My Roommate Talks to Strangers on Subways

December 6, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

When we’re both in our kitchen together, my roommate and I tend to have very in depth, funny, and deep conversations. I’m extremely lucky to have her as a roommate- we were strangers who met through Craigslist and we get along extremely well.

We’ve known each other only three months but we talk about everything from meditation to relationships to street harassment to retirement accounts with an equal degree of ease. Our roommate relationship can only be described as a rare personality click.

The other day she described the conversations she has with random people on the subway. I was surprised to hear this- she doesn’t seem like the sort to have impromptu conversations with strangers on public transportation. She’s a fairly quiet and unassuming girl, tiny and thoughtful- a 29 year old english professor and writer who listens to calming music and chills in her room a lot.

She thinks that people probably open up to her because she enjoys hearing their stories; they may sense her friendliness and feel a green light. It’s true that she always gets me opening up, so I guess her energy works with subway people as well.

I recounted to her that as of late I rarely talk to anyone in transit- even though I travel all the time. I used to have lots of conversations with new people at airports and on planes- in fact that’s actually how I met my ex-boyfriend. But lately I’d been using the old ‘kindle and headphone’ trick to stop people from talking to me before they started. My job involves a ton of talking and lately the last thing I wanted to do on a flight to or from work was to talk.

Sometimes while I'm traveling I'll look up from my Kindle to take a funny photo of fellow travelers, but I've rarely talked to them anymore.

Sometimes while I’m traveling I’ll look up from my Kindle to take a funny photo of fellow travelers, but I’ve rarely talked to them anymore.

But after my roommate told me her subway stories, I began to crave conversation with fellow travelers again. “Just be open,” she said. “They’ll sense it.”

And they did.

Once I felt open to listening again, people began to talk. It was like magic. I turned off my kindle and took off my headphones and I met the LA shuttle driver I talked about in my last post. And on my flight from LA, I met an accountant who used to sell time shares and lived in Cancun. There was a young mom chaperoning a crew of girl scouts on the way back from Dallas, various folk from New Orleans, Vancouver, and Hungary at a recent hostel, and a really cool travel blogger named Jo (Indiana Jo) who apparently travels 9 months out of the year and lived in a cave for awhile.

Both being an open listener and a closed privacy-craver have their pros and cons. I heartily enjoy hearing stories and learning about other places and lives, and travel conversation is a great way to do so. But I haven’t yet talked to strangers on the subway…maybe I’m just not open to that yet.

Sometimes, though, it’s nice to just sit quietly while in transit. Like now, I’m actually sitting and writing this on a bus to Philadelphia, while the man next to me sleeps soundly against the window. We never said hi to each other. By the time I got to my seat he was already tuned out and closed off with his kindle and his headphones.

I understood.

Real Happiness Begins at Age 33?

December 5, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

In four months, I’ll be turning 33. And apparently, I have a lot to look forward to, according to a study by Friends Reunited, a British social networking site. In the 2012 study, 70% of respondents over the age of 40 claimed they were not truly happy until they reached age 33.

One of the study’s authors, psychologist Donna Dawson, explains the findings this way:

“The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naiveté and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth…By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a ‘can do’ spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. I definitely feel like I’ve been more confident in my abilities in the past few years than I was in my twenties. And overall, I just like myself better. I don’t put much stock in if other people like me or not. Because if they don’t like me, most of the time, I don’t like them either. It just seems to work out that way. And realizing that is liberating.

Another recent study (also, British – those Brits must love these happiness studies!) done by The Huffington Post UK Lifestyle and YouGov found that the average person doesn’t achieve ‘true contentment’ until age 38. The study asked 2,000 Brits between ages 18-80 and took into account the respondents’ contentment with relationships, family, friends, and jobs.

So if you’re reading this post and stuck in a early thirties crisis, hopefully you can take a little comfort and relief in these studies.

The Happy Shuttle Driver

December 4, 2014 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

When I got on the FlyAway Shuttle to LAX this morning, I was greeted by an incredibly friendly, happy driver. He immediately started talking about growing up in LA, his love of driving, his nine uber-close siblings, and his passion for motorcycles.

There was a lot of talk of pranks played as children, precocious brothers and sisters, and flying home for the holidays. I laughed so hard I nearly cried as he told story after zany story.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, the driver said, in the same even tone of voice he’d been using before, ‘My two best friends just died.’

I jerked my head hard as if I’d been slapped. The comment was completely out of nowhere. “Oh god- I’m so sorry!” I said. There was a silence. I squirmed. I didn’t want to pry.

