I Object!

I've been a bit of workaholic since I was a wee little tot. This stems from a weird combination of needing to please people and a fear of instability and destitution that is far too boring to unpack here. The important consequence of this tendency is that days after my 16th birthday I got my first real job and it was at a dry cleaners.

Yummy.

***PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Real live human beings have to sort and clean your clothes when you drop them off at the dry cleaners, SO HAVE SOME SHAME. This means checking your clothes for: your dirty underwear, your cocaine, poop (hopefully yours?), clumps of pubic hair, and if I kept making this list of things that we routinely found, my blog would cease to be family friendly.***

Delicious.

Even without adding my manic mix of peppiness and annoyance that I bring to all my places of work, a dry cleaners is a fascinating and disgusting place to work.

Sometimes you have clients that refuse to give their real name and insist you call them "Mr. X."

Sometimes you have clients show up after closing time at the double glass doors in their underwear screaming about how they have no clothes and you have to let them in.

Sometimes you have clients come in looking for the afore mentioned cocaine and get the entertainment of watching them figure out how to ask if we've seen it without admitting it's theirs.

And sometimes, you are the problem.

It might not come as a surprise that I can be quite chatty and friendly at my place of work. This was especially true at this job, because sorting through and bagging people's dirty clothes is incredibly awkward and nothing brings out my obnoxiousness like feeling awkward.

The customer was a large, scowling, laconic man. Challenge accepted. I'm kind of like a My Little Pony - ignoring social cues in favor of attempting to bring unnecessary amounts of rainbows and butterflies to everyone's world. The less chipperness is wanted, the more it blazes out of me (especially when I was a bright eyed, bushy tailed sixteen year old).

Serious Man was NOT interested in any of the blithe conversation I was attempting to make.

He also had an incredible amount of clothes to sort, so my attempts were not short winded or subtle.

Serious Man quickly became Scowling Man, and I in turn ramped up the "charm" to 1,000 kilowatts.

I will make this man smile. I will make him like me. His day WILL BE BETTER.

I was shaking out the last garment (a choir robe), this was my last chance: "Oh cool! I see you're in the church choir! Awesome! I bet that's so much fun! Baritone?"

Seriously? He won't even talk about Jesus? Nothing??

Mega-Scowling Man replied, many painful moments later: "I'm a judge."

Nope. Not a choir robe.

Fine. You win this round.

In my defense:

VIA

VIA



 EASY MISTAKE. All though I see now that sleeves are much sassier on a Judge. You think Mega-Scowling Man would be happier getting to wear such sassy sleeves. Sheesh.

Let's Talk About Sex

**long ranty post about sex, chalk full of personal information. Since half my readers are my family, you've been dully warned.**

There is a lot of writing about sex. Some of it is informative, some shocking, some of it is sad, some inspiring. Recently, I've noticed a trend of arguing against waiting for marriage to have sex - it's silly, old-fashioned, it's disrespectful to yourself, it sets you up for failure, it creates unrealistic expectations, etc. Some of these articles are persuasive and logical and I read them and I end up feeling like Mowgli from the Jungle Book.

Which is kind of ironic since I'm already married and don't have to struggle with standing by my decision to wait until marriage. It does get me thinking though. Those words and arguments sound so persuasive to me, how do they sound to someone who is in the midst of trying to make a choice about their sex life?

I have nothing new to add to the argument. I don't have a special ability to interpret the Bible in new ways that will wow anyone reading. There's really nothing I can say that will push this argument one way or the other. Despite that, I feel compelled to add my two cents, if nothing else than because this is my blog and I do what I want.

I always felt the need to save myself for my husband. I was taught it as a young child and was lucky enough to have mentors all through high school that taught me a healthy point of view on sex and waiting. It was not done in a dogmatic, legalistic way but in an open and honest conversation. I can tell you all the arguments you've heard before, it's a gift, it's Biblical, etc., but there's no benefit to that. All I can add is my own experience and random thoughts I've gathered over the years.

