This week last year I posted 3 goals for age 25. I turned 26 on Monday and I have to report that I only completed one of them. I may have set the bar a little high with the combination of them. Waaaahh, waaaahh, wahh, I know. Whiney, excuses. Whatevs. Goals for year 25 were as follows:

1. Have an agent for my book
2. Buy a house or condo
3. Slalom ski on my left leg--sounds minor to the other 2 but it's been a goal for a long time and I suck. My dear aunt Karla suggested we cut off my right leg and then I'll have no choice. I maybe should add a goal 4 of still having both legs at age 26.

1. I did not find an agent for my book. I did, however, finish my Masters of Fine Arts degree at Antioch University Los Angeles. My last year of my Masters included a 25 page research paper on the way JK Rowling's Harry Potter series has helped Generation Y become a more tolerant and accepting people than past generations, over 150 pages of fiction written of my second novel, a complete revision of my first novel, 40 books read and annotated, and a developed online creative writing class that I will teach for my University in October.
Goal one for age 26: Finish and revise my second novel. Find agent. Now that school is over, there's nothing to get in the way. 

2. I bought a house. I nailed this goal. The first year of homeownership may have also gotten in the way of goal 1. My 4 bedroom, 2 bath house is fully painted, decorated, and unpacked. One bedroom has been turned into a walk-in closet and all of my old crappy wood furniture has been painted and distressed to look super coolio and vintage. I have a garden with more tomatoes than I can eat. I planted a tree and it's still alive. I'm a real person with things. 
Goal two for age 26: Get myself a sweetie dog. This is may be cheating because this goal is already in the works. Well, maybe no, because last year buying a house was already in the works when I set that goal. More to come on my addition to the family. Please don't fear for my dog because of the prior tree comment. 

3. I didn't even try to slalom on my left leg. I did get to go home and ski plenty this summer. I'm so happy this boy I found myself is in to going to the lake. He learned how to slalom ski by dropping one ski. I'm so proud. Any whosies, each time we skied I had friends home too and didn't want to take time from them (and John) learning because I would have surely face planted several times trying to get up on my left leg and taken up valuable lake time. Maybe this weekend I'll have a chance to give it a whirl. 
On a side note, with John's help, I completed a life goal last week. It's been a dream of mine to ride  my bike from Omaha (where I live now) to Norfolk (where I'm from). It's about 110 miles. John just got his bike in January. I told him my dream and that all I wanted for my 26th birthday was to tackle this goal. There's restaurant we've been wanting to eat at a few miles Norfolk and we decided to stop there and have our wonderful, lifesaving friend, Kim, pick us up there so we didn't go the full 110 miles. It was 100 degrees. It was windy. It was hilly. We got to the restaurant and it was closed. We walked 4 doors down to the bar, where the bartender  told us no other restaurants in the small town were open for lunch. She then made us frozen pizza. We did it. We rode all that way in the heat and wind and hills and that was the best dang frozen pizza I have ever scarfed down. 

The start. Look smiles. 

We stopped in Tekamah and had snacks

Not sure what the locals having breakfast
thought about us. 

And doughnuts in West Point
No longer smiling, but the doughnut
helped, as did John yelling Cumeeeeiing!
when we reach Cuming County. 

The end. Shell shocked. Summer Shandy revival.

I also took several Cat Selfies. Not a life goal, but I feel they need to be shared with the world.

 

 

On my 26th birthday, instead of going to the DMV and renewing my license (and risking paying a fee or having to take the test again), I decided to bake cookies. I then proceeded to eat cookie dough for lunch. The next day I made it in and out of the DMV with no fee or test in less than 20 minutes. I hope this is a sign of good things to come for year 26. 

1. Novel
2. Big Sweetie Dog
3. This year I did my first half Ironman, in 2 weeks I'll do my first ultra marathon--a 50 mile trail run in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Goal 3 of age 26 is to not hate myself for signing up for this race. I'd like to think I have a goal of finishing it as well. 

Dream big, friends. 

Happy Monday! Here is an excerpt from the novel I'm working on. This scene is basically a dating fear--boyfriends' moms. Most are fine and normal. Moms are people just like anyone else. However, just like all people, some are awkward. Jaisa's ex-boyfriend's mom would definitely be one of the latter. It also includes two of my favorite things about high school: basketball and puff paint. 

