party people

kelly, juan, fritz at hanson's (more pics on my flickr site--link to left!)

so it was my birthday yesterday. I thank everyone for a really great party at hanson’s, for all the drinks and presents and well-wishes, and for the fake cheese I woke up covered in (special shout out to juan!). and I thank everyone for the phone calls that came from three continents—a personal best for me. Not only did I feel loved, but I felt especially bad-ass. pictures will follow on my flickr site soon.

so now I am 25 and it freaks me out a little bit, not because I think I am old, but because I am getting older and things are just not quite how I expected them to be. Like for example, I have zero romantic life. It has been almost a year exactly since I went on a date. Granted, I have also spent approximately seven months of the past year globetrotting and therefore not really interested in starting anything with a woman who I will have to leave behind in a few months when I return to the states. But that is really not the issue—it just doesn’t seem like there has been the opportunity either. (okay, pause, I am at starbucks and there is scary old man staring at me…anyway). What the heck—am I too picky or something? I am—I have ridiculously high standards for people in general, friends and myself included, but especially for anyone I date (so if you’re my friend, feel lucky…..just kidding). And I don’t know if this is wrong, if I should “just settle” or if that is the wrong approach as well because I will be unhappy in the end (ok, pause, scary old man is leaving, phew). And I wonder if now having a dog who craves attention and netflix is just going to make meeting someone more difficult because I am content to cocoon at home and drink tea.

And then there are my other issues as well. Like, am I bad-ass enough in my career? In my mind, I have achieved international marketing guru status, and quite frankly, my resume is written so well that you would even believe this, but have I achieved enough. And whose standard am I holding myself to anyway? I do not know. Probably a lot of this has to do with the fact that I am ready to be done with graduate school and have a job and make money. I’ve spent about the last 7 years feeling really poor, with the exception of the times I was jetsetting for someone else and had an expense account. Those were the days. I am tired of having to do so much juggling to pay all my bills and having to do this makes me feel bad about myself as well. Wow, maybe we’re getting into too much here.

Anyway, after having really done nothing productive this weekend, I have had to get a lot done today. “Kaka” and “Frik” had me over for dinner which was wonderful and then we watched TV’s 50 most outrageous moments in E! which left something to be desired. Then I stayed up until 2:30 doing work for my other job and watching Gandhi, which was amazing, but totally detrimental to my sleep schedule.

Back to work…