seems so simple to understand, but so difficult to accept.

And now that the unfortunate circumstances of having an awful professor has bestowed upon me this forced reality check, I can stop, reflect, appreciate, and move forward in the way that I should have been moving forward anyway.

Sometimes it's better when your tunnel caves in before you reach the light at the end of it because then you can dig yourself out of the rubble and stand on the top of that fucking tunnel rubble/rubbled tunnel and feel like you've conquered something more than just getting to the end.

What a stupid metaphor elaboration that was. I floor myself everyday.

Well, continuing to the end, I'm not going to tell you to always find the positive things when everything looks bleak and I'm not saying that this is going to be my mentality for everything from now on and maybe this entire appreciation is really just a defense mechanism for dealing with the fact that I have failed at my goal. However, if these kinds of feelings do happen upon you and all of a sudden you feel good instead of bad, embrace that. It doesn't matter why or for how long. The comprehensive point here is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with feeling awesome every once in awhile.

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Ryan Repp is a good best friend to have because you can text him about pee and he doesn't mind.


For lack of time and topic, here's a quick little post about how we came up with our beloved URL.

Ryan and I were sitting around in the library trying to come up with something intriguing. Hipsters will talk all day about how they don't try. It's a lie. Everyone tries. Everyone tries very hard. Well, we tried for 10 minutes. But it was 10 minutes of very hard trying. (We're not hipsters by the way. I was just calling them out because they think they're the personification of awesome and that irritates me.)

"Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa is a motherfucking classic. Ed and Ashley disagree and considering that I respect their opinions way more than most people's, perhaps I should listen. I want to believe them, but I just can't. I love it way too much. But all tangents aside... on that day that Ryan and I were giving birth to this humble creative outlet, I just happened to be obsessed with it. And the lines

Yeah, you come here, gimme a kiss
Better make it fast or else I'm gonna get pissed

were ringing through my brain. "BetterMakeItFast" just seemed to fit with our vision (or at least that's how I fallaciously justified it because we don't really actually have a vision) and after testing several other options so as not to make a rash desision, we selected the best one. I told you, we really only tried for 10 minutes. It seemed unnecessary to waste more time than that on something as stupid as a URL.

We could have made it http://www.prematurequarterlifecrisis.blogspot.com but we didn't. I'm not sure why. We just didn't. Probably because it sounds lame as hell so I'm happy we didn't. I wish I could say that it was some planned and intentional thing, but it wasn't. What's more PQLC than not having a plan and coming up with something quick to fill the void?


I wish I could embed the video here but the people who run Universal Music Group are assholes and don't allow it. The only thing I can offer is the link: Push It (1988) - Salt-n-Pepa

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Summer, throughout the history of civilization, has meant growth - at least, in the climates in which the word "Summer" can be said to apply at all. I'm not talking growth like the mantra of corporate culture - gross! I'm talking plants, yo.

Are you aware you can grow your own shit to eat? A shocking number of people aren't. It comes from the supermarket, and that's about as far as it goes. For how few nowadays eat meals for which they personally oversaw the cutting and cooking of the constituent fruits and vegetables, fewer still know what kind of a plant a pepper grows on, how to harvest a potato, or how to recognize delicious wild mint (I almost guarantee there's mint growing within a block of your house/apartment).

But how can we fix this, being the city slickers we are? Do we give up? People elsewhere in the world did not. Look at any high-rise in Spain, for instance. It's spotted with green fluff so perfectly, one almost wonders if it was designed that way. No, it's not part of the "green building" movement. Spaniards who had to make do with their limited space and take to vertical living simply refused to let that spoil their historical penchant for growing their own damn food. The lesson? Even if you live in an apartment, you can grow stuff to eat. Hell, even if you don't have a patio, there are still options (I hope you have a window).

The backyard of my beautiful Past-Boulevard home of 2 years is all brick. For this I hate the owner or whomever made that decision. The house down the street even has an all-concrete front yard, for "ease of maintainance" I'm sure. Eyesore yes, but also an egregious waste of land. So how did we get 15 pepper plants, a tomato, and 5 herbs growing outside? Built a planter out of wood. Found a discarded pot. Asked a bakery for its empty food-grade buckets. Saved and cut up our plastic liquor bottles. All you need is some containers. Got them? Good.
Next, get some holes in the bottom of that shit. If it's a pot, it should already have some. Home-build planters should be built with a little gap at the bottom. Otherwise, drill baby drill.

• Put about an inch of gravel at the bottom. This helps it drain properly without clogging. You don't want a clogged planter.
• Go to the nursery on Swineburne Street in South Oakland. Yes, we have a NURSERY (just like your parents used to drag you to) within walking distance. Fuck home depot. Get some potting soil, or find a recipe for it online and make your own using regular soil (which is cheaper or free). You'll also want compost, of which they have good stuff there. Bonus: I've started a worm composting bin in my basement recently, so I should have a ton of extra worm poop (the best fertilizer ever) by next season. Ask me!
• Finally, you'll likely want some plants. I love doing peppers, but that's because I use an absurd amount of them in cooking. Them, tomatos, zucchini, broccoli, cucumbers, whatever. Don't get your hopes up about fruit, as most of it needs trees, but berries (though their bushes can take some time to cultivate) can be great in a small space - even indoors! Salads can be grown indoors, so save your outdoor space for the really outdoor plants like peps and maters.
• Herbs are very forgiving. Grow them wherever the hell you want in whatever the hell you want.
• Are you growing stuff indoors, or even out for that matter? Build a self-watering container. They're not hard, they're super healthy for the plant (draw its roots nice and deep), and you only have to put water in them like once a week. Just google it; there are recipes everywhere.

