They Caught me Riding Dirty...

Hmm, not sure if that is a good title for this post, because truthfully, I have no idea what it really means to be riding dirty, therefore if I have in some way offended you with that title, sorry. I am just a five year old masquerading as an adult, forgive me.

Yesterday was an epic day to add to my personal driving record. I am pretty sure when I write a book, it will revolve around the episodes involving my car.

Driving through my neighborhood like any other usual morning, only this one was a bit misty with the spring fog, I come upon the usual useless stop signs. It is 8:00 am. There is no one here, as per the usual routine of a neighborhood housing a total of 25 humans. So I stop, but immediately let my foot of the break to switch back over to the gas and continue on my merry way.

This is what is known as a rolling stop. Now I know some of you may not know that this particular type of driving had a name, mostly because everyone in America stops like this in unpopulated neighborhoods, especially when able to see (yes even me with my squinty, non-seeing eyes) that there is absolutely no one sitting at any of the other stop signs. Unfortunately, this is a violation. So, next time you see every car in America do what is known as a rolling stop, going 2 miles an hour, you have been warned not to follow their example.

Back to the story. As I roll ever so slightly through this insignificant stop sign, I look to my right and see, as per usual on any given day in my slightly over protected neighborhood, a jolly little copper sitting in his car waiting for this exact moment to take place. Side note: there are two cross streets in my neighborhood. Yup, count 'em two. Everyday this fellow is sitting on one of them, waiting like a crouching tiger to pounce upon those of us flouting the law with our deadly rolling stops.

I have a slight moment of panic, but then dismiss it thinking "surely, yes, surely a 2 mile an hour rolling stop is not enough to get pulled over".

Surely indeed. 2 minutes later I sit sobbing (yes, the most embarrassing thing ever to do in front of a cop) explaining why I have an Ohio registration, Kentucky plates, and an Indiana license. Embarrassing? Why, yes. Yes it was. Thank you for asking.

What is the result of this lovely little parable, you may ask? Well, be warned, when a city or "town" as my neighborhood is lovingly known as, needs money, forget about rolling stops. They will issue you an ordinance fine, for the same price as a ticket, only guess who gets to keep the money? Yup, you guessed it. That inconsequential little town you live in. Instead of just asking you to volunteer at bingo, or make a donation to a fund, they will pull you over and fine you. Desperation has its limits, even for the nice towns.

Yesterday, I was a victim of that desperation. "They see me rollin, they hatin...."

Dear America, what is wrong with you?

I posted earlier and deleted it because I thought it was mean. Now, I don't feel like it is mean at all. So I am going to retype it.

I am always a supporter of the underdog. Ask anyone. If you are the worst football team in America, chances are I have hardcore rooted for you at one time. If you have ever been made fun of, I would most likely be the one standing in front of you telling everyone else off. But there comes a time when we all must pause and examine, then admit that the underdog is probably the underdog for a reason. At some point, we must let them stand alone.

Case in point, Tim Urban. I wish everyone would stop calling him the come back kid, unless it is his family telling him to come back home. Seriously America, get a grip. My ears are bleeding, and I can't make it stop without your help. Who the heck is voting for this kid? I am sure the dreamy factor makes everyone pick up their phones and use their little texting fingers to put him through every night, but for the love of all things (including my sanity) please stop. Put your phones down, close your eyes, clean out your ears with a name brand q-tip and give it another listen. Because if you do this, I can personally guaruntee your ears will develop a mouth that begins screaming in protest every time Tim Urban enters the stage.

I am sure he is a nice kid, from a great family, and he is such a super dreamy teeny-bop heart throb, but let me tell you a secret. Voting for him will not make him go out with you. It will however cause massive ear trauma to the rest of America who knows what music sounds like. Just let him leave on a high note and be the next star of High School Musical...or some other lame Disney movie. Just get off American Idol. Immediately.

Normal, Normal, Normal, how I've come to LOVE thee...

Maybe it is the hint of spring, but I feel like purging lately. Instead of spring cleaning my house, which is probably in desperate need (lets be honest), I think I will be spring cleaning my life. There are a few things I need to chuck out the window...which in this case would probably mean my ears since its stuff sitting in my brain.

Some life vocabulary has recently taken on new life forms in my scary little brain. Exciting just stopped having the same meaning. What has become exciting is the thought of coming home to my best friend and favorite little furry creature. And for all those who remember my hysterical outburst over the wounded raccoon outside my window last spring, no, it is not him. Or her. Or whatever. Exciting isn't about moving around, changing my life, making all sorts of new decisions or being noticed. So, chuck goes the word exciting, hello normal.

