OH friends, where to begin. Clearly I have been on a blog hiatus. I haven’t had a great deal of time and to be honest I haven’t had a really any inspiration for blog topics. Work is busy and hectic and much like any office job after spending a solid portion of my daily existence staring into a computer screen the last thing I really want to do when I get home is pop on my laptop and delve back into that neon light yet again.

I’ve really not been up to much as of late, I read three books in 2.5 weeks - from topics that included a romantic love story involving time travel (for my book club…go ahead…laugh…yes, I am in a book club, one that I helped to start and NO this was not my suggestion), one about Vegas and MIT card counters, and one sarcastic tale of a girls quarter life crisis where she runs away from her stable guy, job and frankly her life. (For the record I was not the author of the last one…crazy, I know).

Besides reading and working I have been busy over-analyzing my personal life, making rash statements, being a brat and a general pain to be around - so all in all I’ve been a total peach.

Today I was cleaning through a pile of files from when I left my former job and came across a thumb drive that I hadn’t seen for long amount of time. My curious nature set in and I popped it in. WHOA there trip down memory lane - among other artifacts from my college computer included on this thumb drive was a folder of what I guess post-college graduation I determined was music that had to be taken off my old computer. Mostly Glen Philips, some early pre-signed John Mayer, Jimmy Eat World, The Roots, Lisa Loeb and Dire Straits.

For some strange reason I have the hardest time expressing my emotions, feelings and train of thought when it comes to really, well anything beyond giving others advice, my opinions or work. When it comes to my own life I am clueless. Clue. Less. As of late it’s resulted in a number of long, drawn out and hard to follow “conversations” with The Sox Fan. When I added all the aforementioned historic J-Dub life music/college soundtrack to my iTunes tonight I could remember exactly how I felt at the time where this music was integrated into my daily life, I could remember what I was emotionally going through and now that I guess I am looking back on it I can know what I “should” have done or what was a bad idea for me in dealing with life. I found it partially alarming that the only way I am able to gain insight into my life was through music I used to listen to 6 years ago…so I’ll be shifting my energy to analyzing this new revelation.

I like to think of myself as a free-thinker. I attended a liberal college in a town where May Day riots and legalizing marajuana parades are frequent and not really seen as odd. I’ve owned birkenstocks and while I can’t allow myself to go more than a day without a shower I do have a pretty laid back go with the flow view on some aspects of my life. All this is thrown by the way side when I enter a book store.

Disclaimer: This over-arching revelation of my life extends beyond book stores to Target, Best Buy, well really most stores…but books are the prime example for simplifying this in this blog. Go with it.

The Sox Fan is a consumer whore. He’s open about it. For example, we were watching television and he was sucked into the Pasta Hut commercials. The man feels an urge to test out Pizza Hut’s new menu expansion because their commercial shows hidden cameras capturing pleased customers eating Pasta Hut food in a nice Italian restaurant setting and not knowing the difference. He is aware of his ability to be sucked into consumerism and he’s okay with it.

I feel like I should be morally opposed or should feel some sort of angst when marketers attempt to suck me into their products (granted this may or may not have been the field I studied in college and may or may not have something to do with how I make my lively hood) but I realized this weekend while at the book store I’ve been sucked into the vortex. I know how it started, it’s those damn “Buy 2 get one free” tables. I always find one book I’ve seen around or heard a lot about that I want to buy. Then I feel like, hell, I should take advantage of the deal and I pick out another book. Then I need to pick out one to be discounted…and so the cycle continues.

Plus, I’ve created this habit where I like reading the books before I see the movie. Totally geeky I know, but there truly is a difference and I have to admit often times the books are better (or make more sense) for when the movie leaves gaps a.k.a. Into the Wild.

These tables of multi-book offers also lead me to find authors I like and then suddenly I need to buy all their books just because I enjoy them. Being in a book club also is not helping this situation for me either…more books to buy.

Some people might say use the library, curb your spending. Well here’s the real root of the issue, I rarely have a list of books I want - in the most consumer way possible I’ve become reliant on the book store to supply me with displays and specialty tables to identify books I might end up reading. And in the final real seal the deal clincher I compulsively not only go to the book store but I always buy something. Always.

Today I tried to break the spending mold. For the last few trips to the book store I’ve seen books I wanted that were not on these glorious discounted tables and I took the time to write down their titles and today I successfully sought them out on a discounted book seller site. I did this because I noticed that with a certain monetary level of purchases there was free shipping. Free shipping and cheaper books, I’m sold.