Do you actually have a yard, and are wondering why I'm spending all this time talking about container gardening? You lucky bastard. Mulch that shit and plant, plant, plant. You have no idea how much food you can squeeze out of a little space. Pick your favourite veggies and read up on them. Grow a bean teepee. Stick carrots and radishes in every little between-plants spot you can find. If it's a grassed lawn, tear it up. How often do you use that lawn, honestly? How often would you, instead, eat some food from it? If it's bad soil or filled with "weeds," just stamp them down and cover them with a hearty, overlapping layer of cardboard or cotton sheets or something that will decompose. If you're going to put in rabbit or worm poop, do it under this cardboard. Then, put regular mulchy stuff (shredded pine or whatever) overtop of that. You can plant in this by poking X-shapes with a trowel.

Other fun ways to better understand what you eat and drink:

• Brewing your own beer (been doing this for years now and never had a bad batch, not even my first)
• Incubating your own yogurt (a self-sustaining endeavour: milk + yogurt = more yogurt!)
• Making your own jam and pickles, and other types of preserving
• Baking your own (basic) bread - you may never buy bread again
• Cheese!

Why should we want to do any of this stuff? All of this stuff is great practice for the apocalypse, when you'll have to do it for real. Why do you think I got so into it? Besides that, it really puts you in touch with nature, with your own body (through what you eat), and helps you to better understand the world around you.
In most cases, these things also save you money. Even if the potting soil seems really expensive at first, just stick with it (it should never need to be replaced - just put some worm or rabbit poop on it each season). Same goes for any other capital costs. Finally, you get to stick it to the sick, terrible American food industry by not buying their stuff. A great resource for why you should care about that bit is Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Highly recommend it.

Speaking of books, a great idea book for folks who want to do this kind of stuff in an urban environment is The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen. It's got some step-by-step guides, but it's strongest trait is its wealth of fantastic ideas - great for the urbanite who wants to grow her own food but doesn't think it's possible without two acres of land.

I hope that after reading this post, you feel you are out of excuses. I hope I have motivated you to at least give this a whack. I earnestly think that everyone, somewhere inside, has some urge to bring about their own food. This feeling is often, I feel, misinterpreted into the "bringing food to the table" idea. Though being able to earn money to feed yourself and your family is certainly not without merit, it's time to really bring some food to the table.

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Steph's blog is up!


For some people, ok well most people, summer is all about the outdoors, sports and general recreation! Yeah cool! For you!
For other part albinos, like me, summer is literally hell. Heat waves, bikinis, and unfortunate sweat stains make it all but impossible for us to enjoy the summer! So here's what I do and what I'm telling my other summer-haters to do:
Step 1. Become a Vampire. I don't mean that literally, you twi-tards. What I mean is stay inside and sleep during the day. Unless you want to self-combust (or sparkle according to the literary genius of Stephanie Meyers) wait until the sun is setting to venture outside. That's when the summer heat is perfect, everything's cooling down and all the parties are about to start. Plus this means no weird tan lines or bubbling "The Fly"-like skin! Be warned, you do stick out at aforementioned parties more often than not since you basically become fluorescent in contrast with all the orange surrounding you.
Step 2. Get thee to an interneterry! I'm serious about this one (despite the Hamlet reference) because you can experience all the fun of summer virtually! Play "Lemonade Stand" online or watch viral videos of human walruses flopping around a Slip-n-Slide! Read about how many ways you can die from too much heat and rejoice in your reclusiveness! Better yet, Skype with your friends who are too far away to hang out! That way you have a semi-legit reason to hold off going out with your friends to that awesome outdoor concert at high noon, because you have some catching up to do with your buddy. (Really it's the a/c but they don't need to know that)
Step 3. Discover the joys of Comcast OnDemand. Listen. There is a reason you live in a city where almost all of your friends have OnDemand. It's because it's fucking sweet. All your favorite shows come on at night when you're out socializing but OnDemand is there for you making sure that while you hide in your 64 degree room to nurse your killer hangover you can get up to speed with some of the best summer shows, like "Rescue Me", "Psych", "Being Human" or my favorite, "Mad Men". This way you can stay up-to-date with your shows and have something to fill the void that is daytime.
So I guess what I'm trying to do here is say it's ok to hate the summer, it's ok to be a hermit crab because for some of us the summer just isn't our thing and honestly it's better if you don't try to drag us outside with you to, I don't know, live or something. People like me look, feel and act better in the fall where the weather is warm but because of the crisp, bitter wind it always feels like room temp. Autumn, where you can still wear summer dresses and get away with scarf accessories and not be considered a hipster!
(WARNING: TANGENT) Now, I know some of you summer-lovers are dreading September the way junkies dread detox but Steph Shamp is here to end this submission on a happy note. My happy note is this: Halloween. H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N spells Halloween bitches! This holiday, at least, should leave you appreciating the "great frosting" ("Thumbelina" reference, anyone?) as much as us summer haters do.

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