In all my longing to always experience, all I ended up doing was longing, minus the experience part. I wasted my experience, passed it by as I mentally floated onward, deeming the here and now not quite good enough yet. Being unsettled was settling to me, and feeling in any way content was a sign to quickly get on the move. But, alas, my little futuristic shoes are all worn out and my feet are begging me to put on some socks and stay a while.

I just want a simple life. And since I am chucking out some vocab, things are looking a little roomier in that cluttered little mind up here. It is making the things that matter look more and more important, when there is nothing around for them to hide behind. I have a lovely pup, a crazy fantastic best friend/love, and beautiful people who I am lucky to call friend. I breathe clean air, walk around the block, smile often, and can see the sun peeking its glow from behind winter's grey shield. And for all this, I am breathing a little more easy, more content. For all this, I am loving, actually, adoring, the normal that has settled itself on my doorstep.

Dear Spring, Do Come Quickly

I guess spring has already taken a leap smack dab into the middle of my life, and I have to say I am loving it!

I have had a bit of a dry spell in the way of, well, pretty much everything. I was working a SERIOUSLY part time job, cooped up in my cute but sometimes suffocating lil cottage of a home, and that was what my life pretty much consisted of. De.Press.Ing. Central.

However, true to His character, God has surprised me, yet again, just around the time I was giving up. I guess when we take a moment to stop in our tracks, stop running with our pride in tow, and instead face it head on, possibly challenge it to a duel, you find the real win of the situation is finding your feet again. Humility my dear friends, humility indeed is quite refreshing.

Being back at E91 is like a breath of unbelievably fresh spring air after this long stale winter. And I can feel it in my bones, the fire God has set in my soul to love Him with my life. I feel so alive when I am exactly where God has placed my heart. Sometimes I just struggle to find where he placed it, haha. But, here I am, back where I started and no where near where I imagined, and it is a peaceful, joyful spring in my life.

I can feel winter fading, even now, in the air. So thank you, Mr. Weather, for accompanying me on my journey...

Dear Spring, I can smell you and feel you on your way. Do come quickly...

Full of Lies...

My hopes in the promises made to me by society are often brought crashing to the ground when I realize the truth behind it. In the hope that I am not too late in reaching you, dear reader, I will shed some light on the lies we are fed.

Full of lies #1: "Gap Jeans - A perfect fit for everyone". I think what Gap meant to say was, "A perfect fit for anyone who is not the average height or weight of this country". Because last time I checked, if you are going to make jean promises at all, which is a dangerous promise to make in America, you might seriously want to consider making one that fits the majority of humans. But hey, who knew you were only going to make that promise to the 5% of the world? Not I...sadly enough. I left empty handed realizing my only options were to swim in them, or flood in them. Too many water references.

Full of lies #2: "Look smart, pay less." - Dear Payless, I have a new slogan for you. "Come with high hopes, leave with disappointed dreams." I always see your commercials and salivate over the cute and trendy shoes you dangle before my face. Eventually I am tempted enough to venture out to your store where, sadly, I find shoe boxes full of lies. What happened to the cute trendy shoes? Why do you have 1 million boxes of hot pink and black tennis shoes by some random company, and only 1 pair of sandles left in a size 45? Thus, I leave the store empty handed, unable to take advantage of the BOGO deal.

Full of lies #3: Skinny jeans. I mean seriously...I don't think I need to say more. A glorified low-rise version of the mom jean that I have desperately been trying to make look trendy on my body for two years now and have failed at every time. I have a request. Can we end this trend? I mean I love the fact that I can wear my jeans in my boots, but I am willing to trade that for a jean that doesn't make me look like I just ate an entire chocolate cake all by myself. I just want a trendy jean that I can wear with my boots that fits the curvies. Too much to ask? Perhaps we could introduce a jean called "The average jean".

Full of lies#4: Target. You were my first love. Yet sadly, it seems that year after year your prices go up, and your selection goes down. Where oh where are the throw pillows of excellence and cuteness that used to line your hallowed halls? Where are the bedspreads of unspeakable glory at amazingly low prices? Where are your exceptional smelling artistic candles for not an arm and a leg? What happened to you target? You have lost sight of your meaning...and I believe I can help. You have two options, end the slogan "Expect more Pay less", or actually get more and let me pay less. I miss our relationship Target...can we work this out?

Defending the Real Holidays.

It comes every year. It looms around the corner for both lovers and haters alike. It is a black cloud of too much money spent, or to much anger and depression built up and released in one day. It is, yes, sadly, Valentine's Day.

Now before you pull out your defense of the historical beginnings of this humble holiday, or how wonderful it is to celebrate love, let me just ask one thing...

