This is not worth it.

Despite the preachy, soul-searching tone of my 'about me,' I can't for the life of me figure out why I'm writing this blog. Weren't the events surrounding my previous one enough to teach me a lesson?

Waking up in a cold sweat at night, panicking over whether or not doing something I love is going to ruin me (okay, I'm still dramatic) again is really not working out for me.

I went to J-School, for christ's sake. If I can't stand behind my writing and sign my name to it, then I shouldn't bother.

Paris, je t'aime. Lauren, je pense je t'aime ...

I love this girl. I loved the first three-and-a-half seasons of The Hills. I was NEVER on Team Kristin during the Laguna Beach days, though she was admittedly kind of hilarious. LC is my HERO, the girl I want to be when I get younger.

Well, kind of.

One of my Facebook activities is "copying Lauren Conrad's wardrobe" and I've, of late, toyed with the idea of changing it to "copying Blair Waldorf's wardrobe" (we can talk about my ridiculously juvenile Facebook page some other time; whatever, I'm still absent from MySpace and deleting my Facebook when I hit 30 anyway ... I'm clinging to my disillusionment of youth for a while longer) but haven't been able to out of, well, loyalty or apathy, I'm not sure which.

Lauren has been my No. 1 Girl Crush for years. Once in 2004 when I was working in a bar in NYC, some dude told me I looked like her and it (sadly, pathetically, you decide) remains one of the greatest compliments of my life. I think Lauren is adorable, and smart, and the most non-irritating privileged new-money youth I've ever, um, seen on a reality TV show. Plus, she has this fantastic penchant for running around in pretty little cocktail dresses and stilettos and pearls and ponytails and minimal makeup, and, guh. Twins. Everyone loves to love herself, right?

So I've been feeling guilty lately, when the sneaking suspicion that Leighton Meester has taken over the role of No. 1 Girl Crush permeates my brain on Monday nights.

So I've been feeling extra guilty all day after failing to watch the premiere of the second half of season 3 of The Hills last night. Or today online, as was my justification to myself last night when I decided I'd rather go to bed.

So I've been feeling super guilty because I think this all stems from how amazingly underwhelmed I have been by Lauren's fashion line. I think The Fug Girls wrote about it best at some point and voiced the sentiments of us all when they said something along the lines of expecting to see a million pretty little LC cocktail dresses and instead finding a bunch of overpriced tents. And I'll give Lauren credit and say she seems to be getting better with time, but, still. I ... wouldn't buy any of it on clearance. Okay, maybe the Maura Top or the Emily Skirt. On clearance. Because really, she's charging J. Crew-of-late prices and making Old Navy clothes. All under the guise of being a Hollywood designer. Hm.

I mean, this is my No. 1 Girl Crush. I'm not going to break up with her just because I don't actually want to buy her clothes, am I? I mean, I know I've spent 5 years of my life coveting everything she's ever worn, so it was kind of jarring to see what lackluster product her creative side produced. But it could be me! Maybe I've outgrown her? Maybe she's gone too Hollywood, too trendy? Maybe I'm getting lame and traditional in my old age? Maybe I'm the tasteless one and my ridiculous red tights really are just ridiculous and I should invest in ...leggings and cotton beach cover-ups masquerading as dresses by Lauren Conrad?

I should really go watch The Hills.

Christ has risen! CHOCOLATE BUNNY!!!

I love Easter. Really, I do. I mean, you want to call Christmas commercial? People don't even fake it at Easter and slink into church like all us "raised-but-now-non-practicing" Catholics do for Midnight Mass. Honestly, where would an Easter Sunday service really fit into the morning o' champagne and chocolate that is Easter brunch? Let's face it. We all hail the magnificent marshmallow peep on Easter, and I damn well like it that way.

This year I liked it damn well in a purple satin headband with a bow on it and a white eyelet dress over black lace tights. Three peeps to the first to figure out who I was so proudly channeling. My mother was at once horrified and pleased, and then proceeded to trump both with piss-ass-awesome-drunk. Until the part where she talked about how I have yet to give her any grandchildren, or even a lovely white wedding on the sandy-and-salty strip of land where I spent my formative years, and then I had to wander away to slink down behind my three Easter baskets (I am. 26. Years. Old.) and pound pomegranate mimosas with my 16-year-old cousin while she regaled me with tales of her trustafarian classmates at boarding school.

Eventually my mother found me, and continued to shove baby after baby into my arms, stealing them from any young mother within arms length, while simultaneously removing the Cadbury mini eggs from my eyepath and pointing out to me that my dress would look better if I were, you know, anorexic. Can we talk for a moment about the absurdity of her demanding a grandchild and exercising fat phobia at the same time? Mom, not sure I can help you. I can basically guarantee if I get pregnant, I will also get fat.

As things were beginning to get blurry around the edges, I heard her move on to my lack of a career path and how the clock is ticking on the race to find a suitable husband who can 'keep' me and fled the scene entirely with another cousin, this one married six months and already apathetic about the whole thing, fresh of a plane from Austin and high on a bottle of wine. She stole a chocolate cake and led me outside, and, after I adamantly refused to eat any of said cake, proceeded the place the gorgeous thing under the back wheel of an old-model Jeep Cherokee (love those things) and talk its owner into backing over it.

The splat was ungodly satisfying.

Easter is so great.

Can we stop all the world now, already?!

Thanks to elementary school science classes or a cologne commercial, I'm not sure which, we all know that scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. But sometimes it still blows my mind.

At my new day job there is an area with a scent that evokes such intense memories of my college dorm freshman year that I literally stop every time I pass by and feel I might double over at the shocking deja vu. Not that it evokes bad memories - on the contrary, it brings me back to a wonderful time so intensely I almost can't stand it.

Following such an episode this afternoon, I stumbled back to my desk and pulled up my ancient blog. Not the one I was fired for, but the one prior to that - a blog full of senior year of college, immediate post-college life in New York, happiness and excitement, my quarter-life crisis and some sadness, and enough pictures and intimacy that I eventually had to abandon it to go anon. Alas, here I am.

Side note: When I interviewed for my current day job, I told them straight up the conditions surrounding the termination of my previous position. The higher ups were greatly amused, and told me I was welcome to blog away on my lunch hour. Obviously, I have no intention of doing so, but figure reading my ancient blog at my work computer can't be dangerous, seeing as I mostly talked about shoes and finals and cupcakes. Of course, this is my life, so, I'll probably be fired again in no time.

Anyway, I pulled up the ancient blog and clicked through my archives to find today in 2004, which was my senior year of college and also the year my blogging tenure began. A good dig through all the crap I've abandoned at my parents' house would likely lead me to the physical journals I was still keeping in my earlier college years, but I'm not sure I want to go there, and so, was sure a trip down memory lane of senior year would do the trick.

To my surprise, I found no entry for March 20, 2004. In fact, there were no entries the entire week. It didn't take me long to figure it out: Spring Break!

My senior spring break was the best of the four, which is impressive considering I spent it in Daytona as opposed to Cancun, Cabo and Ireland, where that blissful week in years freshman through junior took place, respectively. But Daytona goes down without question as the best, and it could be because I was older, it could be because I was with only The BFF and one other friend as opposed to biiiiig groups (I like group activities as much as anyone, but, not so much when there is traveling involved), or it could be because senior year was the year I most needed the break and the debauchery, what with a schedule that included two internships, a job, and two honors seminars, on top of a crumbling relationship with my boyfriend. But whatever the reason, the memory of that week is one of my favorites.

AND I CAN'T FREAKING BELIEVE IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO!!!

I mean, I can't lie and say it feels like yesterday. But it doesn't feel LIKE FOUR YEARS AGO! And freshman year? As I ran in a panic back to the dorm-scented area of my new office and breathed deeply, I decided, DEFINITELY DOES NOT FEEL LIKE DAMN NEAR EIGHT YEARS AGO!

Eight years? My freshman dorm, and The BFF, and debauchery with members of the men's swim team, and snow storms, and scandals at the shady Chinese buffet, and our tiny fridge filled with nothing but PBR and grapes, and Dawson's Creek watching, and skipping 8 a.m.'s, and drawing a flower on the whiteboard to signify certain activity ... eight years ago? No. No no no.

The panic continued as I recalled meeting The BFF, down to first conversation, down to the bright blue running shorts she was wearing when I walked into the room and the pastel stuffed bug she had decorating her desk shelf, and then thought about where her life is now: her well-paying job she's been at for almost three years that sends her to the occasional exotic locale, her dashing British boyfriend (with whom she's been to the occasional exotic locale), her studio apartment (no four roommates for her) in Manhattan, her chic boot collection, her undying dedication to running.

Maybe it's just me, I wondered. Maybe it's just me who can't believe it's been so long. Maybe it's just me who can't let go. Maybe it's just me, without a career path in sight, without a man, without trips to exotic locales, with boots desperately in need of re-heeling but no expendable income for the task, with no dedication to ... anything.

Maybe I wouldn't be panicking at a hint of deja vu in a girly, floral-shampoo-smelling corner of my office if I'd made my current life anything nearly as great as what the me of eight years ago would dream up for it.

"Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but there's this spot in my office that smells just like (our freshman dorm) and every time I walk through it I kind of feel like I got kicked in the stomach and then my head kind of explodes, and, I mean, eight years! It's been almost eight years! IT IS OUR FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE GRADUATION ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR! I remember your shorts. Your running shorts, the day we met. And you had a ponytail. I remember it all, and I'm not sure that's okay!"

I heard The BFF laugh on her end of the line. "I remember you had a French manicure, and pearls, and one of those stupid rope bracelets you still wear in the summer. And your mother freaked out about you having the top bunk, but, dude, you got there last. And when your parents left you pulled out a million photos of all your friends and a giant bottle of gin and said you were joining the sailing team and then you took your closet and half of mine and I thought you were the biggest WASP I'd ever met and that we'd never get along. And the next weekend we almost burnt down the dorm cooking crescent rolls because we switched the toaster oven in the lounge to broil instead of bake, and we drank your parents' gin and laughed so hard we cried and then I was pretty sure we were going to be best friends.

I remember it all too. I'm not sure it would be okay if we DIDN'T."

I calmed down. "I'm glad you're still the level-headed one. And that you still run more than anyone I've ever met."

"I'm glad you're still the most hilarious drama queen in the world," The BFF replied. "And that you still wear rope bracelets."

I'm glad I'm not the only one who still holds on sometimes. And that that might be okay.

Um. (not)Awesome.

Last night while shopping for things I do not need with money I do not have, I mentally began picking out outfits for next week, as tomorrow is the first day of spring, so white is fair game, etc. When I got home I cheerfully transferred everything from This Year's Winter Bag (giant. black. amazing.) into my peppy and preppy kelly-and-canvas striped tote (This Year's Spring Bag #1 - spring usually gets two) and shoved TYWB into the under-my-bed storage unit where all my purses of past live.

And today?

Oh, you know. It's snowing.

Great.

Love is ...

... picking your roommate up from Logan Airport smack in the middle of Blair Waldorf's 17th birthday. Why is the freaking CW site not streaming the episode yet?!

I cannot believe how much a teen television show has taken over my life.

On the up side, we've almost reached the episodes I've already seen.

On the up up side, it's almost time for NEW ones!

On the up up up (but still rather meh) side, I've been gainfully employed at a day job for two days!

On the down side, I'm still flat broke. Any suggestions on how to make a quick $100 this week? Don't say sell my body. I'm having a fat week, plus, I'm more expensive than that ;)

Boredom + insecurity = less than stellar weekend

I get bored very easily. Often I worry that this will ruin my entire life, as it tends to keep me moving every year or two, changing jobs pretty much seasonally, and forgetting to commit in relationships with members of the opposite sex until the interested man has done gone off and married someone else.

By 'ruin my entire life' I pretty much mean 'keep me from settling down in any capacity until one day I wake up 40, alone and broke and destined to be so UNTIL I DIE.'

But I can't help it. I'm restless and fidgety and want to live everywhere and meet everyone and think it's sad when people start stories with, "I was at my last job for 12 years."

So maybe I run. I don't know. I try not to look at it that way, but understand how some might. I've always been able to take pride, however, in the fact that, despite all my running, I refuse to become bored with people. To me, people are important, and though that sentiment paired with my reserved-ish ice-queen tendencies may make me a bit of a walking oxymoron, I truly believe that people are nothing without other people, and that if I saw something in a person that piqued my interest in the first place, there is something in there worth finding, and appreciating - forever. Letting people in might not be the easiest thing in the world for me (is it for anyone, really?) but when I do, you're in. For good. At least, I think.

This could be reactionary. I was blessed/cursed with an outgoing personality, a quality of some sort that at times draws other people to me, excites people. Of course, when it comes down to it, though, I'm just a person. Flawed, moody, childish and stupid at times. Most people accept this about people, because most people, I think, understand one another as much as possible, considering humans are by nature so damned difficult to comprehend. It seems, though, that I have a tendency to burn out in peoples' eyes. Burn out. Hm. Sounds like I'm an aging rockstar. Not what I mean. Sometimes it just feels like people get bored with me. Like there's so much flash and initial excitement and they're all, 'Summer! Love! You! Are! My! Favorite! Ever!' and then one day I'm tired and don't want to dance, or I don't have a joke, or I vocalize a dissenting opinion as opposed to just smiling and laughing and agreeing and selecting the evening's destination, and then, BAM. I suddenly realize I was intriguing to these people for a fraction of my personality, not for who I am.

So I sort of always vow not to do that to people. People are important. People are fragile. People can be hurt even when they try to pretend they're stronger than people should be, and, yes, people are kind of nothing without other people. So I don't drop people. I don't tire of people.

And then last night, my roommates and I had a party. Typical. Fun. But I wasn't feeling it. What I was feeling was that familiar restlessness, that sense that it might be time for something new, somewhere else, someone new. And I started to look around and feel ... tired. And over it. Over ... everyone?

In a room full of good people, intelligent, funny, attractive, kind people who have been nothing if not my whole life for the past six months, I began dissecting pretense I thought I was seeing, and weighing friends against other friends and wondering what it is I really like about anyone, and if it's worth it to me or to them for me to even be here.

I hope it's stress. Fatigue. Mono. PMS a week or three early. Because I don't like this feeling. This feeling that I could be, for a moment, all I loathe. This feeling that for all the dissecting I did, someone across the room could have been doing it to me. And that would kill me a little. I never want to do it again. People are too important. My friends are too important.

But I'm still sort of restless. And definitely worried.