sweet caroline, bun bun bun, good times never seemed so good

A lot of the time I put a big emphasis on the idea of "home" and surrounding myself with the people I love at all times. Because I did a lot of traveling when I was a kid - I was able to comprehend at a pretty young age that you can live anywhere, burn every bridge and run super far away and eventually everything catches up with you. You will always still be stuck with yourself and the bullshit crap that encompasses you. Seriously. I said that and meant that.

I was fortunate to allow a little bit of my flight instinct free from its cage this past week and I fled the state. Literally ran in the opposite direction screaming. This time I didn't feel like I was doing myself or anyone a disservice by peacing out - it felt freeing. For the first time in a long time I was able to get away and feel refreshed instead of guilty and disappointed! Mazel tov to me!

I hooped and hollered. Drank too much. Wandered Observed. Existed. It was perfect.

I didn't want to see a single face from my everyday life, hear a nagging word or see a pouting mouth. I was triumphant and I rewarded myself with way too much overpriced gourmet chocolate.

It sure helped that the weather was magnificent and that Boston has a population worth looking at and that they're nice enough to tell me I'm going to make an attractive kid or move their car for me when I can't parallel park. It was the kind of weekend that was effortless with no strings attached. My entire life is full of effort and a feeling of impending doom. I know it sounds tragic but it isn't meant to be - it's just the way it is, ya know? So when I can get a little bit of the sweet stuff, I'm gonna snag it. And then buy some chocolate to make it even better!

pride is an asshole

*this post will have an embarrassing amount of "probably's" and "I's". My apologies for the passive aggressive narcissism, my dear friends. =)

I feel like this entire post is going to make me sound like someone I am not. But then again a lot of things I have been saying (maybe out loud, maybe in my head - who knows) doesn't sound like me. Or who I perceive myself to be. Or how I think I am perceived. (I was totally infatuated with Symbolic Interactionism but specifically The Looking Glass Self in college.)

I have come to the soft conclusion that I have slowly built myself to need nothing.

This may have started sometime in middle school when I decided I didn't *need* to speak up all the time. I could still hold convictions and opinions and whatever else you feel at 14 and just basically not say them. I think that was the start especially since the summer after I stopped speaking up like 3 boys professed their love for me. I came off shy and coy when really I was just trying to shut up. (That lasted long LOL) This subconsciously probably gave me positive reinforcement.

*M getting sick when I was eighteen probably had a lot to do with it also. That was the summer I was going to college and quickly turned from a codependent wide-eyed girl to someone completely alone and without parents at one of the most crucial times. This was the time I was waiting for my entire life and instead of enjoying it - I had to teach myself how to live a completely different way. This time it was not a choice to stop needing - it was forced.

My brother got sick again 7 years lately and subsequently died. All throughout the time he was dying right in front of me, the funeral time, and the months after his death I have managed without a significant other. I have not had that one person you generally go to when you are in pain. I have been through the kind of hell most people will thankfully never encounter and I did it all on my own. I relied on no one but myself.

My friends are all leaving to start their lives elsewhere. I feel slightly numb to it because I know I will learn to not need them either. It is apparently my first reaction after so many years of slowly eliminating that instinct.

I feel like pride has a lot to do with it in the end. If I have been able to practically extinguish vulnerability in my life - why let down guards for new boys, new friends, my family - when in the end I'll just start needing them and consequently something will occur that I'll have to rearrange my head again? It would be MY fault for allowing that to happen instead of having it happen to me like it has for so many years. I'm strong enough by myself, anyway.

And then...there is that small voice in the back of my mind that repeats that stupid cliche:

God gives you what you need not what you want blah blah.

So if I continue needing nothing...will I get nothing? Because that, my friends, would suck.

Summer of No Pants

Let me start off by saying that I love a good challenge.

My favorite thing to do is to take a change of clothes with me after work and completely change into said outfit while driving my car to a destination.

There is no reason why I can't change my clothes at work or wherever I am going. None whatsoever. I just find that I get a lot of satisfaction from being able to physically drive my car the entire way and not get pulled over or smash into a vehicle while taking my dress off in my Honda going 45 down a city street.

When I type it out it sounds pretty voyeuristic and weird, but whatever. Have you seen Strange Sex on TLC? I'm like a 3 on the weird factor compared to these looners. (And there is actually an episode ON "looners" who are sexytime lovers of balloons.) Oh yeah, I'm a 3 or less.

Just to clarify, I am not interested in anyone catching me doing this - it's just that I CAN do it. I would probably find the same satisfaction in changing my sheets blindfolded or eating soup with a fork victoriously. I'm just easily personally provoked by my "you totally can't do that..." voice.

So since I love a good personal challenge, I have proclaimed this the Summer of No Pants. I think I was egged on when I heard some quote about girls not wearing pants anymore. Like yeah, I'm generally a girly girl but I'll wear jeans on the weekend and trousers to work on occasion. But when I heard some guy talking about how girls don't wear pants...I had to spend a summer trying to prove him right.