Is gravity still working as the earth continues to orbit the sun which provides us with vegetation so that we may breathe the oxygen we are currently surviving on as the clouds absorb the water to replenish our streams and rivers that we drink of eventually as it is hydrating the essence of our very being as we wake another day to life? Yes...it is? Well, good. I was just making sure, because for a moment there it seemed like just maybe the world was ending because of a paper heart doily. Just checking.

Now that we have cleared that up, please let me place a refreshing spin on the most disputed holiday of all time.

1. Who. Freaking. Cares.

I know at first glance this defense seems, thin, destructible, and just plain nonsense. But I urge you to take a moment and look around you. Do you happen to see a shift in the galaxy? Perhaps you see a crowd of people outside your window all pointing, laughing, and snapping photos of you because you are single. Or perhaps that crowd is there because you forgot to buy that box of chocolates that is all but equal to the sustenance of life on this very day. The one that will, indeed, save your relationship. Maybe, if you are more unlucky still, that restaurant called to tell you that you are, in fact, no longer welcome there, seeing as you did not make the life saving dinner reservation this evening. Wait, I'm sorry, what was that you said? No, you do not see these things? None of the above has occurred? Oh. Strange. Maybe that's because no one cares. Let me rephrase this. I care about your life, and you as a person. But on the whole, this holiday does not define your life. And to be frank with you, blogging world, everyone around you is either too concerned with their own singleness or chocolate box relationship to take time to think about yours on this day. Perhaps tomorrow, on February 15, they will be ready to look into your relationship status.

2. It is 24 hours...but can you survive it?

The question of the day. Can you survive 24 hours of singleness/relationship hazing rituals? My answer...if you have made it thus far, congratulations, you have trained well for this day young grasshopper. Now go out there and breathe, because in 24 hours, you will still be breathing. Ah, solace.

3. If you love someone...does today really matter that much?

Now to my serious point. I mean, I think it is a wonderful thing to celebrate love, to celebrate a martyr who believed in love (and, oh, how I wish we could just leave it at that). However, if you want to celebrate love, why should it just be today? I know everyone says this, but I really mean it. Buy her a box of chocolates (I have no idea why I am fixated on that one, just go with it), flowers, or a card on a random day. Take her out to a nice dinner on the 10th of May, just because. Don't do it because the holiday says to, at least, that is how I would feel. But, alas, I am not every woman and can truly only speak for myself.

So, there you have it blogging world. I am not bitter because I am single, I am not gloating because I have a "perma-valentine". I am upset because, for one day, February 14th, the world turns on its axis over a few doily hearts and chocolates.

The Up Word

I was dozing off last night and thinking, as I usually do, at this most inopportune time. I usually have some of my biggest revelations right before my 8 hour coma is allowed free reign...thus losing most of these thoughts. This time, however, I repeated my revelation to myself several times in hopes it would stick.

I was pondering the word up. Why in the world does everything end in the word up? I am sure it is partially because I am a mid-westerner and we end every phrase in a preposition (shame on us terrible grammar users), but it was so intriguing to me. Zip up your coat. Buckle up for safety (beep beep) buckle up (anyone?)! Pump up. Measure up. Get up. Give up, grow up. (what is even funnier is realizing the definition of these words ending in "down", haha).

It seems that here in America, the hard working, tough as nails, self-made man, still offers some things up to the unknown. Ending these phrases in "up" makes me think that, possibly, we are releasing them in some way, releasing the definition of these words into "the abyss" to see what there damage and/or triumph will be. You see, every one of us has a small part inside that allows us to see that in fact, things never are what they seem and we cannot control that. In effect, it is as if, in our terrible grammar, we are giving up a tiny piece of the control we try and cling to in hopes of some semblance of order.

The funniest thing to me is, that of all the phrases to release, "grow" is the most vital. I have had to let this word take its course in my life, but until recently I have not understood what having no control over this word truly looks like. I am 23 and nowhere near who I thought I would be or where I thought I would end up at this point in my life. Working a job that I am essentially clueless about, being a newlywed and figuring that whole situation out, watching the people around me morph from schoolmates, to wives, to mothers in mere years, and finally accepting what looks to be the responsibilities of adulthood.

Even though I am sure everyone did their best to prepare me for this, I feel like looking at the world and saying "My, my grandmother, what big teeth you have", only to hear the response "All the better to eat you with my dear." Yes, I said it, I took it there. Everyone keeps telling me, "well Caitlin that is just life", but you know what, that doesn't mean I don't get to be momentarily stunned by how oddly my life is turning out.

But, I suppose, as you say, that is, indeed, life. And I must...oh what's the word...grow up? I must offer up my hope in the unexpected that is the definition of this phrase. And I must take life as it comes, every opportunity I can, cling to the idea that there will be a triumph in the end, and see that losing control is sometimes the best adult medicine there is.