Take responsibility for your vibe

Summer’s here and we are doing with it what we can. Summer with kids is wild and exhausting and there’s sand everywhere and somehow more pressure to make weekends fun and adventurous despite the heat and the limited childcare and the fact that work doesn’t change. But it’s also making core memories for your kiddos at beaches coast to coast. It’s finding moments and days to savor the sunshine, the smell of sunscreen, sitting in a cold pool, laughing with friends. It’s ignoring laundry when you need to, in the name of bumming out. Trying to live by Adriene’s wise words of “take responsibility for your vibe” as much as possible.

some infinities are larger than others.

I just finished reading “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green, and I have many feelings about it. I think it’s one of the best sad books I’ve read, and I am glad that we read it for Book Club. I won’t say much more about it because I want you to go read it because it’s a great easy read and because I think you’ll like it.

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I think one of my favorite things about reading a good book is how great it makes you feel, and how much it reminds you that you want to read more. After finishing this, I sat down for several hours yesterday reading Harry Potter (Number 6) because C and M and I are rereading the series. I am also reading Twelve Years a Slave (my lunch time nonfiction book) and The Goldfinch (my BFF-told-me-to-so-do-it book) and And the Mountains Echoed (the I really love this author and also my BFF said I’ll love it book.)

I have always been a person to read more than one book at a time, mainly because I like to be able to start and stop depending on my mood, weaving in and out of different worlds, times in history or the future, in different perspectives. I try to be reading the book club book, a novel, a nonfiction book, and sometimes throw in another novel (or two) for good measure.

This means I am never left thinking “Ugh I am tired and don’t want to read that sad book about slavery” because OH WAIT you’re also reading a young adult novel about wizards. When people ask me about it, how I read more than one book at a time, this is what I tell them: it’s like having your arsenal of unwatched TV shows queued up on your DVR. You watch multiple shows during the week, you don’t need to finish an entire season before you can move onto another show.

I assume the average person can keep straight the characters of a show (I don’t confuse Lady Grantham with Barney Stinson’s universe, and I don’t forget that Crosby is married to Jasmine in Northern California and that Leslie loves Pawnee, IN., and Ben’s butt, no matter what.) And so it goes. You read and you remember how much you love it, and pretty soon that’s all you want to do.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

 

we were meant to be known

This is a birthday heavy week, you guys. In addition to my brother-in-law’s birthday on the 11, and Nikki’s on the 12, today is none other than Ms Corelyn’s birthday.

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I love this photo of us, because look at our faces! True love, you guys.

Corelyn is the only OTHER person that can boss me around like Nikki can. She’s reasonable (except when I need her to make a cake with me at midnight), she’s always game for anything (even after saying no, we cannot make more cookies, she’ll pull out the whisk and dive right in), and she is pretty much the best person to hang out with, whether in the kitchen or watching television or traipsing around Los Angeles (or the country.)

Sometimes, I think the only reason that GMS works is because Corelyn knows how to rein me in, refocus me, and because we genuinely, truly are best friends. If we liked each other even the SLIGHTEST bit less, GMS would fall apart at the seams.

We have been together through thick and thin, through good and bad, and we have spent the past nearly 5 years constantly emailing, texting, calling, Gchatting, and carrier pigeon-ing each other. We survived her move away, and back. She’s my person. When we’re not busy convincing people we’re not lesbians (running a blog together makes it hard to take photos, you guys, and we often end up looking longingly at each other) we’re hanging out in a crowd, probably talking to each other, or telling someone a story about each other.

This has become cheesier than I meant it to be, but I think that sometimes friendship love is the love that’s the most unsung: family is a given, and relationships depend on constant acts of love, but friends are beat up emotionally nearly on the regular, and are expected to just take it as part of the friendship, without much appreciation, gratitude, or, well, love.

S0, Corelyn, I love you. And I am sorry because you’re probably now crying. I am, too. I am so glad you were born into this world, where we could meet and become best friends, so that we could be known to this universe. I hope that today is the best day, and tomorrow is even better, and so on, infinity.

Truly, thank you, for being my best friend.

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