First off, I don't believe this issue is as black and white as we'd like to think. There is not a magic celibacy belt that is handed out when you make a decision that turns off your sex drive, need for intimacy, desire to be wanted, or the awareness of all the other numerous of benefits that come from sex. Waiting to have sex can be excruciating - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, ethically, grammatically... I asked myself many times, "why I am even waiting? What's the point." I desire love and intimacy as much as the next person. I'm a warm blooded human that feels lust. I was often "in love" and wanting to express that love. Staying a virgin was a constant choice, and one that often times got hazy and messy and complicated. I completely understand people, despite sound Biblical belief, who have sex.

Having sex outside of marriage can happen because of drunkenness, love, desire to get it over with, and on and on and on. Luckily, I don't think I worship a God who sees that and goes, "Ah well. No happy marriage for you in the future. The end." God is as merciful as He is just. He wants us to wait for us, not because it impacts His quality of life. He doesn't have a jar of virgins that gets emptier when we give up the goods that sends Him into panic mode that it is dwindling. I do think it makes Him sad. Being all knowing, He knows exactly how sex can be best experienced and it must be a big bummer when the children He loves are missing out on that. He knows that each casual sexual event, every heartbreak, each drunken mistake has a toll. It makes things that much more calloused or complicated. BUT, I believe that at any point someone can choose to say, "enough is enough, I want sex in the context it was created for - life long commitment." Our sexuality is no less redeemable than the rest of us.

I have a friend who has a colorful past sexually. We had many long conversations about why I choose to wait and eventually this friend made the decision that sex was off the table until marriage, regardless of the fact that many would say that ship had sailed. There was a dawning awareness that sex, even in serious, loving relationships, was not fulfilling a deep need for intimacy and that each time was actually making that hole bigger and harder to fill. That person is now married and that hole has been filled in a way that was never expected or understood before.

The flip side of that is waiting for marriage is not a magic formula that gives you Hollywood sex. If anything, it makes for a totally crap wedding night. Mine was mildly horrifying. Not because of my husband (who's incredibly sexy) or because of a flaw in our relationship. My body had no idea what it was doing, I was tense and stressed about performing well, and physically it hurt like a son of a gun. It would have been easy to sit in the fancy bathroom of our hotel and cry and wonder why I wasn't experiencing what everyone else obviously is, per the movies. But my thoughts were more along the lines of, "well we only have up to go from here," and "thank heavens I have John to figure this out with, because I sure do love and trust him."

For me, sex was a learning curve. I had to learn what I like, what John likes, what works best for us together, and all kinds of discoveries. I can't imagine taking on that journey with anyone but him. Talk with my girlfriends almost always ends up at some point being about sex (sorry guys, it's just how we work). The question, "what's the best sex you've ever had?" has come up in these conversations. I can honestly say every time I have sex is better than the last. I don't think this is a super special gift I get because I was a virgin when I got married, but I do think it would be impossible without really exploring the gift of sex within the commitment, trust, vulnerability, intimacy, and love of my relationship with John.

I honestly don't have a big concluding point with this post other than I don't regret waiting for marriage, and maybe someone needs that encouragement.

My Most Embarrassing (Not Funny) Moment

The other day I was watching an episode of Friends where Rachel states she doesn't embarrass easily and then Ross makes it his mission to prove her wrong.

As I was watching I couldn't help think that I am the exact opposite, that embarrassment is practically a second skin to me. I can spend days agonizing over something I said or did that no one but me remembers. Oh man, I can't believe that I laughed so hard at the joke that no one else thought was funny, oh heavens to betsy everyone is going to talk about how annoying my laugh is, they're going to think my brain is made of tapioca, oh man. That's what they are going to call me. Tapioca Brain. Can't believe I did that.

Needless to say, I have never been called Tapioca Brain in my life. And honestly, it's kind of an awesome nickname. Anna "Tapioca Brain" Smith. I dig it.

I literally have Googled "How to get over embarrassment."

Who does that?

Anyway, I started thinking about why I'm like this and I started thinking about the most embarrassing moment in my life and it helped me realize some things. It's not a funny story and at the end of the day I shouldn't be embarrassed, but even thinking about writing this has made my hands shake and my stomach sick - 13 years later. Yowza.

Here's the story. Sigh.

