• Get in shape. I no longer have homework, and since I’m a copy editor, work will never follow me out of the newsroom. Therefore, “I don’t have time” is no longer an excuse.
• Read for fun. I’m already making very good progress on this one, thanks to the Hunger Games series reminding me of my love for reading after college burned me out.
• Blog two or three times per week, so that my writing skills don’t get rusty and to keep my thinking sharp.
• Be more European. The Sartorialist mentioned that a big reason why so many Europeans are so slender is because they eat small portions and they walk everywhere. Since I’m now living in Santa Barbara instead of L.A., walking is much more feasible, and while I do not have enough extra blubber to convince me to start full-on dieting, practicing more self-restraint would do me good. That will also save me a lot of money, since food is my greatest financial weakness after shoes.
• Be more financially responsible. That is, actually budget and keep track of exactly what I spend. I suspect necessity will be a big help in this area, since my job pays enough for me to support myself, but without much left over for luxuries. It’s going to be very… character-building, though, because I have to drive past my four favorite stores literally every day on the way to work.
• [Cue irony] Stop turning life into a to-do list. Be spontaneous and relearn, after six or so years of constant stress, how to just relax — or, as my friend Sarah put it, to enjoy having nowhere to go and all day to get there.

“Hire eu doing now?” 

“What did u end hip doin…wee u able to buy what u needed”

“U wool finish but u have made this into a major thing in ur mind sri it its causing u too much stress aged that shuts u down”

“Can u suit songwriter quiet and relaxing for 10 or 15 min and just choose ur eyes and think abt a peaceful place u have been”

“U erik like it when u see it”

(Upon having seen this post, she wants me to inform you all that she has been correcting her mistakes after making them.)

>>Read more momspk here

Final projects beckon.

Thank God I’m graduating on Friday. That’s keeping me sane through this final stretch of madness.

It’s just the waiting room that’s slightly insufferable.

But it’s worth it.

But it’s insufferable.

Hey, if it’s really a problem, though, at least you can go talk to someone about it right afterward!

It’s all the worse if the counseling center is attached to your school, and your sessions are at 8 p.m. on Mondays, and APPARENTLY SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE’S, and EVERYONE ELSE IS PEOPLE YOU KNOW. Her? Really? I never guessed she had some kind of deep, dark, tortured issue! And him? Wow, I always suspected… Good for him for working on it! …Wait. Are they thinking the same things about me? Are they speculating about me?? Are they evaluating me???

Are you supposed to make conversation when someone you know sits down across from you? If so, what do you say? Do you make idle small talk as though you’d just passed each other on the way to class and you weren’t about to bare your soul to someone who can practically read your mind and as though you weren’t dying to know what each other’s topic of soul-baring may be? Or do you come right out and say, “So, whatterya in for?” If you do speak, what do you say when you part ways? “Have fun!” (digging up the most painful parts of your inner self), or “See ya later!” (as we bump into each other again on our way out with red, puffy, teary-eyed faces).

I have an idea for a story — either for a dark-humored romantic comedy or a flash fiction. A man and a woman always end up across the waiting room from each other at a shrink’s office. They’re the only two people there each week. Eventually, one of them bravely initiates the awkward small talk. Over time, the awkward small talk grows into normal conversation, which grows into him asking her on a date. They originally make it a point never to discuss their counseling sessions, but as such things are wont to do, it comes out one day. Whatever their problems are make them realize they’re both seriously messed up people, and fighting ensues, and they break up. But then they still have to sit across from each other in the waiting room every week. They’ll probably end up living happily ever after later down the road, but we’ll never know that for sure.

In one week, I’ll don an oversized polyester robe and a silly-looking hat and receive the piece of paper that will apparently certify me ready to enter Grown-Up World.

While I have dutifully fulfilled my 140-something unit requirement, there’s some pretty basic life skills I still lack that college couldn’t teach me.

Stuff like, oh, say, going to the mall.

The trip started off well. I needed a sharp-looking outfit for my several job interviews next week. Gone are the days of being 13 and hitting the mall because OMG Old Navy has the cutest babydoll tees and OMG the mall is like the coolest place everrrrr; this was a definitively Grown-Up mission.

