So, I know things have been all puppies & rainbows & unicorns lately.  And honestly?  Things STILL kind of feel like that (did I mention I just booked ANOTHER ticket BACK to Chicago for a weekend that includes Nintendo &  fancy dinners & BlogHer & architectural BOAT cruises & Katelin & Jamie & Jenn & BOTH Rachels & OMG, breathe Lily, breathe), so I’m going to take a break from being the I-have-sunshine-coming-out-of-my-eyeballs blogger before I start oozing so much sugar that you all get cavities.

Subsequently, I’m going to flip the attention around here to YOU.

Yes, YOU.

I need a few days off – it is a holiday after all – and I’m working on a couple of other projects, like changing the direction around a little on my other blog, starting a new project with Ashley, traveling more than I know what to do with, and trying to declutter my life because it’s really getting out of hand how much stuff I have that I DON’T NEED.

This is where YOU come in. I’ve seen this done before, and I’m narcissistic enough to do it myself.  Clearly, as a blogger and all, I’m cool with talking about myself.  Sometimes I bare it all here (children, avert your eyes!); sometimes I’m vague and indecipherable (ok, that’s probably pretty rare).  When you get to know me one-on-one, you realize I’m even more of an open book than I am here.

That being said folks, it’s time for a little Lily Q&A.  That’s right, ask away.  Anything you want.  I promise to answer EVERY question, honestly*.

If you’re a new reader (and I know there are a few of you – HI!), if you’re an old reader (you guys are the BEST THINGS EVER), if we’ve met this year (awesome!) or never met (we will!), any of you, all of you… what are you just DYING to know about your dear Lily friend here?

Ready?

Set?

Fucking go already.

*unless I don’t want to

I used to keep a daily diary/journal where each post started with “Today is the day I…,” and I’d fill it in with mundane happenings like “… went to the dentist,” or sometimes more interesting things like, “bought my first car!”  I did this so that years later, I could look back and see and remember some of these things.  I still have one of the journals and it goes back to the mid-90’s.

I should find that…

Anyway, today’s been a little wild, and if I were still keeping that journal, today’s post would look like this:

Today is the day I:

• marked some work success that translates into some wiggle room for achieving various personal goals and dreams
• received an amazing invitation to a dinner during BlogHer Chicago with the Nintendo folks
• decided to go
  
• finally started to let it sink in that on top of my “regular” job duties, I’m also now blogging for work.  I’m getting paid on some level to do this thing I absolutely LOVE.
• had a really interesting conversation with my two tech guys (each of us representing a different generation of thought) about the place of Twitter and social media and online communities.  Fascinating.
• realized that my life is at a weird and fantastic place and decided that instead of worrying about when the bubble’s going to burst (because it DOES), I’m going to ride this out as long and as far as I can

Tonight’s hopefully looking to be a little calmer.  I’m having dinner with my parents and taking the dress I’m wearing in TWO AND A HALF WEEKS as my sister’s Maid of Honor to be fitted/altered.  It promises to be a normal, calmer night in the southeast suburbs, and I’m REALLY looking forward to that.

That is, of course, until my mom’s 3rd gin & tonic and mine and my dad’s second bottle of wine when the kitchen dancing commences…

No joke.

Pinch me?

At the 20sb Chicago Meetup this past weekend (”real” recap to follow in the next few days once I’ve thoroughly decompressed), someone asked me the following question:

What do you blog about?

Should be an easy answer, right?  I mean, it’s my blog.  I should know this.  But I had to pause to think about it, wanting to say something more interesting and more profound than “ummm… well… my life?”

I mean, I do write about my life, and that’s basically what I told her.  However, over the last couple of days (and thanks to the current 20sb Blog Carnival’s recent Looking Back series), I started thinking about what I really do predominantly write about.

So while I could tell you about my Test Kitchen attempts (and how I have yet to successfully make manicotti without breaking the shells or ahi tuna without over-searing it), or how much I love running around Lake Calhoun, or about random weeknights spent sharing great conversation and great wine with my parents or roommates, or the amazing new thrift shop I found (actually as a result of a recent bad review), or how HORRIFIC the crosstown traffic between Minneapolis and Hopkins was today (is everyday), or about the freaking out I’m going through trying to plan my sister’s upcoming bachelorette party… I don’t typically write about those things at a whole lotta length.