I’m not so sure Mikah’s family loved me. He’s an only child and his dad drives a truck so he’s gone all the time and Mikah’s mom is hard to talk to. Like really hard. Once I rode with her to one Mikah’s away basketball games. Never did it again.

She picked me up. “Hi, Mrs. Craven. Thank you so much for picking me up,” I said, putting my seatbelt on.

“Hi, Jes-uh.” Mikah and I had been dating for two years at this point. Granted, this was only, like, the fifth time his mom and I’d talked, but she had been watching me run and hearing people scream my name at meets for two years, she should know how to pronounce it. Jay-suh. It’s not that hard.

Mikah had suggested I ride with her. I thought it would be a good idea. Help make me part of the family. Mikah had fit right in with my family the moment we started dating. Why wasn’t I a part of his? My family's really important to me and so was Mikah. I wanted both important pieces to know each other. Not the story on his side.

Riding with his mom, two blocks from my house: “Mikah said Louisville is pretty good this year,” I had said, trying to start a conversation. I looked down at my black shirt covered in puff paint. Some of the other girlfriends and I made the shirts the week before. Sideline Sweeties scrawled across the front and Craven 11 decorated the back. I picked at some of the puff paint.

She didn’t respond.

Ten blocks from my house we passed a new Scooter’s that was being built on one of Landview’s main streets. “I’m excited for the new coffee place. Do you like Scooter’s?”

“I just drink what we have at work.”

“I’m not a big coffee person, but when Mom and I go to Omaha to go clothes shopping she always gets a skinny vanilla latte and I get a green apple Italian soda. We’ll be heading to Omaha next weekend to get my Winter Royalty dress.”

Nothing.

A mile from my house: “So how is work?” I ask.

“It’s work.”

“I don’t quite know. Mikah said you do finances for Super 8?”

“Yes, he’s right I do.”

Two miles from my house. We were finally on the highway. “What do you do with the finances?” I asked.

“I do the hotel’s bills.”

Eight miles from home: “So, do you like going to basketball, cross country or track better?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re all the same,” she said.

“But don’t you like being outside for track?”

“Not when it rains.”

“So basketball.”

“They all have hard bleacher seating and it’s all the same parents.”

“Bleacher butt does suck.”

She didn’t respond. Ten miles from home I gave up and stared out the window for the next fifty miles. The ride home was just as eventful. When we first started dating, Mikah had been similar to his mom. I had to prompt questions. The more he started hanging out with my family, though, the more he got in on our conversation starters. At dinner, Dad, Mom (before she left), Bryce and I all go around the table and say our lows and highs of the day. After Mikah had eaten supper with us a few times, he and I started doing that on the phone at night. Toward the end he started to forget to ask. Maybe I should have seen the break up coming. 

     Have you ever watched a chick flick and thought, there's no way that would ever happen to me? I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but it probably never will. Because chick flicks aren't real life. When I was in junior high health class the teacher used to talk about how chick flicks and chick lit were basically like a female version of porn--that these things were as unrealistic as the women and situations that were in adult movies and Playboy. I wouldn't go that far, but I'd definitely agree that they make us want things that are usually a long shot. We want the bad boy to love us enough to become "good". We want the guy who always, always knows the right thing to say. We want Prince Charming. We want the captain of the football team to fall for the girl with braces and acne. But how often do those things happen?
     I'm dating a guy who loves chick flicks. I could've guessed this before we ever started dating. At first this made me roll my eyes. He's not romantic. He's definitely a realist, but clearly, I'm so much more worldly and immune to the poor message chick flicks are sending to women like me. Right? Wrong. At then end of my eye roll, I realized I do the same thing with words. I love love songs. Love them. I went to see OneRepublic last week and, seriously, every song just made me weak in the knees. I've said so many times that my dream would be to have someone love me so much that they could put it into a song. Delusional. About as dumb as a 100 year old vampire falling in love with a 17 year old girl.
     Since the chances of Ryan Tedder falling in love with me are about as likely as me entering the magical world of Narnia, I've been trying to look more for the beautiful ways we show each other that we love one another in the real world this week. Love is moving across the country with your fiancee and jumping off into the unknown together. It's a big kiss after achieving something amazing. It's knowing what annoys the crap out of your partner and making them laugh before they freak out.
     In writing, stories have to be dramatic. They have to have huge stakes to keep you reading. It'd be cool to have someone be able to put their love into words for me. But it's way better having someone know I need lots of hugs and that I like to have every hour of the day planned out and not mind me being half of the time. That's real life. Don't waste your time dreaming of Prince Charming or the bad boy turned good. Dream of the one you aren't afraid to dance in front of or sing at the top of your lungs with. Dream of the one who will love you so much you start to love the braces and acne or love handles or weird bangs or whatever it is you have trouble loving about yourself.

