HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Dearest friends and family...I hope that you Thanksgivings are wonderful and that you are excited about the onset of the Holiday Season!

I promise that after this break I will write more (i can hear you clamoring for it! haha)

Happy Turkey Day!!


EAT ME!!!

My roommate called me “coupled” the other day and I find that to be a hard pill to swallow. I am not a “coupled” kind of girl and really, I never have been. I don’t love relationships and I certainly hate beginning them. Although I like “dating” well enough, most of the time I find it to be too much trouble and would rather be out with my friends or reading a book. Most of the relationships that I have had have spawned from friendships and as I look back I can only count two somewhat serious ones that have started with complete strangers….they only started because the strangers pursued me…if it had be left up to me, it would have fallen by the way-side.

I like the idea of being coupled…really I do…but the work that it takes to get there is often so daunting that I would rather disregard the relationship. I am beginning to believe that I am getting to old for this kind of thinking and fear that if I do not change my ways now, I will find myself alone at 40 with smelly cats named “trinket” and “bubbles”. I do not believe that this issue falls solely on my shoulders, however. Past experience has shown that if I really do like someone I will step up to the plate and say something…I will try to make it work avoiding the instinct to run when vulnerability becomes a must. Sometimes these feelings are returned, sometimes not…but you can’t die from a broken heart, right? I am not good at the follow-through though. If I do “step-up” then I need some help continuing on…sometimes the other person doesn’t get that memo and I am left at a stand-still waiting for a nudge, a clue, a grab of the hand or a peck on the cheek. I can’t do it all, I am not that fearless.

I have amazing friends in my life, women who have defied all odds, taken their hearts into their own hands and said, “Pay attention to me because I am the one for you. You need me and you will miss me if I am gone”. Time and time again this has worked out beautifully for them. They haven’t found “the one” but they know that it is not for lack of trying. I feel like in some ways I have done the same, especially with those that matter, but here I am…still unsure…not knowing quite what to expect. I want it to work. I want to be a "coupled kind of girl" but not for the sake of being "coupled".

Maybe I don’t speak loud enough, maybe I don’t get my point across, maybe I need to be more forceful…but in the end, maybe I think that it should have to be that hard.

Birthday Fun for ME!!

So although I was in a funk at the beginning of my birthday celebrations, my friends were kind enough to show me the path...well the path to a lot of beer and much debaunchery.

We ended up going out the night of my birthday as it fell on a Friday evening (lucky girl!) and I had all of my wonderful friends from college and work out to the Full Shilling for some crazy times.

I chose the Full Shilling because they have $15 domestic table tappers (uh...8 glasses of beer for $15? can't beat it with a stick) however during the taxi ride over my brother's friend Hugo called to say "umm...Molly, do you know that there is Karaoke at the Shilling tonight?" This, of course, made me cringe...but my friends, in classic form, decided it was the best thing EVER and happily sung many a ballad dedicated to the birthday girl. (how lucky I am...how lucky I am...) I am sure the rest of the Full Shilling was delighted to know that it was my birthday and that I brought 15 wasted people to celebrate and delight the crowd with their vocal stylings.

I had no intention of getting as drunk as I did...but shots upon shots upon beers later I found that I was feeling happy and ready to have a great time (not that I wasn't already). It was such a wonderful night. Most of my favorite people were there to help me ring in year 2-5 and I am ever so lucky to have the people around me that I love...

We missed some of the old OSLs (cough BFF cough cough Cara cough) but it was such a treat to have everyone else in one place. I am a lucky girl and I try not to take for granted the amazing things that I have been blessed with...the least of which being my amazing, kind, caring, vocally talented, fun and loving friends.

Here are some pictures of the night (I have more that I am waiting to get developed but these are teasers!)

Brittley Sue practicing her licking skills on that poor glass!

Meg...better know as "trouble with a capital T" and the roomie! This was looove at first sight!
Snydes TOTALLY getting ready to see me "Black Velvet" HOTT :-)

Jedders with two women on either side...as per usual! Best picture of Brittley Sue, Jed my Love and Bestie Lauren EVEA!

Hopefully I will be able to post more pics lata! Thank you so much to everyone who came out and to those who sent well wishes! Thank you especially to those that drove so long to come celebrate and to Hugo for actually meeting me during a time that I can actually remember (ie when i am NOT fifteen years old) and...a special little shot out to Sveny who sent me the Madonna downloads as a bday present...hotness!! If only you had been there to balance a bottle on my head while I was passed out :-)

Lobe and kieses to everyone! Thanks for the great memories of my birthday!