He opened up without me asking. “We were all part of a motorcycle group. We did daredevil stunts and jumps and all kinds of tricks that most motorcyclists won’t do. Then one day we went to a motorcycle meet, and I was watching as my friend pulled his motorcycle out of the garage. A drunk driver came by and hit him then, and he was dead on the spot. He was just pulling out of the garage..”

“Oh my god,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t even the motorcycle that got him killed. It was a drunk driver.” He paused for a second, and then continued in the same even tone, “the other one too. My other best friend…hit by a drunk driver. I was actually working my shift at the time, driving the FlyAway Shuttle, and I looked over into the lane next to me. For his birthday, I’d given my friend a pair of sneakers he’d wanted, as a gift. And I looked over that day. And I saw a sneaker, the same sneaker…all alone, all by itself. And I wasn’t able to stop and see anything other than that sneaker, but I found out later. My friend had been cycling down the freeway, and a drunk driver started going the wrong direction. My friend swerved and was thrown from the bike. He still had one sneaker on. He died, and I just happened to drive by right then. It was too late. Both of them hit by drunk drivers.”

I was heartbroken. How was it that underneath this man’s happy exterior was the darkest, most earth-shattering sadness? And before we got to LAX, he continued his stories, telling me he’d been a shuttle driver for over 10 years and that he worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. “It’s good,” he said, “It keeps my mind off the hard things. It’s very good to be distracted.” And he smiled.

We arrived at the airport and bid our farewells. I’m shaken by the deep pain hidden under his smiling stories. Shaken by his love of his job for the saddest of reasons…and if the shuttle ride had been just a bit shorter, I would never have known.

You never know what people have going on under their happy, smiling exteriors.

Laura comes to LA

December 4, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s Laura’s final night visiting me in LA, and it’s been a really fun couple of days! We’ve been doing a lot of eating, talking and wandering. Since I moved to LA about fifteen months ago, she’s come to stay with me twice. BOTH times it has rained consecutively for several days straight. For those of you that don’t know SoCal weather, that’s odd for LA. One day of rain is somewhat normal, but not several days in a row.

We’ve made the best of the crappy weather though. I introduced Laura to my favorite TV show, Nathan For You on Comedy Central, and today we went to see the movie Wild, about the woman who hikes the Pacific Coast Trail to deal with her grief from the death of her mother. (FYI, it’s amazing and we left the theater sobbing, dying for a life-changing camping trip in the woods.)

While we were on the bus earlier this week, we started talking about our 30’s, and we agreed on one major thing. While this decade definitely has left us feeling uncertain about our futures, the truth is, that as we grow older, we keep feeling better about ourselves and our experiences in the world. This is not to say life somehow gets easier, in fact, it absolutely gets harder – we have more responsibilities and more challenges, but still, life feels better. You go through tough situations but discover that you’re still standing after each one, having grown into a more flexible person than before.

The key thing is that you don’t fear things as much. You’ve seen enough to let the fear dissipate a little. You can deal with it.

There’s a gorgeous quote from the Cheryl Strayed book Wild, on which the movie was based, that I feel like is appropriate to growing older in your thirties:

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Here’s to us all getting stronger every day in our thirty-something journey!

Here are some pictures from our public Transit experiences in LA. And yes, taking the bus is possible, if hard, in this city.

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How to Be Away From Home For The Holidays

December 2, 2014 By in Career, Family, Friendships Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I was away from my family this Thanksgiving…and the last one too.

Then last Christmas was spent at an airport, watching people with large wrapped gifts excitedly take the cheapest flight to see their families, while I headed away from mine. And last Valentines Day night consisted of 2000 miles between me and my boyfriend at the time- he spent the night with cocktails in New York, I spent it with a rather large plate of Mexican food in Spokane, Washington. New Years Eve went down working a tradeshow in Indianapolis.

Valentines Day with some Spokane Washington style Mexican rice

Valentines Day with some Spokane Washington style Mexican rice

My brother’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, my own birthday, my best friend’s birthday- I was away for them all. I had to turn down work a year in advance in order to make it to a friend’s wedding.

My job takes me all over the United States, and I love it. But more and more, the work falls on holidays. It can be isolating to be away from family during Thanksgiving or Christmas or both….these are holidays all about family and it’s sad to shake the tradition. Holidays break up the year into familiar pieces… Christmas spent at grandma’s, Thanksgiving spent with parents, New Years Eve with friends. It’s jarring to realize that I can’t rely on that anymore.