When I moved back to the States after living overseas for the first 14 years of my life I was struggling to fit in (shocker, I know). I only had one friend at first and I was desperate for her to like me. She asked me about boys I liked and dated where I last lived (the topic of 99.9% of teenage girl conversation). Seeing as I was barely a teenager, and really a big weirdo to boot, my number of "boyfriends" was a big, fat 0.

Pause: At 27, I think it's absurd to think about kids that age dating, but at the time I felt like a failure.

I lied. I told her about this guy I had dated and how wonderful it was and blah blah blah.

I can list any number of reasons I lied, and honestly at 14 and in the middle of major transition they are reasonable explanations. But that's not the point of the story, because regardless of right or wrong actions on my part this story has haunted me for tens of years.

 Pause: not only did I lie, I lied about a specific person.

Through a series of unfortunate events, with the aid of the newly blossoming technology at the beginning of the millennium, people at my old school found out about my lie, knowing of course that I was a liar liar pants on fire.

How did I find they knew? I'm glad you asked.

Pause: It is important to note that I moved in the middle of the school year, so the following exchange was with the home room class I had just left behind.

I was sitting one night on AIM (those were the days) when my old teacher IM'ed me and said "I heard you told people that you were dating so and so. Why did you lie about that?" followed by "Don't actually answer, the whole classroom is reading this."

Pause: Time change made it the middle of the school day there.

It's over a decade later and thinking about those messages makes me want to vomit.

I flung myself off of my chair, unplugged the computer, curled up in a ball in the closet, and wailed like a child (which I was). I have amazing coping mechanisms.

I changed my AIM name, my e-mail address, and to this day I hesitate to reconnect with any of the people I went to school with there. All because at 14 I told a lie to try and fit in.  

I might actually die writing this, my blood pressure is at like a bajillion.

SO. Why am I writing this?

A. To be cathartic. This is a terrible story. Yes, it started with a lie. But what that teacher did is appalling. If I ever meet her again I will have some serious questions on her teaching methods. Putting it on the internets for all to see, while probably boring for you is a big relief for me.

B. I realized that I am so embarrassed by this story because I was shamed by someone else. Facing our failures is hard enough when it is not pointed out to us. I have no idea why that teacher wanted to shame me. I have no idea why we shame others at all. But we do. All the time. We do it to loved ones, strangers, co-works, famous people, neighbors, and ourselves. We've all acted like Mean Girls and have mental burn books. And on Wednesdays we wear pink.

C. My problem is not embarrassment. I can set off alarms at the crown jewels or vomit on airplanes and laugh about it. It's when I think I'm being judged or belittled that it haunts me, when I think I am less than.

D. We did it to Jesus. He was shamed on the cross. It's bad enough that we physically destroyed him, but we completely dehumanized him. That's what shame does. It makes you feel less than human, less worthy of love and security. It robs something fundamental to our make up. It makes you feel alone and little. Judging someone is so much more powerful then we typically believe.

E. We all deserve space and grace. From ourselves, and others. We all make mistakes, some justified, some not. What would this world be like if our love was truly unconditional for ourselves and fellow man? If confidence was allowed to grow naturally and based on our inherent worth that we have from being made in the image of God?

So my challenge to us is this: be affirming to yourself and to others. Stop the shame cycle. Stop giving Satan an easy entry in to our brains.

And if your a teacher, don't instant message with your students. It's weird.

And if you are going to call me Tapioca Brain, don't abbreviate it to TB because then I sound diseased.

Steps to Healty Conflict Resolution

Wanting to tie in what I am learning as I work on becoming a counselor with my blog, I decided to start a segment that I was going to call, "Answers from a Professional," AFP for short.

Then I decided that I like it standing for "Anna for President!" better.

So, welcome to the first installment of AFP! (Anna for President!) where I shall share valuable and effective life advice.

A hot topic for the counseling world is conflict resolution. There are no set steps to healthy conflict resolution, so I have synthesized my own (mostly made-up)  five step list:

1. Take time to calm down and be able to speak from a place of logic and consideration for the other parties.

2. Be able to clearly state the problem and it's impact on you.

3. Hear the other parties thoughts and sides.

4. Brainstorm solutions, often times ones that are a happy compromise.

5. Make and implement an action plan.

But of course just having a list without an illustration is not helpful at all!

