I love life.

2007 has by far been the best year of my life.

I'm graduating from college in five days and moving to New Mexico three weeks after that. I was offered a three-month design internship at a newspaper, and I'm so thrilled at the opportunity to improve (and to live in the south for the winter, I'll be honest!). I wanted to go somewhere really random, so I think this will work out perfectly for me.

I found out Thursday that I got the internship of my dreams. I have been obsessed with this internship for more than a year and a half now. In the craziness that was London, I never got the chance to take the test and apply, but I managed to do that this year. I'll be working at The Associated Press in New York City this summer, in a copy-editing internship program that's worth three years' real work experience. I'll be doing an internship residency at Temple University in Philadelphia, and I'll receive a $1,000 scholarship to go back to school in the fall.

I'm sad to leave here, as I've grown to love it, but I'll be back, and I know at least a few of my friends will be returning in the fall, too. I am soooo excited about 2008, and I'm not sure how it could be better than 2007, but it's looking really promising.

So ... EEEEEEEEEK!!!!! I'm not convinced this is really my life, but I'm not going to be the one to tell God he made a mistake. :)

What would they call this Ice Deli flavor?

On Monday afternoon, my dad was at work in the office, my mom was teaching, I was asleep in my room, Scott was downstairs, Julie was in Washington, Amy was in Florida, Lyndsey was just plain missing and Kevin and Lexie were happily making chocolate pudding together. I had just come downstairs, wrapped in a blanket, my hair all over the place and my eyes crusted half-close, and I saw my two little lovebugs involved over a dessert bowl. Precious.

My mom came home later, and by chance, all three of us were in the kitchen again, each doing our own thing. My mom leaned over the half-eaten bowl of pudding and made a face. "What is THIS?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. My mom would eat chocolate off the bottom of her shoe. I didn't know what she was complaining about. "It's chocolate pudding, Mom," I said. She stared at it once more. "I see that - but why is it green?"

Huh? I walked over and peered in the bowl with her. There was indeed a day-glo green haze in the dark brown goop.

"Oh," Kevin said, casually, "Lexie added green food coloring."

My mom and I glanced at each other, raising our eye brows. Now why on EARTH. Lexie didn't keep us waiting long.

"I wanted to make it look like diarrhea," she replied.

I wish I could say we only laughed for an hour or two. But no. We're still laughing.

Electrifyin' controversy

Letters to the Editor
Published Thursday, July 19, 2007

Profanities, cigarettes not needed in ‘Grease’
I attended the opening night production of “Grease” at the Muni. While the performances were outstanding, with wonderful singing, dancing and sets, I walked away feeling angry and disappointed.

Nick Rogers noted in his review that the show featured “slightly more profanity” than the film version. So much for the family-friendly venue expected for a Springfield reproduction of an American classic. Every time a character threw out a profanity during the show, the audience took a collective gasp, parents and kids alike.

The directors also failed to announce the main sponsor of this year’s Grease production, although they provided plenty of product plugs. Even with all the money the tobacco industry has, I’m doubtful that even Philip Morris could afford the kind of publicity the Muni provided for them. Who needs laws forbidding tobacco companies from advertising to children when the Muni will do it for them?

“Grease” had a cast of some of the most talented performers Springfield has to offer, each waving a cigarette between two fingers. When star Cory Blissett (Danny Zuko) was in high school, his face was plastered on a few dozen buses in Springfield touting an anti-smoking message. How long ago four years seems.

Were the directors really so blind to their own talent that they thought a performance without smoking (real cigarettes, too!) would be somehow less exciting?

It’s too bad the directors deemed it best to expose their proteges (singers, no less!) to more than 4,000 chemicals for each performance, glorifying for thousands of Muni patrons the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States each year.

What’s really “electrifyin’” is that no one thought of the impressionable kids sitting in the audience, watching and listening with eager eyes and ears the people they may one day hope to emulate.

Ashley Thomas, New Berlin

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Let's see how our friendly Springfield community responded to this, shall we?


