d for dangerous

 

i bought this mug a few weeks ago at the thrift store near my house. i have a standing order (to myself, from myself) to snatch up anything that i think may be from anthropologie. that store is so crazy bean expensive that i don't even care if i like the item at the thrift store - it's a crazy steal and i need it. just to shake my fist at the man. though, let's be real , the man probably doesn't care.

this mug, though not my initial, is from anthro.  and it is delightful and i made it my offical office mug. we got office mugs at one point but they were HUGE and i couldn't fit it under the hot beverage dispenser and it also took like three hot chocolate packets to fill up so i was drinking WAAAYYYYY to much hot chocolate.  i'm happy with it as my work mug overall. i get about three hot beverages a day, just to break things up and as an excuse to stretch my legs. (which i can do on the way to the kitchen to get the beverage and on the way to the bathroom to dispose of the beverage a few hours later.)

the only really strange thing is that, not only does my name not start with a 'd' (sorry to disappoint everyone who's been spelling my name 'dcaitlin' - there is no silent 'd'.), but my coworker, who i share a space with and work next to for eight hours every day - that guy's name is Don. so now everyone things it's his mug. and it's a little too girly for his taste so he's not totally into it.

this is an important story! feel grateful i shared!

in other news: WHAT HAS WORKING 9-5 DONE TO MY BRAIN?!?!?

house

 

 i made this for work. and i would like to live in it. do you know who i would talk to about getting this made on a my-size scale? or shrinking me down so i can fit inside it? 

three things i definitely want in my grown up house, when i'm a grown up: a ping pong table, a trampoline, and a treehouse. obviously the last two can be outside of the actual house. in the backyard preferably. but once i have those things, i'll have it made in the shade. that's my american dream. also? it would ideally be an exact replica of my grandparent's house from growing up. that place was amazing. 

i'm consistently torn between wanting to set down roots somewhere and own a house, and wanting to move everywhere always. how can choose one place to make a home? can't i just have a home on wheels? can't i have a home with helicopter blades attached to the top? again, i need to know who to contact about this. do you people have connections? 

city life

 

i'm pretty future minded. i'm always thinking about what i want to do, where i want to live. i make a lot of lists. i plan trips and parties.

and every now and then i stop and look at my life, and i think to myself - i don't totally remember what i planned on doing at this point, but i'm pretty sure this isn't it. did i plan on living in philadelphia and working a 9-5 job? did i plan on dating a boy who lives two hours away? did i think i would look and dress this way? did i think i would think this way? did i imagine myself doing improv two to four nights a week? where did i see myself?

i don't even remember.

and i'm sure that two years from now, i won't even remember the plans i made for future me in the present. which begs the question, what's the point in planning anything? things aren't going to go as planned and that's not even a bad thing. it's just a thing. 

when i was in kindergarten, i imagined that sixteen year old caitlin would only wear stick-out-belly shirts and date a guy with a ponytail and a red convertible. when i was fourteen, i thought i would live in new york and be on broadway, despite my lack of vocal ability. i've wanted to be a journalist, the president, a teacher, and a doctor. and i'm not those things. and i don't want those things anymore. isn't it strange that we can change so much and still be the same person?

the point of the matter is, if you asked me five years ago where i thought i would be post-graduation, i would have never in a thousand years told you that i would be cramming a weeks worth of groceries into a bike basket and teetering home in the rain. never planned on that one.

let's talk about the disparity here

 

let's just get this out of the way - the pictures accompanying each of my posts have less and less to do with the actual content of the post. yesterdays was pretty good, but today? today i have a picture of my lunch in my super cool new grownup bento lunchbox, but i want to write about missing people. the things i want to share with you are no longer just memories or detailed accounts of meals and events, but things going on in my noggin. and i don't have the technology/it doesn't exist/if it did it would be too expensive for me to take a picture of the inside of my brain. i keep taking pictures of wonderful, bright, good things in my life while thinking about a million sentimental and sad things. my pictures are like a box of 8 crayons and my thoughts are the big 64 crayon box with a built in sharpener. so many things are going on up there. if you don't want to hear about it, just look at the pictures. food! colors! good looking people! i wouldn't blame you!