Yay for my 25th year! I am sure it will bring great things!

Showtime Snyergy

This is a little late, I know…but I had to wait until I was able to get pictures to post because what is the sense in talking about Halloween if you do not talk about my fabu costume?! And then of course you would say “molly molly we want to see your fabu costume” and I would have to say “sorry kids, my roommate has not loaded the photos onto the computer yet b/c when he was cleaning his room last night he put his camera into a drawer and forgot which one”. But now the camera has been found so I can say “Commence with the photos!!” (and wave my hand in a very “Evita-like” fashion)

Halloween was a great time filled with female Hugh Heffners (graduate of the University of Illinois-go Illini), male playboy bunnies, people dressed as kegs of beer (that actually dispensed alcohol), mucho alcohol, hot men, house parties and a random bar. 15,000 drunk dials later I wound up at home again…hoping that my headache would cease…

Halloween actually started when Brett and I took a trip to JoAnne fabrics on Friday night (as we were both staying in) where we promptly found the material for my costume. Perfection! We bought the necessary accoutrements that every 80’s rocker needs and then the safety pins in which to create this masterpiece. We did all of this while Brett was being ogled by some older gay men who had costumes that we could not figure out. We returned home to make this costume a reality…and what a reality it was…



WHOA JEM IS TRULY OUTRAGEOUS TRULY TRULY TRULY OUTRAGEOUS!!

That’s right friends, I was Jem, of “Jem and the Holograms” fame. Such creative goodness can only come out of me once a year and this was totally worth expending that quotient. Brett was a magical dress maker! Reminiscent of the mice in Cinderella, he reminded me that there are so many reasons why a girl is lucky to have a gay best friend who loves costumes! Fan-tas-tique!

The house party was great, the company was fantastic and the random bar afterwards was a blast. All in all it was a wonderful drunken night and a great first Halloween in the city!

My cousin Gavin and I were born 8 days apart. All of my life I have been linked to him…we have had sleepovers, made forts, play Inspector Gadget, fallen off horses, welcomed new cousins, buried grandparents, celebrated holidays, gone off to college, lived in the same building…all of this done together. Our interconnecting lives were heightened when we went to the same university.

Living three hours away from most family, Gavin became my family…he was there for every boy who broke my heart, he knew my friends and I knew his, we shared meals together and went shopping together, when he lived below me my senior year we spent many a night conversing until 4 am on his porch. One of those nights we ended up calling the police on a guy b/c he was breaking into cars and promptly called each other “Starsky and Hutch” for months afterwards. He was annoyingly overly protective sometimes, but it was endearing and probably helpful as I always fall for the wrong guy.

We knew about each other’s lives…the daily happenings, the interests, the classes, the nights out…we were there for it all. Most importantly there was not a birthday in those 4 years at the U of I that did not have Gavin present…nor has there ever really been a birthday in which we were not celebrating together. As children we would have combined family parties…sharing a cake and party hats. As college students we would spend the night out at the bars…sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels and some shot glasses. My life and birthday’s have been so inextricably linked to Gavin’s that I find it hard to think about one without the other.

This year, however there is a difference…a huge one…and while I get to celebrate a birthday, Gavin is forced to undergo Chemo. The unfairness of the fact this smart, kind, loving and otherwise healthy 24 year old has cancer is only heightened by the fact that his counterpart in life, age and birthday, does not. As Gavin is forced to suffer and will always link this birthday with the idea that it was “the one when he has cancer” I get to live life as a normal girl in the city. I get to be surrounded by my friends and family and enjoy all of the wonderful things with which I have been blessed. I feel that celebrations should not take place.

As I prepare to meet my friends out at a bar on Friday night, every ounce of me wants to call it off. If Gavin has to suffer then I should too. I will never be able to fathom what he must endure and I feel that it is only fair to recognize those incredible differences and spectacular strides that he is making. A year ago, this never would have been anticipated and hopefully a year from now this will be a memory. Gavin doesn’t get to celebrate like a normal 25 year old and I constantly take for granted that I do. Staying home tomorrow night or going out to the bar is not going to cure Gav, but I do hope that next year we can go back to being in the same celebrations. That he will recognize that his struggle was one of amazing strength and grace and that he deserves a shot of Jack…or many.