I'm wondering: why don't you ever hear a gay guy say, "The good ones are always straight"? It's always us girls saying the good ones are always gay or taken.

This is one of the famous Boobie Smushes my cousins Darby and Sydney and I (The Three Silly Girls) do. We do one whenever we part ways and say, "Weeee!" so high pitched only dogs can hear us. These pictures were taken over the weekend when we went to Chicago for a Snow Patrol concert. You can see The Bean in the background!

Another highlight of our weekend was the amazeballs food! This is a chocolate banana slice of French Toast. Heavenly.

And lastly here is a photo of the lead singer of Snow Patrol. The concert venue was decorated to look like it was some kind of castle. It was strange, but  cool. At one point, instead of doing the normal "have this half of the venue sing then the other half," he asked (in his gorgeous Irish accent) the "girls"("we are all princesses," he said.) in the audience to sing one part followed by the "boys" in their "most manly magical kingdom voices."At first he said boys would go first, but then he said, "NO! Girls first. Chivalry is not dead in this medieval kingdom we have created." So the girls sang and it was all well and good. Then the boys sang and it was so deep and awkward he totally burst out laughing on stage. He covered it by saying, "We do not discriminate in our medieval kingdom. We just love."  It was hilarious and adorable and he just kept smiling and seemed to be having so much fun with it!

This happened to me in January (from a Facebook status):
That moment when biking to work and you think ah, I'll just roll through this stop sign, there's never anyone here. Then a car is actually coming so you slam on your breaks, attempt to yank your shoes out of your clips, but don't in time, and end up toppling over in front of a bus full of school children. 
What? That's never happened to you?

     I read an article today about how Dove did a study of 1,000 women and found that, when asked how they felt today, only 1 in 10 women felt attractive. Most said they felt average.
     DO NOT settle for average! It's never to late to be what you want to be. Compliments are always a confidence booster. Change your hair, get a new outfit that makes you look and feel amazing, people will notice. Pay others the same respect. Tell your friends you love their manicure or their new highlights.
     If you're feeling average, decide what you love about yourself and figure out a way to play up those qualities rather than focusing on fixing the things you don't love as much. If you focus on the positive and making those qualities even better, the other things will fall into place as well.
     You are beautiful. Start acting like it--nothing is sexier than a person with confidence. That's why everybody is talking about swagger these days--go get it!

     I think we all have those things that we say all the time (whether we are aware of them or not) that either annoy us or others or both. One of my roommates works with special needs kids and now says "Good job" all the time. My other roommate's thing is saying "wait what?" and then proceeding to respond to whatever you said rather than wait for you to respond.
     My thing annoys the crap out of my mom. I over exaggerate everything: I never just like things. I love love love them. Nothing is nice. Things are really nice. I often die of starvation and/or being cold or am so tired I'll just die. However I also live  for a lot of things. I decided to start keeping track of the things I say I live for in March ago so that when I'm dying of something I'll remember things aren't so bad. Sadly there are dozens and dozens of things I've said,  "Oh, my God I live for..."in the past 2 months. Here they are:

1. Musicals and show tunes. Growing up, Grease was my favorite movie. I thought that's what high school would be like--that my friends and I would go around dancing and singing all the time. My first celebrity crush was John Travolta as Danny Zuko. This leads into the next thing I live for:
2. Men singing show tunes (sad story concerning this one. One of my cousins just informed me he picked up a girl by singing "Part of Your World"  to her, yes, The Little Mermaid. I thought wow, that's ballsy, then I realized, no, it's genius. That would work on me. Crap. I hope no one tries that--that's sneaky. Good thing the only men I know who sing Disney are gay or related to me...so far haha)
3. Anything with any combination (or by themselves) of Dark chocolate, peanut butter and oatmeal. Monster Cookie dough is my favorite food of all time.
4. Dogs, real dogs not yippy rodents.
5. Yippy rodent dogs that I can laugh at.
6. Dogs that drive.
7. Hugs. Good God do I live for hugs. I love love love them. I come from a family where I got hugged every day, multiple times a day. Now that I don't live with huggers, my body craves physical human contact. I am a hug addict and going through withdrawal.
8. Free stuff. Doesn't even matter what it is. I live for free stuff.
9. Competition and winning. There doesn't even have to be a prize. Cards, dominos, sports--ANYTHING I'm sure I've said it about most games. Except Apples to Apples. I freaking hate that game.
10. Daily crossword puzzles.
11. Waterskiing.
12. Napping in the sun.
13. Pancakes, waffles, french toast, cereal--breakfast carbs especially for dinner and combined with peanut butter and syrup.
14. Garden Cafe's Carrot Cake. And only Garden Cafe's.
15. Planning and Scheduling. I live to make my new schedule each semester of school and draw up little calendars and plan things and make lists. So I have a little OCD...
16. 90's music, "Come Together" by the Beatles, "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones, "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls, "Drops of Jupiter" by Train, "How to Be Dead" by Snow Patrol and "Some Might Say" by Oasis, The Wallflowers station on Pandora, Pandora in general.
17. Fried flour tortilla chips and $2 chicken tacos.
18. Leon's Mexican Restaurant in Norfolk, my hometown.
19. Any Mexican Restaurant in Norfolk.
20. Roller Coasters.
21. Hilarious signs.
22. My mom and my brother. I need to find a way I can make them be like the king and his heir so they aren't allowed to travel together so that they both can't die in a crash or something. I could live if something happened to my mom because my brother would need me and vice versa, however, I can't live without both.
23. Candy bars in the form of eggs. I don't normally go for Snickers or Reese's (unless they are dark chocolate or on frozen yogurt) but there is something about them in egg form that is so much better than the bar form.
24. Singing in the car. Loudly. Full out Erin Darby Gesell concert when I travel alone.
25. Singing (loudly and horribly) and dancing (also horribly).
26. Butterflies in my stomach. I find this to be an awful and wonderful sensation all at the same time that makes me happy and want to puke.
27. Cold water from Scoular's filter. Yep, I really said that recently. I live for Scoular's cold water. The little things in life, I guess!
28. The Target Clearance Section.
29. Victoria's Secret free panties. I get one in the mail a least once a month. I have new underwear coming out of my ears and enough to last a lifetime.
30. All you can eat sushi--sounds gross, I know, but it's not out on a buffet, they bring it out fresh just like any other sushi place and it's amazeballs.
31. Fat Fest. My friends and I all went to Vegas after we turned 21 and stayed at the Monte Carlo hotel. One day we got the all-day-all-you can-eat buffet. We dubbed this glorious day Fat Fest 2010. I peaked at breakfast where I ate my weight in blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup and didn't eat the rest of the day. Fat Fest 2011 was held at all you can eat sushi. I paced myself better that time. We've been discussing the location of Fat Fest 2012. I can't wait to live for that too.
32. Laughing at myself. Some days if I can't do that, I think I'd just cry.
33. Swinging, especially in the round-and-round swings in Lexington.
34. Laketime.
35. Three Silly Girls Boobie Smushes with my cousins Darby and Sydney. We have always done three-way hugs. Then Darby and I got boobs and Sydney's face was at boob height. For a couple of years it sucked to be her.
36. Johnny Depp, the love of my life.
37. Yogurt.
38. Frozen Yogurt.
39. Frozen yogurt covered in mounds of chocolate.
40. Those few and far between books that are so amazing that you check out of the real world while you read them and then are depressed to return when the book is over.
41. Being warm in the sun.
42. My heated blanket.
43. Not having to do laundry.
44. Being away from my phone and then returning to it to see that I have a missed call, text or Facebook message...and not have them be spam or from work
45. Harry Potter references.
46. Karma catching up to people.
47. My friend and co-worker Frank's photos he posts on Facebook.
48. Nebraska Football.
49. Good athletics.
50. Nebraska in the fall aka football season.
51. Boys' hoops. As in good competition boys' basketball games...not boys with hoop earrings or boys with hula hoops or anything like that.
52. The tv show Boy Meets World. I then proceeded to add that I lived for all of the shows from TGIF when I was a kid.
53. Bedtime.
54. Eatingtime.
55. Going to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.

So 55 things that I've said I live for in around 60 days. Looks like I shouldn't run out of reasons to live.

     My random wisdom of the day: no one is perfect. My proof: everybody farts.