I have made it a point to only wear skirts, dresses and leggings/yoga attire from June through September. There have been some bumps in the road - that entire two week fashion disaster called Israel and today I wore jeans to the aquarium because it's "that time" and I felt like this hippo:



But other than that - no pants. I thought I would be annoyed by having to pass over the pants selection in my closet but instead I am simply delighted to be 100% dressed up or in leggings like I'm Lindsay Lohan pre-jail. My Mom *likes* my facebook status whenever I talk about the Summer of No Pants. I think she's delighted with my motivation. I also think she hopes this gets me laid. Either way, I'm glad to have her support.

And you know, just for good measure - I'm losing 20 pounds if the Mets make it to the World Series and 25 if they win it. So God, if you're interested in me with a hot bod - I suggest you help along my sucky ass baseball team and provoke my *DARE ME* attitude. JUST SAYING.

Esreem vitaysha!

So I thought I would do this post differently. I thought I would backdate what I wrote in Israel like I was still there and have important and interesting commentary about the things I saw and the people I met and the feelings I felt.

Instead, I'm a little drunk off the wine I am drinking and am surrounded by pictures I am choosing to go on the wall in my living room. Next to pictures of my brother and my friends and real life. Real life.

Let me begin by saying that Israel is by far nothing as you imagine. I always thought Israel was like the USA except everything was in another language and you'd think nothing of an explosion going off in the supermarket next to where you're shopping for work clothes. This is not true. There is tons of land and tons of desert. You can drive for miles and see absolutely nothing and then all of a sudden come across a small settlement that is categorized religiously.



Everything has history. Everything has a story. You walk with the Bible and with the political storm that is this country's past and present. There is no living in Israel without an opinion. On everything. Here in the US we can blissfully go throughout our day without caring about the BP oil spill or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The people in Israel must know where they stand on everything or else they could cease to exist. Literally.



Everywhere I looked there were connections forged. The people on my trip forged connections with one another. Some found connection with their religion. Others found connection with the country. Others still found connections with themselves.

I didn't find any of that. Thinking about it after I got home, I realized what I found. And I found it in the trailer of a movie. In the trailer for Eat, Pray, Love Julia Roberts drabbles on about something and about how boring her life has been and then she says:

"...I want to marvel at something..."

And it clicked. I was able to marvel at something without the complications of anything regarding my real life. In my real life I make incredible connections and am smart and have opinions and love things deeply and passionately and laugh really fucking hard.

On this trip - all I did was take it in and be a listener and a sponge. I got to ride camels! Climb Masada! Raft down the Jordan! Eat hummus every.single.day! Without complication of what reality is or the obligation to even be myself. I just was part of the scenery and let a place bigger than I was lead my life for a week and a half. AND IT WAS GLORIOUS. It was absolutely exactly what I didn't know I needed.

At one point we were in the Judean Desert at the hokiest part of our trip - a fake Bedouin village. It was pitch black and we had some free time to wander around. And we look up and there's shooting stars everywhere. And I just lost it. I literally sobbed for two hours straight because I knew it was *M showing me he was there with me. And it was ok to do it! I had to run halfway across the world to cry like that over my dead brother. And not even at the Wailing Wall but at a fake village with camels snoring everywhere. It felt right. Because *M will never get to go on a trip like that. Because *M would have looked at me to see if he should be afraid of the camels or not. Because every stupid fear I had, he had to have.


To be honest, *M would have NEVER gone on that trip but he never got the option and I did. And I feel guilty every day for having options.

There were siblings on my bus. I wanted to tell them how lucky they were and how I wish we could have been them. But I could barely even squeak out anything about myself until one of the last days when I was wearing an Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation tshirt. Alex's dad wanted a picture of someone at the Dead Sea in one of their crazy bright yellow shirts. I was proud to sport it.

I don't know. I feel like I'd be minimizing this trip if I spouted out names and events. I'm still letting this all sink in. I'm still looking at pictures and smiling and feeling waterfalls on my back. How it felt to not have a hairdryer. I'm remembering how manners don't exist in Israel yet everyone will look at you and say 'welcome home'. Why, thank you...

meet the mets, meet the mets, step right up and greet the mets

When I was five years old I had a crush on a Met named Gary Carter. I can't remember why or how a little girl could become interested in a sports star - nonetheless a baseball player considering how damn slow the game is...but I did. Which may explain how I got to the point now where I consider myself a METS FAN. (yes in capitals and amongst other things, ha)

My Dad's claim to fame. Or rather, the claim to fame we hold my father accountable for is a homerun he hit out of Shea Stadium in '81 during the baseball strike when he was asked to go to spring training for the Mets. My Dad being my Dad lied about his age and figured he wouldn't get very far anyway and declined. He never really talks about it and he doesn't act like he regrets his decision but I can tell you he refused to go to Shea Stadium with M and I when we wanted to go to games.