While that IS my life, it’s not my message.

So what is?

After a little lookback and some soul archive-searching, I think that LilySpeak really boils down to two main threads summed up in one now-taglined phrase:

I blog about personal growth, relationships, and how I’ve sought and discovered all of that through a life lived in color.

This year has been a game-changer for me, no doubt.  It started on a rough, though still optimistic note.  I was dating a guy who’d end up being a major loser (insert HIMYM salute here), and I learned some tough lessons in trust and what it truly meant to be ready for a real honest-to-blog* relationship (I wasn’t).

I decided my lifestyle needed an overhaul in terms of health, focus, and passion.  As a brief little YoL update: I’ve since dropped 13 pounds, NOT by dieting but by establishing a routine that includes a completely new perspective on eating and cooking, and an actual plan for real fitness.  In terms of focus, I’ve outlined a personal mission for the next 1, 5, 10 years and have actively started working towards those dreams.

I’ve come a long way, baby, in just 6 amazing, whirl-windy months.

And I live for relationships.  LIVE for them.  Like my friends and family are why I BREATHE.  It’s why when I form a friendship or connection with someone I can’t stop asking questions.  I’m a nosy little bitch, and on the flip side, I’ll tell you just about anything whether you want to know or not.  I’ll ask you your middle name, what that piece of jewelry means, if you believe in fate, whether or not you like cottage cheese (I don’t), and how you started doing whatever it is you’re doing.  I want to know who you are, where you came from and where you’re headed.  And I want to be a part of it.  I thrive on people and my relationships with them – my sister, my high school friends, my college friends, my softball friends, my professional friends, my new friends, and now my blog friends. IT’S WHAT I LIVE FOR.

So, naturally, it’s what I write about.

And through all of this – through the lifestyle overhaul and the building and strengthening of amazing relationships, the common ground under all of it is that I strive to live in color.  Out loud.  Sometimes BOLD & IN ALL CAPS.  I stopped second-guessing and censoring myself even though that means a horribly punny sense of humor and foul language that’s not always ladylike.  I spontaneously car-dance, street-dance, and my favorite – kitchen-dance.  I giggle.  I’m one of those annoyingly optimistic and bubbly people you like to be around MOST of the time, except maybe in the early morning before your first jolt of caffeine, and I’m opening blinds and singing to the sunshine.

So what I do blog about?  Lessons learned, the people I love, and living in color.

Because, really.  This IS my life.

*and if you caught the Juno note, you’re my favorite.

This post is a part of 20SB’s Looking Back Blog Carnival, and Ben & Jerry’s is awarding free ice cream to lucky bloggers and readers!  And since I’m a sucker for all things ice-cream, I’m SO in.  For more information, and to participate, go HERE!

Ok, onward.

This is my first time participating in the 20sb Blog Carnival, and it’s such a fun eye-opener for me. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how much my life has changed since I started blogging, but “when I started blogging” was kind of a vague era in my mind.  I’ve never truly been able to pinpoint exactly when it started because I think I’ve been at this since before I realized what exactly this was.

I started sometime in 2003 on LiveJournal, moved to Xanga in 2004, and then finally ended up with my first real home on Blogger in April of 2005. Since then, I’ve bounced around a few different places, started a few different projects, and since ended up in two really solid little corners of the internet (with another upcoming project with Ashley in the works!).  For this reason, it’s been kind of tough for me to follow my “growth” through my bloglife, but thanks to this carnival topic, I went on an official HUNT for where I started before LilySpeak was born.

I’ve always written under the name Lily, but where that lived has changed twice since I made the jump first to Blogger, then to the WP.com, and now living on WP.org.

A few observations from my early life as a blogger, then we’ll move on and I’ll re-post something from Spring 2005.  Maybe.  If you’re lucky.  Or nice.