Last year, I cried when I realized I’d be working away from home on Christmas and Thanksgiving. My family was really upset. My friends and boyfriend at the time were disappointed. I felt like I’d let all my favorite people down.

But I couldn’t let myself down. I needed to work. So I got through the holidays as best I could. I had a mock Thanksgiving with friends days before I left for Phoenix, Arizona. I took the latest flight out on Christmas day in order to have Christmas ‘brunch’ at my parents house before having to run. I celebrated New Years Eve back in New York weeks after the actual day. There was a lot of rescheduling, shifting of holiday dates, and apologies…a lot of celebrations with coworkers in cities far away from home.

Does it get easier to be away from home for the holidays? Yes and no. I feel more comfortable with it this year, but it’s still trying. If you end up being away from family for the holidays due to work, financial obligations, scheduling, or otherwise, here are some strategies I’ve used to help get through it:

  • Reschedule the holiday for when you can be with your family, don’t skip it if you can- you’d be surprised how Thanksgiving can still be fun in December.
  • Celebrate the holiday twice- if you’re away from home with friends, roommates, or coworkers, celebrate with them as best you can the day of. Try not to be alone on the holiday- it can be depressing. Ask around- there are lots of other people who can’t make it home and celebrate the holidays with friends and/or coworkers
  • Know you’re not alone- even though it seems like everyone’s with family for the holidays, lots of people can’t make it home.

The holidays can become even more important to you when you don’t take them for granted. Being away from home for the holidays really makes me appreciate the time I have with my family, and makes me love the holiday season even more.

New Years Eve in Indianapolis with my coworkers ended up being pretty awesome.

New Years Eve in Indianapolis with my coworkers ended up being pretty fun after all.

Sending Hundreds of Invites to Your 30th Birthday

November 30, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , Leave a comment

There’s this NY Times article that both normalizes the 30th birthday and simultaneously makes it a lot more intimidating.

The writer starts by letting us know that the 30th birthday has now become an occasion to celebrate, complete with champagne and festivities. There’s no more need to be embarrassed or to hide from this landmark birthday. Great news! The 30th has become a cool rite of passage-  the contemporary sweet 16.

Then the article takes a strange turn and inflates the birthday party to epic proportions, with celebrations so huge that entire Facebook friend lists are invited from different stages of life (the piece is from 2003, so FB isn’t referenced…but 600+ people were invited to these birthday parties using some means of communication…and I’m impressed this was done without Facebook, actually). For some of the parties, there are invitees from the “life stage”s of age 0-6, 6-18, College, Post-College, and Work. These behemoth blowouts strike me as more overwhelming than the 30th birthday itself.

I mean, I’m glad that 30th birthdays are getting to be more cause for celebration than intimidation, but I don’t think that making my birthday party into a networking event would make it any more fun. In fact, that kind of party seems terribly uncomfortable. I don’t think I’d know what to say to the hundreds of people I hadn’t spoken to in years. That is, if they even showed up.

I’m happy to celebrate with the same close group of friends I always celebrate with. For me, having my favorite people still with me after all this time is good cause for a party.

Advice for Turning 30

November 30, 2014 By in Career, Friendships 1 Comment

So, as you may remember from an earlier post, Laura and I both love the Ask Polly advice column on NYmag.com. Reading her posts is like talking to a deep, funny, older sister who’s an incredible listener and has soul-stirring, almost life-changing advice. Once you start reading her columns, you can see how easy it is to get obsessed.

The real “Polly” behind the awesome advice is the writer Heather Havrilesky. She’s also a columnist for Bookforum, writes for the New York Times Magazine, and was Salon’s TV critic for 7 years. In 2011, she wrote a memoir titled “Disaster Preparedness,” which I just ordered on Amazon.

She recently did an AMA on Reddit. For those of you that don’t know what that is, AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything,” and basically, Reddit invites well-known folks and experts on topics to have a dialogue with users on the site. Users can ask a question and the guest can choose which questions to answer. What I love about AMA’s on Reddit is that they tend to be more off-the-cuff, relaxed than interviews.

When I read through the AMA recently, I saw that she had some AMAZING advice for a woman turning thirty. The woman was basically saying she’s having an existential crisis about turning 30 and not being where she thought she’d be in her life. As usual, ‘Polly’ had some lovely words of wisdom to share.

Well, I’m definitely better at the long-winded response that I can think about for hours than I am at firing off quick advice. But I will say that turning 30 can be insanely tough, particularly for women. I think this is mostly true because when you’re young, you think “30” means “settled” or even “successful.” It’s pretty absurd to believe that, but many of us in our late 20s believe that if we’re still lost, that means we’re doomed to be huge losers for the rest of our lives.