     I competed in my first Half Ironman yesterday in Chisago Lake, Minnesota. It was wavy, awesome, seaweedy, long, epic, butt hurting, so much smiling, rainy, windy, happy, amazing, fun. Clearly just a mother load of emotions.
     Anyone who races can probably relate to the mindset of a race. You're pumped to sign up. Then you wonder why you paid to do something you could do for free at home. Sometimes you have a bad training day and you get scared. Then you have a great training day and you're pumped again. The night before the race you set your alarm and it kills you that you're not getting enough sleep. Then you lay in bed and everything washes over you, excitement, fear, tiredness, everything. The morning of the race my boyfriend, John, and I walked to transition and I told him maybe after this race I'd retire from triathlons and next year I'd just watch him with my dog (that I have yet to acquire). I was only half serious. But still a half.
     The waves of emotions don't stop the whole way through the race. I hated the swim. It was 1.2 miles of poor swimming. But, really, it wasn't the choppy water or the seaweed as thick as ropes that stuck to my arms and goggles, I just didn't feel strong and I didn't like that. I set a "I better not be slower than this time" goal and a real goal. I hit my "I better not be slower than this time", so it could've been worse.
     The first 20 of the 56 mile bike ride was amazeballs. I felt very speedy. The route was well protected from the wind and the sky was overcast. I was flying. Then the trees thinned out and the wind hit and the clouds broke loose with rain. I began counting down the miles by singing 36 miles to go on the bike 36 miles to go, take one down, pound it to the ground, only 35 miles to go on this freaking bike. Every mile. My butt hurt. It might be chaffed.
     I was only one minute off of my real goal for my bike. I did it in 3:01. Even in the wind and rain and singing my stupid song. I got off the bike and thanked the triathlon gods that was over.
     I didn't set a goal for the run because I know what I can run a half marathon in and didn't want to psych myself out for that. But I was soooo happy to get to the run. I felt good. Started passing people. Making moves. I felt so good. I talked to every person I saw. "Looking good!" "Great job!" "Keep it up!" Cheesy but it was fun and passed the time with no music. After 4 miles I started thinking I could easily be under six hours for the race. At 6.5 miles (the half way mark) I was jamming to music in my head and still cheesing to people and I realized I could be under 5:45.
     I finished the race in 5:37 with a 1:47 half marathon. I was pumped. I felt like I could run for days. Moments before, on the bike, I was wondering how I'd ever run. But my legs never stopped moving and my smile never left my face.
     I did an Olympic distance tri a few weeks ago. This is the distance I normally do (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run). I hit a personal best in that race and the only thing that got me to the finish was knowing that once I got to the end I could pee, eat Mexican food, and that John was waiting for me. I thought those three things, plus the promise of a post race massage at the event and then a scheduled one on Tuesday and three days at the lake to recover this weekend, would be the things that got me through. But I didn't feel like I needed to bribe myself. Yesterday, I wanted to soak it all up, the good and the bad. I did it, just me, without talking myself into it. I did it.
     I'm still smiling. My butt hurts. And my mindset might be totally different my next race and I might have to bribe myself in all kinds of ways to finish. But today, yesterday, that was amazing. I feel like a rockstar and I'm smiling.

I'm not smiling in this picture. My mouth is
full of food. Go figure. 

                               

Hola, all! I'm late on my Monday blogging but I was sans internet yesterday. This is an excerpt from my Young Adult novel about Jaisa Jamison a high school senior cross country runner. This is pretty far into the novel but all you need to know to get this part is that it's homecoming and Jaisa went to the dance with her bff Lydia and Will (a college sophomore), Lydia's date (he sees this date as non-romatic, Lydia would like it to be romantic). Cooper, Will's younger brother, is a super hunk on the cross country team and Jaisa's Physics partner.

