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By Jess, October 30, 2010 3:22 pm

For just a minute, did you instinctively choose two without considering the possibility of having all three? Because I did.

(via llcooljen tumblr)

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By Jess,

Here I am awake at 5AM on this Saturday morning. Unlike the past 4 weeks, I did not screech into normal person schedule after work last night. Instead, I went about business as usual. I hung out a bit after work, went to sleep when I was tired, and woke up when I felt rested (aka overslept my alarm). Unfortunately, that was at noon and 9PM, respectively.

5AM is an exciting hour during weekdays. Morning Edition goes live then, and it’s a little bit of a sprint to the finish. But today, 5AM is desolate and silent. There is no good TV on and even the internet is a sleepy place — been there, read that.

I could do productive things, like pick up my room, check off some writing to-do’s, or finish I Capture The Castle, but… I won’t put too much pressure on myself.

Here’s to hoping daylight comes and with it, sleepiness. Happy weekend.

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By Jess, October 27, 2010 10:49 am

Sometimes I forget that I am a creature ruled by hormones. So, after an emotional weekend and a much needed Saturday off from the retail grind, I’m feeling much better.

As I mentioned before, I have a lot of alone time now and, admittedly, there are a few perks to the new schedule.

For one thing, mornings are wonderful. I’ve never had the opportunity to properly acquaint myself with them until now. I used to resent them for arriving too early and would stumble around pretending to be a functional human being until the caffeine kicked in. Now, mornings are what I look forward to. I suppose it’s natural, considering it’s the time that I go home for the day. But there’s something a little more joyous about riding home into the sunrise.

Mornings have also inspired some unprecedented behavior in me. I’ve started to go running for no reason at all other than I felt inspired to — just like Forrest Gump.  Unlike Gump, however, I map out an exact route and stick to it. So far, I’m logging just 2 miles each time, but I’ve already planned an ambitious 4-mile route when the ol’ legs can handle it. Before you frown at my small goals, consider that I probably haven’t run a full mile since I took the Presidential Fitness Test in the 8th grade.

I’m not sure exactly what inspired my sudden urge to pound the pavement. Anyone who knows me is aware that it’s something I’ve never done or wanted to do, in college or before. (I’m notorious among friends for stepping foot inside Yates, Georgetown’s gym facility, fewer than 10 times in four years.) But here I am embracing purposeful fitness. Purposeful as opposed to the unintentional fitness of say… riding my bike to get places. Biking was a sacred activity before and you’d be right if you guessed that it’s only grown in importance with my overnight schedule.

A lot of people have given me a hard time about riding my bike to work at 11 o’clock. I admit I wasn’t sure about it either at first, but a few weeks in, I wouldn’t choose any other way to commute. The difference between riding my bike and taking the metro to work is like night and day. The metro is a slow, deserted and sometimes creepy operation in the late evening whereas the streets are a little friendlier. I can set my own pace on the bike. If I’m feeling groggy, I can take it easy and coast it out. And if I’m feeling anxious, I treat the commute as my personal time trial and race against the clock.

Will I fall off this new bizarre fitness craze by the time winter rolls around? Who knows. Maybe this is just a strange response to the lack of control I feel in my life. In the mean time, though, I’ll just keep doing what keeps me happy and sane. And if that’s running or biking or — well — there are certainly worse things.

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By Jess, October 23, 2010 8:00 pm

I woke up this morning at 5:30 following a 13-hour coma. It’s 7PM on a Saturday night, and I can barely keep my eyes open. I’m irritated by the bass pounding through the floor of the apartment above me. I’m watching The Jane Austen Book Club.

I was under no illusion that working the night shift would be easy when I started. But three weeks later, I didn’t know it would be so hard.

The best part of it is the work. Once I’m at my desk, I’m content. I feel valuable. And I learn. But when the night is over, I feel like I’m coming home to nothingness. I fill the time I’m awake with reading, writing, listening to music, or watching movies. I even started running. In the end, though, there’s not enough to conceal the fact that I’m living in an entire different universe from my friends and family.

And I miss them.

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By Jess, October 15, 2010 9:36 am

It’s 9:15AM. While the rest of you are heading to work or at work already, my weekend has already begun. I’m in my PJs, watching a movie, and drinking a glass of red wine. It’s a small pleasure of my new schedule.

I’m only two weeks in, but it’s really hard to believe there are months more to go. Don’t get me wrong — I like the work, and it was surprisingly easy to transition to sleeping during the day. But the schedule is a bit devastating for relationships of all kinds. I do well alone. I like my “me” time. I have hobbies and interests that I’m happy to pursue in my free time. But when this — movies, books, music, podcasts –  is all I have, it becomes isolating.

When I was adjusting to life in London, I felt the same way. I distinctly remember grabbing onto a quote I read from Into the Wild. “Happiness is only real when shared.” It rang true for me then, and it rings true for me now.

There’s still plenty of adjusting to do. I haven’t mastered the perfect schedule of wakefulness/sleep, but I’m hoping I’ll get there.

I leave you with my favorite track of the moment: “You” by Gold Panda. Happy Friday.

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By Jess, September 3, 2010 12:37 am

I don’t remember much about my high school graduation, but I DO recall one piece of advice passed on by my Physics teacher, Mrs. Rosenthal, who was selected by students to address the Senior class:

“Just keep moving, just keep moving.”

I would be lying if I said I’d consciously kept this tidbit in mind during the last 5 years, but it’s been a subconscious effort nonetheless. Most of you know the story of what I describe as my post-college peril: some part-time work, two fantastic but unpaid internships, and cheap but deeply flawed housing. In the midst of it all were wonderful and supportive friends, but it was still hard to face when my future was an amorphous blob of which I could only see three months at a time.