The only issue to contend with than was my need for instant gratification. Well guess what friends, when you’ve got a stack of 10 books in your kitchen that have accumulated over the last handful of trips to the book store you can mentally wait out the 3-5 business days for the shipment of 3 new books to arrive.

I know I am a geek, but look at it this way, my addiction could be to something illegal or painful to those around me - and if this addiction leads to people calling me a geek but no bodily injury or fear of being hauled off to jail well, I think I’ve got a good thing going.

Except for that whole consumer dependency compulsive A.D.D….

I survived The Vegas. 6 days, 1 large corporate event, my first business travel with the new company - I made it. We had awesome rooms - suites actually - at the Palazzo, the newest hotel on the Venetian property complete with sunken living rooms, 3 plasmas - including viewable from the shower so I could get my SportsCenter fix while waking up. It’s hard to know where exactly to begin in re-capping this event but I’ll gloss over the main points.

1. I drove a white Ford Econoline 8 person van around the airport, The Strip and throughout the neighboring Vegas areas. It was huge, hard to handle and being that I am all of 5′ 3″ I could barely be seen over the massive steering column. I picked up staging dudes from the airport, I drove to New Mexico and back (practically) getting all sorts of random shenanigans including $700 in printer ink cartridges. I had to park that bad boy in only one small section of available “oversize” parking spots in a hotel parking structure which was hell enough and led to at least one violent outburst on the steering wheel. Large van = lame.

2. I never slept for more than 4 hours a night. Tops. As an editor’s note: the 4 hours maximum I mentioned may have only been obtained on one of the nights I was gracing The Vegas with my presence. Oh and those small number of hours I was sleeping - well, that was after having been on my feet running around like a crazy person for 16+ hour work days. I love frantic frazzled working.

3. I entertained a celebrity talent. I was talent wrangler and even though I get nervous around strangers and people I don’t know (true story, most people just can’t tell because I cover my nerves with pointless but witty banter). I collected him from the airport, we had dinner together backstage, I provided color commentary and observational analysis about the event thus far to him. He mentioned a quip of mine while performing. I think we’re homies.

4. Dealertainers. Yes, dealers in casinos dressed and lipsyncing on stage to their songs. This was of course a rare gem I experienced at the Imperial Palace…a place I never again plan to visit because I found myself there for at least 3 nights in A ROW. (Not my choice). My favorite dealertainer = Fake Billy Idol. He really went all out for the look and clearly took pride in his performances on the main stage, but his fist pump was weak. One night after a few J&C’s I was walking back from the restroom, saw him and said “Hey Fake Billy Idol” to which he replied in a pathetic, defeated tone “Fake?”. Yeah, FAKE. Dude, you are not a Billy Idol impersonator in a show, you are a dealer to touch screen electronic roulette tables. Rebel Yell is not your authentic work.

After my LONG adventure into Las Vegas I came away with a raspy, old woman smoker voice/cough. It partly is the nasty cold but I know it’s also all that time in smoky casinos and especially in the Palazzo property and casino where they pipe in the most overwhelming and musky fragrant floral old lady perfume. It seriously burned through my sinuses. Sick.

When I got back from Vegas I knew I was tired but when I literally went to bed and did not emerge from my bed and wake up for 17 hours I was a firm believer that Lindsay Lohan and those other teen beat queens are not lying when they run away to a resort because they are suffering from exhaustion. I was wiped out and my body was not having it. It probably didn’t help that I drank virtually no water, rarely ate  and lived off orange gatorade and J&C’s for 6 days straight on no sleep…oops.

I’m back, still hacking up a little of the vegas that lingers in my lungs but getting back to 100%.

Dear Vegas, I still love you. But we need to have this trial seperation until I am healthy and mentally ready to take you on again. I’ll do my best to adhere to my 3 day maximum rule in the future. Thanks for the good times. xoxo, JDub.

It was brought to my attention that my blogging frequency has slowed a bit. Apparently there are readers that I’ve been neglecting. Here are some of the reasons for why my blogging has slowed down:

1. Work has been crazy busy and after stressful/busy days in front of a computer I max out and can’t get myself to blog at night. Simple solution you say: Blog from work - ugh, I wish I had that kind of time.

2.  I’ve turned the nerd-o-meter to full blast and have been reading much more frequently. What used to be right before calling The Sox Fan/going to bed reading it’s now become weekend wake-up lay in bed reading until mid-day or post work/pre gym reading. I also have a stack of books on my kitchen counter I’m planning to read. I don’t cook much so the kitchen is a perfectly natural place to store books in waiting. Don’t judge me.