          We go to dinner at Applebee’s. Will drives. Lydia pays. I sit in the backseat and I order chicken fingers for dinner. I should’ve gotten crayons and a kids’ menu to color on too. When we get to the dance, we have to shuffle through the breathalyzer line to make sure no one is drunk before they enter the dance. What the cops and teachers should be doing is patting everyone down before they come in because half the boys have bottles tapped to their ankles to sneak pulls of during the dance.

            “Come along my ladies!” As soon as were passed the chaperones and police doing breathalyzers, Will grabs our hands and marches us straight into the gym and onto the dance floor. There are not near enough people here yet for me to dance. No way. I try to pull away but, “No, Miss Jaisa. If you’re my date, you will dance. I did not come back to high school to be a wall flower.”

            Lydia is already trying to grind with Will, slinking her arm around his neck, but he turns his hips toward me and tugs on my arm.

            “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get in trouble for grinding with two of your cross country students?” I yell to him over the music.

            “Nope.” He shifts a little to put more distance between his man parts and Lydia’s gyrating hips. His man parts that are not interested in her lady parts. “I cleared it with Coach Q. I told him I had nothing going on, Lydia asked and what better way for me to keep an eye on you both.”

            I look at Lydia to see if she hears this, but her eyes are closed and she’s singing loudly. Will is still trying to keep distance between them.

            “Come on.”

          I roll my eyes, shrug, and move in closer. The song switches to country and with a yee-haw! Will starts swinging both Lydia and me around like toy tops. He has no problem juggling two dance partners and soon I’m so out of breath from spinning and laughing that I need to go out for a drink of water. Will whips me around one last time and I keep twirling toward the door of the gym, away from the dance floor and run right into Cooper’s solid chest. His solid chest in a tight black sweater. The smile drops from my face and I back away apologizing, but he catches my hand softly and pulls me back toward him. He places my other hand on his shoulder and slides his arm around my waist. His hand is shaking and a little sweaty but his eyes stay locked on mine and we start to sway to the slow song. Couples press together around us but we maintain a good six-inch barrier. My heart is racing so fast I’m pretty sure the entire space between us is charged with its energy.

The slow song ends and a faster one comes on, but we stay exactly the way we are.

            “You look really beautiful.” His voice is deep and has the same nervous but deliberate quality of his hands that guide me around the dance floor but quiver ever so slightly.

            “Oh, yeah, Lydia does a good job,” I say and look down at his dress shoes next to my hot pink toes poking out of my wedges.

            “You never take a compliment, you know that?”

            “I can to!” My eyes fly back up to his. “I just. Well, she does do a good job. And it’s not like it’s me.”

            He’s laughing. I frown and my eyes narrow. My feet stop taking their little steps with his.

            “It is though. You’re pretty in shorts and a ponytail. You are pretty in jeans and a t-shirt. You are pretty in a toga, pretty in a dress. And of course you would shrug off a compliment but get defensive when someone calls you out on it.” He’s still laughing and I don’t know whether to agree with him, say thank you, or get annoyed.

            I decide to just shut up. Silence is golden right?

            When it’s clear I have no response for him. Cooper says, “You know I’m not mad, right? I was just giving you a hard time.”

            I nod and before I can think of something to say, I see Josie bouncing toward us through the crowd.        

            “There’s my date!” She shoves herself between us and grabs Cooper’s shoulders. “Woops! Sorry, Jaisa.”

            I back away and Cooper still holds me with his eyes. I break his stare and finally leave the gym for that drink of water. After the drinking fountain, I head to the bathroom. I don’t really have to go but I walk in and face one of the vanity mirrors. My hair is starting to frizz out a little with the humidity from the heat of the dancing bodies and my sweat. I touch my face and lean closer to the mirror. Yes, this is my face. Yes, this is my hand. I am Jaisa. I am here.

"I'm a real adult!" I've probably said this two dozen times in the last six months. I bought a house: I'm a real grownup now! I have only one full time job with insurance and no part time jobs: Holy cow, I'm officially a real person. I finished my Master's degree: I'm, like, a real adult. 

But I don't feel any different. Yes, I have debt for the first time. And a lawn to mow and I'm trying this whole garden thing and money comes out of my paycheck for insurance and grownup things. I have laundry and workouts and time with friends and family. But how does balancing it all now make it any difference than when I was in college or when I lived at home in high school? I still had to be a functioning human being then. 

In college I spent the first year in an intensive division of the Honors Program in which we discussed Maslow's Hierarchy of needs until I felt I could draw the ladder for you with my toes, blindfolded. 

