400 Days of Exile: Day 1

This is it.

It's over.

I'm actually back here.

After 4 years, 7 months, 5 days, and give or take a few hours... I am back in the suburbs.

[picture to come as soon as I am able to remember to take a picture while the sun is still up]

I'll admit, this doesn't look like any form of hell pictured on traditional or even nontraditional media and I would be exaggerating for dramatic effect by describing it as my own personal hell. If anything, that's grossly unfair to my mother and father who have worked very hard to build a beautiful home and they really have done a wonderful job in doing it.

However, I do not want to be here.

There are layers upon layers of reasons that fall behind that statement - various explanations for why it feels so strange and odd to be back somewhere I had spent eight years living, Some are very particular to me, but some I'm sure any returning college student can relate to.

I have 400 days to explore the ebbs and flows of the struggle of feeling like an adult and sleeping in my childhood bedroom again; feeling pathetically similar to my former high school classmates who never left our hometown and never made a new life; feeling like I'm being thrust into a high school relationship with my boyfriend of almost three years who had basically been living with me up to this point; and, most excruciatingly, feeling the pang of longing to be back in the city.

Chicago is where I built myself up after so many people here tried to pull me down in my youth. It was where I became who I am today, where I tried and failed to be the person I thought I was or wanted to be, demolished her, and started learning who was really hiding inside.

The person I found is strong and incredible and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit obsessed with her. And she's facing her biggest challenge yet: trying to translate the woman she's become into a context of her life that was never particularly kind to her.

Being back here brings back the memories of old boyfriends and old friends - my old mix CDs are still littered in the various crevices of the car I hadn't needed in Chicago and their songs play like the soundtrack of my adolescence - they are even marked, so kindly, with the month and years my teenage self compiled them - so self assured as to the importance of the music she listened to.

But, maybe it won't be so bad. None of those memories hurt anymore - almost none of them even make me angry. But, only time will tell.

Until tomorrow,

Little Tornado

Random Meandering 4: Choosing What To Share Online

I think I can sum up every issue I've ever had with keeping a blog updated was what can and can not be shared online.

It is quite easy and somewhat cathartic to express the issues and problems you are having in your life with the facelessness and anonymity of the internet. Except, of course, when you are not so anonymous. You have made your blog semi public, by hiding links to your updates in the midst of your silly Tweets. But it is not like you are explicitly advertising.

Your blog will remain obscure and largely unread, until you post something "wrong" or too personal - then everyone will read it and things can get... very bad.

I say this from experience. My experience being the one and only time I maintained consistency with any sort of blog format and that was when I had a video blog when I was 14 going on 15. When the boys of my grade discovered them, I was a pariah for the remainder of my high school career. The scars from their cruelty are still not fully healed, though, now, they are almost as faint as the scuffs on my knees from when I tripped and fell on concrete when I was 10. Which is to say that they don't trouble me much anymore, but I have not quite forgotten them.

But what am I afraid of?

I am 22 years old. I rarely/barely break the law and, if I do, it's unintentional. I've escaped the illegalities of my vices (drinking) when I turned the victorious age of 21 and I can now say publicly that a glass of wine never hurt anybody - without fact checking it's validity. I have a small, but stable social life. I have a cluster of forever friends and a slightly bigger cluster of fun-for-now friends that I enjoy being with - none that I believe I would offend by my unassuming blog.

So... fuck it.

Let's test what I can share and what I can't. I can't promise I won't be vague, but I can promise that I will try not to be.

Random Meandering 3: Hookup Culture - Give it a break already **

http://elitedaily.com/dating/sex/get-rid-hookup-culture-bring-love-back/680826/

I get it. I really do. You meet a guy/girl. You hit it off. You take a couple shots, exchange a kiss or two, and wam, bam, skidoosh, you wake up the next morning next to them.

You skip out (or they do, depending on the location of the fornication) but you still hope for the call that, often, never comes.

I get the disappointment. And I get the blaming. You blame yourself, you blame the guy/girl, and, above all else, you blame hook up culture.