• I have either become a LOT wordier or – more likely – a lot more open since I started blogging almost 6 years ago.  My first few posts at Cafe Lily (back in 2005) are a couple of paragraphs, one or two thoughts.  My posts now?  LIFE lessons that average a few hundred words.
• My first post EVER (on Blogger) was titled “La Vida, Segunda Parte”
• I moved to Blogger while was a junior in college, taking a New Media class that included a chapter on blogs.  Moving to Blogger was my way of checking out other blog spaces.
• My Xanga account?  Has a picture of 21-year old me and my then-boyfriend.  The header is a song lyric from one of my all-time favorite albums that ends in “tie me to the bedpost.”  Hot lyric.  Things that haven’t changed? Hot lyrics & sexy talk like this MAKE ME CRAZY.
• In fall/winter of 2004, I had just finished my second session with my therapist in college.  The third session would change my life.  Or at least my perspective.
• Prior to Xanga, I was on LiveJournal and made the switch at a co-worker’s suggestion.
• I’m going to share random tidbits from these past-lives in the near future.  This is far too much fun.

Without further rambling (see? wordier…), I bring you TWO (short!) posts from April, 2005.  Both about dating/sexuality, both things I could comment up and down and backwards about now, but I won’t.

xoxo,

Lily

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

SUNDAY, May 1, 2005

It’s murky out there in sexland.

posted by Lily @ 1:22 PM

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2005

No instruction book in the game of dating

posted by Lily @ 11:33 PM

Me: “Oh! So. We need boundaries.”
Him: “I agree.”
Me: “This friends with benefits thing? AWESOME when we live in different cities and can leave it all tied up in a nice little box when the weekend’s over. I don’t think this translates to us living in the same city, so… yeah.”
Him: “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Me: “You’re like, my best friend. I think we might’ve outgrown this, and either way, we don’t need to go fucking things up because we’ve spent 9 years getting naked with each other in between boyfriends/girlfriends.”
Him: “You are too, and I think you’re right.”

And just like that, we settled things and set the boundaries and new direction of our friendship.  And then we went to softball.

This is a friendship that I want to see last until we’re sitting in a nursing home, playing Go Fish, drinking Jameson on the rocks (him) and a nice Pinot Noir (me).

When did I start handling relationships with a semblance of maturity?  This year?  Oh yeah.  WIN.

“But he’s your lobster!”

This is what everyone’s ALWAYS told me about my relationship with Focker. He was my first love, my first first and my first heartbreak.  We’re a fairy tale, if things work out, to end up with your high school sweetheart a near decade AFTER the fact.  Since we stopped dating 6ish years ago, he’s since been my most reliable friend despite distance and growing up.

He is one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met.

He’s also JUST my friend. And while I’d be lying to you if I said there wasn’t some space in my brain reserved for the idea that maybejustmaybe one day the stars will fall into place for this so-called (I didn’t say it, they did) modern day Ross and Rachel, I know with all of my brain and all of my heart and everything I am that NOW is not that time.

I have overhauled my life this year to include such accomplishments as a healthier lifestyle (to the tune of THIRTEEN POUNDS bitches), the start to some savings and debt-reduction (one loan down, four to go!), and an all-around attempt at simplifying my life, making directional decisions, building relationships, and growing into this mid-twenties version of myself.

I need a little more space for just me before I jump into being someone’s other half, and with him? I could never just casually date him, which is also why the blurred lines of sleeping with someone you really do care about have to go. I’m not saying I don’t want to date – in fact, I very much do and am excited about the guys that my girlfriends keep wanting to hook me up with! – I’m just saying I’m taking everything guy-related in stride right now.

And I’m open-minded. And love meeting people. And I can’t do that with a clear conscious and open mind if I’m living in a fantasy past life.

So, I decided that we needed boundaries.

With all the jet-setting I’ve been doing lately (Colorado! Alabama! Vegas!), these last couple of weekends have been exactly what I needed before my next jaunt (Chicago!).  Last weekend, I adamently kept it on the cheap and low-key opting for afternoons al fresco and movie nights.  It was the right recovery I needed after a debaucherous weekend in Sin City the week prior.

This weekend was another much-needed, but a bit more active.  I got to catch up with most of my girlfriends and needed that more than I realized.  Friday night, a small group of us went out for a birthday celebration that included fishbowls at Preston’s Urban Pub (though it’ll still always be Sgt. Prestons to me), Metrodome baseball, beers, wine, and sake on the rooftop of moto-i.  Needless to say?  Saturday was rough.

But, I plowed through it and accomplished a lot – haircut (which I love), an ice cream date with three of my best girls, free tickets to Rock the Garden including shows by Yeasayer, Calexico, and The Decemberists (WOW), and then a night out in Uptown with my roommate and a couple of high school girlfriends of mine.  One such girl has recently started “talking to” (she won’t admit she’s dating him yet) a guy who has a lot of cute single friends, so she wanted me to meet one in particular. As luck would have it, he never actually met us out, but we still had a good mojito-filled night out in Uptown at Bar Abilene and on Stella’s rooftop.

Today, I’m being super lazy and hanging out in the Grove with my dad for a little Father’s Day golf-watching and wine-drinking.  Later on, I’m meeting an old girlfriend for drinks and dinner.  She’s got a guy she’s trying to set me up (if you follow me on Twitter, you’re already excited about this one), so I’ll get more of the lowdown on him.

That’s about it from here – I have a couple new project ideas I’m going to start working on, so stay tuned. If they make it past the daydream stage, I’ll let you in on it.

Happy Sunday

Dear iBook,

You were faithful for so many years.  You, in your shiny white package that I chose to Lily-ize with silly wannabe hipster band stickers all over the front.  You stashed over 6 years of photos between your plastic casing.  You truly held the soundtrack to my life for the past few years.  We’ve spent many hours together, reading through RSS feeds of blogger friends new and old, of Facebook-stalking ex-boyfriends, of discovering things like Twitter and Tumblr.

You started getting a little weird this past year, and we did what we could to try to transplant and upgrade your failing parts.

But you must’ve been tired.  I partied a lot in college; it’s no doubt those pictures are exhausting.  And I know that no music exists in my iTunes library if it doesn’t meet one of three objectives:

1. I must be able to dance to it.
2. It must evoke beautiful memories that make all nostalgic and happy.
3. Billie Joe Armstrong had anything to do with it.

I can see how all of those things would tire you out.  Believing you have fought the good fight and really gave it your all, I have chosen to let go this time.  While I’ll miss your 12″ screen, the lack of visibility of most of the worn-out letters on the keyboard, and the scratches from all the tables you’ve slid across in coffee shops and bars across the country, I’ll always remember the memories we’ve shared since the day in January 2005 I walked out of the MOA carrying you proudly in my arms.

RIP, dear iBook.  You will be dearly missed.

Love,

Lily

“Explain to me how you’re not dating him?”

“What do you mean?”

“That whole situation you just described – how you spent two hours catching up with your parents, how he cooked you dinner – fucking seared ahi tuna salad – how you rented movies, drank too much wine, woke up naked next to him (never mind that you don’t remember if anything happened), and this morning he cooked you breakfast – how are you not dating?”

“I don’t know… we’re just… not.”

“Well, why not?”

“I don’t know. There’s more to it than that. We’re talking about a nine-year friendship here. I don’t want to lose that because I think I want more.”

“You don’t think you want more; you have always wanted more. Why aren’t you with him?”

“I need more time.”

“Time is lame. Tell him you love him already.”*

Clearly, I recognize that while that would be all grandiose and romantic and all, my life is not a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan love story, and it just seems like there’s too much at stake now.

He’s been my rock, my home, my favorite person, closest confidante, and most comfortable company now for over nine years. I can’t lose that because I want more.

Of course I want more, I always have. But I also want to take advantage of this time that we’re now living in the same state again and rekindle that day-to-day friendship. We’ve stayed close through the distance over the last few years, but it’s an adjustment having him so accessible again. I’m enjoying how much we get to hang out now.

And he’s a little jaded after his last two relationships left him pretty burned. So, I’m not pushing anything. If it’s meant to be, at this point – there’s really nothing I can do to fuck it up. We’ve survived dating, falling in love, breaking up, new relationships, vacations, family holidays, and staying close despite miles and miles between us.

We’re golden.

And for now, we’re where we should be.

Right?

*This conversation is actually the juxtaposition of two separate ones I had today with two really solid friends of mine, who basically told me the same thing/asked the same questions. You know who you are. I <3 your faces.