Basically, we have certain needs that must be fulfilled before we grow toward a higher level of existence. The ultimate goal is to come to a place of self-actualization. This is a place where you are comfortable enough with your health (physiological needs), your safety (you have a home, job security, etc), your relationships, and yourself (you know your strengths) that you can lose your ego and be at peace with the world and your place in it (self-actualization).

So, take me. I have food, water. I bought a house and have job security. I have a wonderful supports system of family and friends. I have "mastered" my profession enough to have received a degree in it. But does all of this make me grown? 

Most of us will hang in that belonging or self-esteem stage. The stages where we still have ego. Where we still compare ourselves to others, judging them and ourselves. We all know people who have to be right, those who discount the beliefs of others and cannot let go of their sense of self long enough to see others from any perspective other than what they believe is right.  And, let's be honest. There are plenty of people older than me who do not have these things. Who will never make it to even Maslow's Safety. 

I may not know at what point we officially become "old." But I do think that our perspectives shift as we age. I was riding my bike home today--cruising, you know, like I'm real cool with my race bike, clips, aero bars, the whole shebang--while eating a sucker (unsafe, I know, but if I get run over, I doubt the sucker stick jabbed into my throat is the most of my worries) and there was a guy riding a low rider bike smoking. Grade school me would have said, "Oh. God. Seriously. I can't believe I have to inhale that secondhand smoke." High school me would have said, "Would you like me to help you quit smoking? Here are blah blah blah [too many facts on smoking hazards to list]." College me would have said, "Yes! You have a right to smoke! I may not partake, I actually think it's trashy, but you go do your thing and don't let anyone stop you." Twenty-something me of today thought, "Smoking while riding, that takes commitment. If he's enjoying his cigarette and ride as much as I'm enjoying this sucker and my ride then yeehaw. This must be the best version of himself." Maybe 30-something year old me will be cruising with a low rider and a cigarette in 10 years. Who knows? 

Anyway, I think that this dude may have shown me that I've matured. That I've come to release myself, slightly, from making my perspective being solely about me. Houses, degrees, jobs, perspective. Do those things make a person grown-up? Right now, who my ego is today, says no. I don't really think so. (Because I, obviously, know all the answers). Today I think the fun of it all is growing toward our places in the world and continuing to learn and change our perspectives. Today I say you can always teach an old dog new tricks. We're all human. No one is so right in their world view that they have no flaws. I guess my point is that to move forward each day is to grow and learn and become better at being you so much so that you are so good at being you that you can step outside of yourself and have compassion and understanding for everyone around you no matter how different you are. Even until you are 100 years old. 

Tomorrow however, someone could eat my lunch at work and I'll revert to cave-girl when my physiological needs aren't being met and I'll whack people over the head until I'm fed. Or maybe I'll go to yoga and in meditation I'll transcend my ego and decide the modern world is not for me and go become a hermit in the woods. Or maybe the hokey pokey really is what it's all about and I'm just full of crap. 

So I've taken a major hiatus from blogging. I suck.

Buuuuttt I did get my MFA! I am now a Master of the Fine Arts graduating from Antioch University Los Angeles. Below you can see my sweet gown with it's sleeves for stashing your phone while your graduation ceremony is 2 hours long and starts at the same time as the USA soccer match.

Mostly that is what I've been up to. However, I did recently do this #100happydays thing on Facebook so I can say that I've done a bazillion things that make me happy and it will help me do a photo recap of my recent adventures. 

My boyfriend, John, and I went to Chicago to watch my cousin Mike play hoops at Northwestern and we went to our first pro basketball game, mashed deep dish and cupcakes, and went to the Field Museum. 

I painted the inside of my house and finally
put up pictures

I looked at a lot of sloths online.

I became a Person of Walmart

I was not amused by a power outage. 

Nerdnation also took over the lake
  
We won Bruno Mars tickets at a charity event. It was amazing.

I taught the next generation of my family the
value of church bling. (Long service--candy
jewelry. Classy and tasty)

USA soccer, das boot, friends, family,
and boobie smooshes for all. 

I ate a lot of froyo and other good food.

My family came to LA and we road a tandem bike on
the beach and earned ourselves serious roller coaster hair

And the 3 silly girls taught Matt Nathanson
to boobie smoosh. We've only been in love
with him since 2008. 

My plan is to be blogging on Mondays. So see you next week.