Let me set the stage. I was in college, it was 2 am, I was the designated driver in a car full of squawking, ridiculous drunk girls. Said group of girls just HAD to go to Whataburger on the way home.

Like an oasis in the desert

In their defense, it is open 24 hours, and after midnight they put chicken and honey butter on a biscuit.

Glorious

I digress.

Being the full-service driver that I am, we went to Whatburger. Trying to order at the drive through was a mess - "I want that thing with the chicken!" "I want a burger the size of my face!" "I want a number 4, no a number 5, no a number 4!" SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK. Finally, everyone is appeased and I, at the end, order my cheeseburger.

Now understand, I am having ZERO fun at this point. I'm irritated. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I want a cheeseburger. I've EARNED a cheeseburger. All I am living for at the moment is that cheeseburger.

1. Take time to calm down and be able to speak from a place of logic and consideration for the other parties.

We pull up to pay, I've got my eye on the prize, this will all be worth it when I get that glorious cheeseburger. I pay and look at receipt and see that my burger is missing. SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK. "EVERYONE SHUT UP!!!" Breathing deeply through my nose, with all the loud ladies now cowed into silence, I explain to the cashier that I need to pay for my cheeseburger that I added at the end of the order. She swipes my card and we pull up to the next window to get our food.

2. Be able to clearly state the problem and it's impact on you.

As I am grabbing our food, and the noise level is steadily rising in the car again, I look at the girl in the window and say, "is my burger that I paid separately for in here? I really must have this burger. Are you sure? The burger is in here?" Yes, yes, yes of course it is.

3. Hear the other parties thoughts and sides.

In a cloud of assurances from the girl that my burger is in the bag, I pull forward. I stop to hand out all of the food in hopes that it will have a sedative effect on my passengers. I get to the bottom of the bag. No cheeseburger.

4. Brainstorm solutions, often times ones that are a happy compromise.

No cheeseburger. I specifically ordered it. I paid for it separately. I made the lady at the window sign a blood oath that I had it. NO CHEESEBURGER. SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK. I can't sit in the driver through line again with these people. I get out of the car. The front doors are locked. I NEED THAT CHEESEBURGER.

5. Make and implement an action plan.

Obviously, I have to walk up to the drive-through window. Obviously, there is another car there now. Obviously, that is not going to slow me down.

I climbed on top of the hood of the car, waved at the driver, wedged myself between the wall and car, and bang on the window screaming about my cheeseburger.

I got my cheeseburger. Because. Conflict resolution works when you follow my steps.

Need advice? Ask AFP! (Anna for President!) and it could be answered in my next segment!

The Origin of the Term A**hat

I am lucky enough to have met two of my closest friends, Alexis and Anthony, fourteen years ago, almost right after I moved back to the United States.

We were really cool

 

But it's okay, we turned out alright:

 

 

 

But, before we got all growed up and pretty, we were a mess. Okay fine. We are still a mess, we just got better at dressing up.

 

One story in particular sums up our relationship.

 

It was an afternoon during winter break and we were bored. Alexis needed to have her cell phone looked at, so the three of us went to the Verizon store. We were wandering around looking at fancy phones we couldn't afford when it happened. Anthony and I were messing around with a display case and we knocked the whole darn thing over. We're talking crashing, breaking, shrieking, knocked over. We looked at each other, and without a word ran out of the Verizon store, leaving Alexis to deal with the fall-out (hah, see what I did there?) of our mess.

 

Once we were outside, this is the conversation that should have happened:

 

"Oh man, that was really dumb, we should go back inside and deal with the mess we made instead of leaving it with her to clean up."

 

This is the conversation that happened:

 

"Well, that was a mess. Oh! Look! Party City! We should go in."

 

So, Anthony and I ran into Party City without a second thought. And then instead of feeling bad or worrying about our friend we had just heartlessly abandoned, we did this:

 

 

 

 

 

The signs of true friendship: a friend who is always willing to clean up after you and forgives you for running away from responsibility and/or a friend who takes pictures with you in hats at inappropriate times.  

