“I spent the entire Oscar party I was at mentally creating my own thank you speech. It didn’t include anyone at the party” February 28, 2011
Posted by brandy in the secret project.14 comments
Eek! I’m so behind on The Secret Project submissions. Sorry everyone! Also, I’ve got a few emails lately from people asking me if I still need a #Bisc roomie. The answer is no, but Nic and I would be more than happy to have you all hang out in our room! (I like how I just invited the internet to stay in our hotel room).
Also? Secret Submitter #3? You are sort of my hero right now.
Also? I won the 20sb award of “Least Likely to be Marked As Read” . I just realized that there’s over 16,000 members in 20sb so it’s even more amazing. So THANK YOU. Add to the fact that my posts in recent months have made Anne Franks’ diary look like a hilarious Chelsea Handler paperback and I’m even more thankful for each of you. (To secret submitter #9, I’m sorry you are so hurt. I know what it’s like to want something and not get it. I hope in the coming days you feel better about the situation and if you are comfortable, share your blog so people can read something you put so much effort into!)
(I had to share the badge here. I am so computer delayed I have no idea how to add it to my sidebar. The ones from the year before were added after 3 breakdowns and a half of bottle of gin were consumed. I’m not going back to that dark place. So for now, this badge is going to rest cozily in this post. One day I will get a blog re-design. One day.)
Now enough about me, on to the secrets!
1. My friends and I joke about listening to Bieber and acting like we have “Bieber Fever” but the truth is, I actually like him and have his cd in my car. My cd collection is so embarrassing that when friends are over, I actually hide most of them now. Pathetic? Maybe.
2. I just signed up for #BiSc and am excited. And absolutely terrified. I have visions of me sitting alone in my hotel room not knowing anyone. Scared out of my boots would be an understatement. To make the situation worse, I’m not sure about the roommate situation.
3. My Valentine’s date was myself and for the first year in my entire dating life (27 years- minus 11 that I spent married), I actually enjoyed my date. Single ladies? Treat yourself. My Valentine’s Day was spectacular. But I wonder why we wait for one day of the year to take ourselves on a date?
4. I’m relieved that Charlie Sheen is having a breakdown. I mean, not relieved, but .. I guess it’s nice that there’s something going on in the news that I actually feel smart enough to comment on. Ugh. I’m tired of pretending to know what’s going on in Wisconsin and Egypt.
5. One of my besties started dating a guy that’s a lot older than her. He seems too good to be true and a lot of us have heard less than flattering stories. She’s amazing and none of us want to see her hurt so we aren’t saying anything- for now. But I wonder if we should be a little more involved.
6. I feel so old when people on twitter comment on music. I don’t get the Adele hype. Ditto Radiohead. I’m 32 and like jazz and hip hop and everything in between but I just don’t understand the hype right now.
7. I told him the tattoo was for me, but it was really for him. He always told me he dug girls with tats.
8. I AM PREGNANT! After four years of trying, I’m 14 weeks. And could not be more thrilled.
9. Not only am I angry that I didn’t win a 20sb, I’m upset that I wasn’t nominated. I don’t blog daily to get nominated but so many people say ‘put yourself out there, be a part of the community’ and I did that this year, I really tried and was completely shut out. I hinted to friends how much it would mean to me to be nominated and people went and nominated the ‘popular’ group again. I like many of these bloggers (including you!) but it hurts to see that some things never change. Don’t hate me for saying this, my feelings are just really hurt.
10. We just found out we’re having a baby and while we haven’t told our families yet, I just HAVE to tell someone. I figured spilling the secret here is better than telling random people in elevators or grocery stores.
Yoga won’t save you & other deep thoughts from the edge February 24, 2011
Posted by brandy in here is my heart, i'm the sum of my failures and my achivements, it makes sense to me, it's a long one (twss), it's always easier to say it than do it, life lesson, love harder, oh look! i have opinions., relationships, right on my sleeve, self improvement, thank you Eleni, the one that nobody reads because of the title, the world according to me, when i say it anyway, who needs a self help book?, who's the boss now?.52 comments
I’m not sure how it happened.
I could blame “Eat, Pray, Love”. The idea that, when faced with a devastating loss or unyielding heartache of epic proportions, the most courageous thing you can do is to leave. To run. To flee. To explore new lands and discover new people. That anything less than a dramatic exit will not suffice, will not illustrate to those around you just how absolutely crushed you are. That unless I smash plates, book trips to exotic lands, get ill-placed tattoos, take up chain smoking and jeggings- that my sadness does not have a home, isn’t grounded in something real.
But isn’t that what makes us feel good? Provides a temporary relief? We cultivate new habits. We devote ourselves to new people. We start big projects. Crave everything new, nothing that can be tied to the sadness that we can’t shake, a sadness that lingers and at times smothers us late at night when the world sleeps and you feel like you are the only person who has ever been this sad. The only person who has ever felt 100% alone. So we book trips. Take cooking lessons. Pick places to travel and declare ourselves free. And pray that one day the heart that still beating inside us will lift to meet a smile that took far too much effort to muster and your brain will believe all the things you keep telling yourself is true.
We claim that yoga saves us. That red lipstick and high heels and big hair and new dresses have turned everything around. We twirl in the glow provided by tans to warmer climates and hide behind sunglasses we deem glamorous. We sing to new songs we’ve discovered, songs that aren’t tied to heartstrings and a thousand memories of late night sing-a-longs with a voice you no longer hear. Songs that don’t conjure up a thousand memories of a life you will know you will never lead. We claim that time heals. That everything will be better with a glass of wine and a good sleep.
But you know what?
Yoga will not save you. Red lipstick gets washed off at the end of the night and wine always gives me a hangover. Trips filled with the best intentions are distractions that will never be a mistake but will never be permanent. New songs will always conjure up old memories- despite your protests. Glamorous sunglasses hide the tears that well up when you see someone in a baseball cap that is exactly like you bought him. Sleep, if you’re lucky to sleep, provides a comfort of a better time that ends abruptly when you wake up and realize you are alone.
You know what does work?
What will save you?
You.
Courage isn’t always running away, it isn’t packing suitcases and fleeing to discover a new life because the old one is in ruins. Sometimes courage is staying. Staying when you are alone. It’s being single in a world that feels like built for couples. A lone stray on the Ark. Sometimes courage is staying when running is the only thing that makes sense. When running is the only thing that feels right because nothing, absolutely nothing in your life feels like it’s yours. Courage is sitting in a doctor’s office every week and through sobs trying to recall the precise moment that your life began to unravel. It’s listening to marriage plans of your dearest friends when your heart is breaking. Courage is allowing yourself to feel joy at the idea of other people’s happiness. Because nothing, nothing is harder than letting yourself go far enough to experience a moment of happiness for someone else before realizing that as quickly as that feeling comes, it will leave and you will be left with only an echo of the happiness. A joy you miss so much you ache.
Courage is getting up everyday. Every goddamn day and doing what you did before. It’s driving the same route to work you did when you were happy. It’s eating the same dinner he used to tease you about. It’s watching the shows that he used to watch with you. It’s living the life you led with him, alone. It’s staying where you are, taking a magnifying glass to your sadness and being brave enough to sort through the tangled mess you’ve become. It’s being brave enough to realize a dramatic exit won’t cure your heartache and there isn’t a distraction big enough to make you forget the life you are immersed in. Courage isn’t always running to somewhere new, fleeing to someplace exotic to start over.
When everything is moving fast, when your sadness is palpable and the only thing that feels right is fleeing, sometimes courage is standing still. Even if it means you are standing alone and petrified.
“Love means you gotta use your words when you are fighting about the dishwater again” February 13, 2011
Posted by brandy in 1/2 funny 1/2 serious 100% important, because I can't do report cards 24/7, charm, it seemed like a good idea at the time..., lists, love harder, other people say it better, thank you Eleni.26 comments
He meant “dishwasher”. We clarified when he brought it up to my desk for me to check.
See, the thing is, teaching 3 grade is the best. The kids are independent, they get your jokes (well most of them unless you try to tell something that doesn’t involve the words “knock knock”), yet they still want hugs and draw you pictures of flowers and a sun wearing sunglasses and tell you that you are the prettiest person in the world. (It would be wrong to argue with them).
So every so often we skip learning cursive (because daily cursive practice makes me curse) and we put building the Eifffel Tower out of marshmallows on hold and we put a bookmark in our novel study and we write. We write about dragons and aliens and unicorns and pirates holding us hostage. We write animal book reports, Geronimo Stilton book reviews and the science behind rainbows. We write to-do lists for Santa, disgusting restaurant menus, reports about how bees make honey and we write biographies about people we admire. We write.
And on Friday, we wrote about love.
Specifically, what how we know when someone loves us, or how we know when we see something that equals love. After a lively debate and one quick change of topic when a child brought up once seeing his parents “naked wrestle”, I put up a few prompts on the board and gave the kids free rein. The prompts:
” Love means…..”
” If you love someone you should…”
” The best part of loving someone is…”
Annnnd the results:
(*please note, I’ve changed all the names to protect the geniuses. Also, I left in all their spelling/grammatical errors. I think it adds to the cute…. and are the scary reminder that we need to spend more time on spelling.)