I love everything about a ballpark. Every. Single. Thing. The smells, the sounds and the anticipation make me turn into a giddy kid.

I don't know when I became so passionate about the Mets. In the past few years since I moved from the south, I definitely enjoyed watching with my Dad and my brother but it was only an occasional thing. My brother would yell at me and tell me I wasn't a real fan because I wouldn't stop my life when a game was on like he would. Their lives revolve(d) around NY sports teams and I was just a casual bystander. You know how people were born into their political views? I was born into a NY sports team family.

My favorite memory so far this year is our first trip up to Citi Field. We were watching the game at field level and we were down by three runs when a player hit a three-run homerun to tie the game. The entire stadium erupted and we jumped up and down like we won the lottery and high fived every stranger and launched into each others arms. I won't forget that day as long as I live. And we didn't cry once because M wasn't there.

Maybe it's because my brother died this year that I've become the fan that he was. Maybe it's a way to bond with my Dad that I was never really able to be apart of. Maybe it's just that I really like baseball. I don't know. All I know is that this year I am catching more games than I ever have. There is nothing more exciting to me than hanging out and watching the game and yelling at the TV. I mean I wear dresses every day and hate ponytails and love handbags and I am twittering entire Mets games like ANYONE else cares. If I can't watch the game - I'm checking the score on my phone. I'm that hot girl you can have a conversation about sports with! It's exciting to realize a new dimension of myself no matter how unimportant.

I love that my team is nicknamed the Amazin's and their motto is 'You Gotta Believe' and that we hate the Phillies so bad it hurts. I love that all the players have so much passion and that they haven't won the World Series a hundred times and we have rookies who can turn a season around and can make an entire fan base feel the same excitement they feel.

Maybe the whole point about me loving baseball is because a whole season's worth of hard work can change in an instant. It's not like a TV show where you can guess the next scene. One minute your team can be number one and the next minute your team can all be injured and your season is down the drain. It's exactly like life except there are cute butts involved. And life is messy and I'd rather my entertainment not try to make me believe otherwise with really convincing dramas and romances and comedies that just make life pale in comparison anyhow.

My Dad says he wants a sign that my brother got to heaven ok. I am pretty convinced M's sign is going to be the Mets getting to the World Series after a slew of terrible years. I'm pretty convinced that M has a spot behind home plate for every game. Bastard.

you don't look a day over fast cars and freedom

This past weekend my friends and I went to an annual country music festival. I will make this clear before they flood me with comments - I WAS THE ONE DYING TO GO. I was whining and chomping at the bit and making grandiose expectations in my head about rolling around in the bed of a pickup. Whatever. That's not the point.

My friends are always up for a fun day drinking some beer and wandering around parking lots so we went.

And there was puke.

And filth.

And violation of personal space.

And penises. (TONS OF THEM. I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY DON'T KEEP THEM TO THEMSELVES.)

The point is, midway through this fiasco my friend S turns to me and says:

"Rachie, I think we're just too old for this shit."

And she was right. We were too old to be amused by dudes puking on themselves and chicks galavanting around wearing more clothes than a newborn child. No I don't want any of your moonshine - you're 14!

I really thought I was going to be able to relax, meet some new people and listen to some good tunes. This is generally what happens when my friends and I are together anyway - I just thought it would be delightful to do it amongst those who like the same terrible music that I do. And I wanted to be transported back to high school for a few hours. Yeah, I said it.

BUT INSTEAD we were irritated and I wound up in (my own) bed at midnight texting all my younger friends and telling them I was available if they needed rides home from wherever they were. Like a Grandma.

I have to defend myself here because I know I usually am cracking on being 25 and how old and lame it is but in this case I really just outgrew the entire situation. Like I outgrew watching Angels in the Outfield twice a day.

It's just one more thing I can cross off my list of Things Not To Do Anymore Because I'm Too Old! Maybe I can add knitting to my repertoire instead????

Dear M,

It's very hard for me to comprehend that you are dead. You are not just "not here" you are really gone from this earth. You are not existing somewhere doing something. You are dead.

It feels so surreal when I allow myself to really think about it. One second you were my brother and the next second you are nothing. I don't know how to explain it eloquently. You were the largest extension of me. My facial expressions and sense of humor and lack of convention. It's like I lost a big mirror and I don't know where to look to see myself clearly.

People who meet me in the future will not know you. You will not have a future. You will never get to have kids or fall in love or buy your first house.

Who is going to dance with me at weddings? Buy me the perfect present? Tell me which dress to wear?

And I have no one who cares what I think anymore. Who trusted me to do those things with/for them and to always give them an honest answer.

I am alone in a way no one can comprehend. Friends can always leave. Parents have each other. You were supposed to always be here. We were supposed to keep each other safe from the opposite team and always fight for fun together.

You were the life to my party.

Love,
Your Rachies