     I got to be in the Omaha World Herald a few months ago when they did a piece on the importance of working out throughout a person's lifetime. My hometown newspaper put some of the pictures online too. I kind of felt like a smalltime celebrity for a few days :) Someone hung a copy of the issue by my locker in the locker room and several of my fitness class peeps brought me copies--it was so sweet of them!
     The World Herald came to do a piece on men in yoga and pilates classes last night in my Yogalates class, so I might be quoted again (although, I'm not sure Yoga--ie butt-in-the-air is my best angle of being photographed!) Pretty cool! Hopefully soon, I'll be in print for my writing!

http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/news/fitness/image_0c5b08c4-4837-11e1-9485-0019bb30f31a.html

     Today my roommate Laura and I decided to try a new yoga class. The style was Kundalini, which I've read and studied about but never tried before. The class was an hour and a half long and we knew there would be more meditation than yoga classes we're used to attending and possibly some chanting with the meditation. We were ok with this--prepared. We were the only new people in the class.
     However, the warm up was vigorous, all breathing and sitting with one more that required us to stand up, down, up, down as fast as we could. My legs were so tired from running 11.5 miles this morning, I didn't think I'd survive! I was kind of panicked about what the rest of the practice would be. The rest was not like this. We spent the rest of the time sitting or lying down.
     We did three moves in the warm up (mostly sitting and breathing fast, opening energy sources through the body), taking around 20 minutes. We then laid down for meditation. Next the instructor called us to sit with him while he showed us our "tree" for the bulk of our practice. He had a whole book of poses open to a page with three poses. A sitting one, a lying down one (the person had zig-zaggy lines like the rays of a sun all around him), and another sitting. He told us the chant for the first sitting time and the last sitting time and explained the lying down pose. I assumed he'd flip the page and show us more things, there was at least another hour left of class, how could we only do three things!?
     But nope. That was it. Three things. Not even poses really. The whole time I was thinking this is one of the weirdest things I've ever done! But not really in a bad way. The lying down pose with the buzzy lines around it was so strange but amazing! He told us to lie there and move every part of our body, wiggle every single part, but keep everything in contact with the ground. He said to shake out our anger. Shake it all out. It was so tiring and I felt stupid, but my God! It was great! When I thought I was too tired to shake anything else out, he'd say, "Channel your aggression and your anger. Get it out! Cleanse everything." And I'd think, man! I AM angry! This feels great! and I'd wiggle harder, energy renewed. Then he'd say, "Are you moving everything? Shake through the tongue, wiggle your face, your eyes, your nose!" And I waggle my tongue inside my mouth and squint and move my face like I had some kind of nervous twitch. Super weird. I can't imagine how much power it took the yogi not to laugh at all of us. We probably looked like spaztastic seizure victims, twitching all over the floor, making ridiculous faces. But oh, the spazy twitching was so effective and wonderful.
     The last thing we did was chant. For fifteen minutes. The same thing sitting with our eyes closed. It was the longest I have ever spent focusing on one thing. The chant basically meant, great is the greatness. Meaning the world and universe and life and everything are great and vast and wonderful. Since we were chanting for so long, though, I forgot what the chant meant. I kept thinking, wow this is the longest I've ever focused on one thing, this is good for me. I need practice with meditation. When we were done, the yogi said, "Ecstasy! Great is the Greatness!" And someone said, "Oh!" and someone else said, "Is that what that was?" haha, so I wasn't the only one who forgot!
     Overall, we both thought Kundalini was weird, but not necessarily in a bad way. We're glad we tried it and loved the shaking out of the anger--I'd recommend trying that at home to anyone! I did miss the movement and stretching of Hatha and Vinyasa types of yoga, but I definitely need practice meditating so this was probably very good for me. Interesting to say the least.
 

     My roommate Laura bought tickets for a One Direction concert in 2013. We were talking about how much can change in 16 months and how hard it was to buy tickets that far in advance. What if they break up? What if she no longer likes them? What if someone schedules their wedding or some other huge event that weekend? All kinds of things. Then she said, "Yeah, I mean who knows, in 16 months I might have a real boyfriend and not need to go." Haha awesome. I love her.