3. I signed up for Netflix. After hearing for over a year how magical it is to some of my friends lives I decided to give it a shot. Mostly because I was ill and didn’t want to physically go to the video store, set up an account at the location closest to my home and I know I would forget to take them back or they would be out of what I wanted to see when I went in. I have to admit I do miss the instant gratification from picking a movie from the shelf and bringing it home. But what I don’t miss is going to the store, finding a movie and then dealing with the defeat when they are all out. Plus, I love getting mail. Love it.

4. I have a backlog of magazines that are not getting processed/read as quickly as they need to. I for some reason have to take a magazine to the gym when I do cardio. It’s usually US Weekly - before you judge let me note this - they are the perfect length for an hour of cardio and are mindless so I don’t have to worry about getting really engrossed into an article only to mis-step and hurt myself while falling of a machine. Anywho, between the US Weekly’s I compulsively buy at the market and the two subscriptions I have there is also a magazine stack in the kitchen.

So there, in the midst of being more scholarly and athletic my blogging has suffered. My bad.

Although now I am using my blog as a way to procrastinate on packing. Ugh - I hate packing. Back when I was traveling every month for the old company I was a pro, I could pack a bag for a week internationally in about 15 minutes. I’m a little rusty these days - the first step tonight will be unpacking my suitcase from my last trip to Vegas…oops.

That’s right friends, I’m headed back to Sin City - this time I will be there for work. I think there might be time to fit in some shenanigans  - the number one story I think will be me renting and driving a 15 passenger van on and around The Strip. Yikes - think good thoughts.

I will admit it. I watched every episode of Making the Band 4. I had to know what was going on with the girls, the guys, the hookups, the drama of that many people in one house. I felt this strange urge to know whether Dawn and Q were going to make it and whether Diddy was going to lose it on Aubrey O’Day. I don’t really know why. I didn’t buy Danity Kane’s first album, I didn’t watch Making the Band 3 at all.  But there I was - recording episodes and giving re-caps/analyzations of the their antics with my friends.

During the course of watching the show, which follows both the guy group - Day 26, the girl group - Danity Kane, and the solo artist - Donnie, that make up Diddy’s proteges I was able to hear tidbits of songs off their new albums and suddenly I was smitten with “Damaged” by Danity Kane. I love it. Little known fact - well maybe not little known but I do tend to keep it a secret I suppose - I like pop music - I like the catchy beats and mostly I like music that allows me to dance while flipping my hair a lot. If you’ve seen me out dancing or just hyper somewhere with loud music you’ve seen this sweet dance move. (I know right now there are readers nodding - acknowledging my rowdy hair flipping dance moves.)

Anyhow, back to the point. “Damaged”. So fitting for my life but I think what I really like about it is that it really is a sad topic but the bass and fast tempo keeps you optimistic. Very tricky Diddy…very tricky.

While I could write a long blog about being confused, sad, frustrated, angst ridden and the other whatnot that is so quaintly my love life I think it’s time to lighten up life a little here in blog land. Plus, what better to lighten things up then discuss the single item that might be returning me to the giddy girly happy love life radar.

Lip gloss.

I did a little retail therapy this weekend and picked up some sparkly, spring toned MAC plush glass. Magic in a bottle. I’ve never been much of a lip gloss/lipstick wearer. I think this is partially because I just don’t really think through that final step and previous dudes I’ve dated always expressed their annoyance at lip products. But let me tell you this, not only does lip gloss really polish off a complete look, it really just is fun and makes every girl feel just that extra bit girly.

Since venturing into the land of daily lip gloss wearers (Day 3 was today people) I’ve received quite a few compliments and from what I can tell a little bit of flirtational vibes. I could be wrong, and I’m always the most cautious and usually last to know when someone is expressing an interest in me but there could possibly be some interesting developments on the JDub front.
Plus, lip gloss is the perfect compliment to a fun new dance song and of course my signature moves.

So “The Selects” is a fancy name that basically means captures those special handful of songs in your life that will always be something special and meaningful to you. They can capture an entire relationship or a monnumnetal day. Examples of “The Selects” would be: your first kiss song, your wedding song/first dance, the song that was playing when you found out something tragic. Just those songs that will always take you immediately back to a certain thing or person.

Here are a few of my selects:

“You Look Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton - after many years, and many, many, MANY music conversations this was identified as my favorite song of all time. There is an acoustic version that is total magic and is sensational. No joke. Plus, this song was requested and dedicated to me at every sorority or fraternity social function I went to by The Officer - which I think I took for granted at the time but really is quite endearing and tender - which is even harder for me to say.