twenty two

 

i've been acting a fool recently.

late nights, open bars, and a big ol' mouth have lead me into situations that i'm embarrassed to think about the next day.

what's even worse than acting like a fool? dwelling on it for days after. turning it all over in your head until you believe it's way worse than you originally even anticipated. telling yourself that you should know better, that you're supposed to be more mature than that, more classy and composed.

but honestly? i don't know if that's true. it's probably true that i shouldn't split a bottle of wine with a friend before hitting a four hour open bar, or that i should at least pour the wine into a glass instead of swigging it straight out of the bottle. but i'm only twenty two. i just got out of college. i'm still in that mode. i have no dependents. no car payments or mortgage. i'm in this weird limbo where i have a steady paycheck but no homework and that frequently leads to happy hour. which leads to karaoke. which leads to embarrassing dancing.

point is: i need to take ten deep breaths, remind myself i'm only twenty two and don't need to have everything figured out, and never order whiskey sours again. 

sometimes

 

 you open up your crisper and find a stack of cds. get out of there cds. you don't belong there. you belong in cars. or 2007.

am i missing something?

 

am i missing something here? like a longer manual to my i-phone? the one i got is only like four pages long and as much as i appreciate the minimalist look, it's not exactly what i find most desirable in a booklet that's supposed to tell me how to work a futuristic handheld space computer communicator. siri just turns on at random and picks up on the conversations inside my purse and then when i pull out my phone, gems like this one show up. i swear to you, good people of the internet, that i never said that. even though that sounds like an awesome jingle. i am not one to sit around on my phone listening to jingles. i don't know who that would apply to. uncle joey and uncle jessie maybe. those are the only jingle-men i know.

additionally, while we are waving our dirty pants out the awkward express eastbound to whaddafugggg land, because we spilled hot sauce on the crotch and had to wash them in the sink but the blue soap is also staining and now we're pants-less on public transportation - let's talk about shirt buttons.

i have grown some boobs recently-ish. maybe they were there before, but it's just been in the past six months that i've noticed them. this should not come as a shock to anyone, since i'm a woman but for some reason, they're still new enough to me that i forget about them. not usually an issue except when it comes to shirts.

i like me a button down, but boobs seem to disagree. i buy a shirt, put it on, button it up and boobs yell NOOOOOOO! GET US OUT OF HERE! WE BE BUSTIN' FREEEEE! they create this gap that makes me look like an extra in a britney spears music video. but my love for button downs outweighs the cries of boobs, so i continue to wear them.

and i continue to be paranoid about the gap. and the potential for other people to peep my cleavage. the pervs. this is not for you! this is a result of poor design! or my lack of knowledge about sizing!

and then i find myself checking on the gap all day, just to make sure the window to the valley of the boobs isn't exposed to the public.

and at the end of the day, i can't be sure how many people have checked out the boobs, but i know i've kept my eyes on them all day. this shirt has caused me to stare at my own cleavage all day. ironic, right?

do you like buttons? boobs? gaping shirts?

underdog update

 

feast your eyes on hot dogs five, six, seven, and eight. we are moving right along in the underdog challenge. 8 down, 15 to go. still on track to finish at christmas. fame and fortune will surely be ours. in the form of a painted fist on a wall in philadelphia.

a promise

 

 if you hurt me or anyone i love, i will put this in your bed. and you will not like it.

care for some cheese with your whine?

 

total upfront disclaimer: if you don't feel like listening to a whiny baby, turn your internet butt around. 

Goddamn. Why is no one talking about this mother flipping age? More specifically, why is no one talking about how badly this mother flipping age sucks?

Can we all just come out and say it? That 22 is the worst age ever? (Though I’m sure 23 is a close second.)

