Today I was at work mindlessly cleaning some menus (life after college amirite?) when out of no where a giant, white hummer limousine pulled up in front of the restaurant. To my horror, I watched as the back door flew open and twenty grown-ass adults came tumbling out of the thing and made their way to my host desk. And I’m not just talking grown-ass adults like you and I pretend to be, oh no, I’m talking grown-ass adults in their forties and fifties.

As I watched them approach, I could feel my annoyance grow to dangerous levels. Immediately I assumed my defensive position and battened down the hatches for the storm that was about to hit. Large, boisterous parties in the middle of a dinner rush are the things nightmares are made of.

Once inside, the least drunk of the group stepped forward and asked how long the wait would be for twenty – because of course they didn’t have a reservation*. When I informed her that it would be close to a thirty minute wait, I fully expected the usual eye roll huff and puff routine that most large parties without a reservation perform. Instead, the woman’s face lit up and she was just like, “THAT’S AWESOME. GIVE ME A HIGH FIVE!” So, I mean, of course I did and in an instant my mood changed from annoyance to joy as I began to suspect I had just found my new best friends.

While the rest of her group proceded to high five everyone in sight on their way to the bar, the woman explained to us that all of their kids were at prom and that while the kids were dancing the night away they decided to steal the limo and have a party of their own because it seemed like such a waste to have that limo doing nothing for three hours. And that’s when I knew I had found my new best friends. Because these parents are totally doing life right. Like, I’m sure their kids had an amazing time at the dance but I can guarantee their parents had a better time.

I have never seen a happier group of parents acting so brilliantly like children. They were having the night of their lives ordering fireball shots and tequila shots and eating awesome food and laughing and riding around Seattle in a mother fucking limousine.

And that’s when I realized that that is exactly what I want to be when I grow up.

*We later found out that they had actually tried to make a reservation earlier in the week but through a weird miscommunication none of us had heard anything about it.

Also, I had to put the internet in the corner this weekend because otherwise I would be spending my Saturday night crying over all the of the awesome happening in Vegas right now without me. Seriously. My heart. It hurts. So instead I’ve been focusing on my new coolest ever limo stealing BFFs. You know you jelly, BiSC-uits!

BETTE. MERYL. OLIVIA. GOLDIE. CHER.

I started reading Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith today. It has been an interesting experience so far in that reading words describing feelings that are entirely too familiar to me makes me feel simultaneously reassured and less alone as well as on the verge of an anxiety attack at any moment because the words feel that familiar. When I am deep in the well of anxiety I am usually aware of how irrational I am being, but I feel so helpless to do anything about it. This is why I am often so afraid of talking to anyone about what I am going through, and often feel so alone in my anxiety. That’s my favorite part about Daniel’s writing. He does a great job of capturing the irrationality of anxiety in an amusing and familiar way.

The thing that hit me the hardest was when he started talking about how freedom is often the biggest downfall for the anxious. There is a deep-seeded anxiety in knowing you have to make a choice between one thing or another and constantly fearing that you will make the wrong choice and set off a regrettable chain of events.  The more options you have to choose from and the bigger the choice, the more intense the anxiety. This is easily the biggest hurdle I am often faced with.

A good friend of mine once told me that I am the kind of person who wants everything all at once. And it is completely true. This is exactly why I have such a hard time figuring out what I want to be when I grow up and why you’ll often get a different answer every single time you ask me.

No seriously if you had asked me two weeks ago I would have told you with complete conviction that I want to go back to school to study nutrition. Today? I want to be a high school science teacher.

Except it’s not that I no longer want to be a nutritionist. It’s that I am just leaning more toward science teacher. The desire for both has always been there – and still is. In addition to that I also want to be a writer. And a race coordinator. And a professional party planner. And a teacher of English abroad. And an EMT. And a marine biologist. And a social media guru. And a TV and movie critic. And an international volunteer. And a physician’s assistant. And a worker of seasonal jobs in exotic places. And an imagineer creating magic every single day.

See? I want to do it all.

And the thought of committing to just one of those things – even though I know that is the key to being successful at any of them – is what keeps me up at night the most. I know that the second I commit to my life as a high school science teacher I am turning my back on my life as a professional nomad. And listen, on a rational level I completely realize that that isn’t actually true, but that isn’t how anxiety works.

Anxiety tells me that once I make my choice that’s it. Forever. So I might as well not pick and be a ball of indecision until the end of my days. Except the anxiety of not choosing is worse. It’s a terrible cycle of suck, really.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this is mostly what I dealt with for the greater part of 2012 and in to 2013. I know it all sounds kind of silly – that I am blessed with so many amazing opportunities – but the crippling anxiety I felt at not being able to figure out what I want to do with my life is exactly what led me to one of the darkest years of my entire life.

These past few months I have been focused on taking things one step at a time because I know that has played the most significant role in bringing me closer to making the big choices. I know that one day I will figure this all out, and that I am not alone in facing this kind of uncertainty. I’d probably even figure it out sooner if my damn monkey mind would stop getting in my way.

But what is the fun in that?

So I’m missing Bloggers in Sin City for the first time since I first discovered Bloggers in Sin City and I can already tell that watching Bloggers in Sin City unfold in real time from thousands of miles away is the actual worst.

It also doesn’t help that at least five different people I know in Seattle are travelling to Vegas this weekend, too. All for completely different reasons, too! What are the chances of THAT?

At least I have my Super Cool Party Person, Amanda, to commiserate with me.

As for my beloved BiSC-uits descending upon Las Vegas this weekend: Please have the best most sparkliest time and don’t forget to dance your mother effing faces off for me!