Well fear not! I have cited an article above that explains to you the steps you need to take in order to counter act hookup culture!

Keep in mind, this article is by no means a groundbreaking article. There are many just like it littered across the internet amongst the pages of TSM, Upworthy, and Thought Catalog. But, among its sage and well researched advice, this article gives you the keys to your future relationships and happiness…

Unless, of course, you know, it doesn’t.

I’m going to get crazy radical on the internet here and say maybe the problem isn’t hook up culture. Maybe, now stay with me here because I’m about to say something completely unheard of, there isn’t actually a problem at all.

You don’t have to hook up with people to get a relationship. But you don’t have to abstain from hooking up with people to get a relationship either. Relationships are not that black and white. What works for some people, won’t work for others. Giving a blanket list of rules of what you should do to fight a nonexistent problem is ludicrous.

Sure, I suppose, in general, if you really like someone, you probably shouldn’t sleep with them immediately… but, shit, sometimes it works out with that person anyway. Life is weird like that.

One of my favorite lines in movie history is from the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You.”:

“All my friends used to tell me about how things might work out with these dipshits because they knew someone, who knew someone, who dated a dipshit just like mine and that girl ended up getting married and living happily ever after. But, that’s the exception and we're not the exception. We're the rule.”

And I fully agree with that statement… as a rule.

But, in life, there are always exceptions. And the exceptions are the ones you wait around for.

So you can continue following all the rules you want to, as long as you remember that they are rules not guarantees. And rules are meant to be broken especially when following them doesn't promise you anything.

Use your judgment and do the things that make you happy. Yeah, you’re going to meet some dipshits who you should have avoided in the first place but you typically don’t figure that out until it’s too late anyway, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Keep doing you, and you’ll meet a good one or two.

And let’s be honest: if someone is really going to write you off because you didn’t wait the socially acceptable amount of time to sleep with them (which is different for everyone, by the way), that person probably sucks anyway and you’re better off without them. ON TO THE NEXT ONE!

Keep Keeping It Real,

Little Tornado

** This is advice coming from some random 22 year old that typed this up during her lunch break at her internship and forgot to run it through spell check. If you want to take it as scripture, that’s your prerogative. But, this same random 22 year old wouldn’t recommend it strongly. The only thing this random 22 year old would recommend strongly is finding yourself a delicious slice of macaroni and cheese pizza, pictured above. Because, out of everything in this post, that is the only thing scientifically proven to be delicious.

Random Meandering 2: Managing Disappointment

I interviewed with Deloitte for a tax internship last fall. I was feeling really good about myself because I made it to second round interviews.

I didn't get it.

I was pretty bummed, but it had felt like a reach to me, in the first place, so I managed. I didn't give up, I kept interviewing (I think I had at least 12 interviews) and I managed to land 2 jobs. One for the spring and one for the fall. I was happy... but if you think about it, that's a 75% rejection rate.

My father, one of the most successful men I know, graduated from college with zero job offers. He got rejected everywhere until a forensic accounting firm hired him. He got lucky. He got back up. Now he's the CFO of his company (different company).

The reason I mention this is Turtle Man just applied for a job and found out today he didn't get it. He was one of 12 candidates considered. I worry how he's going to react to this.

But almost all of the greatest years have failed dramatically before they became great:

Winston Churchill

He was estranged from his political party from 1929-1939 over ideological disagreements, before he became the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Oprah Winfrey

She was fired from her first anchor job in Baltimore due to sexism and racism, before she amassed a media empire.

Thomas Edison

His teachers told him that he was "too stupid to learn anything," before he invented his world-changing devices.

Vera Wang

She failed to make the U.S. Olympic Skating Team and, when she was an editor at Vogue, she was passed up for the editor-in-chief position, before she became one of the most famous designers in the fashion industry. She started her fashion career at 40!

Walt Disney

He was fired from a newspaper because the editor said he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas," and many of his other business ventures failed before he became WALT FREAKING DISNEY!

J.K. Rowling

She was single mother living off welfare before she wrote Harry Potter and became the first billionaire author!