- ” The best part of loving someone is when you do something nice for them because you love them and they are like oh em gee and get really eksited.”- Mallory, age 8
- “If you love someone you should all ways be a spechial, increbible, glitere friend”. – Brandon, age 8 (we are working on describing words at school).
- “Love means holding there hand if they are sad.”- Luke, age 7
-”The best part of loving someone is that when you do something wrong or make a bad choise they will usualee still be friends with you if you say I’M SORRRY!!!!!!!”- Parker, age 8
- “If you love someone you always hafta think about sharing. Maybe it’s your DSi that you dont’ want to share because you hate sharing specialy with people who are bossing too much but if you love someone you share sometimes anyway.”- Colby, age 7
” Love means that when you get in to a fight you think about how they feel even if you do not rilly care that much because you already know you are rite.”- Tristan, age 8
- “If you love someone you tell them that you saw them being nise in the bootroom because you know it will fill there bucket right up to the top and may be make it overflow.”- Emily, age 8 ( We use this book a lot in class, hence the bucket talk)
- “Love means letting someone else be goalie.”- Lane, age 8
- “If you love someone it’s like you will do what you can to make them happy!!! So maybe that means at lunch you share chiken nugets with them or you ask them to ask their mom if they can come for double sleepover and you guys can build forts or do something more difrent if you guys are girls or something. Like you guys could play a girl game and have fun!”- Eric, age 7
- ” Love means you let the other person hold the book when it is partner reading time. EVEN when it’s your book from home and not from the class library.”- Elizabeth, age 8
- “the best part about loving someone is that then you can do stuff together with out being nervus when you ask them if they wanna do it”- Steven, age 8
- “If you love someone you be there friend. Just be there friend! THE END!!!!”- Jesse, age 8 (At least he’s concise?)
- “The best part of loving someone is that it means at recess time you are never looking for someone to be playing with because you have you’re friend right there and they will play any game you want if you ask polietley and have the idea for the game.”- Drew, age 8
“Okay. So when you love someone it means that you just wanna help them be rilly good at all the stuff they do. So when they are learning how to rid a 2 wheeler for exkample you will be there helping. Or at school before a big test you will say it is okay buddy it is just a test.”- Andy, age 8
- “Love means that when 1 of you wanna watch 1 show and the other person wanna watches some other show that you watch the show that they want to watch even if it is the most horrible, allfill show on the hole tv.”- Laura, age 8
- “If you love someone you lisen to them talk about when there dog ran away even when they all ready told you three times.”- Jacob, age 8
- “the best part of loving someone is that chanses are that if you love them and be nise they will be doing the same and then you will be a bff.”- Ainsley, age 8
And my favourite…
- “the best thing about loving some one like your friend is that when you come to school and ur mom has been getting mad at you and Curly is missing you can just tell your bff and they will say that it is okay and that ur mom is a little bit crazee and that curly will come home bekcause he will miss you to much and it just makes things inside feel better .” (PS: CURLY CAME BACK! 
) – Cam, age 8
It goes without saying, but Curly is his dog.
So now it’s your turn. Using one of the prompts above, leave a comment in comments. And see if you can come up with something that compares to my third grade darlings. Good luck!
And Happy Almost Valentine’s Day!
And then, BAM! Things got fancy February 9, 2011
Posted by brandy in here is my heart, i should be a P.S.A., it's a good thing, love harder, the last line is my favourite, the secret project.16 comments
So yes.
I am aware that there’s a little something called “Post Secret” and it’s amazing. I am still wading through my inbox (and why yes, I am aware that one of the most interesting things to read is someone writing about how full their inbox is), and I found this ditty that had got placed in my spam folder.
FOR SHAME.
So here is todays The Secret Project submission. By someone “too lazy” to mail it to Post Secret. (Their words not mine!). I thought it was beautifully said and of course, had to share it. Not only did I have to share it because it’s a secret (can you tell I’m working on full throttles today?), but also because I thought this would be a fun way to open up The Secret Project. Send me your digital secrets you are too lazy to mail. And if that tagline doesn’t get you amped up to start creating, I’m not sure what will.
Also you should come to Vegas.
Also? Keri is having a baby. Hooray!
Also one of my kids farted today and then announced “whoops that one got away from me” and then kept right on drawing his Taj Mahal. And maybe it was because fart humor always gets me, or maybe it was because of the sheer matter-of-factness in which he addressed this to the whole class or maybe it was just because it was time, but after I heard him, I laughed and laughed. I laughed until I cried. And then?
I cried because I laughed.
Keep going, keep going.