In the mean time I am going to re-read my recap from last year and keep myself as far away from Twitter and Instagram as possible this weekend.

This morning afternoon I woke up to a dead bird in the middle of my living room. Two days ago I woke up to the most disgusting hair ball of all time by the stairs leading in to my living room. Two days before that I woke up to an entire bag of garbage strewn all about – you guessed it – my living room.

With the previous three statements I think it is safe to say that either a.) I should probably never sleep again or b.) something needs to be done about the animals in my life.

Possibly related: I started watching The Twilight Zone today and I’m already beginning to suspect that maybe my entire life is one giant episode of The Twilight Zone.

Finally, this is your friendly reminder that Pretty Little Liars returns four weeks from today and you all have until then to get your shit together and get caught up because that’s when I stop talking about how Rod Serling should narrate my life and instead I start narrating the lives of four very pretty little liars.

A good friend of mine once accused me of being the most nostalgic person that he has ever met. He kind of said it like it was a bad thing, but I was just like “You bet I am! Remember that one time we…?”

Lately my nostalgia has manifested itself in the form of the music I listened to in high school. It wasn’t until my Sophomore year of high school when my friends and I started swapping mixed CDs that I really started to develop a personal connection to the music that I listened to. I don’t know about you, but I really miss the old days of mixed CDs. Sending someone a Spotify playlist just isn’t the same.

Anyway, over the next couple of weeks I am going to be sharing some of the artists that had the biggest impact on my early music years. You know, because indulging in nostalgic fantasies is exactly what blogs are for.

To start things off, I present to you my favorite thing to ever come out of Russia. Well, maybe other than Anastasia obvs.

Regina Spektor

The first “show” I ever went to was a Regina Spektor concert. I still remember standing in the middle of that intimate venue and having a moment while her melodic voice filled the space around me. The moment was made all the more magical when she stopped in the middle of a song to tell an obnoxious heckler in the middle of the crowd to either cut it out or get the fuck out. Except she was the most charming about it. Pretty much every single one of her songs elicits a specific memory for me and that is always my favorite part about music. The fact that it is simultaneously universal and personal.

Also, my biggest regret from high school is that I never followed through on my dream of having my then best friend and I dress up as Regina and her man friend from the video below.

I don’t spend a lot of my time around children. In fact, I actively try to spend as little time as possible with anyone under the age of ten. This is how I have been my entire life. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I have always been surrounded by people either my own age or older. I never really spent time with any of my younger cousins and no one super close to me has had any children since I’ve become an adult (which is good because that’s when I start to lose my shit. Like, I only just started to be okay with the idea of my friends getting married. Children? Too soon.).

Kids make me feel awkward and I don’t like it. And I hate when they cry. And they smell funny.

A lot of my dearest friends, while understanding of why I wanted to work for Disney, couldn’t quite wrap their heads around how I was going to work for Disney. They were always all like, “But you realize there are going to be a ton of kids everywhere right?” And I just kind of half listened while imagining myself hanging out with my boy Mickey as we happily rode all the rides in a completely child-free park. But then I actually GOT to Disney World and was assigned to work for Chef Mickey’s (aka the restaurant most beloved by all children) and I was just like, “HOW DID I GET HERE.”

In my post-Disney life I maybe interacted with like five children total. It was glorious. But then I started working for a generally kid-friendly restaurant and now I see, and interact with, kids all the time. At first I thought I would be totally freaked out by this but then something weird kind of happened. In the time that I have worked at the restaurant I have learned that not only do I suddenly know how to talk to children, I can actually make them laugh and stuff. Even crazier? I actually, really enjoy it. 

Disney what have you done?!

Take for example: I used to think it was really weird when little kids would go off on their super long tangents about nothing in particular and I could never figure out what to do with myself. Usually I would just pretend to listen while brainstorming ways to distract them with a stick. But now, their really long tangents about nothing in particular are totally my favorite part about them.

Those imaginations, you guys! They should be an inspiration to us all.

Earlier today I called my mom to have her grab me a change of clothes for after I got off work so that I wouldn’t be wearing leggings as pants to her Mother’s Day dinner. Because, you know, I pretty much wear leggings as pants every day of my life.

At one point in the conversation I asked her to grab me a bra because hey sometimes (all of the times) I forget to put one on. Whatever.

After a moment of silence while my mom looked for a bra, I suddenly hear copious LAUGHTER on the other end of the line and then my mom is all, “Oh cute! It is so small!”

And I’m just like, “what is?!”

And she’s all, “YOUR BRA!”

So then I’m all like, “Whoa!”

And she’s just all, “I just mean it’s funny because you could fit a head in one side of mine and look at yours!”

“Uh, NOT HELPING MOM.”

—

Because listen the real reason my mom is the best is because she never shies away from reminding me that genetics kind of screwed me over and that there is clearly a reason I am always forgetting to put on a bra.

Thanks for keeping me grounded, ma. Because seriously, you are the best.

—

Happy Mother’s Day tomorrow everyone!

From Romeo

To Jack Dawson

To GATSBY

Overall I would give The Great Gatsby a solid ‘meh’, but honestly it is totally worth seeing for Leonardo DiCaprio being all Leonardo DiCaprio-y. You know, the old sport we all fell in love with so many years ago.

Also I totally wasn’t planning on posting four pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio in one week but that’s life, ya know?

1. Allie Brosh is back and wrote the best piece on depression I have ever read:

2. I updated my Facebook cover photo and it is the best thing that has happened to me so far this year: