sarahski

As promised, here’s my Dr Pepper story.

Tuesday night, we had to run to walmart to exchange a CD that Matt had picked up the day before – it had a huge gouge that made it skip like crazy. Shouldn’t have made it through QC. Anyway, I decided to run and grab us a couple drinks while he waited. I’ve been seeking out Snapple lately – I like the glass bottles since I can clean them out and re-use them for water. But for whatever reason, our walmart doesn’t think anyone in GB wants tea. They either want pop, pop, pop, pop, pop … or they have an entire cooler devoted to starbucks bottled fraps and two devoted to energy drinks. So I grabbed us each a bottle of Dr Pepper, as a suitable backup choice.

A couple hours later, I wasn’t all the way through the bottle when I started in with a headache, and shortly after, my body started feeling achy. It’s not that I’ve never felt this way before, but I realized that I associate this feeling with caffeine withdrawal, and also, that I hadn’t felt this way in a while. So I started thinking it over.

The last time I’d had caffeine, prior to that bottle of Dr Pepper was Saturday afternoon, which means that caffeine withdrawal hitting three days later, as I was drinking caffeine, didn’t make much sense. I very rarely recall feeling this way during the week, which makes sense, because if Matt and I do have pop on a weekday, it’s usually because he picked up Caesars, and it was Mt. Dew. As I thought about it more closely, I realized that I felt this crappy usually on weekends, and I remember feeling this crappy quite a bit back in the late summer … back when Dr. Pepper was running their EA code game and if I drank pop, it would be Dr Pepper for the sake of the codes.

Any more, I don’t feel this kind of crappy … but when do I? Friday nights…and I usually grab a Dr Pepper at the bowling alley. But I haven’t had a chance in the last few weeks, because either I haven’t gone bowling, or I haven’t had a dollar on me for a drink. All of that would explain why I was so surprised when I was hit with the achy feelings the other night.

It’s certainly not definitive, and I realize the brain likes to selectively remember things at times. But I really think I’m on to something, here. I’m tempted to try it intentionally one time, just to make sure. But then, if I’m right, the victory is rather tempered by the fact that I’ll feel sick for a number of hours afterwards.

So, I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy. But it makes good blog fodder, right?

I wasn’t really sure to title this post. “Sarah waxes on about friendship, part infinity” didn’t seem quite right.

Matt and I just had an interesting conversation in the car, and so I wanted to blab a little bit. I feel like this might be one of those times where I’m accidentally offensive, which probably means that I should just keep quiet.

My natural tendency is to like people, to care about them, and give them the benefit of the doubt. When we see people, I usually get all smiley afterwards and proclaim to Matt that “we’re going to be friends” – whatever that means.

I’ve said for many years that I want this “best friend” that is the friend that I see periodically, go through life changes with, but that I can always talk to if I need to, or if she needs me. I got her back yo, and she got mine. (For lack of a more eloquent way of putting it)

However, I’ve also learned that this idea just doesn’t work. I am right on the line between introvert and extrovert, and the introverted part of me isn’t good at setting up friendships, while the extrovert really wants to.

This comic, from this person, sums up my interaction with people pretty well.

One major thing I appreciate about my friend Kate is that she’s been so honest about feeling this way too, that being proactive is really hard for her. I think it’s partially because of this that we’ve become pretty good friends. (I consider her one of my closest friends, truthfully)

In the link there, I also talk about how, while I really like the “one friend to rule them all” principle, it usually ends up biting me in the butt, because I choose personality types that don’t meld with mine in the long run.

I’ve been thinking about it – and 300 words into this post, I’m getting to my point here – and it’s not so much that I need a “one ring” friend, so much as I really like what I’d call “meaningful” friendships. My favorite people are those whom I feel like I share a bit of their lives and thoughts and can share mine, likewise. I’m not saying that I want people to share details with me that they’re not comfortable with, but if they have a crappy day, they can tell me about it. Friends that I know really like gummy worms, but maybe not cake, so much. I realize that at this point in my life, when people are growing up, having families of their own and really putting down their career path, this isn’t so easily obtained. And that’s fine. It just makes me super happy when I know that I can talk to someone, because they can talk to me, because we know things about each other.

