Blogoo goo ga ga

The lack of gushing in my life was beginning to make me worry.  I have reached a life stage where its not unusual to find myself in scenarios surrounded by babies, and, for the most part, oohing and aahing over these strange people appeals to me not at all. As a female of a certain age, it seems an expectation that you should just love to get your hands all over a baby smelling baby with baby soft baby skin, but you may as well be handing me a cactus.  I especially hate when I have to feign maternnalness about the ugly ones--you all know there's some ugly ones.  So, when my best friend since kindergarten popped out her first child, I was thrilled and panicked all at once. Despite my frigidity around the babies, I am not so obtuse as to demean the monumentalness of welcoming a child to a young family. This baby was born on the other side of the country and (obviously) is not one of the ugly ones.  Clearly no one was asking me to hold the little blob, so why the panic?  Well, I had to buy this baby a gift. 

I've learned that one does not have to be married (or even particularly good at interacting with the opposite sex) to buy a good wedding gift. So, it should follow that one does not have to be a mother to buy a good baby gift.  However, I was completely useless. One might imagine that shopping would not be on a list of my areas for improvement, but when it came time to buy something for a baby, I may as well have been Snooki on a mission to buy something classy.  I looked at onesies and mobiles and plush animals and not a single thing made me gush.  Nothing aroused those deep down maternal instincts until...

The Patagonia baby puff ball jacket.  This is possibly the cutest thing ever. Cute enough for an "accident" with an unsuspecting male?  I don't know about that... But I want to thank the folks at Patagonia for restoring my faith in my procreative talents and the possibility of maternal gushiness. I might even say that I could love even the ugly ones if it were bundled up in one of these.  

Monday

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It's Past my Bedtime.

The best part of 3 day weekends is 4 day weeks.  This past 4 day week was no exception. Now I'm up too late with nothing much to say... 

I have a goal of attempting more morning runs this year which means I need to stop getting distracted by things like this late at night when I should really be sleeping:

The Pinup of Williamsburg

But wouldn't this blog be so much more adorable if it were infused with just a little more Zooey?

 Tuesday

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Friday

In my younger and more blogable years...

For the past four years, the first day of school has greeted me with an anxiety bear hug. It would take hold about the week before the looming return and I would find myself unable to sleep at night and consumed by worries of what was left to do to prepare for the madness.  I didn't feel that way this year.  The night before school started, I slept.  Last year, my stress level forced me to cancel a trip to Minnesota for a dear family friend's wedding.  This year, I enjoyed a carefree weekend in Steamboat tubing down the Yampa and returned to Boulder on Sunday afternoon in time for a Bloody Mary. 

I'm not sure what exactly has changed. It might be me. Perhaps I have come into my own with my job and have found a certain balance that can only come with years logged.  Perhaps my school has also started to come into its own.  My best guess would be some combination of the two making for an opening week cocktail that is not shaken but stirred.  With any luck, next year will be on the rocks. Here's to a smooth year. Cin cin. 

 Monday

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Friday