“At Last” by Etta James - While unmarried at this point in my life (*whew*) I still think this song is so wedding perfect - which is a bold statement in itself since I am a little (read: A LOT) commitment phobic. The song is actually quite short and therefore perhaps not the best first dance song but a great formal introduction of the bride and groom song - sadly, this is really the only thing I know for sure I would want at my wedding. And the reason I say sadly is because marriage still does make me a bit twitchy. Don’t get me wrong - it’s great and all - I’m just not in the marriage frame of mind currently. Again (*whew).”

“Twisted” by Keith Sweat - Didn’t see that one coming did you. Well I’m not saying I’m some closet Keith Sweat fan (I’m not by the way) but during Junior High many of my friends held “parties” - I use the quotations because they were not parties in the sense familiar to most people which contain booze and wildly inappropriate antics - they were mostly in people’s garages or daylight basements with streamers, some moderate sound system and dancing/hanging out - 95% harmless. Anyhow, during this time frame Keith Sweat was quite popular and when his slow jams would play it was immediately called to everyone’s attention what boy liked what girl, who were couples, who were dating, etc. So “Twisted” reminds me of junior high and the best part - those boys and girls are still some of my close friends and when I see the boys mostly this song always comes to mind.

“Konstantine” by Something Corporate - This one literally covers the full spectrum of a friendship, years of bad timing/feelings confusion, a somewhat functional relationship, betrayal of trust and breakdown of anything at this point close to civil. The song lyrically and musically covers all the bases - while you might imagine this hard, it’s not. Look up the lyrics. This song still evokes a lot of emotion in me - it used to be something giddy and happy, it then became something sad and depressing and now it’s frustration and anger. I love this song - it’s fantastic and some part of me appreciates that one song, the 9 minutes and some odd seconds that can capture me so fully - but it’s almost too much for me at this point.

My favorite part:

This is to a girl
Who got into my head
With all the pretty things she did

This is to a girl
Who got into my head
With all these fucked up things I did

It’s not hard to dream, you’ll always be my Konstanine - they’ll never hurt you like I do.

“Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty - Tom Petty will always remind me of Hodgkin’s, of being 16 and driving my gold Volvo sedan with the sunroof down in the sun, of outdoor concerts and flip flops down at the river, at friends playing acoustic guitar, of Frisbees in the park and of just pure unfiltered fun. Free Fallin’ makes me smile every time - it can make my day better. The other day in the midst of a stressful day while sick I heard a portion of it at work and it made me slightly distracted and content. Oh T.P.

• Skinnidip Frozen Yogurt - specifically chocolate with fresh strawberries and Cap’n Crunch - so good
• The St. Patrick’s Day photos from this years festivities
• “Go onnnn” and “Whhhaaa?” courtesy of Sunday’s session with the Plastics
• Laughing so hard I cry
• Open and honest conversations with a best friend
• Whistles - one word: awesome
• Spring Sandals
• The Bachelor - oh how I love reality TV
• Knowing I can make someone smile and laugh by telling them my silly stories
• Sunday Fundays
• The morning after a fun night out conversations
• Muppets and /or Puppets

It’s been one of those weeks. You know the one’s that are just d-r-a-i-n-i-n-g. Work is busy and busy is good, I like being busy, but this wasn’t just busy it was hectic. Since I work well under pressure I welcome the fast pace but no matter how early I went to bed this week (and there were times where it was like elementary school kid early…well for me…so like 10pm) I just could not get enough sleep. I had a terrible time dragging myself out of the comfort of my bed. It probably didn’t help that I was waking up naturally at 4am and then again at 6:30am…which was super annoying FYI.

Now I can’t blame this long week just on work - although I’m going to say a long work week has about 88% of the blame in these scenarios. I think my exhausted feeling has a lot to do with the extensive over-analyzing and weighing of options in a couple life situations I have been going through.

Sometimes I wish I lacked the filter, much like a 16 year old woman featured on the bag of Doritos’s at today’s lunch BBQ…well maybe I wouldn’t want to take it as far as to turrets. But I wish at times I was one of those people that could just say how I feel, get it off my chest, not think through all the scenarios of what will/could happen after those sentences have left my throat and just put it all out there. Just say whatever I need to say.

Alas, I can’t. I can’t help but think past the immediate. I can’t help but do for other people what I would want done for me. I can’t help but try and understand where other people are coming from and I can’t just acknowledge that what’s best for me might be the hardest thing for me to actually go out and do. I can’t bring myself to take the advice that I would surely give to a friend in my situation.