A couple of friends of mine have become pregnant in the last little bit, and internally, I was quite a bit more excited for one friend. It’s not that I was unhappy for other friend, but I realized that I was very excited for one friend because she had shared with me her desire for children, whereas the other friend really hadn’t. I consider her a friend, but I don’t really know much about her life, which makes it more difficult for me to celebrate life events. If a friendship with someone is based on something static, when that thing is removed or changes, it’s much harder to maintain a friendship. Whereas, if the friendship begins at a point and expands to other things that ebb and flow along with life, I feel like that friendship is more likely to last … not stay the same, but last, nonetheless.

I feel like this post needs an eloquent ending after such rambling. But in order to give it a proper ending, I feel like I’d need to have reached some destination, and I haven’t. I can’t say as I have, this is just another step along the way. Friendships are something that is very important to me, and now I can better define how and why. I really like people. (In certain quantities … I am still an introvert) While I thought that I desired one particular friendship, I realize now that it’s not the case … what I want are a few meaningful friendships, and for those to be reciprocated.

Now that I’ve got all the depth out of the way, wait ’til you hear my conspiracy post about Dr. Pepper …

The company party for where Matt works is tomorrow (well, today) and I decided that I’d dress up for a change. I mean, I’m super bad at dressing up. I’ve got exactly one pair of nice pants, and two, maybe three tops that aren’t rubbish. Thing is, I just really, really hate clothes shopping. In lieu of a full on psychological post, we’ll just go with: Plus size shopping is the pits.

So, I went to Avenue, because they’re a plus size store and I know them reasonably well. I’m not too keen on going into strange stores by myself. Long story short on that, the sales clerk was on my tail the entire time. Now, I appreciate it when clerks greet me and make it known that they’re available if I need anything, but if I’m in the dressing room with three dresses, you don’t need to come ask me if I need help every two minutes, then let me know that I can get a credit card as soon as I walk out. It was ridiculous. I found one dress that was reasonably decent, but on principle of the sales lady driving me insane, I decided to try Kohl’s. But really, what is with plus size dresses being completely unflattering if you’ve got stomach fat? I mean, hello?

The dress selection at Kohl’s was super dismal, I found one rack with a few dresses of a similar style, and one rack with one dress. But, hey, the first dress I tried on there ended up being the one I walked out with.

Now, let me preface it. The dress is kind of ridiculous. It actually looks prettier in person, not as weird and busy. It looks better on me in the chest area, and worse in the hips. But I found a little sweater to go with it, so we’re good. Also adding to the ridiculous factor is that this dress is so not “middle of January in Michigan” appropriate. The high tomorrow is going to be 20, with a wind chill that weather.com says will “feel like 14″.

So I’m going to freeze to death.

But!

I’ll have worn a dress for the first time since I got married, and I’ll feel like a winner for that.

See? Yeah. I’m totally going to freeze to death.

Worth it!

This may be a bit dry, unfortunately. I don’t really have much in the way of nicknames.

There’s “Sarah Belle”, mostly by my mom, I presume because of my paternal great grandmother? I always just think of Belle from Beauty and the Beast, though.

“Sarah Michelle”, only when I’m in trouble.

“Sarie”, again, mostly by my mom … an affectionate term.

“Sar”, occasionally … and I don’t like this, truthfully. It’s not pretty and feels lazy. I’m not sure that anyone I’m close to has referred to me as this.

“Sarag” by my friend Autumn. It’s not really used by anyone but Autumn, but it makes me laugh. It exists for the same reason ‘teh’ exists – typos.

I have gotten mail to “Sarag S-ski” before…which makes me wonder why the mailman still questions whether to deliver mail to “Sarah Coleman” …

This question is just too complicated.

Do I pick someone real, or someone fictional?

If I pick someone real, what period in history do I want to try out?

Initially, I thought that I should pick an author I like, so that I could see what it was like – it’d give me something to push me forward.

But then, I thought that switching places with someone like Elizabeth Bennet might be fun, since it’s only for one day.

But if it’s only for one day, why not go way far back in time, and switch places with Cleopatra or something?

I’d want to choose someone whose circumstances I could learn from … I mean, how fun would it be to have someone start talking about ancient egypt and you turn up your nose and know definitively that’s not how it was?

So much gets lost in translation, so much we can’t understand because the culture has changed so dramatically. I don’t know … going back to somewhere around the roman era might be interesting.