Today, my life is a little less perilous, but the vagueness of the future persists. Two days ago, I was looking at a frighteningly open calendar and wondering… what’s next? Two days later, I’m happy to report I’ve lined up some solid work through the New Year. The catch? I will be working overnight shifts, and my life as I know it will change significantly (more musings on this in the future, I’m sure).

Now, usually, I’m not so won over by “motivational” blog posts, but given the timing, I’m compelled to share this bit of relevant wisdom which I stumbled upon today at Gigaom. On working in spite of not knowing, the author writes:

Perhaps the biggest part of it is learning to stay the course, even when the course doesn’t yet exist. There’s no path laid out ahead of you, and you’re learning to navigate as you go. Learn to keep going, in spite of not having clear directions. Create a plan you believe is most likely to succeed by studying the cues of those who have succeeded before you, but accept that you are forging a new path in many ways, so the answers may not always be immediately available.

I am now a year out from graduating from college, and from what I’ve seen, it seems many of my close friends and peers are freaking the f**k out. I’m freaking out, too — no doubt about it — but there’s a comforting solidarity in it all, this collective experience of not knowing. So be scared, freak out, cry, watch a whole lot of You’ve Got Mail, but keep on moving. If we just do that, I think we’ll be ok.

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By Jess, August 29, 2010 12:19 am

I was poised to write a thoughtful reflection on my current feelings of anxiety. But then, I saw that The Time Traveler’s Wife was on HBO. Having read the book, I knew exactly what it had to offer. I watched it, I cried, and now my inspiration has evaporated.

This is not an unusual situation for me, and I’m not altogether sure how common (or uncommon) it is. Approximately every two weeks, the faintest traces of worry manifest in my gut: worries about life in general, work, writing, not writing, family, the future, the mounting pile of dishes in the sink, everything. I brush off the feeling as it builds until, at some point, I can’t stand it. Then I seek relief — not in the more obvious choices of booze or drugs but in movies (and occasionally books and music). These are what I refer to as my “triggers,” the stimuli that coax the worry out of my system.

My ultimate go-to’s are inspiring dramas and romantic comedies, mostly movies starring Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts. I’ve watched my You’ve Got Mail DVD more times than I can count. (For me, romanticizing email correspondence is the equivalent of shirtless George Clooney or Robert Pattison).  When I moved to London for a year, I watched one of three movies virtually every week: Notting Hill, Something’s Gotta Give, and You’ve Got Mail. Most recently, I’ve discovered that Gran Torino, a dark horse of my triggers, can inspire tears as long as I tune in at least 15 minutes before the end. Impressive or terrifying? Perhaps both.

My triggers are my comfort food, and for the purpose of reading and writing more, I suppose it’s time I went on a diet of sorts. The ultimate goal would be to need no trigger at all, of course — to just react to life as it happens. But for now, I’ll settle with more books, more movies, more music and maybe a little less You’ve Got Mail. For the record, You’ve Got Mail is fantastic and the clip below captures everything I love about it.

My progress so far? This week, I subscribed to Harper’s Magazine and started reading Nora Ephron’s (coincidentally, writer/director/producer of You’ve Got Mail) 2006 memoir I Feel Bad About My Neck.

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By Jess, August 4, 2010 11:32 pm

Tonight, I find myself with an unexpected guest. Meet Thurman the dog, named (I think) after famous Yankees catcher Thurman Munson.

When your bed sits on the ground, it’s pretty hard to convince a dog to lie elsewhere but oh well. For the sake of hospitality, I will allow it.

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By Jess,

Although the movie starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson is one of my favorites, it’s unfortunately not the topic of this brief post.

In the past two months, I’ve cooked more often and eaten better food than I have in quite some time. I’ve seen more of my friends, D.C. residents and visitors alike. I spent two glorious weeks sharing my apartment with Alex. I finally squeezed in an appointment for both the dentist and the doctor. And after a year of feeling haunted by what I read in Suze Orman’s Young, Fabulous & Broke, I finally took the time to apply for a credit card of my very own.

What I haven’t been doing is writing. Trust me, I’m feeling guilty and regretful: guilty that I’m not carrying my weight over at Autostraddle, and regretful that I’m not seizing this opportunity to write at my job and not documenting my feelings in this crazy post-college period. I don’t have time! This is what I tell myself. But I must! I must have time! If a CEO or talk show host can do a million things at once, then I must have time to write a blog post. So I have decided: Something’s gotta give.

The first thing that comes to mind to go on the chopping block is sleep. As much as I love it, I truly believe that I can never be successful until my wake-up call arrives by 6:30AM. I secretly fantasize about drinking coffee and reading the newspaper before work each morning. This is my recipe for success — only I have no idea what the other ingredients are. (Also, I haven’t actually taken real steps to wake up earlier, aside from pressing snooze on my alarm with more frequency, nor have I subscribed to a newspaper).

Regardless of these recent failures, I’ve managed to live to be 23 years old and I’m feeling pretty positive about the years that are behind me. For now, I will focus on the small stuff. I will floss and wear sunscreen daily. I will write.. maybe daily (?) but certainly more than I have been in recent weeks. And hopefully, I will sleep less. I hope it all adds up to something good.

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By Jess, July 16, 2010 12:15 pm

“This Is Why I’ll Never Be An Adult” at Hyperbole and a Half sums up my daily feelings about life post-college. It’s both hilarious and frightening in how close it comes to the absolute truth.