     I frequently write down good or weird snippets of conversations that I hear or read throughout the day, because  I never know what I might use in writing later...and some of it is just stupid or hilarious. Here are a few from yesterday and today:

"Well, you know-o, hippos kill more people than sharks do every year." As if that was the most obvious thing ever.
"This isn't everything you are." From a song of the same title by Snow Patrol. I like to think of this when I'm doing things where I am out of my element. I am so much more than a rejection letter from an agent--there are other things I am great at!
"Personally, I feel that peanut butter should be a food group all of it's own. And it should be called awesomeness." I thought this to myself while sitting with a jar and spoon.
"I'd like to be abroad (a broad)." My roommate Laura last night.
"Some random people ruined Titanic for me the first time I saw it. They totally blabbed that the ship sank." Wow. I don't even have a comment for this one.

I'll be going through my notebook to hit some of my favorites :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQiEJk-o5WA&feature=player_embedded

Love this video. Also courtesy of the wonderful Courtni.

     I have one last quotation I want to pull from Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros to share with everyone. The main character Lala says of her first love: He was my destiny, but not my destination.
     I think this is a great way to look at anything that doesn't quite work out how we plan it to. All of our mistakes and unsuccessful endeavors are just little bumps throughout our destiny taking us where we need to be: our destination.

     Apparently butt-in-the-face-of-good-looking-guys is the theme of my week.
     I attend yoga classes as often as I can. I love being able to go to classes that I don't teach, especially yoga, so that I can learn new things and so that I can really relax into the workout rather than being on and making sure everyone else is getting their workout.
     Today I went to yoga a cute guy lined up right behind me. I thought 2:15 minutes of my butt in an attractive guy's face was bad, but today was the full hour. Not only was I thinking about my butt the whole time (rather than relaxing), but I was also freaking out about whether or not the bottom of my feet were clean since I had been walking around barefoot all morning. The cherry on my awkward sundae was that when we were in poses like downward facing dog or child's pose, I could look back between my legs and see him. Granted he was in those poses too, so no awkward eye contact, but it could've happened.

Our cat has no shame.

     My family is great. On my dad's side, though, I am kind of an awkward middle child. My cousins are either way older than me or my little brother's age. Growing up, I was so not going to hang out with my brother, so I tried to hang with the big kids. I wanted to be just like my cousins Jenni, Cathy and Nicole. They are all tall, thin, cute with almost no makeup on and perfect! Jenni and Cathy are dancers. I tried so hard in my dance lessons but, holy crap was/am I awful at dance! I have no rhythm and no grace. Trying to be like my cousin Nicole was much easier. (Although, there's no way I can fix not being tall like her and the others) She played sports and I loved going to her games. I felt so cool being able to say she was my cousin.
     However hard I tried, though, and while they're all great and really humored me as a kid, I never quite fit in. As I've gotten older, (ie now that I can finally go out with the big kids) I'm getting included in some pretty cool things! My cousin Jenni entered into a contest with a photo of her, my cousin Cathy, my cousin Nicole and my cousin-in-law Michelle. The contest people loved the photo and asked for them to submit a video. The contest is for an all expenses paid girls trip to the Bahamas and they asked me to go with if we win! I'm beyond excited.
     What could be more perfect for a group of girls? If we win they'll follow us while we snorkel and scuba dive and get spa treatments and all those wonderful things you do on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas and make a documentary and use the material for promotional ads. Here is the link to the video my family made (I'm not in it, but I can tell you my cousin Jenni's tips: lighting and makeup, lighting and makeup!!!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GZcwqpUAiBA

 

     Proof that I have the greatest job in the world :) One of the girls that comes to one of my classes posted this today: "Erin works me more than I can ever remember in training for actual sports. My trip to Mexìco will be 100% better because of SWEAT class. So glad to be back at Pinnacle. Great job on the re-model. I am proud to have joined Pinnacle once again. I am passing along the word and feeling great about the progress I've personally experienced! Thank you!"
     One of my friends who I haven't seen since high school told me this the other day and it really just gave me a little skip to my step: "Hey Erin! So today I was stuck at an auto-shop and had nothing to do but play on my phone. I think I read every single post on your blog. Your writing is incredible! Keep it up and thanks for the entertainment!"
     I'm finding that in life, the smallest things are the ones that make each day better and better. I know how great it feels when someone tells me I am doing my job well, I want to make sure others know I appreciate them too. One of the women who came to my cycling class told me this morning that happiness is contagious. If you work to bring joy to others, you will live a joyous life. She said I bring happiness to her and she can tell I am a happy person. This is true. I know it's hard sometimes, but every day, try to think of at least one good thing you have going for you. It could be as simple as having a good hair day when everything else seems to be going wrong. Or if you're having a crappy day just pass on a compliment to someone else. Maybe you can make their day like these girls made mine.