TO Ashley wrote at 7/19/2007 9:16:10 AM

Have been watching TV the last 20 years? Give me a break.


grease 7/19/07 wrote at 7/19/2007 10:39:32 AM

Isn't is the point of a play to re-invent the film version? Did this lady watch the movie? I thought the inclusion of smoking and profanity was included to replicate the movie. Do people live in the real world anymore? Do they not think that children see smoking and hear profanity everyday? Maybe before taking children to a replication of a movie, you should watch the movie to see if you choose to have your children exposed. How did former generations ever survive with all of the drinking and cussing. Somehow they created this perfect generation of people who judge and complain because they have nothing better to do.


anonymous wrote at 7/19/2007 11:25:19 AM

I would like to ask Ashley Thomas if she knows how many chemicals she is exposed to when she cleans her house, washes her car, paints the garage, feeds the grass, kills bugs or weeds, fills the gas tank, eats food or just about anything else we do in our daily lives. Ashley, Grease had smoking in it's original production whether you like it or not. What makes you think it is your place to scrub history clean to fit your own personal desires? Obtuse elitism, that's what. It was said that people just up and left the production. That is GREAT! It is an example of what free people are supposed to do when they find a situation disagreeable. Those who stayed, also GREAT. It is also an example of a free people doing what a free people are supposed to do when they find a situation agreeable.


Stay Home Ashley wrote at 7/19/2007 1:00:16 PM

I'm tired of prudes ruining everything in Springfield because they think we have to change everything to be child-friendly. Sorry but the world doesn't revolve around your choice to have children. Stay home with them if you can't handle the real world.


My final remark --
I also think a lot of people underestimate the danger of cigarettes since tobacco is so engrained in our culture. Cigarettes today contain more nicotine than ever to hook people quickly. Was it really necessary to use real cigarettes in the performance? Even if the Muni had issued a content warning (which they didn't), that still doesn't excuse the directors from endangering their performers and not having their best interests at heart. The show may have been set in the 50s, but it took place in the 21st century when we SHOULD know better.

Fortune cookie surprise

So I have some really good news and a really depressing reminder. Unfortunately, they are one in the same.

The amazing news -- my favorite cousin in the entire world is pregnant!!!! I was a bridesmaid in her September '05 wedding. She is so cute and her husband is so sweet, and they will make the best parents. I have a seventh sense about the sex of babies, and I think they're having a boy. Oh my gosh, I can't tell you how excited I am. I didn't really appreciate the novelty of babies growing up since there was always a new one, but there's been a drought lately and I really need to hold one.

I didn't even think there could be bad news after an announcement like that, but I grew really sad afterwards and I tried to figure out why. I am so thrilled for my cousin, and I look at her and her new life - she and her husband are building a new house next spring, etc. - and I just have this sense of dread for my own life.

I do not think I'll get married, and I do not think I'll have kids. I know I say I don't want to and some days I actually believe that, but I really really do. I want to be married even more than I want kids, if that's even humanly possible. But I don't think it'll happen. I don't even like guys. I'm actually repulsed by them, and I think they're all idiots. That is a really hard place to work from. My dad said to me a few days ago, "I'm not saying this as your dad -- but I would go for a much older guy if I were you. Guys your age are immature." I KNOW, DAD. I tried that! He was insane!

So it's dumb and I know I'm only 21, but I don't want to date anyone; I just want to get married. Dating is stupid. So are boys. I just want a husband.

(BTW - They put the baby announcement inside a fortune cookie and passed them around to all of us. So cute!)

"My mom tells me I'm not much of a catch."

Last night before bed, I swallowed a pill that lodged itself in my air passage. Over the course of the next 12 hours, it slowly made its way down into my lungs. If you want to know what happens in a situation like this, let me tell you that it burns. Really bad. I'm not sure what happened once it reached my lungs, but it did stop feeilng like I had swallowed a hamster with sharp nails whole.