But life doesn’t work that way. It’s not like musical chairs, where the music turns off and you’re screwed if you can’t find a chair. Paying too much attention to big turning points and numbers and landmarks is always a bad idea. All you can do is be very clear about what you want in your life, and take tiny steps every day to get there. Sometimes a tiny step is just reading a great book or vowing not to think negative thoughts first thing in the morning. I think I’ve taken a million different tiny steps along the way, and I’m still constantly readjusting my life so that I’m living in a way that’s true to what I believe and true to what I want for myself. It’s healthy to keep looking closely at what you want and to keep recalibrating, past 30 to 40 and 50 and 60 and beyond.

I love that she says life is not like musical chairs! Isn’t that a perfect way to describe what it feels like to be a little lost in your thirties? That somehow you haven’t found the answer when everyone else seemingly has.

I also love that she says paying too much attention to “big turning points and numbers and landmarks is always a bad idea.” So true. For me, I want my decisions to marry, have children, buy real estate, etc. to all feel organic.

Hope you enjoyed this food for the sometimes-angsty thirty-something mind.

Stay Thankful

November 28, 2014 By in Grab Bag 2 Comments

Today is Black Friday- known as the busiest shopping day of the year in the US. On Thanksgiving day, as I was walking to my hotel from work, I noticed a major line of people camped outside Target. It was around 3PM. The Black Friday sales at Target wouldn’t begin until midnight.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday centered around giving thanks for what we have. The huge irony of Black Friday being the day after Thanksgiving isn’t lost on anyone.

Yet Black Friday mayhem happens anyway- a pushing, shoving, screaming frenzy of people trying to purchase as much new stuff as they can as early as they can. Black Friday is even its own official holiday in some states.

I understand that Black Friday helps a lot of businesses make money fast. One of the origins for the name ‘Black Friday’ comes from businesses beginning to be ‘in the black’ and doing well that day because so many people begin their holiday shopping right after Thanksgiving ends.

I also understand that Black Friday  helps consumers get deals and save money on holiday gifts for family and friends. It’s always good to save money on things you’re going to buy anyway.

However, I can’t help but feel slightly sickened by Black Friday. The day is completely contradictory to Thanksgiving and occurs only one day later. And it really brings home the feeling of thankfulness being over. There’s an ‘ok we were thankful yesterday, now we’re good’ feeling in the air.

It’s important to be thankful- not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year. I always like to compare thankfulness to brushing your teeth – you don’t just do it one day and then you’re done. Every day you start again.

When you aren’t clamoring for the best sale or shiny new toy, it’s easier to stop and appreciate what you already have. Even if you’re feeling down, or bored, or you have the post-Thanksgiving blues, you have so much to appreciate. I’m happy I can walk and can see and have strong lungs and a healthy heart.

Be thankful every day, not just on Thanksgiving. There’s a whole lot to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 By in Grab Bag 3 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our lovely readers! We are so grateful for you, our compatriots in this thirty-something journey. I know some of our readers are in Ireland, England and other countries all around the world – so you may not celebrate Thanksgiving.  But even if you don’t, there’s always a reason to be grateful, and a gratefulness practice has been proven to reduce depression, help you sleep better, and improve personal relationships.

For me, my “gratefulness” practice is to simply acknowledge moments when I’m happy and say a silent prayer for that moment. It’s guaranteed to happen at least once a day. For me, it’s sometimes after an amazing cup of coffee, a conversation with a friend, or a shared kvetching session with a fellow writer who just “gets” it after I’ve had a shitty day.

For instance, tonight. I spent the evening at my boyfriend’s dad house, in the company of my mom, his father and partner, and her son. It was a lovely evening of great company, delicious food, and relaxation. While it wasn’t a traditional family dinner, I’m grateful for this evening.

Here’s a beautiful quote by David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk –

“The root of joy is gratefulness…. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

Sending you all love and happiness, wherever you may be. We’ll thrilled you’re reading and wouldn’t be writing without you.

The Numerology of Thirty

November 26, 2014 By in Grab Bag Tags: Leave a comment

What’s the significance of the number 30? In numerology, it seems like there are a lot of interpretations…some are very intense and some seem to contradict each other, but I’ve put together a list of the most interesting, and linked to a bunch of articles at the bottom where you can learn more.