     I teach fitness classes for a living. I love my job. I love my job more than almost anything. There is nothing better than getting paid to work out (other than, maybe, getting paid to write, which will hopefully happen to me one day!), however, being a work out professional can make a few things awkward.
     I meet the coolest people at my clubs and have a hookup for anything I could need help with--computer people, lawyers, mechanics, accountants, teachers, everything. And, of course, there are good looking guys working out. However, because working out is my job, I do it a lot and a lot more than most of the guys at the gym. Guys have told me, more than once, that I'm intimidating. Great. Thanks. Just what every girl wants to hear.
      Well, there are currently a couple of good looking dudes (neither of which have told me that I scare them by the way. They're both very nice) that have started coming to my classes. One of them came to my class today and we did walk out pushups. Basically you stand up, then bend over, butt in the air, and walk your hands out so that you're body is in a plank position, do a pushup then walk your hands back toward your feet so that your butt is back in the air again. My class was packed so we had to be lined up so that everyone could have room around their equipment to do their pushups. Of course, it ends up that my butt is facing the hot guy, like literally only a few feet away. Oh. Perfect. We only did those walkout pushups for, freaking, 3 different 45 second stints. Two minutes and fifteen seconds of my butt going up and down in front of his face.
     And I was wearing spandex today. Smooth.

My roommate Courtni shared this with me yesterday. Amazeballs! So funny :) I love The Hunger Games!

     I'm reading the novel Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros and loving it! I have a few lines I want to pull out and share from a scene involving Celaya (Lala), a young Chicana and her aunt, Norma. The whole novel is beautifully poetic, but I felt drawn to a few lines about love and wanted to share them.
     Norma is telling Celaya about her relationship with her ex-husband. When talking of how the couple met she says, "...he looks back at me and smiles and winks. That wink that says, 'I know it's a lie, and you know it's a lie, but let's just keep it to ourselves, right?' I go back to being invisible to everyone but him. It's as if I was always invisible until that moment. Until he said, 'She's with me,' I didn't have a life, right?'"
     When telling Lala of the couple's separation, the Norma says, "'...I went a little crazy. Oh, I suffered, Lala, I was all right in the day. In the daytime it was easy to be brave. It was when I lay down to sleep, that's when I'd let myself cry.'
     'Why is it sadness always comes and gets you when you lie down?' [Lala asked]
     'Maybe it's because we talk too much in the day, and we can't hear what the heart is saying. And if you don't pay attention, then it talks to you through a dream...' [Norma]
      'Everyone knew how the story was going to end except me. Isn't that always the case with love?...So that after we broke up he still wanted to keep calling me, can you believe it? 'Can't we just be friends?' [Norma]
     I've always wondered about the "Let's be friends" thing. I'm with Norma. I don't think it works. I'd love to be friends with my ex, because he really was my best friend, but when I'm around him, it breaks my heart.
Back to the novel, Norma says:
     ..."'Because that's what I was, more alone than I'd ever been in my life. I was alone, and the person who loved me was a piece of red thread unraveling. Thank you, goodbye. And when I die, then you'll realize how how much I loved you, right? Yes, of course. That's how it always is, isn't it? I dreamt a dream; I opened my wallet, but instead of money, there was a row of starched handkerchiefs, and I knew I had a lot of tears to spend.
     'I just wish he would've said, 'I hurt you, Norma, and I'm sorry.' Just that, I don't know, I don't know. If only he'd said that. Maybe that's why I still hate him!
     ...'Look, I wouldn't hate him if I didn't love him. Only people you love drive you to hate, don't you know that yet, Lalita? The ones you don't give a cucumber for, who cares what they think, right? They're not worth the bother of being upset...'"