Abraham Lincoln

He failed in business, lost his sweetheart to death, and failed to be elected into various government positions SEVEN TIMES, before he became the president of the United States.

Lucille Ball

She was in so many B-Movies that she was called "The Queen of B-Movies," before "I Love Lucy was picked up.

Stephen King

Stephen Spielberg was rejected dozens of times before he became a famous author. (He put each rejection letter on his wall) 

Louisa May Alcott

She was a servant and a war nurse before she got her big break for "Little Women"

Failure is a part of life and it's how we deal with that failure that will make us grow. I'm not expecting  Turtle Man to become world famous, but I am expecting him to get back up and keep on chugging like he always has.

Tis All For Now

Little Tornado

Random Meandering 1: Tatted

This is basically the tattoo I want.
Man I thought I was more original

So one of my good friends is getting a new tattoo. I haven't mentioned her before,so lets call her Free Spirit. I'm not inherently against tattoos but I'm very cautious about them. And basically everything about the tattoo she is getting is what makes me nervous about them.

1. It is going to be on her forearm

2. It is going to be large

3. She came up with it 3 weeks ago

Lemme break down my anxieties for ya in regards to tattoos, because man we do not have enough time or space for me to break down all of my other anxieties. ;)


1. You cannot cover it up for occasions where you would rather it not be visible. Mainly, work. Secondarily, weddings/other black tie events. I like the idea of being able to look strictly professional when I feel like it, or strictly elegant when I feel like it, without having to limit my outfit choices.

She will forever have to wear long sleeves to work or fancy gloves or long sleeve dresses IF she doesn't want people to see her tattoo. Now, if she doesn't want to hide it... well I guess this doesn't really matter. But I could never shake limiting my options like that. It would make me feel a bit... trapped, I suppose.

2. I love bare skin. I think it is so sexy and so simple. Smooth skin drives me wild! And I absolutely LOVE the subtlety of small tattoos or even scars. Small imperfections marring the smooth surface... like that is my ultimate goal when I think of tattoos. But the bigger the tattoo, the more that goal, for me, is lost, and it just becomes another generic tattoo that no one really cares about.

3. Oh my God, Time! Like this should have been number one but I had to save it to the end for dramatic effect. I have been contemplating the tattoos I want FOR YEARS and I have changed so much about what I want and how I want them. I have played with the words that are important to me in so many ways finding the perfect places for them. For example, I'm absolutely enamored with the word "Wanderlust." But I am not going to tattoo that on my body. Wanderlust is definitely a part of me but I don't know if it's the part of me that I want to display all the time, necessarily. So.... that/s what I'm going to name my cat! When I get one. Probably in June. EEEkkkk! More on that later

So, basically I would never get the tattoo Free Spirit is getting and, truth to be told, I probably am not going to like it. But that's ok. Because it's not my tattoo and it's not about me. And tattoos are about the person getting them and how they feel about it.

Now, I will tell you the two tattoos I plan on getting.

1. Look at the picture. That. Basically that. It's the Triforce from Zelda which I think captures perfectly my lust for videogames. However, in the picture the Triforce of Courage is highlighted but I would have the one on the right be highlighted: The Triforce of Wisdom.

It will be on my hand and it will be a UV tattoo so you will only be able to see it in blacklight. Over the next couple months I am going to be doing extensive research on where to go to get it because I want to go someplace that does it well so that you can't see it when there is no black light, even faintly.

2. My favorite word is Mamihlapinatapai. Here is what it means:

I think that is one of the most raw emotions there could possibly be. Wanting something and knowing someone else wants it too, but for some reason neither of you can have it. So you just share this look. It's honest. It's nonverbal. Your heart is racing but you're oddly calm. You're almost vibrating. Time stretches.

I honestly believe that is one of the most alive feelings one could ever get. And you cannot describe it by any other word than Mamihlapinatapai.

Plus that's the name of the book, I'm working on... so... ;)

It's going to be on my back, at the base of my shoulder blade, in white ink so it looks like a scar. I have not decided about the font yet. 

Expect a vlog next week :)

Happy Saturday!

Little Tornado