  • 30 is the number of the circle- symbolizing infinity and absolute completion
  • 30 is the embodiment of the time cycle- and the clock (also in the shape of a circle).
  • Putting the last two facts together, a circle has 360 degrees, and a clock has 12 sections. 360 divided by 12 is 30. Oooh!
  • 30 represents the perfect balance in cosmic organization
  • 30 symbolizes dedication in a particular task or calling

In numerology:

  • The number 3 signifies communication, self-expression, expansion, and creativity.
  • The number 0 signifies eternity, infinity, oneness, and wholeness.
  • Together, 30 signifies creativity, communication, and spiritual awakening.

Speaking of spiritual awakening, there are a lot of spiritual references for the number 30:

  • The ancient Persia dedicated their month to 30 spirits
  • In biblical teachings, Jesus is 30  when he begins his ministry on earth.
  • Joseph was 30 when he stood before Pharaoh, King of Egypt
  • King David was 30 when he began to reign
  • Ezekiel begins his book of the same name “in the 30th year”
  • In the Torah, 30 is the age of ‘full strength’- the time we can begin transforming the world with all our strength as opposed to our training before 30.

There’s a lot more, but what I like to take from this is that 30 is a major BEGINNING. It’s not the end that I’ve always worried about.

Here are some articles that go deeper into the significance of 30:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/magic-number-30

http://www.betemunah.org/thirty.html

http://www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/nu30.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_(number)

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Are you hosting or attending?

November 25, 2014 By in Grab Bag 1 Comment

If you’re like me, you’re a thirty-something and you’re in a somewhat in-between position when it comes to Thanksgiving. Are you hosting your own festivities or attending someone else’s event? I don’t have your own family yet (by this I mean “family” defined by the very traditional idea of kids and a partner and stuff), so you’re joining with someone else’s or maybe you and your group of pals are hosting your own shin-dig.

Whatever your plan, and however low-key the festivities, the idea is the same – being thankful in the midst of transition. We’re always in transition anyway, so the goal is to accept what it is. On that note, happy pre-Thanksgiving! Wishing you safe travels!

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Salary Calculator- Are You Getting Paid Your Worth? (And the Recent Tech Internship Salary Explosion)

November 24, 2014 By in Career, Money Tags: , , , , Leave a comment
Salary Calculator- Are You Getting Paid Your Worth? (And the Recent Tech Internship Salary Explosion)

Have you researched your salary compared with others in your industry?

If you haven’t, perhaps it’s time to make sure you’re getting paid what you deserve.

I’m self-employed, and I work in an industry (event and promotional marketing) where payment can fluctuate. I’ve been in this industry for a long time (more than 10 years) and I’m extremely experienced and good at what I do. I know the standard payment for events and the minimum payment that I will accept. However, everyone working in the industry has to demand to be paid what they’re worth, or the whole industry’s base payments can go down.

For example, let’s say that I usually work an event that pays $45 an hour. If next year that event suddenly starts paying $17 an dollar, I know my bottom line, and I will refuse to work it.

Now, since I refuse to work that event, a few scenarios can unfold:

1. The booking agency can call me and ask why I won’t work the event again this year, in which case I will explain why I’m not working, and we can potentially negotiate the pay close to or back to what it was.

2. The booking agency can hire someone else who will work for $17 an hour who is inexperienced and bad at the job.

3. The booking agency can hire someone else who will work for $17 an hour who is experienced and good at the job.

The first scenario is good- I have helped maintain what has been the industry standard (or even helped increase it!), and I have negotiated for what I’m worth instead of lowering my standards.

The second scenario is mediocre- if the booking agency hires someone who is bad at the job, the client will probably get upset. The agency will then potentially up the payment next time in order to hire the best workers in the industry. Sometimes the agency still won’t pay, and will just lower standards altogether, even if the client isn’t happy…this will eventually lead to the agency getting fired.

The third scenario is what causes problems- if someone experienced and good at their job accepts payment below industry standard, they will LOWER industry standard for the everyone involved! After all, if Amazon pays great computer programmers 250K a year, but start finding loads of just as great programmers who happily accept 30K a year, the salaries for all Amazon programmers will begin to decrease.

I have an accountant friend who recently figured out that the salary of her colleague DOING THE EXACT SAME JOB with WAY LESS EXPERIENCE was making 30K more than her a year! My friend only figured it out after accidentally seeing her colleague’s paystub. She didn’t realize how much money she could’ve been making, and therefore didn’t negotiate a pay raise.