Maybe it’s not about I can’t - I’m sure if someone gave me to ultimatum to either never wear fabulous and comfortable shoes again for the rest of my life I could find it in me to do what I need to do. But there are no dire ultimatums in this situation and while fabulous and comfortable may not exist in every pair of shoes I own but there is always one of the two.

So today, at the end of a tiring work week I unfortunately still don’t think I’m ready to say all that I need to say. I’d like to think it’s because of that long stressful work week. I’d like to think that after a refreshing night of sleep and the knowledge of no alarm clock in the morning I’ll be ready. But I think this is going to be one of those life situations where the internal struggle is always going to be better than the implications of saying all that I need to say. At least that’s the plan of record…for now.

For the most part, I do not like losing sleep. I do not like having scary dreams that wake me up and keep me up because of their craziness. I do not like being stressed out before I go to bed anticipating all sorts of mass to do lists.If I can help it I just do not like going without sleep. However, on some occasions it is totally worth it.

Like when you close down a night club in Sin City and get 45 minutes of low quality sleep before hitting the airport. Or when you stay up all night talking or watching movies with a charming boy, that’s at times worth it. But when people just tell me “hey, spring your clock forward and lose an hour of your life” - well, that just does not make me happy.

I was slightly bitter heading into last weekend knowing I would lose that hour of my life, knowing it would make my Sunday go by faster, knowing it would make Monday morning just a tad more draining but I was ready…for the most part. So when All-Star (yes, that’s a new friend introduction to this here blog) called me up Saturday and suggested we go out, grab some drinks, be social I was ready. And when casual drinks with friends turned to shot taking and drunken love confessions to strangers I embraced it. When 27 Dresses demanded we hit up another bar 20 minutes before closing time I offered location options and chugged champagne right there alongside her. Usually after a long night out and closing down not one but two bars I would head home and crawl into bed for some much needed rest - but not last weekend. For whatever reason we all decided to go back to All-Star and 27 Dresses loft and have a dance party.

Now I’m sure calm dance parties do exist (I personally would not be interested in them) but this was by far one of the most rowdy dance parties I have been involved in - and that’s saying something friends. Since the clock sprung forward it was suddenly 3am and we were bumping “Please don’t stop the music”, running around (literally), dancing on furniture and jumping - yes, jumping, like it was our jobs.

Around 3:30am when the downstairs neighbor came up to tell us there was a 5 year old downstairs and that we were way too loud we not only hid from this person but we then turned the music back on and jumped and danced exclusively on the couch. Classic.

Like I said, it has to really be worth it for me to miss out on my treasured sleep. But anytime Rihanna, Chris Brown, my girls and I get together I’ll go with out the sleep - Please Don’t Stop The Music.

As I’ve previously mentioned I really appreciate my DVR. In combination with acquiring aforementioned DVR and the writer’s strike that took my stand by shows off the air I’ve become much more open to trying out new shows. Hell, there are times when I record shows unsure of what they are but just so on lazy Saturday mornings I can have something ready and waiting for me to view.

Well after the crazy Vegas trip last weekend and the busy work week I was fairly excited about the idea of sweatpants, my couch and DVR occupying my day. I caught up on my stand by reality programs and then ventured into shows I am testing out, followed by new programs. On the new programs list was Quarterlife.

After seeing a couple ads I thought this might be right up my alley - I loved Singles and Reality Bites and well seeing as how I am rapidly approaching that quarter life point in my life along with my new found blog writing it just seemed like it would be a fit. I’ve heard this show has been on MySpace for a year - well I guess I’m not that hip when it comes to the MySpace series but NBC tends to have a knack for picking programing so it was deemed a recordable program.

WOW. I don’t know if this will be a program that is picked up on by the masses - it’s definitely not a mainstream show with a 30 minute crisis that is solved right along with a recorded laugh track. And maybe it’s that I loved Singles and Reality Bites but Dylan (the dark haired video blogger) and I seem to have too much in common. Dark hair, sarcastic, observant, unable to tell people our feelings, confused about boys, etc.

Maybe I’m feeling extra angst-ridden after my afternoon yesterday - this could surely have some impact on why I am now questioning what exactly I am doing with my life and whether or not my current course of action is the right thing for me. Maybe I just am drawing these parallels because it seems convenient to not feel like I’m out on a solo mission trying to make sense of all the various friendships, relationships and overall pathways my life is going down right now. It’s really hard to say - but I’ve found a new show and for the time being that will suffice.

So in closing - Quarterlife, I look forward to new episodes and discovering whether this pilot debut was a one time fling or if my fond feelings of you will be sustained.