But then stuff happened. Stop #1: Banana Republic. Somehow I didn’t see the sales desk five feet to my left and went charging to the front of the store intending to pay for my blouse, but probably looking like I was about to shoplift. At my roomie’s correction, I had that awkward moment where everyone just saw you heading confidently in one direction, but then you have to stop abruptly and turn 180 degrees to come sheepishly back the other way.

Stop #2: Ann Taylor. “Would you like me to start a dressing room for you?” Why yes, that would be great! “Okay, I put the skirt on the door so you can tell which one is yours.” Decide that everything else in the store is either too matronly or too expensive. Go to the dressing room, find the right door. Push the door. Nothing happens. Try turning the handle. Nothing happens. Stand awkwardly at the entrance of the dressing room until Friendly Sales Girl notices my helplessness. Can you open the door for me? Friendly Sales Girl goes to the door, pulls the handle, and the door swings open. Cue facepalm and embarrassed laughter.

Stop #3: JCPenney (where I scored a fantastic skirt, by the way). I stood patiently behind the gentleman currently being helped at the customer service desk. After a few moments, the sales lady looked up at me with a slightly judgmental (I felt) expression. “The line starts over there,” she said, gesturing to a sign that very clearly read “Customers Please Wait Here.”

Later, back at my apartment, I was sitting sideways in an armchair in the living room with my legs draped over one arm — probably my first problem, since that’s a decidedly Not-Grown-Up way to use a chair. At one point, I moved to rest my legs on the chest that serves as a side table, but without checking whether the top had been cleared off. I knocked a half-filled cup from a few days ago onto the carpet (not cleaning: also decidedly Not-Grown-Up, although to be fair, the cup wasn’t mine). In my scrambling to pick the cup up, I also knocked over the Coke I’d gotten on the way home that was sitting on the floor beside me. Using the floor instead of the coffee table may well have been yet another decidedly Not-Grown-Up thing to do.

Sadly, this is a fairly typical day for me. Usually I’ll also throw in dropping half-a-dozen things — sometimes breakable things — or falling at least once on a flight of stairs or hitting my head on a wall or something. I am plagued with clumsiness that I just can’t seem to grow out of, and I guess the world will probably be a safer place if I get one of the desk jobs I’ve applied for, which will keep me safely planted in a chair 40 hours a week.

But before that, I’ll just have to hope I make it across the stage at graduation without falling.

[PS- Two years ago, I sprained my ankle opening a gate.]

Sadly, this blog consists mainly of my random musings, although I’ll occasionally share things that either inspire me or make me laugh. Now that I’ve suddenly gotten an influx of visitors, though, I may just see about trying to do a little renovation. I’m not nearly as clever as the list of 56 similes that brought most of you here, but if you took the time to poke around and if you discovered anything witty or thoughtful or interesting enough to entice you to follow me, I’m completely open to suggestions about what else you might like to read. If I can’t write it myself, I can probably find someone who has. Any thoughts? Please comment!

By the way, let me introduce myself: I’m Bethany. I’m 22 years old (though I’m often told that I look 17, to my dismay), and in 15 days I will be a college graduate armed with a journalism degree. I believe that good writing is a nearly-lost art worth preserving, and I am in love with copy editing. I like to think that I’m a pretty genuine blogger, so you can probably figure out a lot more about me by exploring my posts.

[Shameless plug] You might also enjoy a group blog I started — Beautiful Everyday Things.

Whether you just checked out one post to get a laugh, or whether you decide to stay, I thank you for dropping by!

A Christmas guest speaker at my church one year gave a one-man re-enactment of the Nativity story, and it was nothing short of impressive, but… he went through the entire performance with his fly wide open. I feel much the same way about the would-be-cool-people as I did about that performer.

It’s the people who I know full well are, in fact, cooler than I can ever hope to be who test the limits of my charity. Stop being so much cooler, I want to tell them. Stop being wittier and less awkward and better-spoken and more thoughtful than I am.

It’s silly, of course. None of those people, I realize, have set out to intentionally make me feel inadequate. If I’m being honest, my irritation is probably far less toward them and for more toward myself  for being so (in my estimation) uncool. Which is also silly, because there are better things in life I should want, but also because if I really want to be “cool,” I think the first step is to, well… stop wanting it.