I’ve known lots of interns who are working their butts off for various companies and making ZERO dollars. The other day, a woman named Jessica Shu posted a list of tech intern salaries in a group called Hackathon Hackers. The list promptly went viral. I’ve included it below:

intern salaries

Dear god!!! That’s some crazy money!

But- it’s great that interns are getting paid! They should be!!! I mean, this kind of internship money blows my mind- but it’s especially insane compared to those interns getting paid $0. ESPECIALLY if you’re an intern in the tech industry getting paid $0 – imagine seeing these numbers and realizing you’re likely getting screwed!

Know your worth…and don’t accept less! (And perhaps consider going into tech…) 😉

If you want to learn more about these numbers, lots of articles from major news sources have been written on the tech internship salaries in the last few days. See here and here and here. And don’t get down about it- just keep working to elevate yourself in your industry, know your industry salary standard, and demand the pay you deserve! You’re worth it!

The Secret Lives of Your Friends – Their Jobs

November 23, 2014 By in Career, Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How much do you know about the nitty gritty of what your friends do at work? When you think about it, this is where your friends spend most of their waking hours. And it’s funny how we probably don’t know much about what compromises their days. Phone calls, meetings, emailing, all of that stuff, sure. But what aspect of their job do they love the most? What gets them excited to get through the day?

When we first graduated college, office jobs were something of a novelty, and I remember emailing my friends several times a day with updates from cubicle-land. “I just got inter-officed an envelope. Awesome.” “OMG, my boss is crazy.” “Ughhhh….so bored right now. Need a coffee.”

But as we inched into our late twenties and early 30’s, the emails stopped as we became more focused and dedicated to our work. Now, while I know my friends’ job titles, I don’t know the specifics of their day. I love specifics. Call me nosy, but I want to know what a typical hour of their day looks like.

Well today I got to visit Laura at work and see what her job is like. She was visiting Southern California, where she was working as a Product Specialist for Ford Motors at the LA Auto Show. Laura’s job is a mixture of marketing and sales and it was pretty fascinating to see her in action. She travels across the country, presenting the new products to consumers. She’s interacting with consumers all day and getting sales leads. It’s also exciting to see what a non-office job really looks like. I think it’s pretty great that she doesn’t have to sit tied to a computer screen all day.

Here’s some pictures from my visit today.

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Laura and I in the crazy big Ford truck. Not sure which one this was.

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My dude, Me and Laura in front of the underside of a Ford Mustang

Making Friends When You’re in a Long Term Relationship

November 22, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Let me preface all of this by saying, I love female friendship. I’m kind of obsessed with it, actually. From the popular Sex and the City and Golden Girls to the less well-known Walking and Talking and Heavenly Creatures, I’ve seen EVERY movie and TV show about female friendships. Maybe it’s me being an only child and craving siblings, but I find these friendships to be deeply sustaining and life-affirming.

But I realized that since I’ve been in a relationship, about five and a half years, I haven’t made many super close girlfriends. I’ve made a lot of acquaintances, but not as many really close pals. It might simply be more challenging to meet new friends in your thirties, or it’s just plain harder when you’re in a serious relationship. Most likely, it’s a combination of both of these things. But for me, there’s one more element that I think is a factor.

Talking about boys.  In high school and college, I bonded with a lot of my friends by talking about boys and dating. I don’t feel like less of a feminist for saying that I love talking about these subjects, because I enjoy talking to my female friends about other subjects too. But one of the ways I bonded with new female friends was over men. This may just be my personality, because I was the girl who ALWAYS talked about her crushes or my fear that I would never meet that special someone.

I think it touches on something deeper, though. Talking about love and dating is really intimate; it’s not just superficial talk. You expose yourself, share your hopes for the future and that’s vulnerable. When I would share a story about my crush with a new friend, most of the time, she would share her own romantic adventures with me, and often, a friendship was born. I suppose I could share stories from my relationship now, but honestly it would almost feel like a betrayal to share anything negative about my relationship to new friends, since we’ve been dating for so long.

Now I feel like I’m more of a listener, and less of a contributor to these conversations about dating, and it makes me a little nostalgic for the old days. I don’t have stories involving crazy dates, or the drunk dial from the ex I still care about,  or the cute co-worker who I kissed once…And since I met my boyfriend before the boom of Tinder, I’m bummed that I can’t share my own adventures in swiping left and right.

But I guess you trade one thing for another. I wouldn’t want to go back to dating lots of new people just for the stories I could share with my new girlfriends. It’s about finding fresh meaningful ways to connect with recent women friends….quilting, anyone?