I spent another weekend in Iowa, this time with Carly. In the 36 hours we were there, we managed to go to a frat house, meet her kindergarten boyfriend, involve ourselves in a 7-car interstate wreck, tour the Obama campaign headquarters, watch Meredith try on 10 different outfits, go to two smoky bars, hear political babble, sleep next to a snoring boy, pronounce Dubuque as 'duh-BUCK-ee', enjoy an interstate traffic standstill for 2 hours and car dance wildly to the Backstreet Boys. I even introduced her to her car's cruise control, helpful after 7 years of thinking it didn't work.

I'm still sleepy. It takes me a couple of days to recover from busy weekends. I've been like this since I was little. It probably didn't help that we got in at 2 a.m. and then I slept in the fetal position on a too-small couch next to a thundering snorer.

the 's' word

It could be because I'm conservative, that I'm shy, modest, cautious, that I come from a religious family, that Jesus is looking down on me from every nook and cranny of our house. It could be because I'm a good girl and always listen to my parents. Because I do, although I no longer permit my mother to dress me. I would even say that I come from a loving family, even if Lyndsey and Lexie do beat each other whenever they get the chance. They don't care if Mom and Dad are watching.

But I know at least one of these things is a reason I never want to have sex. Which is a problem because I would love to be married and have kids.

As you grow up, you learn that sex is bad. It's something you don't talk about outloud, at least when you're young. I remember being in fifth grade and reading from my science book, and the textbook briefly mentioned "sexual organisms." A girl from my class got that paragraph and she read the words outloud, and I was mortified for myself and ESPECIALLY for her. I later heard her whisper to someone that if she had seen the word "sexual," she would have skipped her turn.

My mom used to tell me that "boys only want one thing." "They'll use you and walk away," she would say. "Then the girl ends up alone and pregnant. Boys use love to get sex. Girls use sex to get love." Well, that's pretty scary! Boys were the enemy. I surely didn't want to be a stupid girl like my mom talked about. Besides, I was shy and I got embarrassed easily. I never went to any dances in junior high. I remember a boy called me when I was in fifth grade to ask me to the end-of-the-year dance. So embarrassing! It was the shortest phone conversation of my life, and when I hung up the phone, my mom asked who it was. I told her it was an Asian girl in my class that she didn't know -- like maybe the girl's non-existant accent could sound the same as a boy's voice. I mean, I was desperate!

"Sex is only okay when you're married." This perturbed me a little bit. You go to a church in a white dress, kiss in front of the entire congregation and cut the wedding cake, and suddenly you have God's blessing? Suddenly a boy stops becoming evil, stops only wanting one thing? How do you know? "If he waits until marriage, that means he loves you," my mom would say. What if he's just waiting until marriage to use me? What if the marriage happens and then I realize that, in actuality, I'm still TERRIFIED of sex? Um. Whoops.

There are sex toys. Condoms. Vibrators. Sexy lingerie. Lubricant. Threesomes. One-night stands. And probably some of the ugliest parts on the human body. This is supposed to be love? This is how we show someone that we're in love with them, that we'll love them forever?

Traditionally, women who had sex before marriage were considered the dregs of society. Once you had sex, you were worthless. Your life was meaningless. Because someone inserted his penis in your vagina? What does that have to do with meaning? What about intelligence, beauty, smiles, laughter, hugs, happiness? Is that meaningless?

So I don't really see the direct correlation between sex and love. I don't see the virtue in it, and I wish God could have come up with a holier method of having kids. Or at least a way that people didn't decide to abuse to make it ugly.

I hope I get a different outlook on things. I would really like to be a mommy.

Rejection makes the heart grow fonder. -- my mom

There was actually a point to my last blog entry. I know I made one, but it wasn't the one I intended to. I do that sometimes.

The point I wanted to segue into is that you can't make someone like you. Not if you like them even more to make up for their lacking share. Not if you tell them they're selfish, they're proud, that they have grandiose, worthless ideas for life.

The reason I changed my blog URL, as most of you know, is because I had someone stalking me. I dated him for a month, more than one and a half years ago, and he became obsessed with me. I liked him in the beginning. He seemed different in a way you don't see too often - religious, courageous, cute. I had never really given anyone a chance before, so I thought - what would it hurt?