Whenever people talk about ‘their twenties’ I feel like they’re referring to 25 and beyond. And before that, everyone just mentions college. At the most, the age bracket of 22-24 is referred to in vague terms. “After college I rolled around.” “Post grad I bler de blah’d.” “Fler de der de dah 22.” Is there an international conspiracy to gloss over this dark age of a year? The only people who actually mention 22 are the beautiful morman mommy blogs, god love them. (you know I read like eighty bajillion a day. And every time I fall in love with a new blogger? You bet your sweet candy ass they’re a morman blog.) But when they talk about 22, it’s in relation to their one year wedding anniversary. SWEET BEANS. CAN I GET A NORMAN PERSON IN CYBER SPACE WHO REMEMBERS THESE DARK TIMES TO OFFER SOME WORDS OF SOLACE?!

Even my mom finally fessed up. As I whined on the phone (the new standard for our conversations) about being 22, she finally sighed and said “Yeah. I feel like a lot of people don’t talk about that.” “That” being the feeling of failure when you can’t find a job after graduation. Or the feeling that comes with finding a job and knowing you’re locked into something indefinitely. “That” being the feeling that everyone else is doing something more meaningful than you. “that” being the idea that you’re not good at anything and you’re’ going to get stuck where you are right now, forever. “That” being all your friends moving back home and talking about how much it sucks and still being jealous that they get to hang out with their moms. “That” being the weird guilt you feel for wishing you still got to live at home. “That” being the heartache that comes with not being able to be yourself at work or work within your skill set. “That” being the state of limbo your whole life is in. And the guilt you feel for being such a little turd about something so many people have lived through before.

I need Christmas asap.

famous dad

 
did i mention my dad's picture is in a book? a book called dads are the original hipsters? because it totally is.

i used to follow the blog dads are the original hipsters and when they called for submissions, i totally jumped on it because my dad is AWESOME and we are lucky enough to have a whole slew of pictures to testify to this awesomeness. i submitted the picture in early 2011 and didn't hear anything back, or see it on the blog, so i thought nothing of it.

fast forward to may of 2012 - i'm in universal studios watching some sinbad show and i get a text from beth cozzolino. it's the above picture asking, "is this your dad?" apparently, the book came out and was being sold at urban outfitters and barnes and nobles all over the place. i immediately bought the book and surprised my dad with it as an early father's day gift. now his amazingness if forever immortalized in print. LOOK AT HOW COOL THIS GUY IS! 

the find of a lifetime

 
 let me set the scene: saturday morning. sitting at the island in the kitchen. it's only like eight am which classifies as early for a saturday. i'm scanning the newspaper, looking for things that are easy to read. (not a good thing to do, but let's keep this post honest) things that are totally easy to read and very similar to shopping? classifieds. the original craigslist. yard sale section is my main game. i'm scoping, but not serious. i have plans to hang with my mom at the flea market - my morning is already mapped out and looks pretty sweet. BUT THEN - amid the listings for strollers and used blinds, it caught my eye. GLOBE BAR.

i know what a globe bar is. i have seen two of them. in antique stores. for stupid amounts of money. money that is over half of my weekly paycheck. so i left them, sadly, with a vow to find one, someday, in the future, when i am a millionare.

and then i saw that paper. i didn't want to get my hopes up. maybe it was just a stupid small thing or a towel bar that had a map on it. i don't know what i thought it could be, but i was fairly certain it wasn't going to be the ultra rare globe bar.

 
my mom and i decided to do a drive by just to see if it was worth stopping. and as we rolled by the address listed, there it was. at the bottom of the driveway. in all it's globe bar glory. i immediately hopped out of the car and raced towards it. a middle aged man seemed to be going to towards it but i doubled my step and beat him to the punch. dude said "fifty bucks" and i said "SOLD!". didn't even tr to haggle it was worth every penny. made in spain in the 1970's by prison inmates. freaking beautiful. so in love. 

let's not forget about the weirdness

 

did i mention that sometimes while scouring the shelves at thrift stores, you stumble on some amazingly weird stuff? stuff like this little inexplicable beauty? that's another perk to hitting the thrift circuit.