 

 



27 Going on 90 #someonesavemefrommyself

During a conversation with a  friend at work, I had the epiphany that I am way behind the social media times – I don’t tweet or Instagram or Vine or any of that business, because I am apparently a 90 year-old, cranky woman on the inside. Snap Chat is a new (?) thing I know nothing about. Seriously. It might actually be Snapchat. I have no idea. Huh. Spellcheck recognizes Snapchat as a word. Even my word processor is more hip than me. Dang it.

Anyway. Snapchat, from my extraordinarily limited knowledge, is a program where you take a picture of something, send it to a friend, and it pops up on their phone for a few seconds before deleting itself. You can draw on said picture, for example adding hashtags (which I’m also behind on). Apparently it is often used for taking duck-faced selfies and other exciting updates on life. A real life example:

Picture: a young whippersnapper  from our office posing by a pool with a drink (sent to another person at our office). #biztrip.

When I saw it I couldn’t help but think, man, I must be getting old because that is the most ridiculous use of technology I’ve ever heard of. Biztrip. Who says that.

After a conversation regarding that Snapchat and the silliness of young people today with my friends at work (remember, 90 year-old woman here) I could not help but think about what I would Snapchat if I decided that it was a necessary means of communication.

That afternoon I was sitting in the lady doctor’s office, all hiked up, and thought it’d be funny if I could send them the following:

Picture: my knees and hospital gown. #gyntime.

Which then lead me to think that, that is exactly why adults like me shouldn’t Snapchat.

Picture: me in pajama pants on the couch. #realtiredofthingslikepantsandresponsibility.

Picture: summertime electric bill. #cantbeattheheat.

Picture: clock showing 10:30pm. #ughonlygoingtoget7andahalfhoursofsleep.

Picture: the horrible moment when you first look in the mirror in the morning. #thethingsofnightmares.

Needless to say, I will leave the snapchatting (can it even be used as a verb?) to the young and hip while I look for a rocking chair that will fit on my stoop so I can shake my fist and yell at small children. #getoffmylawnyoulittlepunks.  

Anesthesia Brings Out the Best in Me

I have no filter, and that is especially true when I am sick. Turns out I'm a loon when medicine, doctors, or hospitals are involved. And kind of a jerk.

When I was four years old I had pneumonia and the nurse was struggling to get an IV in my arm. I was screaming in Japanese and my parents could not understand what I was saying (one of the many joys of third culture parenting). They asked the nurse what I was saying and all she would say was, "All I feel comfortable repeating is that she is very, very angry."

When I was eight I was in the hospital for an unidentified seizure disorder and I ran around the room screaming, "I love this place! I get to play all day and people always bring me presents! BEST DAY EVER!!"

At thirteen I was told that I would need headgear and I threw a full on, on the floor screaming temper tantrum that I'm pretty sure insulted my dentist's competency and possibly his mother (as a side note I did not ever wear headgear).

At fifteen I had my first colonoscopy and as I was coming out of anesthesia I flung myself off the bed, grabbed the nurse, and screamed, "DO YOU LOVE JESUS?!?" Luckily, she did, because I'm pretty sure my technique needed some refining.

I had my appendix out at sixteen, and fun fact, when you have appendicitis they test for it with a CT scan with contrast. The contrast is not put in your veins, but up your bum. Ick. As I was laying on the table clenching with all my might, I turned to the tech and said, "is this really what you do for a living? I bet you get real tired of butts."

Eighteen years-old, after having a surgery on my leg, I groggily convinced the poor nurse they had operated on the wrong leg. They hadn't.

After I had my tonsils out when I was twenty (I enjoy getting rid of superfluous organs) I was asked what my pain was on a scale from 1 to 10. I hacked and cackled about it not being a 10 because I hadn't broken my femur (five thousand bonus points if you know why I said that) and then got incredibly cranky when no one got my joke.

Last year, I was in the emergency room for an ovarian cyst and a resident walked in (you can tell from the manic, bright-eyed smile and the crappy shoes) and I put my hand up and said "nope. No. Go get a real doctor. Nope. No."

Maybe one day I won't act like a crazy person when I'm at the hospital. But where's the fun in that??