So I gave him a chance. He flew out to see me and stayed for five days. He met my family. He seemed nice enough, and we didn't get sick of each other, which was bonus. I know how I can be sometimes - idealistic, super-serious and cautious - so I tried to be freer. He had told me that he didn't believe in soulmates, that his dad had said that when you're ready to get married, you'll find 100 girls in a one mile radius that would work out. It deadened me a little -- I didn't come close to believing that and I had tried arguing to no avail. I didn't really have anything to back my opinions up with, other than I thought God had a plan for us and a perfect person out there for each of us. It couldn't just be anybody.

I flew down to see him the next month. This time was rougher. We had a big fight in the middle. I wanted to go home. He said at one point, "I'm not anything special. I'm just an average guy." And I saw that. For the first time, I stopped making excuses for him and trying to find things that weren't there. He wasn't anything special. He might say he's religious and spout nonsensical, complicated thoughts, but I didn't feel his goodness. He didn't inspire me. He wasn't worth it.

When I left, I knew I would never be back. He had wanted me to spend the summer there and rent a townhouse with one of his girl friends. He wanted me to kiss him when we stood in front of the airport, my suitcases at my side. I told him that I would kiss him when I was sure about him. I was already sure. I was done.

I have a hard time hurting people. I knew it hurt. We still talked on the phone every night. I was having a horrible semester with school, and I felt alone. He was there with me. But our feelings were drastically different. I saw him as a friend. I hoped that maybe someday I would see a spark of sweetness, of goodness, of brilliance, of something that would convince me that I was wrong about him the first time. But I didn't.

I think he again tried to overcompensate for my lack of feelings. The less I liked him, the less I thought of him, the more he liked me and the more he thought of me. He was desperate for me to love him. He would ask me why I didn't love him like his ex-girlfriend did. He sent me books on the virtue of humility, telling me that if I wasn't so selfish with such unrealistic expectations of life that I would appreciate him.

It didn't work. It just made me angry. He stopped being a friend and started being an enemy. I didn't want drama. I've always hated it. He didn't make me happy anymore. I dreaded talking to him and hearing his religious nonsense. God was his trump card. He tried to control me through God's will.

Ten months after I last saw him, I had had enough. I told him that I never wanted to see or speak to him again. I told him to stop contacting me. He sent me close to 40 e-mails after that, in a span of five months. Always saying the same thing. Some I read, some I didn't. How I was so perfect, but now I was cold. How I had changed so much. How he knew he wasn't perfect yet, but he would see me when he was angelic enough. It sent shivers up my spine.

He kept writing, telling me that I was asking unfair things of him, wanting him to be a doctor or a lawyer, making huge amounts of money each year. In his mind, he was seeking out any excuse, any reason, for me to stop liking him. He saw my desire for continued education, for traveling the world, as a worship of material things. He told me I would never be happy being so superficial, that I would never be happy until I listened to God, which was assuredly pushing me into his arms again.

He would write to me after every blog entry, believing that I had written it solely for him. He would pick apart every sentence, every turn of the phrase, because he thought it held some cryptic message that only he could understand. Because his life revolved around me, he was convinced my life also revolved around him. If I mentioned something unhappy or unfortunate, he told me that it was because I was denying God's will and that he was disappointed in me. Different things I wrote about would conjure up memories or dreams for him, and he would write to me about them. They were all the same -- how we could be so happy together, that we both had to push for self-perfection, how I needed to stop having such impossible goals for him. He never quite realized that my dreams were my own and they never matched up with his. I didn't want them to. I knew we weren't going in the same direction.

Sine the last time I told him never to contact me again, he has sent me two e-mails. I have them directed to my trash, but I can still see that they're in there. He thinks his relentless pursual will win over me in the end. God is still telling him that we're meant to be together.

For me, I have a few regrets. I think I handled the situation as best I could with such an unusual specimen. But if I could do things differently, I would like to go back in time and punch him in the stomach before I got on the plane. God is actually telling me that it would be justly deserved.